4 ms·

I had ambitions of cranking out an MVP and pitching it to VCs in my late 20s. After a year of solid rejection ( including YC not even responding), I gave up. Y

I had ambitions of cranking out an MVP and pitching it to VCs in my late 20s. After a year of solid rejection ( including YC not even responding), I gave up. You end up spending alot of time trying to pitch your work. I've had a few idea guys expect me to build MVPs for free with an offer of like 1% or something silly like that. Never any pay, poorly thought out concepts. I've accepted I'm never going to be rich, it's easier this way.

dang 3y ago
> YC not even responding The only way that would happen is a bug. YC always responds to applicants. Rejections usually aren't personalized because that can't scale - but not hearing back at all should never happen. If you want me to look into what might have happened there, I'd be willing to try if you email hn@ycombinator.com.
- 999900000999 3y ago
  Correction, I got a response, but no specific feedback. I double checked my emails. Anyway, I'm realistic in knowing my ideas aren't going to garner investment. I would love if you had a YC Junior for just getting help on ideas vs capital.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    No investor is going to give you specific feedback. Your best bet is to go to onto Reddit, Discord etc, find the startup communities and ask for advice there. There are a lot of people who want to support other founders. Or even better go on Linkedin, find some prospective customers and ask them for advice. I've had about 10% of people reply back some with page long answers. If you are willing to spend money there are plenty of services like Kintell, Intro.co which will allow you to book an hour with investors or successful founders. But there are plenty of free options that I would start with first.
    - anamax 3y ago
      > No investor is going to give you specific feedback. That depends on what you mean by "specific." Several Sand Hill Angels members, who are investors, provide feedback almost every month. (It's in the context of a pitch, but...) See https://www.sandhillangels.com/raw https://www.sandhillangels.com/raw ("pitch practice" is somewhat misleading.) [edited to add some detail] The typical angel-group pitch has three parts, the pitch, the Q&A, and then the "with the entrepreneur out of the room" discussion. This event lets participants listen to that discussion, as well as those three parts for the other folks pitching the same night. Then there's an "ask investors anything" session at the end.
  - kevlened 3y ago
    Reconsider writing ideas off so quickly! Just completing the application is a great way to test your thinking on each. The process could be enough for you to transform one of them into something that excites you. In addition to the application, it's worth exploring https://www.startupschool.org/ https://www.startupschool.org/ if you're looking for a "YC Junior"
apsurd 3y ago
The filters are self-fulfilling. For twenty-somethings ideas are easy and all opportunity is in front. Might as well swing for the fences and yes people do hit home runs. At this stage, debating the actual statistics is misguided use of energy. Because justifying a reason not to play still means you're not playing. And the older you get the more gray this calculus is. There's more reasons not to do something. We put the filters on ourselves. This isn't a moral argument. No one really knows how the statistics will land, we can only back analyze them. Yes it's statistically very unlikely you're going to get funded. So you stopped trying. Maybe your ideas really weren't very good. That's ok, you've got a lifetime. edit: fwwiw I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur and now decades later when I'm more financially secure and the reality is here, I really really really question if I am cut out to be an entrepreneur. I don't think I care all that much. Not really.
- 999900000999 3y ago
  It's more like I don't think cold calling ( tweeting) VCs yields results. It's the equivalent of singing with a guitar outside of Columbia records. It's not like Paul McCartney is going to just tell you to step into his office and record a demo. I do plan on taking some time off to work on my side projects though. Maybe I'll try again...
  - grepfru_it 3y ago
    I’m in the same boat, except now actively planning to take off to work on a side project. Rather than spend another year building a prototype for a potential $100M idea (last two landed me really nice jobs) I have my eyes set on ideas that will generate $3-6M/year that I can realize on my own with minimal/no outside funding. I may apply to this YC round for giggles, but totally get the same feeling as you that I’m probably not good enough in their eyes. As Paul Graham said, if you are out chasing VC funding, you are not building your product. So just going to focus on making my life comfortable and launching another successful product or service. Good luck!
    - 999900000999 3y ago
sosodev 3y ago
You can still be rich. Tech culture, or rather modern capitalism, tells us that businesses need to raise a bunch of money, capture a bunch of users, and then squeeze them for all they'll take. It fails us in two very distinct ways. It encourages us to think that is the only viable option and it's unethical. Primarily because it requires the perception of customers (and often employees) as a means to an end (not humans). However, the possibility for ethical, sustainable business models is still very real. I tend to believe we're going to see another wave of those soon as people figure out that it's actually easier to make a living that way.
- queuebert 3y ago
  > the possibility for ethical, sustainable business models is still very real. Those exist everywhere in the trades. Every major city has dozens of small businesses doing plumbing, electrical, roofs, etc., with the goal of sustainable, loyal customers based on doing a good job at a fair price.
  - sosodev 3y ago
    Well put. The difficult part for us software folk is learning to apply that model to software. Customers in the world of software generally don’t know what they want. I think the low hanging fruit here is to copy products from the unethical companies and beat them at caring for the customers. The real value is probably in new product models that can only exist given an ethical perspective. Perhaps reviving the mostly dead pay once use forever model of software would work well. That model requires abandoning DRM which the unethical companies will never do.
    - necovek 3y ago
      Customers for other trades similarly "don't know what they want", unless it's "fix this for me". The main difference in the software world is that you can potentially build things "once" (or rather, keep building it forever) for a huge global market, which means that it's hard to know when something is good enough. With roofing or coffee, you do good enough work (differs between companies, sure) and move on to the next customer. But you don't think about adding continuously running rainfall test for the roofs you do to ensure no regressions (leaks) appear.
Rapzid 3y ago
I'm seeing a few "founding engineer" roles that pay pretty well and offer up to 1% equity for highly experienced candidates. Honestly some pretty unique opportunities. But yeah, I'm not building out and MVP without pay for 1%.
- tempusalaria 3y ago
  1% at seed stage also become 0.1% after a few rounds of funding, plus you are way down the preference stack and have no liquidity power. Startup equity is pretty much objectively a terrible deal except for founders. Be a founder or get paid market comp in cash.
  - Rapzid 3y ago
    A factor 10 dilution is huge and I'd like to see the math on that. There are different roles founders hire for under the "founding engineer" umbrella. There is your fresh out of bootcamp "founding engineer" brought on during pre-seed or seed stages to help bash out POCs and mocks used to sell the vision. Then there is the "founding engineer" they bring in post money and customer commitments to actually deliver the MVP and help build out a professional engineering program. I'm in the later category and those roles can pay very well for early stage startups.
  - tibbar 3y ago
    If you actually get 1% at seed stage and the company goes through a "few rounds" of funding (and subsequently exits), you're doing great. You've basically won a small lottery and have an excellent chance of being a millionaire. The problem with startup equity is that this is a very rare scenario, and most of the other scenarios aren't so good. If the company doesn't exit, your equity is worthless. If they exit at a value below your strike price, and you exercised your options, you could end up in debt. Lots of ways for this to end badly.
    - tempusalaria 3y ago
      That’s my point. Even in massive outlier upside cases getting a 1% equity deal at seed is not really worth more than just being a standard FAANG worker. And that requires many rounds of funding an and dilution and an exit. It’s worth remembering exits are very hard right now and founders have far more liquidity options. There have been multiple unicorns I’m aware of in the past 5 years with founders taking 8 figures in secondary and employees getting nothing. Now those unicorns have worthless equity for employees and the founders are on the beach.
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I think there are things that need doing that can't be done profitably, so giving up on being rich had a really nice focusing effect on my dreams.

