We interviewed in-person for W17 in October and got rejected because we didn't articulate a good plan for growth.
- we grew 4,000% since October
- launched huge features for both sides of our marketplace
- received acquisition interest in < 3 months of being live
- most importantly, made something that people are loving and using on a daily basis.
It's a bummer for sure but not the end of the world.
To anyone who got an interview,
Figure out your biggest weakness and a plan for how you overcome it. Your interviewers will exploit it.
Working with @jaymeh13 and interviewed with him for W17.
To those who got an interview: congratulations! Keep trying to prove yourself wrong and you'll expose any of the weaknesses that they will try to find in the interview.
To those who didn't: Congratulations anyways! The YC application process itself makes you think deeply about your business and you should keep that with you and take it as a learning experience.
Sure. We simply emailed other YC founders asking if they had advice on the interview process.
The questions are no secret. It's really only 3 questions: 1. what are you working on. 2. How do you grow. 3. How does this become a billion dollar company.
Articulating the problem, how it scales and is defensible is key.
I was turned down after an interview last batch. I think I probably won't apply again. YC's standards now seem so high that, by the time I expect to meet them, there won't be much point in YC anymore. If I have 2,000 users, which is pretty tiny, that's $40K a month at $20 per person. If I get 50 signups a week, that's a 10% per month growth rate. If I have $40K in high-margin monthly revenue with a 10% per month growth rate, why sell stock at a $1.7M valuation, in the hope of getting some connections to sell more stock at a $5M valuation? It just doesn't make business sense. All you'd have to do is wait a few years, and you'd have more profits in the bank, in cash, than the "valuation" you'd get from California VCs.
Yep. The thing though is that they can leverage their network to get the ball rolling for any companies they sign. That means it doesn't really matter if it's awesome or bad, as long as they decide to promote a company, people will buy it. Pretty much like apple products... so it's not rational anymore to go through YC. Do you think airbnb would have worked without YC? No. Would dropbox be dropbox today
without YC? No. They are cool ideas because a large amount of people are using these products. And there were other alternatives prior to these companies. It's just that no one ever promoted them like yc did with their own companies. Otherwise they would be like any other products out there. There was an airbnb before airbnb I think it was an australian company. I came accross their website one day (pre-airbnb era) and was like WTF is that. So again, if a large amount of people buy, you'd most likely buy. YC has that marketing power. I think if you become a billion dollar company without going through YC, you'll become the next google or apple.
I've never heard that YC helped companies market their products, beyond providing a little advice. How would they? It's not like they have a huge advertising budget or a TV studio. They can help advertise it to other YC founders, but that market is tiny.
Marketing is expensive, a company needs money to promote a product. To get money a company needs investors. To get investors (in silicon valley) a company needs a warm introduction. The warm introduction is the marketing I'm talking about, not the first one. YC will lineup 100 investors in front of you looking to spend their money. When YC says it's worth it (they sign you up), VC's act like Apple customers.
I had a similar make-myself-feel-better-reaction the first time I was rejected. Like justifying why actually it wasn't what I wanted and not what I should be aiming for and it actually brings little value. But I think now that was more about making myself feel better than reflecting some kind of Truth. But even if it is true it is probably also a way to cope with getting the rejection. After that first rejection I ended up applying again and again. Because I think it would be useful to get in and I would get something out of it. Particular the connection with other Founders part of the same batch and the alum. I've been rejected 5 times now, including this time and I expected to do a lot better this time. After so many rejections it really gets a lot easier.
I agree with this....and I think it is a reflection of the diminishing value that accelerators bring to the table for software startups. Teams great enough to get into YC are great enough to build a product, take it to market, generate revenue and grow just fine without an accelerator.
There's a good article on SaaStr...that the only value fundraising and accelerators bring is to speed up the growth a bit, but good SaaS co's are good without outside help. Accelerators and outside capital are neither sufficient nor necessary. The YC model has been in place for awhile, eventually even it will be disrupted...
YC is not about selling stock for 1.7MM valuation but about moving quicker than you are already doing now. They help iterate, connect and grow. The 40K MRR is nice but you're still far from 10M MRR.
