17 ms·

Rejected from YC (Again)

403 points by sabbakeynejad 7y ago

onion2k 7y ago
It sucks to be rejected from anything, especially YC, but as a catalyst to push you forwards and move from 'interesting tech project' to 'actual business making money' it sounds like your interview was exactly what you needed. Well done.
- sabbakeynejad 7y ago
  Completely agree, we now profitable and own 100% of the company. Thanks, YC :)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ageyfman 7y ago
    Profitable with $5k in monthly revenue? Profitable needs to cover market salaries and all expenses, IMO. Maybe Ramen profitable.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      The Veed founders are in London, and while about $2500/month each after tax isn't great money for a London dev it is definitely "low end junior dev" level wages.
      - Southland 7y ago
        So the business costs $0 a month to run?
- taneq 7y ago
  > push you forwards and move from 'interesting tech project' to 'actual business making money' That's the thing. Who are you trying to impress? Investors? Or your customers?
- heyflyguy 7y ago
  This is exactly what I thought. Sometimes a bad dish is a wonderful elixir.
billconan 7y ago
I can’t understand some of the YC invested companies. They don’t seem to be billion dollar companies to me. For example, why is a form builder a billion dollar company?
- hortense 7y ago
  A form builder can evolve into an app builder.
  - antibland 7y ago
    Why is an app builder a billion dollar company?
    - zakki 7y ago
      Everyone wants to build one.
    - billconan 7y ago
      ya and also saying a form builder can become an app builder, is like saying a plain paper can be used to print money ... we all know that the delta between them is huge. We are not selling fairy tales to VCs, or are we?
      - krapp 7y ago
        > We are not selling fairy tales to VCs, or are we? Silicon Valley should have its own version of the Hollywood sign that reads "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute."
      - mavhc 7y ago
        Of course you are, "and then they all lived happily ever after, and by all I mean 7 billion people, and by happily I mean paying $10/month or clicking ads"
    - sgt 7y ago
      An app builder can turn into a SAP.
Rainymood 7y ago
I remember reading the article when it got first published in June 2019, this is the same article but with an update at the end. YC W20 batch just got all their letters. Good luck, I hope you guys succeed and keep grinding!
- sabbakeynejad 7y ago
  The update was because we just found our today we did not make the cut for W20
_0o6v 7y ago
If your business is that good, you'll be able to find $150k in seed funding elsewhere.
- sabbakeynejad 7y ago
  Its not about the money...
  - thekhatribharat 7y ago
    mind sharing what pushed you to apply?
    - timurmamedov 7y ago
      We think of it more as getting into NBA or Olympic Games or becoming a Navy Seal. It is tough to get in, tough throughout and will only harden you if you don't break along the way. Being part of community and other perks also are a nice-to-have.
      - diminoten 7y ago
        Honestly it sounds a bit like one of those false-validation goals that makes a founder feel good about their company when other, more objective metrics aren't looking as nice. Like writing a blog post vs. adding a desired feature.
- r_singh 7y ago
  The $150k is the least compelling reason to join YC. Most people apply to YC for the ecosystem, community and access to (relatively) good VCs.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    Is that what YC tells you because they know $150K won't go far.
  - 7y ago
tomxor 7y ago
> even though we have a great growing company, it is possible YC does not think we will be a billion dollar company. This is a very positive take away: Y combinator is not for the vast majority of startups (and that's ok). They are not destined to become billion dollar companies, yet they will still go on to provide huge value to a large number of people and turn a big profit - they should still exist, and may even be vital for many. > “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
adim86 7y ago
This is a fantastic story! A couple of takeaways here. The team took rejection VERY well. This is not as easy as you may think. This to me shows the founders believe in what they are doing and have a deeper goal than just making money. The ability to take the feedback and double down in just a few days is motivational. Second, The power of positive response to negative situations. Lord knows how long it would have taken them to work on MRR if not for the rejection and they could easily have wasted time fiddling with copy and graphics, but the pressure for YC to re-evaluate them made them release ASAP and now they are already making revenue. At the end of the day, YC rejection allowed them to start generating proper revenue before they would have initially, to me that's a win, and they still get to keep the shares YC would have taken and now they have a higher valuation for whomever they apply to next for funding. This is a great framing of a story that could easily be a sob story blog post. Keep it up, guys. You are bound for success.
- almostarockstar 7y ago
  Just wanted to echo this post. The start of the OP felt a little like the prospective founders were focused more on image than results, but by the end I was convinced. My 2 cents would be to forget about YC as a source of seed capital and either get a loan or private angel investment to build a solid, revenue generating success.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Ya, if you already have good revenue and revenue growth, why do you need YC? I think YC may be overvaluing their contribution a bit. If I take on all the risk, blood, sweat, and tears to get a product built and out the door and making money, I don't need your $150k. At least right now in this climate, you can raise much more than that from VCs that carry cachet similar to YC and will be good advisors as well.
- mikeokner 7y ago
  > The ability to take the feedback and double down in just a few days is motivational. Maybe. I took it slightly differently. They received negative feedback after a 10 minute pitch, and immediately dropped everything to change their product & strategy to appease a potential investor. Was monetizing in this manner at this moment the right strategy for them? That's a pivotal decision to make and not one I'd throw together at 2 am to try impress a party with no skin in the game.
surfsvammel 7y ago
I started a company about 10 years ago. We are making money, but not lots. But that was never the point of the enterprise. Me, and my co-founders, created the company for us to be able to work with great colleagues and to limit the work hours. Our employees, including ourselves, are not allowed to work more than 40h/week. We have parties and trips where we invite all of our friends and family etc. We make sure our employees have 80% of full salary for at least 9 months for parental leave. Work-life balance is core to our values. Our employee turn-over is basically zero. And if someone leaves we go out to dinner to thank them, keep in touch and they are always welcome back to our events and parties (also to come back to work for us of course). I understand the idea of going big with a start-up, make tons of money. But there are other goals one can pursue with a start-up that, at least to some, is just as fulfilling. Great job! You still have control and ownership and might be better off in the long run.
- TheSmoke 7y ago
  nice try, dhh. :-)
  - surfsvammel 7y ago
    What is dhh?
    - keiferski 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson
    - TheSmoke 7y ago
      for clarification: that was meant to be a joke. dhh is David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founder of Basecamp. they basically run their company just like you, i'd recommend reading their posts.
  - jyriand 7y ago
    That was also my first impression. Sounds like someone from Basecamp.
erikig 7y ago
Awesome effort and thanks for sharing the ups and downs. Quick question - why aren't you guys on mobile yet?
- sabbakeynejad 7y ago
  Canvas touch events, we just got them working, mobile will be live in 2 weeks max.
kovacs_x 7y ago
Sounds to me that being reject was super valuable to you guys anyway and instead of being "accelerated" you'll be able to go in your own speed the way you want with your product, not as YC, VC's or anyone else wants, which can easily "accelerate" you into the void and add extra level of stress to the one already, because imo investors are more like all-or-nothing types, when for you building "normal" sustainable business, that can later be sold for some X-XX million amount, is viable option as well. Good luck and keep building! :)
