7 ms·

If you got rejected from YC, your life is over

60 points by jessepollak 13y ago

mbesto 13y ago
From the YC rejection email: (I know it too well) > Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. > If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes. For me, those two lines are extremely motivating.
codex 13y ago
I would say that it's more likely your life is over when you get accepted to YC--slaving for peanuts with little chance of success, when the expected value of other opportunities are much higher. It's all a bit exploitative, but in every realm of human endeavor, you see people making huge sacrifices with little chance of success: * Actors hoping to make it in Hollywood * Singers hoping to get famous (see: American Idol) * Bands hoping to sign a record deal * Restauranteurs hoping to open the hot new restaurant * Gymnasts hoping for an Olympic medal * Ballerinas hoping for the starring role * Drug dealers hoping to one day become the kingpin 99% of these people will strike out, and yet we try. I guess it's built into human nature.
- gregmolnar 13y ago
  I agree.
- CyrusL 13y ago
  The median outcome is low, but the expected value is pretty high for starting a startup. Mark Zuckerberg is worth $20 billion after 7 years. That's about the same as 25,000 engineers working for 7 years. There aren't any singers or ballerinas with that kind of outcome. That's part of why seed-stage startup investing exists even though the capital costs for startups are so low. The investors are paying the founders' salaries for a couple years in exchange for a small chance at seeing a huge return. No one invests in ballerinas like that.
  - minimaxir 13y ago
    Expected value is a function of both value and probability. Sure, $20 billion is a lot, but Zuckerberg's success is as likely as winning the state lottery. Even with Y-Combinator, not every accepted startup raises funding, and dies without a congratulatory TechCrunch post.
    - CyrusL 13y ago
      How come investors give money to startup founders but not state lottery ticket buyers? Isn't their entire job to professionally evaluate these expected values? Being accepted to YC actually means being funded. With YCVC it's ~$100k.
      - lemonberry 13y ago
        Because they can buy their own lottery tickets.
      - wtracy 13y ago
        Investors give money to organizations that either they perceive as having a significantly above-average chance of "winning the lottery", or that have basically already "won". I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a bunch of people out there offering to loan money to people who have already won the lottery. :-)
    - awj 13y ago
      > but Zuckerberg's success is as likely as winning the state lottery. I'd say it's even less likely than that. How many state lottery winners have we seen since Facebook went huge? How many grand slam successes have we seen?
  - code_duck 13y ago
    It's a bit of a stretch to say becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world is the 'expected outcome'. If I'm not mistaken the most common outcome for ventures such as this is not even a sustainable business that lasts a few years and is profitable. I'd say the expected outcome for the confident and capable with good ideas is lucrative self employment and/or a lucrative exit within a few years - probably a lot less than 20 billion dollars.
- thesash 13y ago
  In my experience what drives great entrepreneurs is not a desire for wealth, power, or fame; it's a burning desire to make a small change in the world, usually in the form of bringing their product to market. Whatever success may come next is a byproduct of that drive, not the source.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    In my experience what drives great entrepreneurs is not a desire for wealth, power, or fame; it's a burning desire to make a small change in the world, usually in the form of bringing their product to market. This is silly. Entrepreneurs are no more (and not necessarily any less) virtuous than anyone else who works. People have the whole gamut of motivations. In general, humans need something to do-- to keep fed, and to keep their spirits high. There are plenty of entrepreneurs (even many quite good ones, in terms of effectiveness and moral character) who have the same pedestrian motivations as average people going to work: wealth, security, esteem, et al. Don't put them on a pedestal.
    - nonchalance 13y ago
      If your motivation is wealth, by far the easiest way is to work in finance.
    - thesash 13y ago
      It has nothing to do with virtue, and I'm not suggesting that entrepreneurs aren't ambitious, I just think you're confusing ambition and drive. If your goal is wealth and security, then starting a company is a terribly risky way to pursue those goals, and statistically you'd be better off taking a job at an established company that can afford you a nice salary and job security. That's where drive comes in. Entrepreneurs who hope to make it to the finish line are going to end up being uncomfortable, anxious, overwhelmed, and afraid (not to mention underpaid) more than 50% of the time for however long it takes to achieve success, which generally seems to take 7-10 years. If the source of the drive to start the company is wealth and security, then why persevere?
    - wtracy 13y ago
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  The sell of founding a startup is that, yes, most fail, but your backers make sure you fail up (as long as you didn't break the law in some horrendous way). If your startup tanks or your investors replace you, they make sure you get a 250k+ position in a venture fund (if that relaxed job is what you want, after the 90-hour weeks of founding a startup) or an executive position in an existing software company. That's the implicit promise that's made to founders, but I don't know how often it's delivered. I have no idea what the data say. It'd be interesting to see where people end up 15 years after failing out of a funded startup. The GovWorks guys did well, though. It's engineers that seem to eat the pain when startups fail.
- swampthing 13y ago
  There's a pretty big difference though - YC isn't going to make any meaningful money off you unless you succeed as well.
- jt2190 13y ago
