I realize it's easy to craft a story that somehow connects all of your unsuccessful projects into some narrative that indicts your skills. Don't go there. I kn

I realize it's easy to craft a story that somehow connects all of your unsuccessful projects into some narrative that indicts your skills. Don't go there. I know it's hard. Just don't. I'm a mentor for a much less prestigious accelerator program, I've sold a company, I've selected companies for our local angel network, and I've had business ideas flop, funding doors close, and (much earlier) been rejected from schools I wanted to attend. A few lessons learned: 1) application processes at this scale are very inaccurate at picking successful companies. at some level you entered a lottery with a merit component. that doesn't mean YOU got a fair, deep, true look. 2) investors/mentors surprisingly often don't necessarily know wtf they're talking about. When they're in an area they don't know about, some of them get hyper critical and knee jerk dismissive. Take any criticisms with a grain of salt. Since you don't know who at YC saw your app, you can't judge their ability to judge it. If you want to double-check your work, get feedback from someone who has built a similar business... that means the business drivers were the same (if consumer- same traffic gen strategies; if b2b- selling into same spot in similar orgs). 3) Startups are truly 50% skill and 50% luck. The key is to stay lean so you can stay in the game, solve the smallest problem that's interesting (@ev), and get it in front of real users and iterate. Keep your head down and keep learning, and luck will find you. It's a cliche, but I'll just say it because it's true in my experience: people who succeed are willing to do things that others won't. You're at a point where you may have to make some tough decisions about how to manage your time. If you believe there's merit in your business, make the sacrifices to continue working on it.