kabacha 7y ago
> Video editor in browser But why? YC takes up a lot of risky ventures but I really don't see video editor in browser taking off beyond a fun little toy so I definitely get why they refused. Could you elaborate more who's your clientele? I'm very curious. Nevertheless it was a fun read!
- yoshyosh 7y ago
  With things like Figma changing the nature of design tools (in the browser) why don't you see a video editor in the browser taking off?
  - keiferski 7y ago
    For one, the actual editing industry operates mostly offline. The amount of data is simply too large to rely on cloud apps.
    - sabbakeynejad 7y ago
      We render 4K video and all files are uploaded in the background.
      - keiferski 7y ago
        Well I’m referring to actual, professional editors (which probably aren’t your target customer anyway.) When you’re working with terabytes of video, it’s not practical to rely on an internet connection to get work done.
  - kabacha 7y ago
    Let me reverse the question - why would I want something in unstable, resource heavy and non-native environment?
    - hnra 7y ago
      Maybe you own a $150 chromebook and can't run video editing software locally? I could see this being useful for youtubers without access to decent hardware.
jakobegger 7y ago
It's a bit off topic, but I wonder why everyone is so focussed on MRR (monthly recurring revenue). Why are you focussing only on people who want to pay you every month? Especially for a tool that targets beginners. I mean, if someone uses your app enough to keep paying 20€ for it every month, I would assume that they'll soon want to upgrade to "real" video editing software. Adobe Premiere isn't that much more expensive. Of course, the non-power users can just use the free version with watermarks. But who wants a watermark on their videos? I always wonder why these SaaS companies do not offer something for casual users? If I want to edit just a single video from a special event, why do I need to get a monthly subscription? Why can't I just pay $5 or whatever to remove a watermark from a single video? I understand that targeting casual users may seem less profitable than targeting power users. But there's probably also lot less competition in that space, and it may help with word of mouth advertising if you don't focus exclusively on the most frequent users of your software.
- huffmsa 7y ago
  Subscriptions are cool right now. It's an easy way, especially when you're a new company, to show that people like your product and need your product enough to use it on a recurring basis. One off purchases are great for consumables. You wouldn't expect a shoe company to have recurring revenue (at least not monthly, should hopefully take a bit longer than that for shoes to wear out). But for software, the current emphasis is on making products people use, and pay for, regularly.
  - roelschroeven 7y ago
    > Subscriptions are cool right now > But for software, the current emphasis is [...] Yes, SaaS is hot now, but this doesn't explain why. > an easy way [...] to show that people like your product and need your product This attempts to explain an advantage of Saas, but totally neglects the viewpoint of the customer. And that's the problem I have with it: SaaS is an advantage in the relation between the company and their investors (look, recurring revenue!), but for the customer it's often not a good thing.
    - 7y ago
huffmsa 7y ago
I think you were rejected this go around for your own good. You don't necessarily need YC. You're growing at a growing rate. You're not at any kind of impasse, you're not making a transition. You'd be giving up 7% for a lesson you already got for free. Bootstrap until you can't.
xiphias2 7y ago
The most important take for me was that YC gave great free advice even in the rejection email. When I was working at Google I was not allowed to give detailed feedback to the person whom I was interviewing and I hated that, because I think people deserve to know why they weren't hired.
mscasts 7y ago
I don't understand. If they make money from the app, why not simply just keep working instead of letting go of a portion of the company? Sure, it is a lot of money they will get but it seems like they don't really need it?
- timurmamedov 7y ago
  Yo its Tim (co-founder @ VEED). It's not really about money for us, but more about the hustle. We think of it more as getting into NBA or Olympic Games or becoming a Navy Seal. It is tough to get in, tough throughout and will only harden you if you don't break along the way. Just my 2c
  - puranjay 7y ago
    Appreciate the post and kudos on the product - looks great. Just to counter your argument though - getting into the NBA is the only way to be a successful pro basketball player. Getting into Navy Seals is the only way to be an elite special forces soldier (well, that and a bunch of other elite forces). But getting into YC isn't the only way to build a successful company. I understand the appeal - getting into an elite institution can open plenty of doors. But do consider whether that is worth whatever % of your company YC will take.
  - mscasts 7y ago
    Ok, I get the desire, but personally I believe it's a bit fluffy. I'd love to be in your guys position and I have a hard time just understanding why you would want to give away control which is basically freedom, be essentially be cool or be part of an "elite" group? You guys already are cool, you don't need someone else to be it.
    - loopla 7y ago
      But are you giving away control by giving YC 7%? YC isn't a traditional investor. You don't need to raise money on demo day and are free to go back to being a small business that puts profit before growth. YC isn't going to send you an angry email or frankly even remember you if you don't stay in touch and continue to do office hours.
haolez 7y ago
Tech startups and the Angel/VC ecosystem feels like a Ponzi scheme sometimes. The goal doesn’t seem to be to create a profitable business, but to make a good exit with the next investor’s money (or the public’s in the case of an IPO). Congratulations on your achievement!
- Grustaf 7y ago
  I’m not sure it is very common that the next round investors buy shares from the first round, seems to defeat the purpose of raising money. IPOs are a different story though, cf We, Uber.
silasdavis 7y ago
This has come up before here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 Posting because I found the analysis of filmgirlcw in that discussion interesting.
- agota 7y ago
  It was interesting, thank you for mentioning it!
elmar 7y ago
Wonderful story Thanks for sharing it with details and updates. A little question is funding the current bottleneck for your growth? If you receive $X Million how would you spend it to increase the growth?
- timurmamedov 7y ago
  We are growing fast. But if we take $X Million yeah we will grow SUPER fast. So yeah. But whether you should do it is up to you, there are horror/success stories on either side.
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    To be honest, it’s hard to imagine a horror story where the protagonist has a company that is growing fast and decides not to take on investors.
Fragoel2 7y ago
Moral of the story is: there's more than one way to found a company and the current startup model ( place hundreds of bets, hope a few win big) doesn't work for all of them. This story and others ( like the one of Gumroad: https://marker.medium.com/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-a-billion-dollar-company-b0c31d7db0e7 https://marker.medium.com/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-...) that show that success can be achieved even when others consider you a failure are refreshing and should taken as an inspiration from those who wish to become an enterpreneur (and possibly by everyone to be applied to life in general).
taytus 7y ago
Hello there! I was rejected today for 7th time I believe. We started selling our product in January, We just signed a contract with Accenture, we are on track to have 1 million websites using our technology and we are about $20k MRR (which we know will be a much more thanks to some partnerships we are about to sign. YC is an amazing opportunity, but it's just one of the many tools we have as entrepreneurs. Keep working, be better and more important than anything, be permissionless.
- XJ6 7y ago
  After 5 rejections, what made you keep going back for the 6th and 7th? Isn't there a limit beyond which it's a bit disrespectful to keep asking?
  - taytus 7y ago