  > ... with little chance of success, when the expected > value of other opportunities are much higher... While I don't necessarily disagree with your point of view, certainly we can do better than hyperbole when we're talking about "chance of success". So I put it to the community: Can we put some numbers behind this? What data would you look at to determine whether doing something like this is a good investment/opportunity? (Certainly the opportunity cost can be calculated, as a starting point.)
- skizm 13y ago
  I would argue all of these people (including programmers and entrepreneurs) enjoy the game. If they win, that's awesome, if not it was a fun ride.
zbruhnke 13y ago
Great post Jesse, As someone who has been both accepted and rejected by YC I can say this is absolutely the truth, I made it to YC in one batch but I've been rejected both before that and since, I was always under the impression past founders had better chances of making it when applying again but that certainly isn't the case with me. That said, I'm an entrepreneur, its what I do and if a YC rejection letter stopped me I would've probably quit before I ever got started multiple times. I'm not a hugely successful guy, but I've had a seven figure exit without taking outside funding and I'm raising capital now for a new startup without the YC name behind it and that's going just fine. The most important thing you have in your startup is DRIVE. If you believe you know where you're headed its not a matter of IF you can convince someone else to join you(this goes for VC's or employees) its WHEN you convince them to join you. At my first company I sold cars on the weekends to make payroll, and if I had to do that again tomorrow to keep this new company running I would. Not everyone succeeds because they're the best at something, a lot of people make it because they're the most stubborn at it.
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seiyak 13y ago
My intention for YC would be different from yours but you didn't start your project for YC, didn't you ? I guess that you started to working on it with motivation to achieve your goal or prove your concept besides becoming rich. I got a rejection letter yesterday but I don't give up my idea until I prove the concept or I consider it's worthless. It's ok even though that YC rejects my concept. So don't throw that away.
toblender 13y ago
It sucks to get rejected, but things are hardly over. I got rejected 3 years ago. Shortly after I realized I didn't need an incubator. Since then I've created a few dozen startups even sold a few of them. I'm sure there are people in your network that got into YC. PG has office hours with YC alumni, if you really wanted to meet him you could tag along during one of those meetings. Not knocking PG, but there are tonnes of people with similar experience. If you really want to find a mentor like PG you can definitely find one if you work hard enough.
- lambda 13y ago
  "A few dozen startups" in 3 years? Are you sure these are startups and not just side projects? Was there any expectation that these would actually grow into larger companies, or were they just part-time mostly self running websites? Not any new business or website is a startup; a startup is specifically one that seeks a scalable business model, that can expand into a much bigger business with more investment, rather than something that is going to be limited by the output of of or a small number of people. So, I'd be curious about what you are considering a startup such that you have created a few dozen in 3 years.
  - toblender 13y ago
    @lambda actually I'm writing a book about the startups I started. For me a startup is a team you get together to deliver a service to customers. Team + Logo + MVP + Deck. I have a gift for getting a group together to tackle a problem. Often times we discover that the problem is not big enough and dispand. In the 3 years, I started 3 companies that made it to customer phase. 1) Printsites2Go, a shopify for printers 2) 360 Data Solutions, Big data analytics in China 3) General Skin, Korean cosmetics for the masses Ones that didn't make it to the paying customer phase: 4) KDD mining (Yukon prospecting) 5) Noble Earth LTD (Plastic to oil conversion) 6) Shame Buy (Anonymous buying of goods you are afraid to have shipped to you) 7) 6M Development (Real estate in Niagara) 8) RepairMutt (Home based bug tracker) 9) Like Follow Me (Selling of likes and follows) 10) Samurai Print (Large format print for sellers) 11) Miss Mary Books (English trainer online for HK students) 12) Hungry Joes (Facebook app development team) 13) Defyent (My contracting company, since 2007) I didn't include my contracts... too many to count.
bifrost 13y ago
First, Sweet moustache. Second, If one rejection letter is all it takes to derail you, you probably should not be in the biz. YC is not the arbiter of success, you are, and getting rejected probably just means that you need to polish things up and spend more time on the product. I'm glad you didn't stop, looks like you guys are doing just fine.
- xacaxulu 13y ago
  Seconded.
- jessepollak 13y ago
  thanks :)
smaili 13y ago
TL;DR - don't give up
joeblau 13y ago
I remember an interesting tidbit that I heard from the YC ambassador at a Commonwealth Club event. He said most companies in the history of the world never went though YC. I look at YC like college; It's an opportunity, not a guarantee.
freehunter 13y ago
>Your company will never ever ever ever be successful. Never Ever. You've got some broken links in this one, such as http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-is-over/snapchat.com http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-...
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memracom 13y ago
Mehh... Given that the overwhelming majority of YC applicants are young people and that the majority of successful startups are founded by people over 35yo, I would say that getting rejected from YC means that your life is just beginning. Now you are free to go get a real job, to learn about a real industry or two, and to acquire all the skills that you need to make a real success. And when you are 40 or 50 years old, then you can make a real go at it.
- Uhhrrr 13y ago
  If you follow the links, it becomes obvious that the post is sarcastic.
ebarock 13y ago
complete waste of time this article ;|
adamzerner 13y ago
Good post. For some reason people have trouble matching their understanding with their emotions. People who get rejected understand that their life isn't over, but they still feel like it is. Reducto ad absurdum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) arguments like this often help to bring your emotions up to speed with your understanding.

