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Rejection letter from summer 05

35 points by dhouston ↗ HN
"We're sorry to say that we can't accept your proposal for the Summer Founders Program. We were surprised by the high quality of the applications, and wanted to accept more. But since this is the first year, we decided we'd better force ourselves to keep the program small enough to manage.

A lot of the proposals we rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the applicants. For example, we were very reluctant to accept any proposals with only one founder, or only one who could come to Cambridge, because we think starting a startup is too much work for one person. We also rejected a lot of proposals simply because we 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.

It's quite likely, in fact, 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 making fun of us; we want to learn from our mistakes.

If this summer works out, we're probably going to fund more startups. (Check our site for announcements.) If we do, we encourage you to re-apply in the future.

Thanks

Y Combinator"

today might be a rough day for some. but if it's any encouragement, i was rejected in summer 05 and two years later (summer 07) applied with a different idea and more experience and was accepted. yc turned out to be mostly right about the problems with my first idea, and i learned a lot in the intervening two years.

so don't think it's the end -- hang in there!

27 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 72.8 ms ] thread
ryanspahn
Is there a YCombinator for single inventors in their 30s or for senior citizens?

One of my concepts I submitted am I told by those whom I show it to, that it is an industry changing concept!

Though it maybe ahead of it's time & mobile Internet technology/sector need to be more robust - what I show only is only the basic concept. What do you think?

I use my site everyday driving to and fro work. I used to have satellite radio, but no longer have the need!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq_lkSRDFck

rms
what's your site?
ryanspahn
Sorry, I use it for personal use.

If you have a Windows Mobile phone you can copy/paste the code from my blog: http://www.techavid.com and create your own site. You will have to gather the proper streams, so Mobile IE plays them.

rms
Are there legal issues that prevent you from doing this commercially?
ryanspahn
Yes, the 50 or more global streams I compiled & listen to are not mine to distribute.

So, being accepted to YCombinator would've facilitated turning this from a personal use site to a commercial one.

There is much innovation to be had here!

Though I am not deterred by the unsurprising no I received from Y, but rather it is just a reminder of my time-line in life.

davidw
Sounds interesting, but how would YC facilitate that - or better - why can't you do it on your own? Presumably you'd need to pay for it, but the cash they give you is not a lot, so you'd need other sources in any case.
ryanspahn
Well Im web/graphic designer with a bunch of ideas, who would love to get to experience the Menlo Park of today!

With the experience comes great networking opportunities that would facilitate creating the first XM and Siruis like Internet Radio type company.

Hopefully, I will be apart of such, as there is so much cool stuff to be done with it. Right now though I'm focused on my startup, which this hack prompted me to start.

davidw
> With the experience comes great networking opportunities that would facilitate creating the first XM and Siruis like Internet Radio type company.

How so? What can't you do on your own? Internet radio is kind of in trouble as it is, let alone inking any new deals.

rms
I know that the web streaming royalties are pretty onerous and that's if they don't charge you extra to stream to a cell phone. How profitable is it to sell internet radio for $2.99 a month? I think it would be hard to charge more than $2.99 for a great mobile net radio service -- that's what Pandora charges.

Of course, you can try it under the Make Something People Want banner but this is something that is ultimately unsustainable without ads or a freemium model.

corentin
Why do you need YCombinator's permission to do what you want?
DanielBMarkham
Please take this as constructive, because I'm speaking from the voice of experience here.

"I told by those whom I show it to, that it is an industry changing concept!" -- this phrase is a red flag for me. (Another big red flag phrase is "if we only capture x% of the market...") I've had applications like that too. I would just be careful that you base how cool your idea is on one thing: number of active users. People can say all kinds of great and wonderful things about you and your app; and they will. But it all boils down to users. If you got 'em, doesn't matter what people say one way or another.

ryanspahn
Thanks :)

Why is my phrase a red flag to you? I was just conveying words from those who have seen the YouTube video. Sorry if it sounded I was implying this is the best concept over anything, not my intent!

As for users that is a future milestone for YCombinator companies. Y assesses the applications to find the best of the bunch! This concept did not meet Y standards and that's great, I look forward to seeing the startups chosen and wish them good luck!

DanielBMarkham
I had a guy once that spent 15 minutes telling me how great my invention was. Then I asked him to pay for it.

The room got very quiet after that.

Talk is cheap, that's all I'm saying. I would never judge a quality of a business model, good or bad, simply because of what somebody says about it. I'm sure you have a great application. I look forward to hearing how it goes!

adrianwaj
1 person startups would've ruled out Plentyoffish.com (Markus Frind) and Napster (Shawn Fanning).
henning
I suspect they would have strongly disliked Markus Frind because he can't write using proper grammar and punctuation. And, even worse, his site is total Microsoft fanboy stuff. Windows, SQL Server, ASP.NET, scaling to tens of millions of users and more money per month than all YC acquisition sums.
mattmaroon
Markus Frind is a moron who was in the right place at the right time. If you funded 1,000 of him, you'd lose on 999.

As we say in poker, even the blind squirrel finds an acorn some times. Markus Frind is a prime example.

henning
I definitely wasn't defending him, I just think it bears repeating that you should build your stuff with whatever you're most comfortable with.

"What do you know about servers that Yahoo and Google don't?" Well, you'll probably never be Yahoo or Google and you don't have their same requirements, so if you get down with SharePoint 2007 Enterprise Solution Architect Server Plus Pro Home Business, go for it.

adrianwaj
Markus says: "My short description leaves a lot out, but basically I spent every waking minute when I wasn't at my day job reading, studying, and learning. I picked out "enemies" and did everything I could to defeat them which ment being bigger then them. I refused to accept defeat of any kind, and I constantly forced myself to test new things. I never tried to perfect anything it didn't matter if things didn't work 100% as long as it was good enough I would move onto the next thing. In 2003 the dating market was growing 80% a year unlike the -10% in 2006 so growth was a LOT easier. When 2004 rolled around and word of mouth REALLY kicked in and as they say the rest is history."

http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/14/how-i-started-a...

adrianwaj
Out of 500 applicants per year, a conventional VC might only fund 10. I don't think Markus is a shmuck at all.
akkartik
You can say that again. I've never had my registration on a site deleted within half an hour. Until I tried pofish. Twice.

There's only been a couple of sites ever that pissed me off enough that I wouldn't ever try any site by the guy ever again.

electric
>Markus Frind is a moron

Not a very nice thing to say... really.

>who was in the right place at the right time.

You can say that about everyone who is successful.

pg
Give us a little more credit; we may not be quite as dumb as you think.
pepeto
You make it sound like this is the only way to go in life. "If you have failed, you still can live..."
brlewis
I'm curious what motivated the change from "send us an email making fun of us" in 2005 to "send us an email telling us about it" in 2007.
brett
Good catch. The line encouraging people to reapply is gone too.
rms
It sounded somewhat arrogant in the original version. It wasn't arrogant, of course, it was serious, but it could certainly be perceived as arrogant or smug.