YC is Wrong About You | Hacker News Reader

YC is Wrong About You

43 pointsjeremynolan25 comments

I’m not the type of person that you’ll hear commenting all the time here on Hacker News. Fact is, I couldn’t stop and see all these people feeling bad about them because YC rejected them.

I’m not interesting in applying to YC. Come on, you don’t need YC to succeed. You don’t need them. Many of you guys are just here because you think YC would be the salvation to your startup. Don’t kid yourself.

If you feel bad because you got rejected, because you lost the “golden mentorship” and the 10,000 grand, then you shouldn’t be doing your startup in first place.

You should believe in your idea and go on, even if the other people don’t see what you can see. Thomas Edison didn’t stop because everyone believed he was nuts. Henry Ford didn’t stop back then, the Google guys didn’t stop, and you shouldn’t stop.

Keep going, keep moving, don’t let fear or rejection stop you. Never.

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Not to be an internet hardass, but if a YC rejection crushes you beyond all belief, you probably shouldn't be founding a startup. Every single successful startup has experienced at least one defeat as large as a YC rejection. A healthy dose of confidence and ignorance about your abilities is necessary. Preferably a combination of both.

Every single successful startup has experienced at least one defeat as large as a YC rejection

A YC rejection is not a large defeat.

I'd say that most successful people (start-ups are shorter-lived and may skip this) have experienced many situations where they thought they had it all, everything was going their way, they were at the peak of their game, and suddenly everything came crashing down disastrously and unexpectedly.

What made these people successful isn't the defeat, but it's that they then picked themselves up and started again from the bottom.

Hear hear, happened this summer. The second time around I'm the founder and not just an early-employee, and instead of $3M we only had $10k to kick things off.

What's kept me from applying to ycom is having a technical co-founder that I believe in. But that hasn't kept me from launching and running a relatively successful (in 4 months) mobile startup.

I love reading HN and following the ycom companies, the quality discussions definitely impact my thought process and decisions in the company.

Four YC rejections, however, is pretty rough.

Hell no. It just means you have a ton of ideas and perhaps you don't know how many other similar projects are out there. Educate yourself a little more.

Walt Disney got a yes from the 996th bank he approached. I'm such a pussy that I would have quit after 950 attempts. He never quit. That's the point. I expect that you won't either.

Cool story, have you a citation?

not to mention, yc prolly has a ton of applicants, they didn't even see yours. I'll apply earlier next time myself, but hopefully I'll also have a co-founder by then.

YC does look at all the applications. PG has said that the majority of the apps come in in the last day/half-day and that they have accepted people who have applied then.

now I want to know why I've been marked down? I think it's a good way to look at it. my application is too far down in the pile, nothing personal, I don't think mine was worse, it just never got reviewed because there are too many applicants farther up on the stack who were just as good that there was no need to get to mine.

In a positive thinking / karmic kind of sense - that's a good way to look at it. From a TRUTH perspective - it's just wrong - the applications are all looked at.

I'd like to add a couple things to this:

1. This is the 'gatekeeper' problem. You have a handful of people deciding if you're making "what people want". They can't possibly know what all people want. JK Rowling got rejected by, what, 20 publishers? They can't know. They can only do their best. The 'gatekeeper' problem also means you get idiosyncrasies, such as (essentially) a ban on single founders, etc.

2. Some ideas are easy to pitch, others nearly impossible. Take this year's Best Film Oscar winner, "Slumdog Millionaire", and try to pitch the plot in a way that's not ludicrous. You won't succeed. But take any cheesy, crappy B-flick and you can perfectly summarize it and even make it sound good. Now, I'm not saying there's a correlation between a good idea and difficulty in pitching it. (Ok, but I will say there's a clear correlation between mediocre ideas and ease of pitch.) So if you didn't get accepted, your idea either isn't very good or it's great.

(Ok, but I will say there's a clear correlation between mediocre ideas and ease of pitch.)

yeah, "index all of the world's information" is such a mediocre idea, even though it is a very easy pitch, those Google guys will never make any money.

I upvoted you but I disagree wholeheartedly with your google invocation: No, Larry and Sergey never expected their startup to become what it is today. Your small-step success feeds into your ambition; it's one they nailed search that they have started to visualize bigger and bigger success, then execute it.

and yet just because they nailed it - still doesn't mean it was a bad idea...

There are plenty of bad ideas that are executed well and don't succeed. There are plenty of good ideas that are executed poorly and succeed anyway.

The point isn't how they executed, it really was a reflection on the david927's assertion that there is a correlation between ease of pitch and how good an idea is, is wrong, plain and simple.

"our site is like facebook meets digg" is an easy pitch (I've actually heard this from someone), and in my humble opinion, is a bad idea

"we want to index all of the world's information" is an easy pitch, and so happens to be a good idea.

You all got it wrong. Here's what I said:

- There is no correlation between a good idea and how hard or easy it is to pitch. Some great ideas are easy to pitch, others are not. No correlation.

- There is a direct correlation between a mediocre idea and ease in pitching it. Every mediocre idea is easy to pitch.

This title may not be the most supportive for those who get accepted.

It's starting to feel like College Confidential around here...

LOL reminds me of senior year in high school.

But seriously -- your source of funding doesn't identify you, the college you attend doesn't identify you, and they shouldn't.

Right on. Take this time to reflect on your idea. Winter application is 6 months away and now is the time to start preparing for it.

Just to put things in perspective the next round of YC is not exactly a 'no luck' process either. Basically PG and company meet with you for 10 minutes to meet the team, and discuss the project and plan. Now, tell me, how they can possibly judge people and projects in 10 minutes, in a rational even-handed way.

I'd say Ycombinator is more about winning the lottery, than doing everything right. I am fairly confident that YC receives far too many really good applications to be able to really vet everything. And also, to be fair if you are looking for mentorship, I can imagine this year will be a little different from normal, as the number of teams has doubled, and PG and Jessica have a new addition to the family. As for connections, if your scrappy you can make your own connections -- and $25K for 5% is really not that great of a valuation.

Funny you say this... my startup is called We Will Never Stop.

No they are not.

YC has more experience than you.

YC has more success than you.

If they turned you down, listen to the "why" and make the adjustments necessary to be successful.

Consider it a badge of honor that they even gave you the time of day. Take the information, feedback, advice, and rejection to heart and grow a pair.

Success is not static, it is dynamic.

You are missing the point. The people that got turned down for interviews didn't even get feedback. It is just a glorified "sorry and we really appreciate you" letter with a "let us know if we're wrong and you do something awesome" attached to the end.

So this is also the stage where many people hang their heads down and go back to their normal routine of nothing. But this is the only flaw in the YC system. It takes people who are not entrepreneurs and wholly dedicated to their idea and gives them an opportunity because they are a good hacker. Now once it gets to the interview stage they access how dedicated you are, but who wouldn't be at that point?

So please don't make some hugely dramatic post. Paul and Jessica would (and do) say that they are wrong about many startups. Not only the ones from interviews, but even with the applications. There are so many high-level applicants that it is hard to access who fits where.

   YC has more success than you.

Yes and no. They had a number of exits, but most of their startups didn't get anywhere. The thing is that investors are more or less shooting in the dark. Sure some might have a slightly better success ratio, but even the top investors pass on sure things all the time

Yes and no. YC has more success than you but that doesn't mean that they're right about you. Your job is never to take the advice of an authority figure simply because they are an authority figure. People who work like that never succeed.

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