No, that's based off https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VCfpzLhSSxM/V0tbZAPvRTI/AAAAAAAAA... by venture capitalist Christoph Janz, plus a guesstimate (based on conversations with many YC applicants, both successful and not, and on the fundraising track records of YC cos) that the YC admission bar is about equal to the bar for a large seed round.
Guys - As I impatiently wait as well, I just want to say whatever happens today won't define your success. Whatever the outcome is, I want to encourage everyone to continue to build a great company.
Dear Fellow Rejects - did any of you go back and take a look at your application and find questions added that were not on the application that you submitted? I was ultra scrupulous in double checking before I submitted. Look in 'Progress' section. There is a forced choice question 'Which of the following best describes your progress?' which offered a couple of answer options. My post rejection application review shows the next question as 'When will you have a prototype or beta? that is not completed because I do not remember it being on the application template. Just a little further down, there is a question 'Do you have revenue?' to which I answered 'No'. But then there are 6 additional questions that I do not remember seeing on the pre-submission application. The first is 'What was your revenue last month? (Please use USD. If none, enter '0'). If that question was there on my pre submission application I certainly would have entered '0', but it appears empty on the post rejection review. Worse, if the application processor could not find a '0' in that space, it might have rejected the whole application as 'incomplete'. Even worse, the next 5 questions 'Your revenue 2,3,4,5,6 months ago?' would have also registered incomplete. But I don't think these questions were on the my pre-submission application form. Also take a look in the equity section. The first question is 'have you incorporated....' which I answered 'No'. I did not answer nor remember seeing the next 3 questions:'What kind of entity and in what state...', 'Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership...', 'List any investments your company has received..."
Please check your post rejection applications - do you see these questions? Did you answer these questions, or does it look like they were added after submission? If I am wrong or misunderstand, I apologize. I submitted my application on 3/22.
YC was kind enough to check my application and found it complete. They say that they do add, modify, delete questions from the application template during the application period. Apparently the Submit button locks each application so that subsequent template changes have no effect. I really appreciated their kind response to my inquiry.
You are write, these questions were added somewhere in the first week of march. I was casually checking my application (it was editable then) and there i found these 6-7 questions which were sort 'newly added' to the application. I however, answered them later on.
I wonder YC guys didn't released any notification regarding the update.
For all the "rejected" : “There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it’s easy.” Let's keep going guys,even after 1000 rejections. At the end, the difference between an unsuccessful person and a successful one is that the latter never gave up.
I have to be honest, this is an emotion I'm not entirely familiar with.
I totally get rejection, I've been rejected for all sorts of things, but normally for rejection I can understand on some level why.
This I don't get. Not only are we applying with a company that fits with an RFS, not only is our team really solid, not only is concept proven, but we have a possibility to do real social good that both makes money and helps people.
Even in talking to other people, the reaction was either "why are you even doing YC" or "Sheesh I'm embarassed to by applying next to you". I know that sounds really arrogant, and Im sorry for sounding like that. I'm just...confused, I guess? I really wish that the applications came with a reason why they were rejected, even if it was one sentence.
I can't honestly believe that typing a one sentence "rejection for reason" would take that much extra time. Even a drop down of "we rejected you for this one of the following 5 canned reasons" (your team was bad, your idea was bad, you have no revenue, etc.) would be helpful.
Is it because my cofounder is from another country? Or because we don't live in the bay area?
I seriously do not understand this. I know that sounds a little bit whiney, but it's just frustrating to have put this much emotional investment into something[1] and to get rejected for it without even a brief explanation of why.
[1]: For people that don't live in the bay, applying to this program is a big deal. I skipped out on events next week because we might have to block out time for an interview, I moved things around this week specifically so that I could schedule an interview if possible, I moved things around this summer so that if I needed to be in SF I could etc.
I get not counting your chickens and all of that, I don't think we did. Nothing is lost for us here, and moving events and things around isn't a big deal, obviously that is just part of doing business. It is just frustrating to get a rejection email that doesn't even include a few seconds explaining why.
Forever onward, obviously. It just really sucks not having feedback on why you were rejected.
Sorry if this sounds harsh but who gives a flying F. If you're a startup founder you not only need to have this mentality but truly believe it.
You need to re-ground yourself and come to terms that if you're running a company you're going to punched in the face, a lot. You're going to get rejected, a lot. This will happen again and again and again and then once you think it won't happen anymore, bam - it'll happen again.