dang 3y ago

> YC not even responding The only way that would happen is a bug. YC always responds to applicants. Rejections usually aren't personalized because that can't scale - but not hearing back at all should never happen. If you want me to look into what might have happened there, I'd be willing to try if you email hn@ycombinator.com.

999900000999 3y ago
Correction, I got a response, but no specific feedback. I double checked my emails. Anyway, I'm realistic in knowing my ideas aren't going to garner investment. I would love if you had a YC Junior for just getting help on ideas vs capital.
- threeseed 3y ago
  No investor is going to give you specific feedback. Your best bet is to go to onto Reddit, Discord etc, find the startup communities and ask for advice there. There are a lot of people who want to support other founders. Or even better go on Linkedin, find some prospective customers and ask them for advice. I've had about 10% of people reply back some with page long answers. If you are willing to spend money there are plenty of services like Kintell, Intro.co which will allow you to book an hour with investors or successful founders. But there are plenty of free options that I would start with first.
  - anamax 3y ago
    > No investor is going to give you specific feedback. That depends on what you mean by "specific." Several Sand Hill Angels members, who are investors, provide feedback almost every month. (It's in the context of a pitch, but...) See https://www.sandhillangels.com/raw https://www.sandhillangels.com/raw ("pitch practice" is somewhat misleading.) [edited to add some detail] The typical angel-group pitch has three parts, the pitch, the Q&A, and then the "with the entrepreneur out of the room" discussion. This event lets participants listen to that discussion, as well as those three parts for the other folks pitching the same night. Then there's an "ask investors anything" session at the end.
- kevlened 3y ago
  Reconsider writing ideas off so quickly! Just completing the application is a great way to test your thinking on each. The process could be enough for you to transform one of them into something that excites you. In addition to the application, it's worth exploring https://www.startupschool.org/ https://www.startupschool.org/ if you're looking for a "YC Junior"

apsurd 3y ago

The filters are self-fulfilling. For twenty-somethings ideas are easy and all opportunity is in front. Might as well swing for the fences and yes people do hit home runs. At this stage, debating the actual statistics is misguided use of energy. Because justifying a reason not to play still means you're not playing. And the older you get the more gray this calculus is. There's more reasons not to do something. We put the filters on ourselves. This isn't a moral argument. No one really knows how the statistics will land, we can only back analyze them. Yes it's statistically very unlikely you're going to get funded. So you stopped trying. Maybe your ideas really weren't very good. That's ok, you've got a lifetime. edit: fwwiw I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur and now decades later when I'm more financially secure and the reality is here, I really really really question if I am cut out to be an entrepreneur. I don't think I care all that much. Not really.

