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Has a company ever rejected acceptance into Y Combinator
I always love reading applications of companies that were rejected from YCombinator (Eg. Buffer). What are examples of companies that got accepted into Ycombinator, but for whatever reason decided to not enter the program?
- argonaut 12y agoBoth amarcus and ProblemFactory are incorrect - the link only lists companies that were rejected by YC and went on to do well. Furthermore, as recently as a few years ago the terms were less fixed - YC would call to make companies an offer (although it was stated that the offer would usually be 7%). Even further before that, it was possible to negotiate with YC. A rumor (completely unconfirmed) that I heard somewhere on HN is that Sam Altman was able to negotiate Paul Graham down. I personally met one company that turned down YC. They've since went on to raise more than $1.5MM. They thought YC wanted too much equity.
- ProblemFactory 12y agoThanks for the clarification - I did not realise that companies are/were able to negotiate the offer.
- amarcus 12y agoThis link has a few examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7122999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7122999
- ProblemFactory 12y agoThe poster seemed to ask for companies that: 1. applied to YC, 2. were accepted, and 3. then turned down the offer. But I'm not sure why that would ever happen - the terms and content of the YC program are published in detail, so it would be a waste of everyone's time to apply if a team is not planning to accept the offer.
- loumf 12y agoBeing able to say you got a YC offer is somewhat useful. It's some validation at least, even if you never use it to get a better offer.
- tptacek 12y agoYes; Sam Altman said so on EconTalk this week. Apparently it's only happened once.