    I'm an entrepreneur, I don't care about odds. How is disrespectful to keep asking? Just the act of applying is a healthy exercise, and chances are that the people who got accepted are just better than our company. We keep moving, keep making progress and keep applying. I don't see what is disrespectful about that. I would love to learn more if you care in elaborating.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      Honestly you might be past the point where you need YC, but I agree that there's no harm in applying -- if your experience is anything like this one, even applying to YC apparently gives some value to the companies doing it.
  - ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
    True. Also if you have been rejected once too many, the chances of you getting accepted goes down. Unless you knew why you were rejected and you improve on that. Ultimately you are wasting time applying and then waiting for results. Every rejection is a step down the morale ladder so be judicious in your applications
  - 7y ago
foobarbecue 7y ago
I had to Google MAU, and MRR. Monthly Active Users, Monthly Recurring Revenue. (Couldn't you just say users access revenue on this case?)
elkynator 7y ago
Let's be honest. Even solely from money and evaluation point, being accepted to YC increases your evaluation for your startup significantly. I'm not advocating that this is why you need to apply, but FOMO on YC companies is real among VC's. On demo day same companies who are pre-seed or just started get new rounds on $15Mil+ evaluation. From what I have heard and seen the biggest value is advice, but getting so much hype to raise big money is not bad for founders.
- haolez 7y ago
  I've heard from a VC recently that YC is usually associated with teams of very young entrepreneurs and some VCs avoid this team profile. Not sure if this is a widespread stereotype.
dcchambers 7y ago
> So even though we have a great growing company, it is possible YC does not think we will be a billion dollar company. And that's perfectly fine. Not every company needs to be a billion dollar unicorn. Not every founder needs to strive for that. Continue to grow the company organically. You have clearly already found a path to success without YC. YC is great, but is not essential to your startup. Not getting in is not the end of the world.
xtracto 7y ago
I would not sweat it. I was an early employee in a startup that got rejected twice from YC (because it was from Mexico) and nowadays is one of the fastest growing FinTech companies in LatAm and just raised their series B. You know, lots of VCs maintain a good list of anti-portfolio, the most famous being the BVP one (https://www.bvp.com/anti-portfolio/ https://www.bvp.com/anti-portfolio/ ).
m10i 7y ago
How did office hours between the two batches go? That was left out of the blog post. Similar to when you're in the lunch round during a job interview are told "oh don't worry, lunch is not an interview, just relax", I imagine attending office hours after you got rejected last time is in the same boat - it's another hidden interview. It's possible that there were indicators during that time period that indicated how the next batch might go for you guys :/. Best of luck regardless
cryptozeus 7y ago
Great story and lots of positive messages here so let me take a different view and get downvoted here. Obviously you want to be as big as airbnb and box otherwise you will not be applying to YC year over year. Point here is that don’t settle for these small wins of 100k revenue..and no it is not ok to NOT be hugely successful company if you really want that go be that. Now there are many other VC companies out there who have helped many others companies do the same so Yc rejection is a blow but there are other options too. Don't stop until you get into one.
tpae 7y ago
This is why I stopped applying to YC. I feel I've learned most of my startup skills through trial and error by now, and don't have the need for them. I'm able to raise funding, build a product, and grow the business. You guys have already proven to be better than most of the applicants in my opinion.
fillskills 7y ago
We got rejected 4 years ago and ended up building the company to about 40M/yr revenue. And we have many VC rejections to add to it. So dont take any rejections too seriously. Focus on the customer need and building a good team.
- ignoramous 7y ago
  Congratulations. Would you be comfortable revealing the startup and/or briefly tell us what it does?
  - fillskills 7y ago
    Actually just moved on to start a new startup. Which also YC rejected yesterday. But to be honest most of our success was because the YC and HN network. We got tons of value out of PGs essays, YC posts/videos and HN articles and comments. Hope to continue using those resources for the next one!!
- nojvek 7y ago
  YC isn’t a slam sunk. It’s funded 1000s of companies and ~100-ish have made it big. So you can say 9/10 times they get it wrong but 1/10 is worth it for them. So if YC gets it wrong, that’s their loss. There is no rule that says to build a great product and a great company you need YC or insane VC money. So kudos to you sticking out and building a great product.
  - marvindanig 7y ago
    Also, ~90ish of those 100 successful ones have come from batches pre 2014, so there is that… ;-)
    - soneca 7y ago
      If you define "success" as market valuation, assume that market valuation grows with time for successful companies and YC select companies with a bias for companies that are not successful yet... The fact that most successful companies come from older batches is just a description of their business model right?
diminoten 7y ago
> We are now at $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue You're doing it. Very impressive/cool. YC isn't the end-all, nor is HN. It's objectively impressive that you got rejected, saw something you can fix right away, and executed. Not only that, but you continued to execute/grow from there to $5k.
dreamer7 7y ago
Off topic, but I really like their blog site. Seems very similar to Medium. Does anyone know if they used a template or blogging platform with custom domain?
- tnolet 7y ago
  Ghost blog with default template
- ignoramous 7y ago
  It's https://ghost.org https://ghost.org in its default template.
mrieck 7y ago
And how did you feel about Kapwing recently getting $11 million funding for the same thing? This is how I felt: http://www.superanimo.com/animos/mfw-competitor-gets-11-mil-and-im-stuck-in-my-dayjob http://www.superanimo.com/animos/mfw-competitor-gets-11-mil-...
jconley 7y ago
YC is looking at this from the VC/startup perspective. "Does this group of people with this company seem like they can make a billion dollar business in the next ~10 years?" They want founders that target a huge (or growing / potentially huge) market with stars in their eyes and some insight as to how to own it. If you're content with a small business and growing slowly then you are not a good fit. You might have a great business in the end, but still not be a fit for the model. Like others have said, YC partners miss big hits. They're not perfect. Keep going and if you have a relentless focus on month over month growth and keep your churn down then you have a chance to get VC-style growth capital. But, if you just want to bootstrap a profitable business you'll be better off doing that on your own and getting bank loans or other risk-adverse capital.
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  What you say is technically true, but given how easy it is to pivot nowadays, and the fact that YC prides itself on accepting teams even pre-product, this "billion dollar business" line seems like a great way to reject anyone they want for any reason.
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    Since it’s their money, it seems pretty reasonable that the should be able to invest in whoever they want, for whatever reason.
    - theli0nheart 7y ago
      I agree, and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is telling applicants how they make decisions in a nice fair way, when in fact they use another, “secret” rubric that’s based more on brand and connections. If you’re going to evaluate folks, don't lie about how you're doing it.
      - jconley 7y ago
        They accept founders with a cornucopia of backgrounds. From people with barely an idea to people with running businesses. I would presume the farther along your business is and the more stuck you are on that particular model the more the evaluation leans toward the business growth metrics. When we did YC we were accepted with an idea, a landing page with some email signups, and almost a customer. They asked hard hitting questions in the interview. We did have industry connections, some unique insights, and previous startup experience. After being "inside" (as a company founder at least) and seeing everything they write about on the "outside", I take what YC says at face value. They earned trust.