The fact of the matter is this - the only thing, and I mean the only thing that matters in terms of acceptance is what the market thinks of your product. Who cares if an accelerator said you weren't good enough? Who cares what your friends say (good or bad) or other founders say (good or bad) about your startup - it doesn't matter. My last company, my mom loved it, raved about it! But it failed because the market thought it was crap.
The only thing that matters is if the market wants your product. Startups have become obsessed with acceptance into an accelerator or raising money as an indication of success. It is not an indication of success and if you mistake it for this, you're not thinking straight. Build a business.
To me it sounds like you're looking for validation that you're good enough and you were hoping to get that from YC and they told you that you aren't. You applied to Harvard and they said no and now you're sitting there wondering if you're smart enough.
Look at it the other way. Per what you said you have an amazing startup and now you won't need to give away 7.5% of your company. Don't get me wrong, YC from what I have heard is amazing but if you think YC is what is going to make or break your company - boy, I'd be worried.
Hey thanks for the feedback. You're right, and reading that again it sounds stupid. I was frustrated just at not getting at least a brief explanation of why for the rejection, maybe that is asking for too much, though.
YC definitely was not the make-or-break for us, it just sounded like a really good program, and my cofounder and I were, imho justifiably, disappointed at not getting accepted.
We've had other offers, and we turned them down because we wanted to wait to see if we got into YC or not. So I at least hope we weren't looking for validation. We've (at least in my eyes) already gotten that from other investors.
To be honest I think a lot of the calculation goes around like this:
- Here are the X Partners we have available as resources
- Who do these X Partners Like and who can they Work With
- How would this Team fit into our YC ecosystem, recognizing that a lot of the slots in some verticals are filled.
It's a multidimensional optimization, they're not just going for rawr, they're going for "fit", too, and perhaps all of the qualities you list as reasons for your surprise at the rejection, are only part of the equation.
It's the pragmatics of organizations. The system doesn't just choose the "best parts", it chooses the best of the parts that "fit the best". Paradoxically, as the system increases in size, the "open slots" become more constrained, the "fit" becomes more overdefined by the existing parts, and the likelihood of choosing based on "rawr bestness" is decreased.
It's a lot of work that goes into these applications, and I absolutely don't sweat the rejection (hurts a little, but that's all right, we're not in the business of passing the YC application), but as a future suggestion maybe — and I absolutely understand YC gets a ton of applications — if there was a way to just get a short comment on why an application was rejected, it would be so incredibly helpful. One sentence, perhaps even just a standard tick-box canned-response the reviewer hits at the end of reading it ("market-fit not clear", "worried about team", etc.). No interest to argue about it, but the value given back to startups would be tremendous, with very little time required (ticking the final rejection-reason box, even if it just says, "not really something I'd be interested in").
I would even pay for it. I know that's absolutely not within YC's context and mindset, but I'd pay to just read one short line that helps us see what you saw (or hoped to see but didn't).
Also a Summer17 reject. I support and would pay if required. YC encourages me to resubmit (50% of recent batches have applied multiple times), yet I have no clue what to clarify or resolve. It makes no sense to me or YC for me to keep submitting applications if there is some glaring flaw. If they don't like my idea, so be it. But if there is a hint that might make the next application better than a crap shoot, I want to know about it. If they would consider me a stronger candidate if I had more progress, have more users, be less serious on my video, have revenue, have a longer runway, have a tech founder, didn't understand something, thought my forecasts were unrealistic, needed a fact that I failed to include, etc. that would help immensely. You are right, they have the money, so they can decide on whatever basis they choose, but if there is something that they expected to see but didn't or didn't expect to see but did, or wanted to see less/more of, or more proof of, that would really go a long way to increasing my confidence that I did all I could in my application and the decision was truly beyond my control - I could live easier with that, and move on. Thanks.
A rejected application the second time in a row. Had applied to YC W17 batch wherein got rejected after interview.
I really doubt if I'm going to apply again in future. As someone marked in the previous comments, YC is now all about high standards and the companies they sign would anyways had done great without them as well.
Since the last time we applied, we experienced quite a good growth in terms of revenues and customers. plus we introduced some unique engagement model which previously was not at place and was hypothetically roaming around in our minds.
