2. Your website shows testimonials first, then has a short banner, yadayada, then I have to watch a short video on how it works which is just a video of app in use. I'd love to know what it is first, then read testimonials, then see a demo.
3. Looking at your instagram and you should definitely hire a designer. Instagram is where your audience is and where you should be targeting with ads and growing your userbase.
4. Your "Chat" tab has some nice view numbers! That's great - maybe organise it a bit more? This could be a potential goldmine. Here's an idea. Take quotes from those essays, put them on a blank colored canvas and post on IG. Example:
"NYU is fucking amazing when you get here because it's free, interesting, the teachers are hella cool" and hashtag it with proper tags. You'll probably get some attention and when user arrives to your profile he should see what you are and how you can help him.
Also, kifler asked legit questions.
2. Makes sense. I will work on it
3. Great thought. Currently we leverage some college students to manage the Instagram account. They are not designers, but very enthusiastic about social media. Point well taken!
4. Thats awesome idea. I will implement it for sure.
Thank you so much for your time. Loved the feedback
"I was accepted at Yale. Julia of Mentr was amazingly helpful and guided me all along the way. I'm so thankful her who helped me with my essays and got me to this point."
Obviously fake testimonials and stock photos are major red flags. If you have to use fake testimonials, for the love of all that is holy, find a good writer.
But seriously, if I were doing a Y Combinator application, I would make sure that my testimonials were spot on. I would do so because one of Y Combinators' most enduring bits of advice is 'build something people want.'
I'd even equate that to grammatical errors in a website. You're competing for an interview against thousands of the best minds around. Proofread your copy!
Rather, I'm saying that when you apply to Y Combinator, you are competing against the best entrepreneurs around for a very limited number of seats. Since Y Combinator is so competitive, your chances of getting in would be better if you started working with a good writer or editor.
Being a good writer generally doesn't matter in high school. Most classes don't require much writing and for those that do, they just require students to convey the right number of facts and avoid most grammar mistakes.
Kids also engage in far more code-switching than adults, I think. When asked for a recommendation, It's possible that this particular kid just dashed off a quick email rather than really sit down to write something engaging.
It shows the actual email that another student sent me. As I said, photo is stock, testimonial is not.
Additionally, some of the mentor responses lack a certain level of professionalism to be called a mentor. Example: "Question: Hi I am applying to NYU this fall. I have never visited NYU before because I live all the way in California. I was wondering if you could share your experience starting at NYU? Also any background info like where you came from, how was the transition, did you have to move far, etc.? Any extra information you want to add would be rlly helpful. Thanks in advance!
Answer: Absolutely! I'm from Chicago, Originally. (not the actual city, the suburbs. Fucking Suburbia, man.) I hope it makes you feel better to know that I'd never visited NYU before actually ..."
Where is the money to be made?
What makes a freshman mentor qualified to actually talk about the breadth of a program or a career when they have little to no exposure of a full 4 year program or job-track?
There are a number of questions that aren't answered succinctly on your site (at least that 'pop-out' at me) or within your post.
I just quickly checked out Mentr, the company listed on your profile.
The very first picture is obviously a stock photo[1], which I confirmed with a Google search.
Lying to customers and misrepresenting prior success might be a common tactic in Silicon Valley, but it also shows a lack of integrity (and lack of users) that would worry me as an investor.
If you can't find 5-10 real people to use your service and talk about it, you should move to the next idea.
1. https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-black-blazer-jacket-on...
I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions based on the first image!
The Reddit founders made fake accounts to create the illusion of community in the early days.
That said, fake accounts on social media are legal. Fake testimonials aren't.
Reddit is one random success story and not indicative of whether something is ethical, where it concerns investors, or whether it's a good idea for a SaaS (a completely different model from Reddit).
When you reach those goals, you'll get investors (if you need them). They may be YC or they may not. YC isn't the only source of money, and there's no evidence that it's the best one, either.
If you can't reach those goals, badgering investors into giving you some money isn't a solution. It'll just prolong the life of a business that's doomed to fail.
Add a zero to your KPIs, then apply again. Repeat as necessary.