craze3 7y ago
You posted the same exact article 4 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 I was rejected too, so I feel your pain. But come on... This is such a low-effort post. It seems like all you did was update it with 1 paragraph saying "we got rejected again." What's the point? Why does this belong on HN?
- tnolet 7y ago
  It’s content marketing and according to the 150+ comments people still find the story worthwhile.
  - craze3 7y ago
    How would you like if everyone kept submitting their old blog posts over and over again? Do you genuinely believe that would lead to a community of great content ?
    - tnolet 7y ago
      They will fly off the homepage quicker than you can say “repost”
- agota 7y ago
  I found the story and the discussion interesting. I only started actively using HN recently so I haven't seen it four months ago.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
psilocipher 7y ago
You should try cross-dressing. If they reject you, you can claim discrimination.
soulchild37 7y ago
If you can have 100k ARR organically already why do you still need YC? Nevertheless, great job and execution!
newguy1234 7y ago
I don't know why you tech/software startups fight so hard to get funding. Just self-fund it and keep your equity for yourself. If your idea has potential, you should be fighting to keep as much equity as possible, not selling it off to the lowest bidder - VC firms. Only go to VC firms as last option as in literally the startup will die if it doesn't get funding. The bigger value proposition I see from Y Combinator is simply the networking and community. A lot of the advice I see given during startup school is spot on from my experience.
- justdewet 7y ago
  Just pull up those bootstraps. Fund it yourselves pussies
- habitue 7y ago
  Some businesses lend themselves to bootstrapping, others are just straight up capital intensive. Others are somewhere in between, and venture capital just allows you to "skip ahead" and find out how good the idea really is by scaling it and hiring people to polish it and make it run well instead of on a shoestring budget.
maannj 7y ago
> it is possible YC does not think we will be a billion dollar company Most VCs always emphasize that they invest in the team and not just the idea. Ideas always evolve for startups. You guys not only monetized your MVP very quickly, but also have shown that you are hustlers and work very fast. Even if your idea "in current form" doesn't generate billion dollars, but you have high potential as a team to find a path to success. I worked in early stage startup few years ago, their original idea didn't show huge success but they kept improving until they eventually found a path to huge success and then acquired by large company. The improvement all revolved around the same concept (which was an audio app) IMO, the fact that YC didn't even invite you for the second round means that they need to really work on their selection process.
iamleppert 7y ago
Forget whatever YC tells you about how they accept and vet startups. YC is highly biased in their process. For an investment company of their size, it strikes me as odd that they seem to mostly "wing it". There's no apparent (or at least nothing they make public) structure and no real or apparent analytical process that goes into their application process. I'm sure they do have a process, but you can glean a lot and read between the lines on those rejection emails that give very little evidence as to their actual decision making process. It's probably opaque for a reason, right? I've had friends who literally have gone through them multiple times, taken their money, and failed with multiple different business ideas, that, on their face were both poor ideas and poorly executed. Only to see them get accepted again. Your chances of being accepted greatly increase if you know them personally, or went to MIT/Stanford and part of that crowd. The other case is where you are part of their current focus and just happen to get lucky. What they fund and are interested in seems to change based on their moods and personal interests more than any overall strategy that is more complex than a blog post. You're far better, at this point, to simply take on debt. With that revenue you could qualify for a loan from any number of banks. Most banks have a small business division and would be very eager to start working with you. Just go in with your current Stripe dashboard and a simple plan of what you'd spend the money on (marketing, development, etc). It doesn't need to (and shouldn't) be complicated, a single page is enough. More than likely, you'll be offered many different types of financing and the terms are almost guaranteed to be better than any VC could offer. If they decline you, they'll give you directly actionable requirements, which, once you've full-filled you can re-apply and they will give you the money as long as you have met those requirements. Unlike a VC, who may have been out the night before drinking and simply decline you for no other reason than their own hangover. Banks make their money in interest, they want to lend you money, they stay out of your business. They do not make money by holding a percentage of your company hostage and pumping up the value (real or imaginary) and then selling to the next guy (which is exactly how a VC operates). Or look for funding and mentorship in the software community in which you are operating -- from Adobe or one of the other video editing software companies. Start attending conferences attended by people in the video production industry. You might be able to find a niche for your product in a large video production company that could optimize their process or save on licensing costs. One or two of those deals is really all you need. And the value of the YC network is greatly overstated. If you're building anything other than run-of-the-mill SaaS software, it's almost useless. They can give you money, but they can't write code for you or (in my experience working with other VC's) help you with recruiting, beyond having someone send out blind emails on LinkedIn and adding you to their jobs page.
kvm 7y ago
"Over the space of a year, we had a 60% MoM Growth Rate, 35K MAU and a great team!" 60% MoM growth = 281x growth in a year. So you had 35k/281 = 125 users a year ago? This seems like a disingenuous growth rate unless I'm missing something
- MattyMc 7y ago
  Why is this disingenuous? Just curious :)
  - kvm 7y ago
    If I had 1 user on month 1, 1000 users on month 2, 5000 on month 3, 10000 on month 4, I could claim a 1000% (10x) MoM growth rate. But that'd imply you'll have 100K users during month 5 and 1M users on month 6, whereas it'll likely be <40K. One of the reasons you look at MoM growth rate is to project how fast it'll keep growing over the immediate future. It's unclear to me right now BTW don't get me wrong, I like the story and the hustle. Just not these numbers :)
    - KindOne 7y ago
      Something like this? https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/
greenie_beans 7y ago
Maybe for you next YC app, take or leave this idea... Put Wibbitz out of business by developing AI that can create short videos based on text from written content. For instance, the video at the top of this page, which was adapted from its attached article. https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/desserts/wine-candy-pairing https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-f... I don't know the first thing about AI or video, but I do know the humans who make those sorts of videos just read the article and search Getty images. You could prolly train the AI to have the right "taste" based on all the content created by Meredith Corp lifestyle brands, like Real Simple, Food and Wine, etc. Meredith now owns Time Inc, and I know that they and every other media company are doing whatever they can to compete in the digital space. One way is by adapting their written content into short, digest-able, social media-consumed videos.
tapatio 7y ago
Meh, YC is so 2010.
cristinaibunea 7y ago
Oh, wow. Funniest thing. I started reading your blogpost, got to the part where you mention the overpriced Airbnb, looked at the picture with the white truck and then realised MY TEAM AND I HAVE BEEN LIVING IN UNIVERSE Z for the past 4 months. Moved here when we got into YC and I'm currently writing this message from here. Your story is truly fantastic.
- timurmamedov 7y ago
  Haha, good old Universe Z. Didn't know anyone would recognize it. Thanks for the kind words!