I thought YC support could help us gain networks over in different sectors with experts and that's where we have been seeking support since long. Even in the application we clearly mentioned our "ask" and what we expect from YC.
I think they don't deal with hardware startups or even if they do, those startups are the ones who already might be enjoying millions of dollars of revenue.
I'm happy to hear that! I think it's more off a personal luck with the same. How YC partners take in you is totally dependent upon the partners only.
Good luck with the interview.
This is our 3rd time applying. S15 - Rejected. S16 - Invited then rejected after the interview. S17 - Rejected (we grew to a much higher MRR since S16 with a stronger product). YC's decisions can be unpredictable and I believe you have to get lucky with the batch (your startup showing more promise than others in the pool).
This is my third application with the same company. We got investors and launched our product since the first time we applied. Even though it would be amazing being selected, life will continue even though YCOMBINATOR rejects your idea. ;) Keep building an awesome product! Good Luck to everyone.
Same with me. I build a startup and submitted the ideas for a couple of times but YC continued rejecting us. Even though the first time we got interview request but weren't selected. I pursued and raised funding in multiple rounds. So life continues. Now in 3 years, we dominate the car rental market in ride sharing. Keep building :)
We received our second rejection for an interview yesterday, but luckily for us YC was just a nice to have and not end all.
As I read through the comments, I believe many businesses forget the fact that business is ran by the numbers. Yes, can YC help you get attractive numbers for investors, but you can do the exact same thing on your own if you build something people need (love). I find it hard to believe that any investor that YC can introduce you to will turn down your meeting if you have built a business that has attractive numbers. That's what they look for anyway...YC funded or not.
For those that got an interview, congrats. For those that didn't, keep going and be great in what you are doing.
You are absolutely right and for a founder whose truly committed to his/her business should only consider these rejections as a bump on the road.
However i still disagree with how YC select the startup for the interview. I mean the founders who really needs their support are mostly rejected by them while founders who already has raised a million dollar round (or enjoying revenues) are welcomed and signed by the YC team.
I think YC has now become more of a Standard tool for businesses rather providing actual support to founders who need them badly.
I'm from India and i personally know at least 10 founders here who already had raised so much of amount before getting into YC.
This doesn't makes sense to me as to why the heck would someone get into an incubator/accelerator who's already enjoying the business with healthy unit economics.
Startup incubators have now lost their vision and are now more into what i think has just restricted to the investment game.
I've come a long way in my entrepreneurial journey, and one thing I've come to realize is that elements like YC are just factors for success. They are nice to have but ultimately won't determine the fate of my plan.
It was a milestone in my personal development to reach this insight and very liberating.
Yea, it was mostly clarifying questions about our application. And a chance for them to talk to us live via video. I'm assuming a lot of the pre-interview video calls were teams on the cusp of getting an invite and they were filtering teams out.
We submitted on March 23rd, the day before the deadline. The invite came today (as the 18th is the day they were supposed to send invites/rejection emails).
Congratulations to those of you invited an interview! If unfortunately you don't get in, check out a group which is getting together to set up a Demo Day for rejects after the YC demo day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144922
Sounds like the emails come in later this evening. That's not going to stop me checking my email every 5 seconds until then.
Anybody else in Phoenix? My cofounder and I are going to hang out and get some beers/lunch together while we try to wear out the refresh buttons on our laptops if anybody wants to join us.
Today is Monday, April 24th. I'm super ancy. I applied with a late application 12 days ago and haven't heard anything. Did anyone else apply late recently? Have you heard anything? I keep checking my email and junk box obsessively, scared I might miss something from YC.
Similar story here. Due to the time difference, 18th has come and gone for me and even though I knew it's not gonna come, I was still anxious the whole day.
It wasn't different than what I expected: intense and bold. In the end, we spent more time talking about the characteristics of an enterprise business (my case) rather than my team, product or growth, so it felt superficial. I think that's what you can get in 10 min. And you?
Last year, we applied the week after final decisions for S16 were made. 10 days after, a partner messaged us via HN with some follow-up questions. A week later, we had a Skype call with another partner. We were ultimately rejected 3 days after that call via their standard email template.
We were pre-interviewed on Thursday and so far have not heard anything. We submitted our app an hour or two before the deadline, if you give any credence to the rumor that invites are being sent according to the date of app submission.
