What we did to (not) get into Techstars - Part 2 | Hacker News Reader

What we did to (not) get into Techstars - Part 2

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David's feedback doesn't say why you were rejected. I'd have found that a kick in the guts if I'd actually met and had a dialog with our investors.

With our YC application (we were rejected) we got x2 recommendations from previous YC founders, had other investors in this or the next round of funding, had an online demo, had users on said demo, and had a team of hackers/designers + various other things that we thought might add value to our application.

We didn't get in and have no idea why. The difference is our process was all part of our startup making a demo? networking with other founders? getting users?

I walked away from YC pondering why we were rejected, but reassured that we didn't waste our time - because most of the things we were going to do either way.

If I'd spent more than an hour talking to an investor I'd want a reason (and therefore value) as to why they walked away.

I think a lot of us get our rejection letters and sit there scratching our heads. We did everything right and still got turned down.

My goal with these posts was to provide a benchmark and hopefully keep my and others' hopes in check. No matter how good you are, you're still a long-shot with these things. When working on your application in a vacuum, you start to feel so confident, and that makes the blow harder to bear.

Hah, totally.

Deals fall through.

Applications do too, who knew?

what was the reason? or was there simply no reason other than a flood of equally-or-even-better startups?

We never got a fully straight answer. As best we can tell, it was a lack of excitement and knowledge of our target market, plus (probably?) other exciting applicants.

You know, I'm not sure if all those things mattered that greatly. Our application made it past the first round of screening (we got an interview invitation) and our demo broke when they were viewing it (we checked the logs). We committed code the night before without testing it and although a simple fix, it broke something else.

We didn't have recommendations, we were a small team of 2 (no designers -- we did our own design, ugly but not horrible). The entire YC application form was done in basically 5 hours at a local coffee shop. It took us forever to do the video, for some reason it's hard for me to talk to a stationary camera. We don't have users or investors lined up. We didn't even have incorporation documents yet. We probably have a good 4 months of hard work before we can even consider a private alpha launch (and we've already been working for the last 7 months on it).

Neither of us actually even considered applying to YC, we just didn't think our app was ready for anyone to see it yet, but surprisingly they didn't think so, or maybe they saw something about us that they didn't see in others.

kudos for through so far - they must have seen something awesome in you guys. I'm instantly excited to see what you're upto :)

Interview stage != getting in.

Congrats in any case!

I have a feeling that YC tries to fund the companies that change how people perceive and use technology. Others are just the me-too examples.

Is that the case with what you do?

Yeah, I'd say DoLeaf is a me-too product. I don't look for things that are earth-shattering. Instead, I look for ways to bring existing technologies or practices to underserved communities. I think that can be incredibly profitable, while also being predictable.

I really like your product (and model) because it scales so beautifully from the word go. As you said, from the moment you launch you'll be making money (in theory) - want more revenue? pour more resource in that side of operations.

I do have a question for you, I really like your other startup/app (The tabletop gaming one.). I read your post yesterday so and found my way to another blog post about how you managed a huge surge of traffic from Penny Arcade, which seems like it was 2-3 months ago.

So the question is why not concentrate 100% on that one? If you are holding down full time jobs do you have enough bandwidth to spread across 2 startups, and why not concentrate on the one that has started to gain some traction? (If you don't mind me asking)

It's a good question and I don't mind (much).

I'm not sure I have a good answer. I've been frustrated at the rate of growth of Obsidian Portal, and social networking sites are tough to monetize. Our subscriptions are doing pretty well, but it's not a perfect situation.

I wanted to pursue a startup with a much clearer business model. I think a lot of the "we'll figure the business model out later" startups are in for some pain when they do try to monetize. Oh, and forget about ads.

Plus, growth of a site is related, but not directly, to the amount of effort you put in. OP grows at its own rate now, and it does so regardless of my efforts. That's why I'm not a huge fan of the quit-your-dayjob mentality. It just takes time to grow these things, and you have to eat during that time.

I would say that our project is definitely unique and could be applied in other fields, but we're sticking with one and seeing how it goes. There's also a dozen ways to make money and none of these include advertising. Because it's different, I'm often worried that people might not "get it" and may never use it.

Its interesting to see who they choose in the end. 20 companies is a pretty high number to get them all right. Anyway, keep going and maybe when the summer ends you will have better chances of further funding than any of the TS (or YC or ...)companies!

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