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The founder has some really informative and very detailed articles, e.g. this one about being rejected after his YC interview. https://www.listennotes.com/blog/

The founder has some really informative and very detailed articles, e.g. this one about being rejected after his YC interview. https://www.listennotes.com/blog/my-y-combinator-interview-experience-w18-22/ https://www.listennotes.com/blog/my-y-combinator-interview-e... It's interesting to read why he thinks he got rejected.

Mikeb85 5y ago
Great article, but I think he's far too hard on himself and reading too deep into his rejection (plenty of immigrants, non-native English speakers and people in their 30's from non-Ivy League schools succeed at building businesses). He's built a bootstrapped site that is probably going to be able to sustain himself for years. But small businesses and big businesses are fundamentally different. I come from the restaurant space, and all my favourite restaurants are 'small' and likely can't exist in any place other than where they are. They can't scale. But they're much better qualitatively than restaurants that can scale. Some of the other products and things in my life that I enjoy also come from small artisans and could never scale. And that's OK. He didn't build a massively scalable business but he did build a (seemingly) good one.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I think his earlier expectation that without a greencard he was summarily rejected might be true. It's a lot of risk to assume of "the founder/entire team might be deported". Other than that, I think you are correct he was reading too much into his demographics/education.
- RapperWhoMadeIt 5y ago
  Idk if he is even hard on himself. He actually sounds like someone happy with how the site ended up evolving. And maybe even looking back in hindsight to the YC experience, he realized that they might have not been a good fit anyways. I mean, he says it quite bluntly, VCs are in the business to do money, they don't finance you as a charitable exercise or because they like tech for the sake of tech. He found a nice ARR through the API service, and if that sustains him well, and as he says, does not cause him much stress nor makes him work long hours, it's probably an even better outcome that being pressured by the VC to fulfill some exorbitant growth. To me it sounds really cool to be a one-man band, and his posts describing the tech stack are really delightful to read (he's definitely someone who knows what he is doing, I guess that comes with being 'old' and having previous 'not-serial-entrepeneur' tech experience as a developer.

Mikeb85 5y ago

Great article, but I think he's far too hard on himself and reading too deep into his rejection (plenty of immigrants, non-native English speakers and people in their 30's from non-Ivy League schools succeed at building businesses). He's built a bootstrapped site that is probably going to be able to sustain himself for years. But small businesses and big businesses are fundamentally different. I come from the restaurant space, and all my favourite restaurants are 'small' and likely can't exist in any place other than where they are. They can't scale. But they're much better qualitatively than restaurants that can scale. Some of the other products and things in my life that I enjoy also come from small artisans and could never scale. And that's OK. He didn't build a massively scalable business but he did build a (seemingly) good one.

HWR_14 5y ago
I think his earlier expectation that without a greencard he was summarily rejected might be true. It's a lot of risk to assume of "the founder/entire team might be deported". Other than that, I think you are correct he was reading too much into his demographics/education.
RapperWhoMadeIt 5y ago
Idk if he is even hard on himself. He actually sounds like someone happy with how the site ended up evolving. And maybe even looking back in hindsight to the YC experience, he realized that they might have not been a good fit anyways. I mean, he says it quite bluntly, VCs are in the business to do money, they don't finance you as a charitable exercise or because they like tech for the sake of tech. He found a nice ARR through the API service, and if that sustains him well, and as he says, does not cause him much stress nor makes him work long hours, it's probably an even better outcome that being pressured by the VC to fulfill some exorbitant growth. To me it sounds really cool to be a one-man band, and his posts describing the tech stack are really delightful to read (he's definitely someone who knows what he is doing, I guess that comes with being 'old' and having previous 'not-serial-entrepeneur' tech experience as a developer.