403 points by sabbakeynejad 7y ago

It sucks to be rejected from anything, especially YC, but as a catalyst to push you forwards and move from 'interesting tech project' to 'actual business making money' it sounds like your interview was exactly what you needed. Well done.

sabbakeynejad 7y ago
Completely agree, we now profitable and own 100% of the company. Thanks, YC :)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ageyfman 7y ago
  Profitable with $5k in monthly revenue? Profitable needs to cover market salaries and all expenses, IMO. Maybe Ramen profitable.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    The Veed founders are in London, and while about $2500/month each after tax isn't great money for a London dev it is definitely "low end junior dev" level wages.
    - Southland 7y ago
      So the business costs $0 a month to run?
taneq 7y ago
> push you forwards and move from 'interesting tech project' to 'actual business making money' That's the thing. Who are you trying to impress? Investors? Or your customers?
heyflyguy 7y ago
This is exactly what I thought. Sometimes a bad dish is a wonderful elixir.

billconan 7y ago

I can’t understand some of the YC invested companies. They don’t seem to be billion dollar companies to me. For example, why is a form builder a billion dollar company?

hortense 7y ago
A form builder can evolve into an app builder.
- antibland 7y ago
  Why is an app builder a billion dollar company?
  - zakki 7y ago
    Everyone wants to build one.
  - billconan 7y ago
    ya and also saying a form builder can become an app builder, is like saying a plain paper can be used to print money ... we all know that the delta between them is huge. We are not selling fairy tales to VCs, or are we?
    - krapp 7y ago
      > We are not selling fairy tales to VCs, or are we? Silicon Valley should have its own version of the Hollywood sign that reads "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute."
    - mavhc 7y ago
      Of course you are, "and then they all lived happily ever after, and by all I mean 7 billion people, and by happily I mean paying $10/month or clicking ads"
  - sgt 7y ago
    An app builder can turn into a SAP.

Rainymood 7y ago

I remember reading the article when it got first published in June 2019, this is the same article but with an update at the end. YC W20 batch just got all their letters. Good luck, I hope you guys succeed and keep grinding!

sabbakeynejad 7y ago
The update was because we just found our today we did not make the cut for W20

_0o6v 7y ago

If your business is that good, you'll be able to find $150k in seed funding elsewhere.

sabbakeynejad 7y ago
Its not about the money...
- thekhatribharat 7y ago
  mind sharing what pushed you to apply?
  - timurmamedov 7y ago
    We think of it more as getting into NBA or Olympic Games or becoming a Navy Seal. It is tough to get in, tough throughout and will only harden you if you don't break along the way. Being part of community and other perks also are a nice-to-have.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      Honestly it sounds a bit like one of those false-validation goals that makes a founder feel good about their company when other, more objective metrics aren't looking as nice. Like writing a blog post vs. adding a desired feature.
r_singh 7y ago
The $150k is the least compelling reason to join YC. Most people apply to YC for the ecosystem, community and access to (relatively) good VCs.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Is that what YC tells you because they know $150K won't go far.
- 7y ago

tomxor 7y ago

> even though we have a great growing company, it is possible YC does not think we will be a billion dollar company. This is a very positive take away: Y combinator is not for the vast majority of startups (and that's ok). They are not destined to become billion dollar companies, yet they will still go on to provide huge value to a large number of people and turn a big profit - they should still exist, and may even be vital for many. > “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

adim86 7y ago

This is a fantastic story! A couple of takeaways here. The team took rejection VERY well. This is not as easy as you may think. This to me shows the founders believe in what they are doing and have a deeper goal than just making money. The ability to take the feedback and double down in just a few days is motivational. Second, The power of positive response to negative situations. Lord knows how long it would have taken them to work on MRR if not for the rejection and they could easily have wasted time fiddling with copy and graphics, but the pressure for YC to re-evaluate them made them release ASAP and now they are already making revenue. At the end of the day, YC rejection allowed them to start generating proper revenue before they would have initially, to me that's a win, and they still get to keep the shares YC would have taken and now they have a higher valuation for whomever they apply to next for funding. This is a great framing of a story that could easily be a sob story blog post. Keep it up, guys. You are bound for success.

almostarockstar 7y ago
Just wanted to echo this post. The start of the OP felt a little like the prospective founders were focused more on image than results, but by the end I was convinced. My 2 cents would be to forget about YC as a source of seed capital and either get a loan or private angel investment to build a solid, revenue generating success.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Ya, if you already have good revenue and revenue growth, why do you need YC? I think YC may be overvaluing their contribution a bit. If I take on all the risk, blood, sweat, and tears to get a product built and out the door and making money, I don't need your $150k. At least right now in this climate, you can raise much more than that from VCs that carry cachet similar to YC and will be good advisors as well.
mikeokner 7y ago
> The ability to take the feedback and double down in just a few days is motivational. Maybe. I took it slightly differently. They received negative feedback after a 10 minute pitch, and immediately dropped everything to change their product & strategy to appease a potential investor. Was monetizing in this manner at this moment the right strategy for them? That's a pivotal decision to make and not one I'd throw together at 2 am to try impress a party with no skin in the game.

surfsvammel 7y ago

I started a company about 10 years ago. We are making money, but not lots. But that was never the point of the enterprise. Me, and my co-founders, created the company for us to be able to work with great colleagues and to limit the work hours. Our employees, including ourselves, are not allowed to work more than 40h/week. We have parties and trips where we invite all of our friends and family etc. We make sure our employees have 80% of full salary for at least 9 months for parental leave. Work-life balance is core to our values. Our employee turn-over is basically zero. And if someone leaves we go out to dinner to thank them, keep in touch and they are always welcome back to our events and parties (also to come back to work for us of course). I understand the idea of going big with a start-up, make tons of money. But there are other goals one can pursue with a start-up that, at least to some, is just as fulfilling. Great job! You still have control and ownership and might be better off in the long run.

