21 ms·

Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

151 points by _chrischae 4y ago

dandigangi 4y ago
Congrats! Made it to the final round once upon a time and then got turned down. Interesting process though.
deleted 4y ago
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jitl 4y ago
I work at Notion. I advise you to avoid the .so TLD - there’s a lot of institutional bias against Somalia’s TLD, like blanket blocks in many corporate firewalls. This problem will be worse if you serve public user-generated content from that TLD because the chain of communication from you to SomaliNIC might have a bunch of unknown third party intermediaries where an abuse report can get lost. Today Notion is large & successful enough to be resilient to these issues, but in the 2019-2020 years the use of .so was responsible for a few long outages. To this day, we have many requests to move our service to .com. I’m always a little worried when I see other startups using this TLD.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  In general, I would advise against using any non .com TLD. Some percentage of your users will automatically type in the .com domain. Some of these might get confused and not come back. Why lose any of these "free" users at all?
- soheil 4y ago
  I like the .so TLD. If enough people keep using it I don't see how that would still make people nervous. It's a nice sounding TLD and if people have a problem with Somalia they shouldn't take it out on an innocent suffix.
  - shagie 4y ago
    The question is "what control can the government of Somalia have on names that are registered under its TLD?" Can it seize the name? In 2010, it was regulated by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In 2015 it was a different government and managed by Somali Network Information Center. In 2018 it was transferred to The National Communications Authority. Will the policies change? If the country cuts ties with all non-Somali entities will the email addresses continue to work for a time? Or will they be snapped up by scammers? Additionally, registration financially goes to the government of Somalia (see the controversies with .io TLD).
    - soheil 4y ago
      The more we fear decentralization the more powerful entities (monopolies?) like Google will become. I’m ok with a non-zero risk of my domain being pulled from under me if I know I’m furthering the cause of a free internet.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - jitl 4y ago
      The risk of miscommunication in the supply chain between your registrar and SoNIC is much greater than the risk of nation-state attack by Somalia on your TLD. The people at SoNIC are professional.
- stickfigure 4y ago
  I would avoid all of the two-letter domain names. I suffered 8 hours of excruciating downtime back in 2012 when the .st nic went down: https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-letter-TLDs-for-your-domain-name https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-l... I learned my lesson, I'll take the .com every time, even if I have to get creative with the name.
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    > I would avoid all of the two-letter domain names Here in Europe all of the national TLDs for countries I can think of off the top of my head are two letter TLDs, and will be regarded as trustworthy in their respective countries. .no .se .dk .fi .fr .it .de .ch .at .pl .es .sk and so on and so forth
    - fsckboy 4y ago
      I certainly trust those and globally, cuz "in their respective countries" is not a high enough bar
      - ransom1538 4y ago
        There is always therelateteam.com
    - InCityDreams 4y ago
      Gov.uk - love it. .co.uk - always smelled of cheap, second hand, gaudy.
    - eftychis 4y ago
      ccTLDs are two letter correct. Avoiding two letter TLDs is non-practical. If you focus on the local market just take your country's TLD.
  - echelon 4y ago
    .ai and .io are hot commodities, though, and I've never once had problems with either. Looking at the ample existential evidence, both startups and VCs love these two TLDs.
- pavon 4y ago
  What is the secondary meaning that causes people to choose the .so domain? I get .tv, .ai and finishing the spelling of a word using a ccTLD, but I never understood why people where using so (other than local businesses). Whenever I see them my general impression is one of (a) I'm not hip enough to get this reference, mixed with (b) that company was so desperate to find a good domain name they resorted to registering an obscure TLD in a war-torn third world country.
  - CoffeeOnWrite 4y ago
    I’m curious the answer to this too. I always think of .so shared object files, which is a cool nerdy association.. but that can’t be it right?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - selcuka 4y ago
    It looks like there is no special meaning, at least not for Notion [1]: > We chose .so when we were starting out (lots of other companies named Notion, and .so was available). [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/f6x9mk/why_the_so_domain/fi8l82f/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/f6x9mk/why_the_so_d...
  - jitl 4y ago
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  Why does Notion use .so? It looks and sounds unprofessional to me.
