Ask HN: YC interview invites are sent. What's up now?

9 pointsDanilka10y ago29 comments

YC application and interview process could be tedious for founders.

I am curious which companies got selected, which didn't and why? How do you feel about it and what you are going to do?

29 comments

16 comments · 8 top-level

elainelu10y ago· 5 in thread

Got rejected. In a painful process to figure out why. It will be fine if YC didn't carefully read our application. It won't be if they did. We will continue carry on, toward our roadmap, try to prove ourselves by product performance as soon as possible, and meanwhile think through what we might be missed and how can we do better.

sikanhe10y ago

The first reason why you think they rejected you is because you think they didn't read your application?

Not gonna lie but i am going to give my honest advice here.

There is nothing wrong with your idea, I think there is some kind of need out there for photo organization because people takes so many pictures nowadays that they dont even remember they have taken them.

But when I see your team is when I went, WTF? You have 8 people working on a pre-alpha photo app and you don't even KNOW if people want to use it.

AND you are hiring? What are you hiring for? More people to argue with whenever someone think of a idea? You need speed and focus at the beginning stage of a startup and having 8 person on the team is game over for you already.

Instagram is built with 2 person only all the way from original idea to pivoting to launch, and they STILL only have around 10 people on the team.

In fact there hasn't been a software startup I have seen in YC that has that many people. Most startups had 2-3 person for the first 2-3 years.

You should really consider about the size of your team especially at mvp stage.

elainelu10y ago

Hi, thanks for your honest feedbacks. No, I didn't mean that they didn't read my application. That's a joke. You misunderstood.

We have 8 persons is because we have a seed round already and we want to run fast. I am learning how to balance the cost with the speed of development. But I don't think the amount of people directly equal to the cost you have. :)

Thanks for your information about the team size you have seen in YC. But I don't think that's the reason we got rejected. Will consider how to match the development speed with the size though.

elainelu10y ago

By the way, we love team discussion and each member is valuable to our team. We only have 2 co-founders though. More people means more help to us, not necessary more trouble as you think. At the end of day, even our product fail, we still have a great team to start the next chapter. :)

DanilkaOP10y ago

Do you mind sharing a link to your product?

elainelu10y ago

Sure. www.visbit.co. Appreciate any thoughtful feedbacks.

2 more replies

intrepidkarthi10y ago· 2 in thread

Our application got rejected.

We are from LookMobility(http://www.lookmobility.com), developing a product on creating Virtual Reality experience for the people who can't code and design, it is going to be powerpoint for Virtual Reality.

We have no idea why our application is rejected and also there is no regrets on it. Just move ahead and think forward!

GFischer10y ago

It looks really cool, got me hooked, but it fails to explain "how" you'll archieve what you're selling :)

I'm particularly interested in that area, I'd like to be notified when you go live! You should add a newsletter :)

I hope adding a demo or video is on your to-do list, it would help greatly :)

intrepidkarthi10y ago

Thanks for the comment. We will let you know once our product is out. And other changes on website and demo video are in progress already. Will be ready in a week's time.

taheca10y ago· 1 in thread

My startup was not selected.

This was the first accelerator we applied to, and I of course obviously hold no ill will. I may try again in the future. I do appreciate that they said I would have an answer today, and I received an answer.

We are in the process of having our MVP built (finalizes in November), and will continue on as we have been.

In one way I am kind of happy. This is the first rejection to overcome.. who knows how many more we have ahead of us, but our passion to bring opportunity to every person who wants it will not be stopped.

I wish every company selected this year nothing but the best of luck moving forward.

impactthat10y ago

Great attitude! That's our attitude too. Best of luck!

sfraise10y ago

We're working on a new sales platform called coldminer (http://www.cold-miner.com) that unifies the entire process by including millions of built in prospecting leads, virtual call center, help desk, real time communications between sales reps, optional integrated e-commerce store for both front end purchasing as well as the option for sales reps to select inventory and make the sale from the call center, mass email capability, sales rep training and more.

We've been in the prototype phase for the last 7 months with one company using the prototype as it's sole leads source and sales platform and its helped them open over 200 new accounts and raise sales by over 200%.

We need alpha/beta testers and would love to see some other startups use it to gain traction so if anyone is interested in it let me know and we'll set you up.

It does both b2b and b2c but we're still working on the b2c aspect (a lot more data points and moving parts on the b2c side, plus a hell of a lot more leads to deal with) so we're really looking for companies that sell b2b right now but will be looking for b2c companies soon.

KurtKumar10y ago

Proly all of the YC-R's are going through this: https://www.wrike.com/blog_images/396910/graph-reactions-to-...

GFischer10y ago