TheSmoke 7y ago
nice try, dhh. :-)
- surfsvammel 7y ago
  What is dhh?
  - keiferski 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson
  - TheSmoke 7y ago
    for clarification: that was meant to be a joke. dhh is David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founder of Basecamp. they basically run their company just like you, i'd recommend reading their posts.
- jyriand 7y ago
  That was also my first impression. Sounds like someone from Basecamp.

erikig 7y ago

Awesome effort and thanks for sharing the ups and downs. Quick question - why aren't you guys on mobile yet?

sabbakeynejad 7y ago
Canvas touch events, we just got them working, mobile will be live in 2 weeks max.

kovacs_x 7y ago

Sounds to me that being reject was super valuable to you guys anyway and instead of being "accelerated" you'll be able to go in your own speed the way you want with your product, not as YC, VC's or anyone else wants, which can easily "accelerate" you into the void and add extra level of stress to the one already, because imo investors are more like all-or-nothing types, when for you building "normal" sustainable business, that can later be sold for some X-XX million amount, is viable option as well. Good luck and keep building! :)

kabacha 7y ago

> Video editor in browser But why? YC takes up a lot of risky ventures but I really don't see video editor in browser taking off beyond a fun little toy so I definitely get why they refused. Could you elaborate more who's your clientele? I'm very curious. Nevertheless it was a fun read!

yoshyosh 7y ago
With things like Figma changing the nature of design tools (in the browser) why don't you see a video editor in the browser taking off?
- keiferski 7y ago
  For one, the actual editing industry operates mostly offline. The amount of data is simply too large to rely on cloud apps.
  - sabbakeynejad 7y ago
    We render 4K video and all files are uploaded in the background.
    - keiferski 7y ago
      Well I’m referring to actual, professional editors (which probably aren’t your target customer anyway.) When you’re working with terabytes of video, it’s not practical to rely on an internet connection to get work done.
- kabacha 7y ago
  Let me reverse the question - why would I want something in unstable, resource heavy and non-native environment?
  - hnra 7y ago
    Maybe you own a $150 chromebook and can't run video editing software locally? I could see this being useful for youtubers without access to decent hardware.

jakobegger 7y ago

It's a bit off topic, but I wonder why everyone is so focussed on MRR (monthly recurring revenue). Why are you focussing only on people who want to pay you every month? Especially for a tool that targets beginners. I mean, if someone uses your app enough to keep paying 20€ for it every month, I would assume that they'll soon want to upgrade to "real" video editing software. Adobe Premiere isn't that much more expensive. Of course, the non-power users can just use the free version with watermarks. But who wants a watermark on their videos? I always wonder why these SaaS companies do not offer something for casual users? If I want to edit just a single video from a special event, why do I need to get a monthly subscription? Why can't I just pay $5 or whatever to remove a watermark from a single video? I understand that targeting casual users may seem less profitable than targeting power users. But there's probably also lot less competition in that space, and it may help with word of mouth advertising if you don't focus exclusively on the most frequent users of your software.

huffmsa 7y ago
Subscriptions are cool right now. It's an easy way, especially when you're a new company, to show that people like your product and need your product enough to use it on a recurring basis. One off purchases are great for consumables. You wouldn't expect a shoe company to have recurring revenue (at least not monthly, should hopefully take a bit longer than that for shoes to wear out). But for software, the current emphasis is on making products people use, and pay for, regularly.
- roelschroeven 7y ago
  > Subscriptions are cool right now > But for software, the current emphasis is [...] Yes, SaaS is hot now, but this doesn't explain why. > an easy way [...] to show that people like your product and need your product This attempts to explain an advantage of Saas, but totally neglects the viewpoint of the customer. And that's the problem I have with it: SaaS is an advantage in the relation between the company and their investors (look, recurring revenue!), but for the customer it's often not a good thing.
  - 7y ago

huffmsa 7y ago

I think you were rejected this go around for your own good. You don't necessarily need YC. You're growing at a growing rate. You're not at any kind of impasse, you're not making a transition. You'd be giving up 7% for a lesson you already got for free. Bootstrap until you can't.

xiphias2 7y ago

The most important take for me was that YC gave great free advice even in the rejection email. When I was working at Google I was not allowed to give detailed feedback to the person whom I was interviewing and I hated that, because I think people deserve to know why they weren't hired.

mscasts 7y ago

I don't understand. If they make money from the app, why not simply just keep working instead of letting go of a portion of the company? Sure, it is a lot of money they will get but it seems like they don't really need it?

timurmamedov 7y ago
Yo its Tim (co-founder @ VEED). It's not really about money for us, but more about the hustle. We think of it more as getting into NBA or Olympic Games or becoming a Navy Seal. It is tough to get in, tough throughout and will only harden you if you don't break along the way. Just my 2c
- puranjay 7y ago
  Appreciate the post and kudos on the product - looks great. Just to counter your argument though - getting into the NBA is the only way to be a successful pro basketball player. Getting into Navy Seals is the only way to be an elite special forces soldier (well, that and a bunch of other elite forces). But getting into YC isn't the only way to build a successful company. I understand the appeal - getting into an elite institution can open plenty of doors. But do consider whether that is worth whatever % of your company YC will take.
- mscasts 7y ago
  Ok, I get the desire, but personally I believe it's a bit fluffy. I'd love to be in your guys position and I have a hard time just understanding why you would want to give away control which is basically freedom, be essentially be cool or be part of an "elite" group? You guys already are cool, you don't need someone else to be it.
  - loopla 7y ago
    But are you giving away control by giving YC 7%? YC isn't a traditional investor. You don't need to raise money on demo day and are free to go back to being a small business that puts profit before growth. YC isn't going to send you an angry email or frankly even remember you if you don't stay in touch and continue to do office hours.

haolez 7y ago

Tech startups and the Angel/VC ecosystem feels like a Ponzi scheme sometimes. The goal doesn’t seem to be to create a profitable business, but to make a good exit with the next investor’s money (or the public’s in the case of an IPO). Congratulations on your achievement!

Grustaf 7y ago
I’m not sure it is very common that the next round investors buy shares from the first round, seems to defeat the purpose of raising money. IPOs are a different story though, cf We, Uber.

silasdavis 7y ago

This has come up before here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 Posting because I found the analysis of filmgirlcw in that discussion interesting.

agota 7y ago
It was interesting, thank you for mentioning it!

elmar 7y ago

Wonderful story Thanks for sharing it with details and updates. A little question is funding the current bottleneck for your growth? If you receive $X Million how would you spend it to increase the growth?

timurmamedov 7y ago
We are growing fast. But if we take $X Million yeah we will grow SUPER fast. So yeah. But whether you should do it is up to you, there are horror/success stories on either side.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  To be honest, it’s hard to imagine a horror story where the protagonist has a company that is growing fast and decides not to take on investors.

Fragoel2 7y ago

Moral of the story is: there's more than one way to found a company and the current startup model ( place hundreds of bets, hope a few win big) doesn't work for all of them. This story and others ( like the one of Gumroad: https://marker.medium.com/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-a-billion-dollar-company-b0c31d7db0e7 https://marker.medium.com/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-...) that show that success can be achieved even when others consider you a failure are refreshing and should taken as an inspiration from those who wish to become an enterpreneur (and possibly by everyone to be applied to life in general).

taytus 7y ago

Hello there! I was rejected today for 7th time I believe. We started selling our product in January, We just signed a contract with Accenture, we are on track to have 1 million websites using our technology and we are about $20k MRR (which we know will be a much more thanks to some partnerships we are about to sign. YC is an amazing opportunity, but it's just one of the many tools we have as entrepreneurs. Keep working, be better and more important than anything, be permissionless.