60 points by jessepollak 13y ago

From the YC rejection email: (I know it too well) > Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. > If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes. For me, those two lines are extremely motivating.

codex 13y ago

I would say that it's more likely your life is over when you get accepted to YC--slaving for peanuts with little chance of success, when the expected value of other opportunities are much higher. It's all a bit exploitative, but in every realm of human endeavor, you see people making huge sacrifices with little chance of success: * Actors hoping to make it in Hollywood * Singers hoping to get famous (see: American Idol) * Bands hoping to sign a record deal * Restauranteurs hoping to open the hot new restaurant * Gymnasts hoping for an Olympic medal * Ballerinas hoping for the starring role * Drug dealers hoping to one day become the kingpin 99% of these people will strike out, and yet we try. I guess it's built into human nature.

gregmolnar 13y ago
I agree.
CyrusL 13y ago
The median outcome is low, but the expected value is pretty high for starting a startup. Mark Zuckerberg is worth $20 billion after 7 years. That's about the same as 25,000 engineers working for 7 years. There aren't any singers or ballerinas with that kind of outcome. That's part of why seed-stage startup investing exists even though the capital costs for startups are so low. The investors are paying the founders' salaries for a couple years in exchange for a small chance at seeing a huge return. No one invests in ballerinas like that.
- minimaxir 13y ago
  Expected value is a function of both value and probability. Sure, $20 billion is a lot, but Zuckerberg's success is as likely as winning the state lottery. Even with Y-Combinator, not every accepted startup raises funding, and dies without a congratulatory TechCrunch post.
  - CyrusL 13y ago
    How come investors give money to startup founders but not state lottery ticket buyers? Isn't their entire job to professionally evaluate these expected values? Being accepted to YC actually means being funded. With YCVC it's ~$100k.
    - lemonberry 13y ago
      Because they can buy their own lottery tickets.
    - wtracy 13y ago
      Investors give money to organizations that either they perceive as having a significantly above-average chance of "winning the lottery", or that have basically already "won". I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a bunch of people out there offering to loan money to people who have already won the lottery. :-)
  - awj 13y ago
    > but Zuckerberg's success is as likely as winning the state lottery. I'd say it's even less likely than that. How many state lottery winners have we seen since Facebook went huge? How many grand slam successes have we seen?
- code_duck 13y ago
  It's a bit of a stretch to say becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world is the 'expected outcome'. If I'm not mistaken the most common outcome for ventures such as this is not even a sustainable business that lasts a few years and is profitable. I'd say the expected outcome for the confident and capable with good ideas is lucrative self employment and/or a lucrative exit within a few years - probably a lot less than 20 billion dollars.
thesash 13y ago
In my experience what drives great entrepreneurs is not a desire for wealth, power, or fame; it's a burning desire to make a small change in the world, usually in the form of bringing their product to market. Whatever success may come next is a byproduct of that drive, not the source.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  In my experience what drives great entrepreneurs is not a desire for wealth, power, or fame; it's a burning desire to make a small change in the world, usually in the form of bringing their product to market. This is silly. Entrepreneurs are no more (and not necessarily any less) virtuous than anyone else who works. People have the whole gamut of motivations. In general, humans need something to do-- to keep fed, and to keep their spirits high. There are plenty of entrepreneurs (even many quite good ones, in terms of effectiveness and moral character) who have the same pedestrian motivations as average people going to work: wealth, security, esteem, et al. Don't put them on a pedestal.
