We applied a few years ago. I won’t lie, I was sad and disappointed we didn’t get in, but even more so because our application was just ignored. Left a very bad taste in our mouths.
I won’t again spend days on an application to have it be ignored. Since then, we have been grinding away at the same business and it’s now making 7 figures, giving us the perfect life of a 20% YoY growth business with no VCs breathing down our necks trying to 10x that growth rate. Not taking VC money was the best thing we ever did, albeit inadvertently.
So sure, you won’t get in (statistically), but it could be the best thing you ever don’t do!
I spent most of the last 20 years in bootstrapped companies, helping grow two of them into 8 figures (which, when you don't have a board, is pretty neat). Bootstrapping is where my heart is, and almost all of the best memories of my career are from times when those kinds of companies were at the knife's edge of maybe having some kind of market fit and maybe just starting to have an identity and maybe just getting up on their legs. If that's your happy place --- again: it is mine! --- probably don't apply to YC.
I'm at a company now (Fly.io, W20) that simply would not make sense without funding (we rack hardware all over the world). I've advised close friends through other startups that might could have worked without funding, but worked better with it. I've seen the before/after on YC, years into the life of some companies (Fly.io started in 2016) and the win was significant.
It depends on what you're trying to do.
But like, pretty obviously, the point Dan is trying to make here is that there are lots of people negotiating against themselves, talking themselves out of taking the swing. And I'm not all that great at business or whatever, but one thing I think I've learned is that overriding the instinct not to take swings, succumbing to the urge to avoid potential nociception, it's a pretty important tool in the toolbox of entrepreneurship.
There are good reasons not to apply to YC, but "they will probably reject me" is maybe not one of them, unless your time is very scarce, in which case you probably already know why you're not applying to YC.
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.
> It sucks for Elastic but it's good for customers.
Everyone is seemingly happy with ES not being able to monetise the product they build for the community, to subsidise the thousands of developer hours spent on it, so their company can save a few dollars. They (you) would rather than money go to Amazon for providing.. nothing to the ES community.
No, I would rather ES built a sustainable business selling their software with a normal licensing model that makes sure they're getting paid no matter who's hosting it. In that world it doesn't matter if AWS or Google or Microsoft or anyone else want to offer hosted versions of it because ES still gets their cut.
But co-opting open source to grow your user-base and then switching your license because you don't like the reality of what open source actually entails leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth.
but the elephant in the room is that there are perfectly acceptable ways to make money off of an open source project and HELP them keep afloat by regular DONATIONS/man power/hosting/etc.
We applied a few years ago. I won’t lie, I was sad and disappointed we didn’t get in, but even more so because our application was just ignored. Left a very bad taste in our mouths.
I won’t again spend days on an application to have it be ignored. Since then, we have been grinding away at the same business and it’s now making 7 figures, giving us the perfect life of a 20% YoY growth business with no VCs breathing down our necks trying to 10x that growth rate. Not taking VC money was the best thing we ever did, albeit inadvertently.
So sure, you won’t get in (statistically), but it could be the best thing you ever don’t do!