XJ6 7y ago
After 5 rejections, what made you keep going back for the 6th and 7th? Isn't there a limit beyond which it's a bit disrespectful to keep asking?
- taytus 7y ago
  I'm an entrepreneur, I don't care about odds. How is disrespectful to keep asking? Just the act of applying is a healthy exercise, and chances are that the people who got accepted are just better than our company. We keep moving, keep making progress and keep applying. I don't see what is disrespectful about that. I would love to learn more if you care in elaborating.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    Honestly you might be past the point where you need YC, but I agree that there's no harm in applying -- if your experience is anything like this one, even applying to YC apparently gives some value to the companies doing it.
- ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
  True. Also if you have been rejected once too many, the chances of you getting accepted goes down. Unless you knew why you were rejected and you improve on that. Ultimately you are wasting time applying and then waiting for results. Every rejection is a step down the morale ladder so be judicious in your applications
- 7y ago

foobarbecue 7y ago

I had to Google MAU, and MRR. Monthly Active Users, Monthly Recurring Revenue. (Couldn't you just say users access revenue on this case?)

elkynator 7y ago

Let's be honest. Even solely from money and evaluation point, being accepted to YC increases your evaluation for your startup significantly. I'm not advocating that this is why you need to apply, but FOMO on YC companies is real among VC's. On demo day same companies who are pre-seed or just started get new rounds on $15Mil+ evaluation. From what I have heard and seen the biggest value is advice, but getting so much hype to raise big money is not bad for founders.

haolez 7y ago
I've heard from a VC recently that YC is usually associated with teams of very young entrepreneurs and some VCs avoid this team profile. Not sure if this is a widespread stereotype.

dcchambers 7y ago

> So even though we have a great growing company, it is possible YC does not think we will be a billion dollar company. And that's perfectly fine. Not every company needs to be a billion dollar unicorn. Not every founder needs to strive for that. Continue to grow the company organically. You have clearly already found a path to success without YC. YC is great, but is not essential to your startup. Not getting in is not the end of the world.

xtracto 7y ago

I would not sweat it. I was an early employee in a startup that got rejected twice from YC (because it was from Mexico) and nowadays is one of the fastest growing FinTech companies in LatAm and just raised their series B. You know, lots of VCs maintain a good list of anti-portfolio, the most famous being the BVP one (https://www.bvp.com/anti-portfolio/ https://www.bvp.com/anti-portfolio/ ).

m10i 7y ago

How did office hours between the two batches go? That was left out of the blog post. Similar to when you're in the lunch round during a job interview are told "oh don't worry, lunch is not an interview, just relax", I imagine attending office hours after you got rejected last time is in the same boat - it's another hidden interview. It's possible that there were indicators during that time period that indicated how the next batch might go for you guys :/. Best of luck regardless

cryptozeus 7y ago

Great story and lots of positive messages here so let me take a different view and get downvoted here. Obviously you want to be as big as airbnb and box otherwise you will not be applying to YC year over year. Point here is that don’t settle for these small wins of 100k revenue..and no it is not ok to NOT be hugely successful company if you really want that go be that. Now there are many other VC companies out there who have helped many others companies do the same so Yc rejection is a blow but there are other options too. Don't stop until you get into one.

tpae 7y ago

This is why I stopped applying to YC. I feel I've learned most of my startup skills through trial and error by now, and don't have the need for them. I'm able to raise funding, build a product, and grow the business. You guys have already proven to be better than most of the applicants in my opinion.

fillskills 7y ago

We got rejected 4 years ago and ended up building the company to about 40M/yr revenue. And we have many VC rejections to add to it. So dont take any rejections too seriously. Focus on the customer need and building a good team.

ignoramous 7y ago
Congratulations. Would you be comfortable revealing the startup and/or briefly tell us what it does?
- fillskills 7y ago
  Actually just moved on to start a new startup. Which also YC rejected yesterday. But to be honest most of our success was because the YC and HN network. We got tons of value out of PGs essays, YC posts/videos and HN articles and comments. Hope to continue using those resources for the next one!!
nojvek 7y ago
YC isn’t a slam sunk. It’s funded 1000s of companies and ~100-ish have made it big. So you can say 9/10 times they get it wrong but 1/10 is worth it for them. So if YC gets it wrong, that’s their loss. There is no rule that says to build a great product and a great company you need YC or insane VC money. So kudos to you sticking out and building a great product.
- marvindanig 7y ago
  Also, ~90ish of those 100 successful ones have come from batches pre 2014, so there is that… ;-)
  - soneca 7y ago
    If you define "success" as market valuation, assume that market valuation grows with time for successful companies and YC select companies with a bias for companies that are not successful yet... The fact that most successful companies come from older batches is just a description of their business model right?

diminoten 7y ago

> We are now at $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue You're doing it. Very impressive/cool. YC isn't the end-all, nor is HN. It's objectively impressive that you got rejected, saw something you can fix right away, and executed. Not only that, but you continued to execute/grow from there to $5k.

dreamer7 7y ago

Off topic, but I really like their blog site. Seems very similar to Medium. Does anyone know if they used a template or blogging platform with custom domain?

tnolet 7y ago
Ghost blog with default template
ignoramous 7y ago
It's https://ghost.org https://ghost.org in its default template.

mrieck 7y ago

And how did you feel about Kapwing recently getting $11 million funding for the same thing? This is how I felt: http://www.superanimo.com/animos/mfw-competitor-gets-11-mil-and-im-stuck-in-my-dayjob http://www.superanimo.com/animos/mfw-competitor-gets-11-mil-...

jconley 7y ago

YC is looking at this from the VC/startup perspective. "Does this group of people with this company seem like they can make a billion dollar business in the next ~10 years?" They want founders that target a huge (or growing / potentially huge) market with stars in their eyes and some insight as to how to own it. If you're content with a small business and growing slowly then you are not a good fit. You might have a great business in the end, but still not be a fit for the model. Like others have said, YC partners miss big hits. They're not perfect. Keep going and if you have a relentless focus on month over month growth and keep your churn down then you have a chance to get VC-style growth capital. But, if you just want to bootstrap a profitable business you'll be better off doing that on your own and getting bank loans or other risk-adverse capital.

theli0nheart 7y ago
What you say is technically true, but given how easy it is to pivot nowadays, and the fact that YC prides itself on accepting teams even pre-product, this "billion dollar business" line seems like a great way to reject anyone they want for any reason.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  Since it’s their money, it seems pretty reasonable that the should be able to invest in whoever they want, for whatever reason.
  - theli0nheart 7y ago
    I agree, and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is telling applicants how they make decisions in a nice fair way, when in fact they use another, “secret” rubric that’s based more on brand and connections. If you’re going to evaluate folks, don't lie about how you're doing it.
    - jconley 7y ago
      They accept founders with a cornucopia of backgrounds. From people with barely an idea to people with running businesses. I would presume the farther along your business is and the more stuck you are on that particular model the more the evaluation leans toward the business growth metrics. When we did YC we were accepted with an idea, a landing page with some email signups, and almost a customer. They asked hard hitting questions in the interview. We did have industry connections, some unique insights, and previous startup experience. After being "inside" (as a company founder at least) and seeing everything they write about on the "outside", I take what YC says at face value. They earned trust.

