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Comment by GMoromisato | Hacker News Reader

My co-founder and I have applied twice and been rejected twice, and we don't regret it.

There is no real downside to applying. In fact, as others have said, applying helps you to refine how you pitch your startup.

The only negative is that there's a 99% chance that you will be rejected, and rejections can hurt. But being able to deal with rejection is important in itself.

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Rejection sucks, it's true. But one thing a lot of people don't know is that the chance of being accepted to YC goes up with repeated applications. I even think most founders who YC funds get rejected before they get accepted. (I may be wrong about most* but certainly it's a large chunk.)

The main thing is to demonstrate progress since your last application.

* Edit: I asked the team and got back: "most is true! for w24 companies, 58% had applied previously"

I could've sworn there was a cap, like apply and be rejected three times and that's it or something, but I can't find that now - is that not the case? Just could be quite significant to people considering 'just apply' advice quite last minute over this weekend is all :)

That's definitely not the case.

Well then I think I might have plans this weekend. Thanks!

My informant says "for w2024 most companies applied 0-3 times previously, but it went as high as 12!"

(Edit: disappointingly to me at least, 12 turned out to be a bug. The highest number of applications for W24 was 6. Still pretty high!)

Good luck with your application if you go ahead with it!

I might beat that for this batch! This will be my 8th application. 2 for my previous company, and 6 with my current startup and co founders.

Might as well have a webpage about "myths about applying" at this point with how much confusion and misinformation there seems to be.

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