  - kylecordes 4y ago
    It was probably the first TLD they found where their company name was available.
- j45 4y ago
  Thanks for the insight. I often wonder if this might be why why certain corp environments seem to log me out of notion a few times a month. Also wish Notion was a first class offline first software so it wouldn’t leave me in the lurch so often.
lorenzosnap 4y ago
Well, what can one say ? congratulations. That really shows some level of persistence.
crackercrews 4y ago
> Our ideas were long and vague. > We had practically zero proof that we could execute our plans successfully. > And as a result, our interview with YC went terribly. If they were doing so badly, how did they even get an interview in the first place?
- pvarangot 4y ago
  Article says first three times they didn't
  - crackercrews 4y ago
    Yup, that's why I wrote "interview" in the singular. Still wondering how they got even one if they were doing so badly.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  Even their current product seems very vague. They're building yet another CRM?
eins1234 4y ago
This is obviously based on anecdata, take it with a healthy helping of salt, but from what I've heard from a bunch of founder friends who have applied to YC with varying results, I get the sense that if you want to get in, you might be better off applying before you even start working on your startup. Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get much higher, because there's suddenly a lot more concrete data points to benchmark your startup against. Before that all they have is basically an idea and a bunch of resumes. This is of course contingent on the fact that you have impressive looking resumes and at least a plausible idea. It's a bit of a catch 22 for B2B startups hoping to use the YC startup network as a source of early customers, but didn't apply early enough. If you're thinking of starting a B2B startup that could make good use of YC's network, my recommendation would be to apply as early as possible, before you even start working on it. Worst case scenario is you get rejected and end up having to apply again in 6 months (which is fine because you applied 6+ months earlier than you might have otherwise, and now have feedback from their rejection to make your next application better).
- rl3 4y ago
  >Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get much higher, because there's suddenly a lot more concrete data points to benchmark your startup against. I started in late 2013 and was rejected by YC in 2016. Haven't applied to anything since, with the exception of Apollo. Certainly was very aware of that dynamic at the time. As a solo founder who lacks the aforementioned impressive resume, and who's nearly a decade in, I no longer have much hope for accelerators. This was written less than a month before COVID inflicted a great deal of pain and delayed things by a little more than a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22429827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22429827 But hey, at least I'm at step one now.
  - allisdust 4y ago
    Would it not make sense for you to get user validation with a smaller scale poc than the herculean plan you outlined. Also your plan seem to focus too much on funding goals than user acquisition or product market fit. Unless you are planning to create a spacex style capital intensive company, I don't see why you need so much funding for.
IncRnd 4y ago
Congratualtions on your temerity! I looked at relate.so, and I already use a CRM that does everything listed on your website. What are the new features that relate provides compared to other CRMs?
- mchusma 4y ago
  Yes, I had the same question. I'd love to know what makes this different than other CRMs (Salesforce, front, hubspot, pipedrive).
- ipaddr 4y ago
  What CRM do you use and what features are important. So many different crms out there.
- ska 4y ago
  I think you mean tenacity...
  - IncRnd 4y ago
    No. I meant temerity as in excessive confidence.
    - testmasterflex 4y ago
      You understand that’s an insult right? :P
- kylecordes 4y ago
  Looking at our industry as a whole, it appears that making yet another of some proven good, profitable, popular category is a pretty decent strategy. (I too am inclined, when someone is making a new thing, to wonder… But a quick search finds 10 existing things that appear to do a pretty great job of everything you are thinking of, why would someone not use one of them? Why make the new, similar thing? I think being able to suppress this thought might be helpful to startup success.)
btheshoe 4y ago
Am I right in my reading that OP went more than 2 years into a startup without a single paying customer? That seems a little absurd.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
version_five 4y ago
