5 ms·
YC rejection emails are out!
"We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally, because most of the proposals we
rejected, we rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the
quality of the applicants. For example, we were very reluctant to
accept proposals with only one founder, because we think starting
a startup is too much work for one person. We also had a higher
threshold for applicants who were still in school, groups where one
or more members planned to keep their current jobs, and groups that
couldn't all move to California. We rejected a lot of proposals simply
because we couldn't understand them, or didn't understand the problem
domain well enough to judge them, or because the project seemed too
big to start on only three months of funding. Sometimes we even
rejected good ideas, because another group proposed the same idea
and seemed further along.
We realize this process is fraught with error. It's practically
certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful
startups. 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.
Thanks,
Y Combinator Staff"
- nextmoveone 19y agoI kind of take it like a diss from a girl. I just want to find a hotter girl with bigger, better assets and make sure that one girl that didn't give me a chance see's that she really lost out. Maybe even send her a nice sex tape.
- palish 19y agoTechnically, it was a diss from a girl. ;) Nah, a diss is personal. There's nothing personal about this.
- nextmoveone 19y agoIt's personal because everyone on our team put in personal time, meaning more time than we allotted for our normal procedures to apply. It sucks to be rejected. I needed to vent somehow.
- palish 19y agoJust treat YC like you would any other VC. I doubt you'd be broken up if one of them rejected you; you'd (ideally) have many more lined up anyway. There are opportunities all over the place. Keep your hopes up.
- DanielBMarkham 19y agoIt does suck to be rejected. But there's sucks like "we spent a week with you analyzing your entire team and pulling apart opportunities and leverage you didn't know you had, but we're just going to have to pass because we don't think you'll make it" and then there's sucks like "we looked at fourteen hundred forms people filled out on our web page in the last two days and the matrices didn't line up for you guys. Hopefully you could handle either of those scenarios, but if I had to take one, the YC one is a pretty easy rejection. Heck, we even got a nice e-mail.
- mattmaroon 19y agoAlso, nobody has said diss in about a decade. Or in hacker terms, nobody has said diss since people wrote web apps in Perl.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- nextmoveone 19y agoI am from Florida, 'diss' still works here.
- reidman 19y agoI can't imagine why Y Combinator would reject someone with such impeccable taste in similies...
- nextmoveone 19y agoI know.
- drm237 19y agoThanks to all of the Y Combinator Staff for taking the time to read our application. I wish those who made it through best of luck with the interviews. To everyone who didn't, I'm going to keep going, I hope you will also!
- drm237 19y agoAt least we'll all qualify for a future version of Jessica Livingston's Hackers at Work book...being rejected at least once is a general theme of the interviews!
- DocSavage 19y agoDitto the thanks to the YC Staff for going through the slush pile. Best of luck to those who got invited to Boston. We didn't make the cut, so we're incorporating within the week, cementing our partnership with a 3rd team member (Columbia biz school prof), and immediately seeking funds from more conventional (although more dilutive) sources. We are also looking for one more hacker to join us. We can pay $5k for sure (possibly more depending on alternative funding) + equity for Jan-Mar in Palo Alto area. We're building a collaborative investing system that's quite different than the ones out there, and we have team members with deep domain expertise.
- mwerty 19y agoWe're in a similar position. Could you mention sites you found useful for info on incorporation? Thankyou
- DocSavage 19y agoWe're going with an ex-Cooley Godward lawyer for our incorporation. It's more expensive but in the big scheme of things, we think it's better to get this done right and have someone experienced to handle equity arrangements and contracts. There are other YC threads on incorporation. For general information, Wikipedia is pretty good :) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_(business)]
- 19y ago
- ROFISH 19y agoGood thing they're finally out. I've been driving myself crazy for the past week. (no dice here) Frankly, now that the worry and anxiety is over, I can now focus my leftover time on building my idea.
- reidman 19y agoGooooooo fish!
- henryw 19y agoCongrats to all those who made it. For those who didn't, it's time to work even harder.
- rms 19y agolast cycle's thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11496 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11496
- rms 19y agoAlso, be grateful you weren't this guy. http://distilled.wordpress.com/2006/02/23/ycombinator/ http://distilled.wordpress.com/2006/02/23/ycombinator/ I think they got an interview for the round after, not sure if they got in from there.
- pg 19y agoThis is terrible. I had no idea this had happened till now. I am so sorry. If I had known we'd accidentally sent these people an invitation to interview, we would have just gone ahead and interviewed them. As far as I am concerned, this is the worst mistake YC has ever made, and we will try never to let this happen again.
- DanielBMarkham 19y agoNone of my business, Paul, but you might want to contact the guy and apologize. That had to suck big time.
- mynameishere 19y agoOh, please. Shit happens.
- DanielBMarkham 19y agoSure does. And when it happens to your users, you'd better be able to do some scooping real quick. But like I said, not my call.
- mynameishere 19y agoSheesh. An administrative error. Hate to sour this little love-in, though.
- pg 19y agoGood idea; I just did.
- 19y ago
- andresoileau 19y agoIt's a hard email to swallow, but I'm going to continue my work. I was excited at the idea to be a part of Y-Combinator; it's tough to entertain the idea of pursuing your product with the support of peers and successful people. Then realize you're not going to have a chance to WOW Y-Combinator at the interviews in November, nor will you be there in January to love the three months. I know my idea is great and I can make it happen, call me if you want to join in - you have my number.
- jsjenkins168 19y agoCongrats to all who got an interview! Make it count, because once you interview that is your only chance...
- rbrisita 19y agoWe got that e-mail, but I promptly replied that they sent us the wrong one. Still waiting for the Boston invite. ;) Will be interesting to see who got the invite and goes through to the 3 months. Does any one document this? Congrats to all who made it! R.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- DanielBMarkham 19y agoWell that was fun. Back to coding.
- yrashk 19y agoWhat is important is that YCombinator has already built a community even by rejecting most of applicants. Don't loose a chance to network, cooperate and succeed, we all are in a great team over here!
- HiddenBek 19y agoI haven't received anything yet. Should I be happy, sad, or just confused?