craze3 7y ago

You posted the same exact article 4 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224157 I was rejected too, so I feel your pain. But come on... This is such a low-effort post. It seems like all you did was update it with 1 paragraph saying "we got rejected again." What's the point? Why does this belong on HN?

tnolet 7y ago
It’s content marketing and according to the 150+ comments people still find the story worthwhile.
- craze3 7y ago
  How would you like if everyone kept submitting their old blog posts over and over again? Do you genuinely believe that would lead to a community of great content ?
  - tnolet 7y ago
    They will fly off the homepage quicker than you can say “repost”
agota 7y ago
I found the story and the discussion interesting. I only started actively using HN recently so I haven't seen it four months ago.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

psilocipher 7y ago

You should try cross-dressing. If they reject you, you can claim discrimination.

soulchild37 7y ago

If you can have 100k ARR organically already why do you still need YC? Nevertheless, great job and execution!

newguy1234 7y ago

I don't know why you tech/software startups fight so hard to get funding. Just self-fund it and keep your equity for yourself. If your idea has potential, you should be fighting to keep as much equity as possible, not selling it off to the lowest bidder - VC firms. Only go to VC firms as last option as in literally the startup will die if it doesn't get funding. The bigger value proposition I see from Y Combinator is simply the networking and community. A lot of the advice I see given during startup school is spot on from my experience.

justdewet 7y ago
Just pull up those bootstraps. Fund it yourselves pussies
habitue 7y ago
Some businesses lend themselves to bootstrapping, others are just straight up capital intensive. Others are somewhere in between, and venture capital just allows you to "skip ahead" and find out how good the idea really is by scaling it and hiring people to polish it and make it run well instead of on a shoestring budget.

maannj 7y ago

> it is possible YC does not think we will be a billion dollar company Most VCs always emphasize that they invest in the team and not just the idea. Ideas always evolve for startups. You guys not only monetized your MVP very quickly, but also have shown that you are hustlers and work very fast. Even if your idea "in current form" doesn't generate billion dollars, but you have high potential as a team to find a path to success. I worked in early stage startup few years ago, their original idea didn't show huge success but they kept improving until they eventually found a path to huge success and then acquired by large company. The improvement all revolved around the same concept (which was an audio app) IMO, the fact that YC didn't even invite you for the second round means that they need to really work on their selection process.

iamleppert 7y ago

Forget whatever YC tells you about how they accept and vet startups. YC is highly biased in their process. For an investment company of their size, it strikes me as odd that they seem to mostly "wing it". There's no apparent (or at least nothing they make public) structure and no real or apparent analytical process that goes into their application process. I'm sure they do have a process, but you can glean a lot and read between the lines on those rejection emails that give very little evidence as to their actual decision making process. It's probably opaque for a reason, right? I've had friends who literally have gone through them multiple times, taken their money, and failed with multiple different business ideas, that, on their face were both poor ideas and poorly executed. Only to see them get accepted again. Your chances of being accepted greatly increase if you know them personally, or went to MIT/Stanford and part of that crowd. The other case is where you are part of their current focus and just happen to get lucky. What they fund and are interested in seems to change based on their moods and personal interests more than any overall strategy that is more complex than a blog post. You're far better, at this point, to simply take on debt. With that revenue you could qualify for a loan from any number of banks. Most banks have a small business division and would be very eager to start working with you. Just go in with your current Stripe dashboard and a simple plan of what you'd spend the money on (marketing, development, etc). It doesn't need to (and shouldn't) be complicated, a single page is enough. More than likely, you'll be offered many different types of financing and the terms are almost guaranteed to be better than any VC could offer. If they decline you, they'll give you directly actionable requirements, which, once you've full-filled you can re-apply and they will give you the money as long as you have met those requirements. Unlike a VC, who may have been out the night before drinking and simply decline you for no other reason than their own hangover. Banks make their money in interest, they want to lend you money, they stay out of your business. They do not make money by holding a percentage of your company hostage and pumping up the value (real or imaginary) and then selling to the next guy (which is exactly how a VC operates). Or look for funding and mentorship in the software community in which you are operating -- from Adobe or one of the other video editing software companies. Start attending conferences attended by people in the video production industry. You might be able to find a niche for your product in a large video production company that could optimize their process or save on licensing costs. One or two of those deals is really all you need. And the value of the YC network is greatly overstated. If you're building anything other than run-of-the-mill SaaS software, it's almost useless. They can give you money, but they can't write code for you or (in my experience working with other VC's) help you with recruiting, beyond having someone send out blind emails on LinkedIn and adding you to their jobs page.

kvm 7y ago

"Over the space of a year, we had a 60% MoM Growth Rate, 35K MAU and a great team!" 60% MoM growth = 281x growth in a year. So you had 35k/281 = 125 users a year ago? This seems like a disingenuous growth rate unless I'm missing something

MattyMc 7y ago
Why is this disingenuous? Just curious :)
- kvm 7y ago
  If I had 1 user on month 1, 1000 users on month 2, 5000 on month 3, 10000 on month 4, I could claim a 1000% (10x) MoM growth rate. But that'd imply you'll have 100K users during month 5 and 1M users on month 6, whereas it'll likely be <40K. One of the reasons you look at MoM growth rate is to project how fast it'll keep growing over the immediate future. It's unclear to me right now BTW don't get me wrong, I like the story and the hustle. Just not these numbers :)
  - KindOne 7y ago
    Something like this? https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/

greenie_beans 7y ago

Maybe for you next YC app, take or leave this idea... Put Wibbitz out of business by developing AI that can create short videos based on text from written content. For instance, the video at the top of this page, which was adapted from its attached article. https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/desserts/wine-candy-pairing https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-f... I don't know the first thing about AI or video, but I do know the humans who make those sorts of videos just read the article and search Getty images. You could prolly train the AI to have the right "taste" based on all the content created by Meredith Corp lifestyle brands, like Real Simple, Food and Wine, etc. Meredith now owns Time Inc, and I know that they and every other media company are doing whatever they can to compete in the digital space. One way is by adapting their written content into short, digest-able, social media-consumed videos.

tapatio 7y ago

Meh, YC is so 2010.

cristinaibunea 7y ago

Oh, wow. Funniest thing. I started reading your blogpost, got to the part where you mention the overpriced Airbnb, looked at the picture with the white truck and then realised MY TEAM AND I HAVE BEEN LIVING IN UNIVERSE Z for the past 4 months. Moved here when we got into YC and I'm currently writing this message from here. Your story is truly fantastic.

timurmamedov 7y ago
Haha, good old Universe Z. Didn't know anyone would recognize it. Thanks for the kind words!