Congratulations! I've been thinking about this a bit, even for a company as renowned as YC, I don't like how the power balance is, and the sort of "we made it!" vibe as if you finally impressed some diety enough to grace you with good fortune. I see the same kind of posts (oddly) about people who tried n times to get a job at google and finally they "made it". Like what are we doing? I think that once an institution has this kind of getting in as the goal, rather than the actual hard work of making an objectively successful company, incentive structures get all screwed up. This is in no way specific to YC, the same happens in universities, in investment banking, whatever. But it signals the beginning of a hollowing out where the credential is everything and what underlies it doesn't matter. There are definitely areas where the culture is skewed very much in this direction, and it isn't somewhere I'd want to be
- andrewguenther 4y ago
  I think part of it is that the incentives have changed. A lot of people don't see Google as "I've made it" they see it as "great, I can work anywhere I want after this." I think we're starting to see that in YC as well: "I'm in the YC network now." It isn't about the business you get in with, it's that you, as a founder, are now part of the YC network and the opportunities that opens for you as an individual rather than what it means for your business. My read of the post wasn't that they so desperately needed YC's approval to think that their business could be a success, it's that they just wanted to be in YC.
  - bentlegen 4y ago
    I think one of the brilliant things YC (and PG) have done is propagate “being a founder” as occupying an elite career/employment category beyond anything else. Like, there’s an under appreciated level of category building that YC is responsible for (and the success of their founders hasn’t hurt).
    - As_You_Wish 4y ago
      I don't understand this. Anyone can "be a founder." All you have to do is go down to the Department of Finance, file for a business and fictitious business name, and voila, you're a founder. Or, does "founder" mean something different? Does it mean that you start a company AND bring a company to $100 million revenue minimum or something? If that's the case, that's kinda weird to me, but ok boomers, er, sorry, millenials. But, if it means that anyone is a founder by signing a piece of paper and paying $25 at the county office, then color me unimpressed. So can anyone enlighten me about what the specific definition of a founder is? Is it something different, some other nuance or definition? I don't know, I'm confused. Someone, help a brother out.
andrewguenther 4y ago
This story just really doesn't read like the triumph of will it was meant to be... My takeaway from this is that the founders wanted to get into YC. The business doesn't matter, they just wanted to be in YC. The business morphed around what they thought would get into YC, not what would actually make a good business. I have a ton of respect for YCombinator, but they are not all knowing oracles who get it right 100% of the time. The fact that the immediate response to each rejection was "pivot" I think speaks volumes to the founder's goals here.
- Swizec 4y ago
  > The fact that the immediate response to each rejection was "pivot" I think speaks volumes to the founder's goals here I would go so far as to say this is validation that YC made the right decision in rejecting them. If even the founder’s dons believe in their own idea, why should YC?
  - andrewguenther 4y ago
    100% agreed. I think it speaks MUCH more to the conviction of founders to apply a few times and then get in on a similar, refined idea. Then your lessons learned come off more as what you've learned about building a successful business vs how to build a business that YC will accept.
- deleted 4y ago
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- version_five 4y ago
  Yes your comment better captures what I was trying to say here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32772702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32772702 It's not like they're excited they get to help people do better CRM, they're just excited they got in, and (not uniquely) appear to have crafted an optimized offering designed to get into YC, which I don't think is YCs (at least initial) intention nor do I think it's desirable. It's a signal that it's "jumped the shark" and it's time to move on to a new construct
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b2btech 4y ago
It's no longer around in its current form, but this looks like the same exact value prop and feature set that RelateIQ had, whom Salesforce purchased. I just can't help but wonder if its coincidence that your company name is also relate...
wyxuan 4y ago
Surprised at the rigor they had for your process. Just looking at a lot of crypto companies that have joined their batch, I was questioning whether they even looked at the ideas or not. Maybe they are just better with b2b SaaS and other verticals, with crypto being exceptionally bad.
andrewstuart 4y ago