I wouldn't necessarily say that! I think pre-interviews are simply an indication that a partner wanted more information about the startup. That might be because the information was omitted or because it wasn't within the scope of the application. I suppose the only certain conclusion you can draw is that prior to the pre-interview you hadn't yet been rejected. But seeing as each application is read by at least one other reviewer, and the 450 highest weighted applications are sent invitations, I don't believe that a single pre-interview has an extremely positive or negative bearing on your chances of being invited to final interviews.
We were sent an email and asked to pick a set of times. It was a ten minute conversation with a partner. I imagine each partner has the ability to set up a certain number of pre-interviews at their discretion if they want to gather more information on a particular startup - it's neither a positive nor negative signal, but simply an indication that they wanted to find out more information that's not in your application.
Yup, "We're sorry to say that your startup was not selected to interview for the upcoming Y Combinator batch. Please don't take it personally." TRICKSY HOBBITZES! :(
Thank you for opportunity! You're darn right we're applying W18!
Haha, yeah, however, i think that the application was always in previous applications, but you were able to edit the founders' profiles. Who cares, the invites are not sent
Was this a video call? Our team isn't international but we had a video call scheduled a few days ago. We were also wondering what that signified, if anything.
Okay, I finally got rejected once more as solo founder:
www.mountwish.org
Problem and solution:
Most companies struggle with the high complexity and ever-increasing regulatory burdens associated with managing their FX, commodity price and interest rate risks. Not to mention that costs in financial risk management are rising fast (currently firms spend on average around 2.86% of their revenues on hedging these risk).
Hence, they usually would prefer to have a simple, straight-forward insurance covering these risks rather than having to deal with derivatives and the related administrative requirements.
That’s where we come in with our product called FinGuard, which is an ERP system plugin doing exactly this – measuring the exposure and automatically insuring it at a cost which is at least 40% cheaper compared to traditional hedging methods (as we can effectively match contrary risk positions of different customers).
Top three customer advantages:
1. Significant EBITDA boost
Savings coming from our cross-customer hedging approach can increase EBITDA by up to 11.5% p.a. which is equal to an increase of 16% in sales, while additionally saving any kind of fixed treasury expenses (e.g. treasury systems, staffing, research data, special admin processes and legal services,…). Hence customers’ EBITDA will go up sharply.
2. No compliance hassles anymore
It reduces compliance burdens , just think of KYC checks, MiFID II, EMIR and the likes, which for an insurance policy from a customer’s perspective are no longer applicable
3. Convenience and more time for your core business
Increased focus on your core business with automation taking all the financial risk management hassles (e.g. going global w/o worrying about FX rates) and potential human errors (e.g. no litigations with banks about the agreed on derivatives pricing) out while using big data to improve results further
Status Quo and Key metrics:
- A solid team is in place and shall be hired with the next funding round (or accelerator money), but until then it's just me working full-time on the project (by the way I don' understand the bias against solo founders anyway: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-optional/)
- Validated concept (based on historical data), business processes defined, thorough business plan written (100+ pages) and software design sketch ready; first prototype shall work by end of April
- Currently discussing cooperation with other financial services providers as they can help us to drive sales significantly (attracted leading players including bulge bracket banks and household names in the insurance industry among others)
- 300+ sales leads each with more than 100m in revenues (our own pricing is derived as a percentage of their revenues); currently reaching out to them to get signed LoIs
- 2.97tn USD total market size; expecting USD 546m in pre-payments in year 1
Just got an invite for an interview. Great news! Can anyone swap interview slots who has one booked for the week of May 1, which is now full?
I'm at TED for the prior week. Thanks...
Hopefully this doesn't come off too rude but you've linked this 5 times now in this thread and to me this has passed the point of promotion and reached spam.
We interviewed in-person for W17 in October and got rejected because we didn't articulate a good plan for growth. - we grew 4,000% since October - launched huge features for both sides of our marketplace - received acquisition interest in < 3 months of being live - most importantly, made something that people are loving and using on a daily basis.
It's a bummer for sure but not the end of the world.
To anyone who got an interview, Figure out your biggest weakness and a plan for how you overcome it. Your interviewers will exploit it.
Here's some notes on our experience going through the interview https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/YC-Interview-Experience-L45KzT...
Good luck all