  - nonchalance 13y ago
    If your motivation is wealth, by far the easiest way is to work in finance.
  - thesash 13y ago
    It has nothing to do with virtue, and I'm not suggesting that entrepreneurs aren't ambitious, I just think you're confusing ambition and drive. If your goal is wealth and security, then starting a company is a terribly risky way to pursue those goals, and statistically you'd be better off taking a job at an established company that can afford you a nice salary and job security. That's where drive comes in. Entrepreneurs who hope to make it to the finish line are going to end up being uncomfortable, anxious, overwhelmed, and afraid (not to mention underpaid) more than 50% of the time for however long it takes to achieve success, which generally seems to take 7-10 years. If the source of the drive to start the company is wealth and security, then why persevere?
  - wtracy 13y ago
michaelochurch 13y ago
The sell of founding a startup is that, yes, most fail, but your backers make sure you fail up (as long as you didn't break the law in some horrendous way). If your startup tanks or your investors replace you, they make sure you get a 250k+ position in a venture fund (if that relaxed job is what you want, after the 90-hour weeks of founding a startup) or an executive position in an existing software company. That's the implicit promise that's made to founders, but I don't know how often it's delivered. I have no idea what the data say. It'd be interesting to see where people end up 15 years after failing out of a funded startup. The GovWorks guys did well, though. It's engineers that seem to eat the pain when startups fail.
swampthing 13y ago
There's a pretty big difference though - YC isn't going to make any meaningful money off you unless you succeed as well.
jt2190 13y ago
> ... with little chance of success, when the expected > value of other opportunities are much higher... While I don't necessarily disagree with your point of view, certainly we can do better than hyperbole when we're talking about "chance of success". So I put it to the community: Can we put some numbers behind this? What data would you look at to determine whether doing something like this is a good investment/opportunity? (Certainly the opportunity cost can be calculated, as a starting point.)
skizm 13y ago
I would argue all of these people (including programmers and entrepreneurs) enjoy the game. If they win, that's awesome, if not it was a fun ride.

zbruhnke 13y ago

Great post Jesse, As someone who has been both accepted and rejected by YC I can say this is absolutely the truth, I made it to YC in one batch but I've been rejected both before that and since, I was always under the impression past founders had better chances of making it when applying again but that certainly isn't the case with me. That said, I'm an entrepreneur, its what I do and if a YC rejection letter stopped me I would've probably quit before I ever got started multiple times. I'm not a hugely successful guy, but I've had a seven figure exit without taking outside funding and I'm raising capital now for a new startup without the YC name behind it and that's going just fine. The most important thing you have in your startup is DRIVE. If you believe you know where you're headed its not a matter of IF you can convince someone else to join you(this goes for VC's or employees) its WHEN you convince them to join you. At my first company I sold cars on the weekends to make payroll, and if I had to do that again tomorrow to keep this new company running I would. Not everyone succeeds because they're the best at something, a lot of people make it because they're the most stubborn at it.