People question why startups are so focused on getting into YC. They ask the reasonable question "Why care so much about getting into YC? How about focusing on building a great product instead of optimising for YC?" I think the answer is that YC is a significant success factor, and if your company is a member of YC then many future objectives and challenges will become easier. People who have attended certain universities gain many ongoing benefits from the recognition of the university. "Oh, you went to Harvard/Standford/Melbourne University? Yes please come talk to us." People who have worked at certain companies many ongoing benefits from the recognition of the company. "Oh, you worked at Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Netflix/Apple? Yes please come talk to us." "Oh, you're a YC company? Yes please come talk to us." It's instant credibility and that really helps open alot of doors. Dress well, be kind to people, go to a recognised elite university, start your career working at one or two of the top tech companies, get your startup into YC and you're likely to be able to pay your bills into the future. I should say I did not go to an elite university, did not work at a top tier tech company and have not been through YC :-)
- deleted 4y ago
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fullsend 4y ago
Perseverance! Very cool.
tmilard 4y ago
leonidasv 4y ago
Congratulations! I would like to make a suggestion, if you that's possible... Your landing page has way too much text. There's the copy from the landing page + the text on screenshots. I found it overwhelming and could not really grasp the benefits of your product. If possible, please consider changing the real screenshots to mockups where the text is not real text but placeholder bars (except for action buttons/text that's necessary to show functionality you're featuring). Wish you guys the best.
Hippieblog 4y ago
[dead]
sircastor 4y ago
>But for the past three years, we've struggled to find the right problem to solve and gain even a small traction. Each time we pivoted and applied to YC (and were rejected), we learned something new. Respectfully, I’ve never particularly understood this approach to business. It seems like a lot of VC-funded or VC-hopeful companies take the approach of “I know I should be in business, I just don’t know in what” which feels entirely backwards to me. I understand the company that starts out selling one service (renting DVDs for instance) and then shifts to an adjacent business (streaming movies) because one falls out or there’s opportunities to expand. But the hunting around for a market seems bizarre.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  It is essentially the the same sentiment that other people have when looking for a good job. If you want to work for yourself, you look for opportunities to do so. VC look for opportunities to invest. Everybody is simply searching for a way to make money the way they want to.
- debarshri 4y ago
  I have rarely seen an entrepreneur execute the same plan that the person had since the inception of the idea. That's the nature of the startup, you have to keep pivoting to avoid a crowded space, discover new markets when you have an insight. If you haven't pivoted then you probably haven't discovered an untapped market. Building a startup is all about testing hypothesis and running experiments. More often, these experiments fail and you have to create a new hypothesis. You will be surprised how often people have similar ideas and the unique idea you think you have is not so unique and have lot of execution nitty gritty. I have seen later stage orgs pivot too. And boy, pivoting is an art too. You can pivot when you are selling none or selling a lot easily. When you are selling few, you have a hope that the product might work and you get stuck in the chasm. I'm glad these guys have found a way to get out of it.
  - auspex 4y ago
    Finding an undiscovered market doesn’t have to be from a pivot. If you’ve lived the problem or are on the edge of a technology or power curve yourself, you can uncover a new market without a pivot.
v0idzer0 4y ago
> YC’s new standard deal takes 7% for $125k and equity worth $375k next capped or priced round Yikes.
achow 4y ago
I cannot reconcile this article with this year's YCombinator stats.. 43% of the batch were accepted with only an idea 71% of the batch had zero revenue before YC https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/meet-the-yc-summer-2022-batch/ https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/meet-the-yc-summer-2022-bat... Is it about how you behave during the interview and/or your past record (ex. successful serial entrepreneurs)? Otherwise, I do not see any reason why this startup was rejected 5 times and many other startups are accepted presumably first time itself with just an idea or no revenue/customers.
- diceduckmonk 4y ago
  There is atleast two stops between the two: a working prototype, non-paying customers.
maz1b 4y ago
I definitely can understand this and appreciate you sharing candidly the failures and rejections. I'm in a similar boat, and every time we've learned a lot from the rejections. We have thousands of recurring, paying customers, a unique product, great engagement, but yet we still can't seem to get to the interview stage. Hoping that changes this time around. I'm not a traditional founder - I am a medical doctor and full stack programmer/designer, so if anyone has any insights or tips that would be greatly appreciated! The YC pedigree and more importantly, the rapid learning and network is something I am definitely aiming for.
jwmoz 4y ago
Seems like they were just desperate to have a startup rather than naturally having a solution to a problem.
breck 4y ago

