Find out why you were rejected (it could be for a very specific reason or no reason at all) and then apply again. I think there are a good number of people who were accepted after a rejection.
Any tips on going about that? Unless you get to the interview stage you don't really get much feedback apart from any questions they ask. We have some theories of course and are trying to address them... (unproven tech, founders without much of a track record)
I think you should reapply. Joe and I applied the year before and got an interview, but it was on a totally different idea, and we were rejected.
We came back again with a much better product, and it showed that even though that first idea failed hard, we still were working together and improved a lot more.
Just make sure if it's the same idea, it's dramatically better.
Do it. David and I reapplied after getting rejected the first time. Stay determined - getting in is a huge enabler but stay tough and you will have a company.
I keep waiting for an article describing a bad experience with Y Combinator. Not that I think there's anything wrong with YC, but I feel like I'm getting a one sided story when all I read are glowing reviews.
Even if you wouldn't classify your experience as bad or not worth it, there's always room for improvement. I'd love to hear some criticism from people within the program so I don't feel like I'm just reading propaganda.
How could there ever be a bad experience, if you just look at YC as buying marketing for 6% of your fledgling company now valued at a few hundred K you'd be spending a large multiple, and you're getting money to boot.
It would be cheap if you gave away your shares. Provided you have a product worth half a chance.
Then there's the network and so on. If you can get in do it, if not bootstrap but it would be very hard to find a 'negative'.
And if there are negative stories about being in YC I'd expect them to be vented elsewhere rather than here.
Some hypotheticals and criticisms I've heard from people outside of YC:
1) There are so many YC startups that the brand has become diluted and it doesn't get you as much PR/street cred as it used to.
2) The YC team is working with so many other startups that they don't have much time to work with your startup.
3) If you're already in a position to raise more money from angels at a better valuation, is the YC rolodex worth the equity you're trading?
Generally everything comes with pros and cons, I don't think you can say that it could never be bad or that there are no downsides. At some extreme point the above must apply, e.g. it probably wouldn't be a good idea for google to apply to YC.
Google doing a YC is a pretty weird proposition, that's Goliath going to have breakfast on Davids dime, and asking him to help lifting a bunch of stuff to boot.
Of course YC is orders of magnitude larger than the companies they invest in, that's why it makes sense in the first place.
As to your other points:
1) I've seen little to no evidence of that, rather the opposite, even YC start-ups that would be non-starters or that already have an established competitor, sometimes with a better product that has gotten no coverage whatsoever are covered by anything from TC to CNN just because YC is on board
2) this may be true, but that also means the size of the pool of alumni with valuable knowledge is larger. I used to think that YC had a 'scaling issue' in the person of Paul Graham, but in fact the alumni seem to offset that in whole or in part
3) the marketing value is already worth it, anything you get out of it on top of that is pure cream.
I doubt anyone would want to say publicly that they've had a bad experience with YC, constructive to the rest of us as it may be. It's just not worth burning that bridge. It's probably a good general rule of thumb to never say anything publicly negative about anyone, unless you're enough of a badass to get away with it (zed, dhh, etc).
it's another source of motivation. we each push each other to do more and more. of course the best source is a regular set of users telling you want they want, but the need to show new improvements each week is akin to making parents/friends proud of something you worked on.
Not to detract from the YC experience, but I think you can create this sort of rhythm independently, too. Demos in front of a <100% complimentary audience (i.e., not your cofounder/girlfriend/parents) can be enough to force you to develop many of the habits of a successful startup (fail fast, pivot, stretch yourself, listen to customers, etc., etc.) no matter where you are.
That discipline, coupled with an honest daily status report to my team, effectively ended ~10 years' worth of my own bad coding habits (procrastination, under-estimation, and insistence on clever/perfect/fast solutions where "good enough" was in fact enough) in about a year.
The extra pressure of a YC demo day may help increase your pace in the short term, but you eventually need to learn the discipline to show continual improvement without the pressure of a room full of VCs criticizing your every word.
There's no limit. Or rather, the only limit is your other investors. If you'd already taken a series A round from a VC fund, they probably wouldn't like the idea.
Reading the top ranked comment, perhaps there is a need for a post that emphasises the value of learning from failure as a way of learning better. Propaganda is not always a good way of viewing things.
27 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 66.7 ms ] threadAny tips on going about that? Unless you get to the interview stage you don't really get much feedback apart from any questions they ask. We have some theories of course and are trying to address them... (unproven tech, founders without much of a track record)
We came back again with a much better product, and it showed that even though that first idea failed hard, we still were working together and improved a lot more.
Just make sure if it's the same idea, it's dramatically better.
Even if you wouldn't classify your experience as bad or not worth it, there's always room for improvement. I'd love to hear some criticism from people within the program so I don't feel like I'm just reading propaganda.
It would be cheap if you gave away your shares. Provided you have a product worth half a chance.
Then there's the network and so on. If you can get in do it, if not bootstrap but it would be very hard to find a 'negative'.
And if there are negative stories about being in YC I'd expect them to be vented elsewhere rather than here.
1) There are so many YC startups that the brand has become diluted and it doesn't get you as much PR/street cred as it used to.
2) The YC team is working with so many other startups that they don't have much time to work with your startup.
3) If you're already in a position to raise more money from angels at a better valuation, is the YC rolodex worth the equity you're trading?
Generally everything comes with pros and cons, I don't think you can say that it could never be bad or that there are no downsides. At some extreme point the above must apply, e.g. it probably wouldn't be a good idea for google to apply to YC.
Of course YC is orders of magnitude larger than the companies they invest in, that's why it makes sense in the first place.
As to your other points:
1) I've seen little to no evidence of that, rather the opposite, even YC start-ups that would be non-starters or that already have an established competitor, sometimes with a better product that has gotten no coverage whatsoever are covered by anything from TC to CNN just because YC is on board
2) this may be true, but that also means the size of the pool of alumni with valuable knowledge is larger. I used to think that YC had a 'scaling issue' in the person of Paul Graham, but in fact the alumni seem to offset that in whole or in part
3) the marketing value is already worth it, anything you get out of it on top of that is pure cream.
I don't buy it. Can you elaborate?
That discipline, coupled with an honest daily status report to my team, effectively ended ~10 years' worth of my own bad coding habits (procrastination, under-estimation, and insistence on clever/perfect/fast solutions where "good enough" was in fact enough) in about a year.
The extra pressure of a YC demo day may help increase your pace in the short term, but you eventually need to learn the discipline to show continual improvement without the pressure of a room full of VCs criticizing your every word.