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seiyak 13y ago

My intention for YC would be different from yours but you didn't start your project for YC, didn't you ? I guess that you started to working on it with motivation to achieve your goal or prove your concept besides becoming rich. I got a rejection letter yesterday but I don't give up my idea until I prove the concept or I consider it's worthless. It's ok even though that YC rejects my concept. So don't throw that away.

toblender 13y ago

It sucks to get rejected, but things are hardly over. I got rejected 3 years ago. Shortly after I realized I didn't need an incubator. Since then I've created a few dozen startups even sold a few of them. I'm sure there are people in your network that got into YC. PG has office hours with YC alumni, if you really wanted to meet him you could tag along during one of those meetings. Not knocking PG, but there are tonnes of people with similar experience. If you really want to find a mentor like PG you can definitely find one if you work hard enough.

lambda 13y ago
"A few dozen startups" in 3 years? Are you sure these are startups and not just side projects? Was there any expectation that these would actually grow into larger companies, or were they just part-time mostly self running websites? Not any new business or website is a startup; a startup is specifically one that seeks a scalable business model, that can expand into a much bigger business with more investment, rather than something that is going to be limited by the output of of or a small number of people. So, I'd be curious about what you are considering a startup such that you have created a few dozen in 3 years.
- toblender 13y ago
  @lambda actually I'm writing a book about the startups I started. For me a startup is a team you get together to deliver a service to customers. Team + Logo + MVP + Deck. I have a gift for getting a group together to tackle a problem. Often times we discover that the problem is not big enough and dispand. In the 3 years, I started 3 companies that made it to customer phase. 1) Printsites2Go, a shopify for printers 2) 360 Data Solutions, Big data analytics in China 3) General Skin, Korean cosmetics for the masses Ones that didn't make it to the paying customer phase: 4) KDD mining (Yukon prospecting) 5) Noble Earth LTD (Plastic to oil conversion) 6) Shame Buy (Anonymous buying of goods you are afraid to have shipped to you) 7) 6M Development (Real estate in Niagara) 8) RepairMutt (Home based bug tracker) 9) Like Follow Me (Selling of likes and follows) 10) Samurai Print (Large format print for sellers) 11) Miss Mary Books (English trainer online for HK students) 12) Hungry Joes (Facebook app development team) 13) Defyent (My contracting company, since 2007) I didn't include my contracts... too many to count.

bifrost 13y ago

First, Sweet moustache. Second, If one rejection letter is all it takes to derail you, you probably should not be in the biz. YC is not the arbiter of success, you are, and getting rejected probably just means that you need to polish things up and spend more time on the product. I'm glad you didn't stop, looks like you guys are doing just fine.

xacaxulu 13y ago
Seconded.
jessepollak 13y ago
thanks :)

smaili 13y ago

TL;DR - don't give up

joeblau 13y ago

I remember an interesting tidbit that I heard from the YC ambassador at a Commonwealth Club event. He said most companies in the history of the world never went though YC. I look at YC like college; It's an opportunity, not a guarantee.

freehunter 13y ago

>Your company will never ever ever ever be successful. Never Ever. You've got some broken links in this one, such as http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-is-over/snapchat.com http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-...

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memracom 13y ago

Mehh... Given that the overwhelming majority of YC applicants are young people and that the majority of successful startups are founded by people over 35yo, I would say that getting rejected from YC means that your life is just beginning. Now you are free to go get a real job, to learn about a real industry or two, and to acquire all the skills that you need to make a real success. And when you are 40 or 50 years old, then you can make a real go at it.

Uhhrrr 13y ago
If you follow the links, it becomes obvious that the post is sarcastic.

ebarock 13y ago

complete waste of time this article ;|

adamzerner 13y ago

Good post. For some reason people have trouble matching their understanding with their emotions. People who get rejected understand that their life isn't over, but they still feel like it is. Reducto ad absurdum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) arguments like this often help to bring your emotions up to speed with your understanding.