And if you're wondering why you'd need YC if you are succeeding on your own - sometimes you don't. But the benefit of an accelerator, or even investors, is that they can take your existing growth path and increase it's speed tremendously.
2. What is w/ the text "Care your family" in the top carousel?
@smt88 - well said and every entrepreneur knows this goal. However in order to make a sustainable business, it needs initial capital and marketing investment to be able to reach a critical mass. Without that, the product will not have enough usage to go beyond its current state.
I did not apply to YC for investment, it was for the network they brought with them. They could connect me with growth hackers who can get the marketing done with smaller budget. Their mentorship would have been beneficial to take the business to next level.
I can get loan from the bank, but that does not mean its valuable.
This is not a productive way to talk to any community.
People try to give you feedback that your site feels fake to them. You're not internalising it, you launch straight into a hurt defence. Someone quoted from YC policy, presumably to shed some light on the situation, and you dismiss it as a stock response written by a lawyer, lecture them on what they should be doing and start praising a competitor.
In short, if you already have all the answers, what do you need YC for?
1: Frankly, your apparent confusion as to how commenting works is a bit jarring - it befits someone asking for help to acquaint himself a bit with how things work, but that's the least of your problems.
> Have you never used this site before - Only sometime
> You're not internalising it, you launch straight into a hurt defence - I will improve
> Someone quoted from YC policy, presumably to shed some light on the situation, and you dismiss it as a stock response written by a lawyer - I still think its a stock response. YC should do what it should. I don't expect everyone to agree with me (hope this is not attitudish, i am simply narrating my stand on it without being influenced by anyone)
>start praising a competitor - Whats wrong in praising a better service? Isnt that the freedom of such forums that people can express their opinions?
> if you already have all the answers, what do you need YC for? - I don't have all the answers. I still need to find out the answer to my original question - why did YC reject me twice. Some folks have helped me by telling me that its combination of team/domain expertise and traction. But would have been nice if YC could have told me that themselves. >1: Frankly, your apparent confusion as to how commenting works is a bit jarring - it befits someone asking for help to acquaint himself a bit with how things work, but that's the least of your problems - I am not sure if I understand.
It doesn't matter. That person almost certainly isn't a potential customer. I'm not either. Changing our minds is a waste of your time. You won't get a chance to debate the people who come to your site and turn away because it looks fake.
> I still think its a stock response. YC should do what it should. I don't expect everyone to agree with me (hope this is not attitudish, i am simply narrating my stand on it without being influenced by anyone)
The attitude is that it seems like it's very important for you to be right about things that doesn't matter (or you have very poor judgment in seeing what matters). That's a very unpleasant trait, and if the YC interviewers caught even a little bit of that, I suspect they'd fail you flat out on that alone.
> Whats wrong in praising a better service? Isnt that the freedom of such forums that people can express their opinions?
What's wrong is that it's off-topic (and also has a bit of the "important to be right" thing above). People came to your thread to help you find out why you didn't get accepted, not to debate whether YC is stupid.
> I don't have all the answers. I still need to find out the answer to my original question - why did YC reject me twice. Some folks have helped me by telling me that its combination of team/domain expertise and traction. But would have been nice if YC could have told me that themselves
"Having all the answers" is a figure of speech. It means "not listening when people are trying to answer your questions". Nobody here can tell you why you were rejected, but they can offer ideas. And it looks a lot like you're not listening to any ideas that doesn't fit your preconceived notion of why you were rejected. How do you know that the people telling you it's because of "team/domain expertise and traction", are right and not the ones that think your website looks fake? Hence, having all the answers.
> I am not sure if I understand.
Your style of commenting is all over the place, and suggests that you have not spend some time acquainting yourself with the way comments are done here. That's a bit impolite, but obviously can't be the reason you were rejected. On the other hand, if it's indicative of poor communication skills, then that could be a big problem.
My advice for you to get into YC is build a product that small group of users love. Then when you apply to YC you'll have traction. Also your team plays a big role, you'll need a technical cofounder & sales cofounder. Then the last thing is DOMAIN EXPERTISE. Someone on your team has to be an expert in their field. If you don't have these three things (traction, team and domain expertise) then the chance of you getting into YC are 0%.