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As someone who unsuccessfully applied for YC W21, and who also launched a product on Kickstarter in the last month, I'm going between "kind of funny" and "I'm s

As someone who unsuccessfully applied for YC W21, and who also launched a product on Kickstarter in the last month, I'm going between "kind of funny" and "I'm so confused". We didn't make it into YC, though I did get the "you were in the top 10%, please consider reapplying" email. I thought I had some idea of why we didn't make it, and what I'd change if and when we were to reapply. Hell, given that our business has grown a ton, I figured we'd have a strong application. But seeing this makes me think that I might have some really fundamental misunderstanding of the application process.

jeffreygoesto 5y ago
You might give it a positive spin and be proud you grow and make it without the need to pay investors later?
imhoguy 5y ago
Congratulations on your success! YC are just people, not some infallible oracle.
nikanj 5y ago
YC is a form of VC, and first and foremost validates "Will this make good returns?", not "Is this legit".
- Rastonbury 5y ago
  Are you serious? Legitimacy (not being a scam) and ability to execute contribute heavily to successful outcomes. Any VC who invests in every shady startup claiming to become the next Google/FB is gonna go broke
  - nikanj 5y ago
    Seems like Theranos, UBeam etc have no trouble raising money, despite every domain expert saying their goals are impossible according to our current understanding of physics
    - dagw 5y ago
      And I suspect many of those early investors in Theranos made a very nice return on that investment, so obviously ignoring the domain experts wasn't such a bad move for them.
      - tomhoward 5y ago
        Nobody is likely to have made money from Theranos - it went bankrupt. Maybe there were some isolated cases of private stock sales by early investors, but this doesn’t normally happen with big investors, as it’s a sign of no-confidence in the company, so major investors can’t do it without harming the reputation and value of the company, including the value of the stock they’re trying to sell.
    - tomhoward 5y ago
      Y Combinator didn't invest in either of these companies. With Theranos, most of the investors weren't VCs. The ones who were were had family/personal connections to Elizabeth Holmes. They've been made to look stupid, and everyone knows if they kept doing deals like that they'd go bust. UBeam had several top VC investors, but they must have been convinced that the original technology demo was legitimate, and that it could be productized and scaled. The skeptics against UBeam only came out later, after they'd already raised their big money. Again, they know if they keep doing deals like that, they'll go bust.

jeffreygoesto 5y ago

You might give it a positive spin and be proud you grow and make it without the need to pay investors later?

imhoguy 5y ago

Congratulations on your success! YC are just people, not some infallible oracle.

nikanj 5y ago

YC is a form of VC, and first and foremost validates "Will this make good returns?", not "Is this legit".

Rastonbury 5y ago
Are you serious? Legitimacy (not being a scam) and ability to execute contribute heavily to successful outcomes. Any VC who invests in every shady startup claiming to become the next Google/FB is gonna go broke
- nikanj 5y ago
  Seems like Theranos, UBeam etc have no trouble raising money, despite every domain expert saying their goals are impossible according to our current understanding of physics
  - dagw 5y ago
    And I suspect many of those early investors in Theranos made a very nice return on that investment, so obviously ignoring the domain experts wasn't such a bad move for them.
    - tomhoward 5y ago
      Nobody is likely to have made money from Theranos - it went bankrupt. Maybe there were some isolated cases of private stock sales by early investors, but this doesn’t normally happen with big investors, as it’s a sign of no-confidence in the company, so major investors can’t do it without harming the reputation and value of the company, including the value of the stock they’re trying to sell.
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    Y Combinator didn't invest in either of these companies. With Theranos, most of the investors weren't VCs. The ones who were were had family/personal connections to Elizabeth Holmes. They've been made to look stupid, and everyone knows if they kept doing deals like that they'd go bust. UBeam had several top VC investors, but they must have been convinced that the original technology demo was legitimate, and that it could be productized and scaled. The skeptics against UBeam only came out later, after they'd already raised their big money. Again, they know if they keep doing deals like that, they'll go bust.