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I've been rejected from YC several times. Now, I actually have a profitable company with real growth, and this time I've decided NOT to apply. Because I don't

I've been rejected from YC several times. Now, I actually have a profitable company with real growth, and this time I've decided NOT to apply. Because I don't need it. Unless you're in an industry which is fundamentally capital intensive, or you absolutely need to hire staff very early on, capital limitations are actually a good thing. My first startup (which failed) was funded, but now I find I make better decisions on a shoestring budget. You really are forced to be creative and cut the fat to make things work. It's also a natural inhibitor to growing too fast. I find my thinking is clearer when I know I cannot spend more than I earn. True "networking" is done on the basis of trust, merit, and warmth of the intro, not on having more people in your batch to spam. This article gave the example of finding a contact at Apple to get something done. But the larger the batch size, the less warm the intro you can get/offer. Why should I provide an intro to a random other YC member whom I have no relationship with? At some point it becomes about as valuable as LinkedIn. If I actually felt that getting into YC would help me grow faster or better, or I really needed access to capital, then I would do it. But so far I feel like it would just be a distraction.

jacquesm 6y ago
> If I actually felt that getting into YC would help me grow faster or better, or I really needed access to capital, then I would do it. Unless of course they rejected you again.
mrkurt 6y ago
I've also been rejected by YC several times! I think not doing YC is a really smart choice for some companies. That said, I think the value of yc is twofold. (1) it's the best possible way to get to a first round of funding and (2) the partners give exceptionally good advice, even for experienced founders. (1) is useful even if you don't think you'll raise round after round after round of funding. Some of my favorite YC companies took no extra funding. They did yc, raised a normal sized seed round, and are off building fun things and living delightful lives. Seed rounds buy a lot of time and flexibility. In my case, a seed round has let me make big decisions to move our company closer to what I want, even when it meant turning down revenue or firing a bunch of customers. There's nothing more freeing than the ability to escape boat anchor customers. Even still, yc will help most any company grow faster. That's pretty much what it's designed for. Not all companies should grow faster.
- dumbfoundded 6y ago
  I got rejected from YC b/c they hated my product despite it doing >$100K/month at the time. It honestly felt like a big waste of time flying out and then getting told they didn't like my flavor of cannabis company. The value I see in YC is the network, not the money nor the advice. The money is poorly priced for the equity and the advice is all online. Knowing people who can help you do things you need to do is basically all business is. Knowing higher quality people helps you get done things faster without it feeling like as much of a grind. Back to the question of scaling YC. IMO, scaling YC isn't really about the quality of companies but the quality of people. I'm honestly not sure. Maybe, but it's a risk. Staying the same size and focusing on refinement is less of a risk. Why YC as an organization needs to take a risk as opposed to staying the same is probably more a reflection of the ambitions of the partners and investors more than anything.
practicalpants 6y ago
Circa 2014 I was out of college and very intent on getting into YC for mostly the wrong reasons - which were credentialism and thinking it meant you "made it". Eventually went through another accelerator, and wasted a year+ when I should have scrapped and moved on to something better. Now to me is obvious if you start a business of value with revenue and you can sell yourself, you can easily raise funds, build a team, get early b2b customers, etc. just like everyone did before accelerators were considered a career move. The Rockefellers and Carnegies of the world were voraciously independent business builders and I really do love meeting the types who were able to make it to seed on their own.

jacquesm 6y ago

> If I actually felt that getting into YC would help me grow faster or better, or I really needed access to capital, then I would do it. Unless of course they rejected you again.

mrkurt 6y ago

I've also been rejected by YC several times! I think not doing YC is a really smart choice for some companies. That said, I think the value of yc is twofold. (1) it's the best possible way to get to a first round of funding and (2) the partners give exceptionally good advice, even for experienced founders. (1) is useful even if you don't think you'll raise round after round after round of funding. Some of my favorite YC companies took no extra funding. They did yc, raised a normal sized seed round, and are off building fun things and living delightful lives. Seed rounds buy a lot of time and flexibility. In my case, a seed round has let me make big decisions to move our company closer to what I want, even when it meant turning down revenue or firing a bunch of customers. There's nothing more freeing than the ability to escape boat anchor customers. Even still, yc will help most any company grow faster. That's pretty much what it's designed for. Not all companies should grow faster.

dumbfoundded 6y ago
I got rejected from YC b/c they hated my product despite it doing >$100K/month at the time. It honestly felt like a big waste of time flying out and then getting told they didn't like my flavor of cannabis company. The value I see in YC is the network, not the money nor the advice. The money is poorly priced for the equity and the advice is all online. Knowing people who can help you do things you need to do is basically all business is. Knowing higher quality people helps you get done things faster without it feeling like as much of a grind. Back to the question of scaling YC. IMO, scaling YC isn't really about the quality of companies but the quality of people. I'm honestly not sure. Maybe, but it's a risk. Staying the same size and focusing on refinement is less of a risk. Why YC as an organization needs to take a risk as opposed to staying the same is probably more a reflection of the ambitions of the partners and investors more than anything.

practicalpants 6y ago

Circa 2014 I was out of college and very intent on getting into YC for mostly the wrong reasons - which were credentialism and thinking it meant you "made it". Eventually went through another accelerator, and wasted a year+ when I should have scrapped and moved on to something better. Now to me is obvious if you start a business of value with revenue and you can sell yourself, you can easily raise funds, build a team, get early b2b customers, etc. just like everyone did before accelerators were considered a career move. The Rockefellers and Carnegies of the world were voraciously independent business builders and I really do love meeting the types who were able to make it to seed on their own.