151 points by _chrischae 4y ago

dandigangi 4y ago

Congrats! Made it to the final round once upon a time and then got turned down. Interesting process though.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jitl 4y ago

I work at Notion. I advise you to avoid the .so TLD - there’s a lot of institutional bias against Somalia’s TLD, like blanket blocks in many corporate firewalls. This problem will be worse if you serve public user-generated content from that TLD because the chain of communication from you to SomaliNIC might have a bunch of unknown third party intermediaries where an abuse report can get lost. Today Notion is large & successful enough to be resilient to these issues, but in the 2019-2020 years the use of .so was responsible for a few long outages. To this day, we have many requests to move our service to .com. I’m always a little worried when I see other startups using this TLD.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
In general, I would advise against using any non .com TLD. Some percentage of your users will automatically type in the .com domain. Some of these might get confused and not come back. Why lose any of these "free" users at all?
soheil 4y ago
I like the .so TLD. If enough people keep using it I don't see how that would still make people nervous. It's a nice sounding TLD and if people have a problem with Somalia they shouldn't take it out on an innocent suffix.
- shagie 4y ago
  The question is "what control can the government of Somalia have on names that are registered under its TLD?" Can it seize the name? In 2010, it was regulated by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In 2015 it was a different government and managed by Somali Network Information Center. In 2018 it was transferred to The National Communications Authority. Will the policies change? If the country cuts ties with all non-Somali entities will the email addresses continue to work for a time? Or will they be snapped up by scammers? Additionally, registration financially goes to the government of Somalia (see the controversies with .io TLD).
  - soheil 4y ago
    The more we fear decentralization the more powerful entities (monopolies?) like Google will become. I’m ok with a non-zero risk of my domain being pulled from under me if I know I’m furthering the cause of a free internet.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jitl 4y ago
    The risk of miscommunication in the supply chain between your registrar and SoNIC is much greater than the risk of nation-state attack by Somalia on your TLD. The people at SoNIC are professional.
stickfigure 4y ago
I would avoid all of the two-letter domain names. I suffered 8 hours of excruciating downtime back in 2012 when the .st nic went down: https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-letter-TLDs-for-your-domain-name https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-l... I learned my lesson, I'll take the .com every time, even if I have to get creative with the name.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  > I would avoid all of the two-letter domain names Here in Europe all of the national TLDs for countries I can think of off the top of my head are two letter TLDs, and will be regarded as trustworthy in their respective countries. .no .se .dk .fi .fr .it .de .ch .at .pl .es .sk and so on and so forth
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    I certainly trust those and globally, cuz "in their respective countries" is not a high enough bar
    - ransom1538 4y ago
      There is always therelateteam.com
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    Gov.uk - love it. .co.uk - always smelled of cheap, second hand, gaudy.
  - eftychis 4y ago
    ccTLDs are two letter correct. Avoiding two letter TLDs is non-practical. If you focus on the local market just take your country's TLD.
- echelon 4y ago
  .ai and .io are hot commodities, though, and I've never once had problems with either. Looking at the ample existential evidence, both startups and VCs love these two TLDs.
pavon 4y ago
What is the secondary meaning that causes people to choose the .so domain? I get .tv, .ai and finishing the spelling of a word using a ccTLD, but I never understood why people where using so (other than local businesses). Whenever I see them my general impression is one of (a) I'm not hip enough to get this reference, mixed with (b) that company was so desperate to find a good domain name they resorted to registering an obscure TLD in a war-torn third world country.
- CoffeeOnWrite 4y ago
  I’m curious the answer to this too. I always think of .so shared object files, which is a cool nerdy association.. but that can’t be it right?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- selcuka 4y ago
  It looks like there is no special meaning, at least not for Notion [1]: > We chose .so when we were starting out (lots of other companies named Notion, and .so was available). [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/f6x9mk/why_the_so_domain/fi8l82f/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/f6x9mk/why_the_so_d...
- jitl 4y ago
  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
teaearlgraycold 4y ago
Why does Notion use .so? It looks and sounds unprofessional to me.
- kylecordes 4y ago
  It was probably the first TLD they found where their company name was available.
j45 4y ago
Thanks for the insight. I often wonder if this might be why why certain corp environments seem to log me out of notion a few times a month. Also wish Notion was a first class offline first software so it wouldn’t leave me in the lurch so often.

