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Comment by jonwachob91 | Hacker News Reader

> [4] I'd be interested to know if any of the three had applied to YC via the normal route: Did HN identify good startups which YC missed, or would YC have funded these three anyway?

During my phone call with Kevin this was one of the questions that came up, and the answer is yes, Feynman Nano applied to F3 through the traditional route. But we got buried under a lot of other applications.

As appreciative as I am to Kevin for selecting us, I'm even more appreciative of the HN community for giving us an opportunity.

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We (Casepad) also applied via the traditional path to YC Core and YCF. We put in a weak application the first time around, unfortunately offering a less helpful signal as to whether or not HN identified something that was missed, so we took Apply HN very seriously as a second chance.

I'd like to echo /u/jonwachob91's post above in saying that we can't thank the community enough for the votes, feedback, and support. Also, many thanks to Kevin and his team for giving us a wildcard slot.

Based on this alone I'd say that Apply HN should count as a success: It allowed YC to catch a startup which fell through the cracks of their existing system.

This might be the case, but I think we should wait to make a final decision if it is a good way to catch startups that fall through the cracks. We really need a random selection to know if HN (and YC) are adding alpha.

That surely depends on whether the startups that fall through the cracks of the existing system caught by ApplyHN prove to be, on average, [close to] as successful as the ones picked up by the existing system and thus deserving of being caught. The cracks could be a feature rather than a bug.

Obviously you need more than two startups to make this sort of deduction, and I'm perfectly willing to believe that these and other startups missed by the traditional application process genuinely are more promising than some of those selected by it, but I'm not sure that what we have at the moment is really evidence either way.

Also very possible there's a bit of selection bias, since it wouldn't be surprising to discover that YC cross referenced the Apply HN apps with the YC/YCF apps and the act of doing that alone would be a source of bias.

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