999900000999 3y ago
It's more like I don't think cold calling ( tweeting) VCs yields results. It's the equivalent of singing with a guitar outside of Columbia records. It's not like Paul McCartney is going to just tell you to step into his office and record a demo. I do plan on taking some time off to work on my side projects though. Maybe I'll try again...
- grepfru_it 3y ago
  I’m in the same boat, except now actively planning to take off to work on a side project. Rather than spend another year building a prototype for a potential $100M idea (last two landed me really nice jobs) I have my eyes set on ideas that will generate $3-6M/year that I can realize on my own with minimal/no outside funding. I may apply to this YC round for giggles, but totally get the same feeling as you that I’m probably not good enough in their eyes. As Paul Graham said, if you are out chasing VC funding, you are not building your product. So just going to focus on making my life comfortable and launching another successful product or service. Good luck!
  - 999900000999 3y ago

sosodev 3y ago

You can still be rich. Tech culture, or rather modern capitalism, tells us that businesses need to raise a bunch of money, capture a bunch of users, and then squeeze them for all they'll take. It fails us in two very distinct ways. It encourages us to think that is the only viable option and it's unethical. Primarily because it requires the perception of customers (and often employees) as a means to an end (not humans). However, the possibility for ethical, sustainable business models is still very real. I tend to believe we're going to see another wave of those soon as people figure out that it's actually easier to make a living that way.

queuebert 3y ago
> the possibility for ethical, sustainable business models is still very real. Those exist everywhere in the trades. Every major city has dozens of small businesses doing plumbing, electrical, roofs, etc., with the goal of sustainable, loyal customers based on doing a good job at a fair price.
- sosodev 3y ago
  Well put. The difficult part for us software folk is learning to apply that model to software. Customers in the world of software generally don’t know what they want. I think the low hanging fruit here is to copy products from the unethical companies and beat them at caring for the customers. The real value is probably in new product models that can only exist given an ethical perspective. Perhaps reviving the mostly dead pay once use forever model of software would work well. That model requires abandoning DRM which the unethical companies will never do.
  - necovek 3y ago
    Customers for other trades similarly "don't know what they want", unless it's "fix this for me". The main difference in the software world is that you can potentially build things "once" (or rather, keep building it forever) for a huge global market, which means that it's hard to know when something is good enough. With roofing or coffee, you do good enough work (differs between companies, sure) and move on to the next customer. But you don't think about adding continuously running rainfall test for the roofs you do to ensure no regressions (leaks) appear.

Rapzid 3y ago

I'm seeing a few "founding engineer" roles that pay pretty well and offer up to 1% equity for highly experienced candidates. Honestly some pretty unique opportunities. But yeah, I'm not building out and MVP without pay for 1%.

tempusalaria 3y ago
1% at seed stage also become 0.1% after a few rounds of funding, plus you are way down the preference stack and have no liquidity power. Startup equity is pretty much objectively a terrible deal except for founders. Be a founder or get paid market comp in cash.
- Rapzid 3y ago
  A factor 10 dilution is huge and I'd like to see the math on that. There are different roles founders hire for under the "founding engineer" umbrella. There is your fresh out of bootcamp "founding engineer" brought on during pre-seed or seed stages to help bash out POCs and mocks used to sell the vision. Then there is the "founding engineer" they bring in post money and customer commitments to actually deliver the MVP and help build out a professional engineering program. I'm in the later category and those roles can pay very well for early stage startups.
- tibbar 3y ago
  If you actually get 1% at seed stage and the company goes through a "few rounds" of funding (and subsequently exits), you're doing great. You've basically won a small lottery and have an excellent chance of being a millionaire. The problem with startup equity is that this is a very rare scenario, and most of the other scenarios aren't so good. If the company doesn't exit, your equity is worthless. If they exit at a value below your strike price, and you exercised your options, you could end up in debt. Lots of ways for this to end badly.
  - tempusalaria 3y ago
    That’s my point. Even in massive outlier upside cases getting a 1% equity deal at seed is not really worth more than just being a standard FAANG worker. And that requires many rounds of funding an and dilution and an exit. It’s worth remembering exits are very hard right now and founders have far more liquidity options. There have been multiple unicorns I’m aware of in the past 5 years with founders taking 8 figures in secondary and employees getting nothing. Now those unicorns have worthless equity for employees and the founders are on the beach.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

I think there are things that need doing that can't be done profitably, so giving up on being rich had a really nice focusing effect on my dreams.