lorenzosnap 4y ago

Well, what can one say ? congratulations. That really shows some level of persistence.

crackercrews 4y ago

> Our ideas were long and vague. > We had practically zero proof that we could execute our plans successfully. > And as a result, our interview with YC went terribly. If they were doing so badly, how did they even get an interview in the first place?

pvarangot 4y ago
Article says first three times they didn't
- crackercrews 4y ago
  Yup, that's why I wrote "interview" in the singular. Still wondering how they got even one if they were doing so badly.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
Even their current product seems very vague. They're building yet another CRM?

eins1234 4y ago

This is obviously based on anecdata, take it with a healthy helping of salt, but from what I've heard from a bunch of founder friends who have applied to YC with varying results, I get the sense that if you want to get in, you might be better off applying before you even start working on your startup. Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get much higher, because there's suddenly a lot more concrete data points to benchmark your startup against. Before that all they have is basically an idea and a bunch of resumes. This is of course contingent on the fact that you have impressive looking resumes and at least a plausible idea. It's a bit of a catch 22 for B2B startups hoping to use the YC startup network as a source of early customers, but didn't apply early enough. If you're thinking of starting a B2B startup that could make good use of YC's network, my recommendation would be to apply as early as possible, before you even start working on it. Worst case scenario is you get rejected and end up having to apply again in 6 months (which is fine because you applied 6+ months earlier than you might have otherwise, and now have feedback from their rejection to make your next application better).

rl3 4y ago
>Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get much higher, because there's suddenly a lot more concrete data points to benchmark your startup against. I started in late 2013 and was rejected by YC in 2016. Haven't applied to anything since, with the exception of Apollo. Certainly was very aware of that dynamic at the time. As a solo founder who lacks the aforementioned impressive resume, and who's nearly a decade in, I no longer have much hope for accelerators. This was written less than a month before COVID inflicted a great deal of pain and delayed things by a little more than a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22429827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22429827 But hey, at least I'm at step one now.
- allisdust 4y ago
  Would it not make sense for you to get user validation with a smaller scale poc than the herculean plan you outlined. Also your plan seem to focus too much on funding goals than user acquisition or product market fit. Unless you are planning to create a spacex style capital intensive company, I don't see why you need so much funding for.

IncRnd 4y ago

Congratualtions on your temerity! I looked at relate.so, and I already use a CRM that does everything listed on your website. What are the new features that relate provides compared to other CRMs?

mchusma 4y ago
Yes, I had the same question. I'd love to know what makes this different than other CRMs (Salesforce, front, hubspot, pipedrive).
ipaddr 4y ago
What CRM do you use and what features are important. So many different crms out there.
ska 4y ago
I think you mean tenacity...
- IncRnd 4y ago
  No. I meant temerity as in excessive confidence.
  - testmasterflex 4y ago
    You understand that’s an insult right? :P
kylecordes 4y ago
Looking at our industry as a whole, it appears that making yet another of some proven good, profitable, popular category is a pretty decent strategy. (I too am inclined, when someone is making a new thing, to wonder… But a quick search finds 10 existing things that appear to do a pretty great job of everything you are thinking of, why would someone not use one of them? Why make the new, similar thing? I think being able to suppress this thought might be helpful to startup success.)

btheshoe 4y ago

Am I right in my reading that OP went more than 2 years into a startup without a single paying customer? That seems a little absurd.

deleted 4y ago
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version_five 4y ago

Congratulations! I've been thinking about this a bit, even for a company as renowned as YC, I don't like how the power balance is, and the sort of "we made it!" vibe as if you finally impressed some diety enough to grace you with good fortune. I see the same kind of posts (oddly) about people who tried n times to get a job at google and finally they "made it". Like what are we doing? I think that once an institution has this kind of getting in as the goal, rather than the actual hard work of making an objectively successful company, incentive structures get all screwed up. This is in no way specific to YC, the same happens in universities, in investment banking, whatever. But it signals the beginning of a hollowing out where the credential is everything and what underlies it doesn't matter. There are definitely areas where the culture is skewed very much in this direction, and it isn't somewhere I'd want to be

andrewguenther 4y ago
I think part of it is that the incentives have changed. A lot of people don't see Google as "I've made it" they see it as "great, I can work anywhere I want after this." I think we're starting to see that in YC as well: "I'm in the YC network now." It isn't about the business you get in with, it's that you, as a founder, are now part of the YC network and the opportunities that opens for you as an individual rather than what it means for your business. My read of the post wasn't that they so desperately needed YC's approval to think that their business could be a success, it's that they just wanted to be in YC.
- bentlegen 4y ago
  I think one of the brilliant things YC (and PG) have done is propagate “being a founder” as occupying an elite career/employment category beyond anything else. Like, there’s an under appreciated level of category building that YC is responsible for (and the success of their founders hasn’t hurt).
  - As_You_Wish 4y ago
    I don't understand this. Anyone can "be a founder." All you have to do is go down to the Department of Finance, file for a business and fictitious business name, and voila, you're a founder. Or, does "founder" mean something different? Does it mean that you start a company AND bring a company to $100 million revenue minimum or something? If that's the case, that's kinda weird to me, but ok boomers, er, sorry, millenials. But, if it means that anyone is a founder by signing a piece of paper and paying $25 at the county office, then color me unimpressed. So can anyone enlighten me about what the specific definition of a founder is? Is it something different, some other nuance or definition? I don't know, I'm confused. Someone, help a brother out.

andrewguenther 4y ago

This story just really doesn't read like the triumph of will it was meant to be... My takeaway from this is that the founders wanted to get into YC. The business doesn't matter, they just wanted to be in YC. The business morphed around what they thought would get into YC, not what would actually make a good business. I have a ton of respect for YCombinator, but they are not all knowing oracles who get it right 100% of the time. The fact that the immediate response to each rejection was "pivot" I think speaks volumes to the founder's goals here.

Swizec 4y ago
> The fact that the immediate response to each rejection was "pivot" I think speaks volumes to the founder's goals here I would go so far as to say this is validation that YC made the right decision in rejecting them. If even the founder’s dons believe in their own idea, why should YC?
- andrewguenther 4y ago
  100% agreed. I think it speaks MUCH more to the conviction of founders to apply a few times and then get in on a similar, refined idea. Then your lessons learned come off more as what you've learned about building a successful business vs how to build a business that YC will accept.
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version_five 4y ago
Yes your comment better captures what I was trying to say here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32772702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32772702 It's not like they're excited they get to help people do better CRM, they're just excited they got in, and (not uniquely) appear to have crafted an optimized offering designed to get into YC, which I don't think is YCs (at least initial) intention nor do I think it's desirable. It's a signal that it's "jumped the shark" and it's time to move on to a new construct

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b2btech 4y ago

It's no longer around in its current form, but this looks like the same exact value prop and feature set that RelateIQ had, whom Salesforce purchased. I just can't help but wonder if its coincidence that your company name is also relate...

wyxuan 4y ago

Surprised at the rigor they had for your process. Just looking at a lot of crypto companies that have joined their batch, I was questioning whether they even looked at the ideas or not. Maybe they are just better with b2b SaaS and other verticals, with crypto being exceptionally bad.

andrewstuart 4y ago

People question why startups are so focused on getting into YC. They ask the reasonable question "Why care so much about getting into YC? How about focusing on building a great product instead of optimising for YC?" I think the answer is that YC is a significant success factor, and if your company is a member of YC then many future objectives and challenges will become easier. People who have attended certain universities gain many ongoing benefits from the recognition of the university. "Oh, you went to Harvard/Standford/Melbourne University? Yes please come talk to us." People who have worked at certain companies many ongoing benefits from the recognition of the company. "Oh, you worked at Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Netflix/Apple? Yes please come talk to us." "Oh, you're a YC company? Yes please come talk to us." It's instant credibility and that really helps open alot of doors. Dress well, be kind to people, go to a recognised elite university, start your career working at one or two of the top tech companies, get your startup into YC and you're likely to be able to pay your bills into the future. I should say I did not go to an elite university, did not work at a top tier tech company and have not been through YC :-)

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fullsend 4y ago

Perseverance! Very cool.

tmilard 4y ago

leonidasv 4y ago

Congratulations! I would like to make a suggestion, if you that's possible... Your landing page has way too much text. There's the copy from the landing page + the text on screenshots. I found it overwhelming and could not really grasp the benefits of your product. If possible, please consider changing the real screenshots to mockups where the text is not real text but placeholder bars (except for action buttons/text that's necessary to show functionality you're featuring). Wish you guys the best.

Hippieblog 4y ago

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sircastor 4y ago

>But for the past three years, we've struggled to find the right problem to solve and gain even a small traction. Each time we pivoted and applied to YC (and were rejected), we learned something new. Respectfully, I’ve never particularly understood this approach to business. It seems like a lot of VC-funded or VC-hopeful companies take the approach of “I know I should be in business, I just don’t know in what” which feels entirely backwards to me. I understand the company that starts out selling one service (renting DVDs for instance) and then shifts to an adjacent business (streaming movies) because one falls out or there’s opportunities to expand. But the hunting around for a market seems bizarre.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
It is essentially the the same sentiment that other people have when looking for a good job. If you want to work for yourself, you look for opportunities to do so. VC look for opportunities to invest. Everybody is simply searching for a way to make money the way they want to.
debarshri 4y ago
I have rarely seen an entrepreneur execute the same plan that the person had since the inception of the idea. That's the nature of the startup, you have to keep pivoting to avoid a crowded space, discover new markets when you have an insight. If you haven't pivoted then you probably haven't discovered an untapped market. Building a startup is all about testing hypothesis and running experiments. More often, these experiments fail and you have to create a new hypothesis. You will be surprised how often people have similar ideas and the unique idea you think you have is not so unique and have lot of execution nitty gritty. I have seen later stage orgs pivot too. And boy, pivoting is an art too. You can pivot when you are selling none or selling a lot easily. When you are selling few, you have a hope that the product might work and you get stuck in the chasm. I'm glad these guys have found a way to get out of it.
- auspex 4y ago
  Finding an undiscovered market doesn’t have to be from a pivot. If you’ve lived the problem or are on the edge of a technology or power curve yourself, you can uncover a new market without a pivot.

v0idzer0 4y ago

> YC’s new standard deal takes 7% for $125k and equity worth $375k next capped or priced round Yikes.

achow 4y ago

I cannot reconcile this article with this year's YCombinator stats.. 43% of the batch were accepted with only an idea 71% of the batch had zero revenue before YC https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/meet-the-yc-summer-2022-batch/ https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/meet-the-yc-summer-2022-bat... Is it about how you behave during the interview and/or your past record (ex. successful serial entrepreneurs)? Otherwise, I do not see any reason why this startup was rejected 5 times and many other startups are accepted presumably first time itself with just an idea or no revenue/customers.

diceduckmonk 4y ago
There is atleast two stops between the two: a working prototype, non-paying customers.

maz1b 4y ago

I definitely can understand this and appreciate you sharing candidly the failures and rejections. I'm in a similar boat, and every time we've learned a lot from the rejections. We have thousands of recurring, paying customers, a unique product, great engagement, but yet we still can't seem to get to the interview stage. Hoping that changes this time around. I'm not a traditional founder - I am a medical doctor and full stack programmer/designer, so if anyone has any insights or tips that would be greatly appreciated! The YC pedigree and more importantly, the rapid learning and network is something I am definitely aiming for.

jwmoz 4y ago

Seems like they were just desperate to have a startup rather than naturally having a solution to a problem.

breck 4y ago