We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally. The applications we receive get better every funding cycle, and since there's a limit on the number of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot of genuinely promising groups.
Unfortunately we can't give you individual feedback about your application. This page explains why:
http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html
Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing.
We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number of interviews means it's 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 telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes.
Y Combinator Team
We didn't have a prototype at all and I think even with a really strong team, it certainly has to hurt the chances.
If your video wasn't on youtube, or it wasn't embeddable, or you used a third party link shortener (not youtu.be) - reviewers had to do extra work to view your video.
Keep your spirits up, rejectees, this is not the end of the world. Continue doing your thing. :)
What's even stranger/funnier is that some companies reject you without giving any specific reasons, yet they invite you to reapply for another position or the same later.
I.e. if the process aborts after a certain stage, and the first few stages are fairly transparent tech skill evaluations. If it is something as fuzzy as code on a whiteboard, that is more like a human interview, but something like progressive fizzbuzz could be used as a 1h pre-screen.
If all teammate interviews happen pre lunch, then, and you are told to go home before lunch, then it is the team interviews. I guess then exact reason wouldn't be clear to you, though.
YC rejection for the 2nd year in a row has done little to dampen our spirits and ambition. Here's to another rejection that motivates us to succeed!
- Proud Rejectee
1 - Some of your images are huge. The ipad workouts image alone is 300kb, which is way too big. Of course you want them to be good quality, but you should be able to cut a lot of weight without any noticeable effect. The Fireworks Export Wizard is a good tool for this.
2 - Some of your images are unnecessarily broken up into lots of separate img tags. The main landing page image with the helmets and devices has over 6 tags. You should combine images in order to have as few img tags as possible. It will reduce http requests and also give the browser less layout work to do.
3 - On a similar note, you have a bunch of small images like the player portraits that you could group into a spritesheet to further reduce requests.
4 - It doesn't seem like you're using a CDN? Something like Cloudfront or Cloudflare is quick to setup and will improve download time for your images drastically, especially for people who are far away from your server like me.
5 - You should put your javascript at the bottom of the body instead of in the head. You're not executing anything until the dom is loaded anyway, and putting at the bottom will allow the page to render before the js is downloaded and parsed, improving perceived load time. Use 'display: none' to initially hide anything that depends on the js to look right.
Our progress so far is a huge testament to the skill, execution and resolve of our team (http://bodybossfitness.com/about).
- Damien Katz (creator of CouchDB) was also rejected[1]. He went on and got $2 million from Redpoint Ventures [2]
- On this video[3], Jessica Livingston interviews Drew. It shows that he was also rejected the first time he tried out YC.
- The oscar of rejected but finally accepted: I got into YC after applying six times [4]
- Peteris Krumins also got rejected with his browserling idea, got rejected[5], and went on to raise his own seed funding[6].
[1] http://damienkatz.net/2006/11/how_not_to_pitc.html
[2] http://damienkatz.net/2009/12/relaxed_inc.html
[3] http://blog.ycombinator.com/dropbox-interview-now-online
[4] http://iamwil.posterous.com/i-got-into-yc-after-applying-six...
[5] http://www.catonmat.net/blog/launching-browserling/
[6] http://www.catonmat.net/blog/how-i-raised-money-for-browserl...
It's not the end of the world.
" We missed Dropbox, Heroku and Airbnb. " [1]
If the 3 supposed hits that presently created most of yC's entire known value got passed over by the VCs at first go.. one has to be a bit skeptical about the whole idol contest.
[1] - http://rapgenius.com/Harj-taggar-well-be-circling-back-lyric...
-- my thoughts --
I am sure it was.. but the main point is.. people attribute more rationality and objectivity to a process that frankly even by pg's own comments ( check out his essay on " two kinds of judgment ) is not so.
Investors ( even incubators ) should be a secondary thought to an entrepreneur's path.. I'd go so far as to point that its best to have a defensive approach and look for paths do not require them ( even pg has hinted many times via his essays.. including the cockroach bit ).
What happens when the first example arrives that clearly just bypassed the whole lot of the present ecosystem till a very late stage and hits the range of a Google or Microsoft ?
A long standing tradition: If you got rejected, please forward your rejection email to free@mixpanel.com and we'll hook you up with a free Mixpanel plan to help out while you're figuring it out.
- Suhail
Anyone who got rejected from YC S13 forward your rejection email to freewine@undergroundcellar.com and I'll send you a $25 gift card for free wine from http://UndergroundCellar.com
I'm not suggesting you drink your problems away, but a relaxing glass of wine can be a nice way to wind down before you get back to those 14 hour hack days.
We applied with Arro, http://arroapp.com - tells you which product to get by analyzing millions of ratings online.
We would have entrance exams for coaching classes which prepared students for main entrance exams, basically the elite coaching institutes would ask candidates undergo a entrance test and pick up only the best.
Many of my friends were rejected, including me. Some were selected. In the end in the main exams we did better than the guys who were selected for the coaching class. It just turns out after we were rejected we were motivated to push ourselves further more than others.
Rejection can do wonders if taken in the right spirit. You basically go into the phase to 'prove something' to not just yourself but every one around.
This is a very well drafted email.
>>Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes.
Says it all. YC companies fail too.
And there are a lot of non-YC companies that win. At the end YC is like the coaching class entrance exam, not the main engineering entrance exam.
Your main test is how and what you do on the ground.
So we quit. We spent the summer building Meldium, reapplied for W13, and were accepted - and it was an amazing boost to our company. As a founder, you're going to get rejected a lot - use it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Interesting that you mentioned "serious." Looking back I don't think I was a whole lot "serious" the last time I applied, but I think my application might have been better (see my comment below - got more video views last year, but that could have been an anomaly).
In any case, I wonder if being in school this time hurts our chances. Most of our founders are graduating, and the rest have signed on to jobs. But we are more serious about it this time around - hacking away on public transit, on campus and pulling all-nighters to get features out.
So, Tinfoil Security is offering our $59 Basic plan free for life, and 50% off all other plans. Happy to keep startups secure :) Email your YC rejection letter to founders@tinfoilsecurity.com and we'll hook you up.
--Shri (Founder, FlightCar)
One alumni told me that YC was all about picking billion dollar, not million dollar businesses. In that case, could you say juniper would scale to the billion dollar market? Could your users track their usage with a recurring Google calendar entry? (I know women that do). Why not scale to include other high usage products - toothpaste, toilet paper, etc? (I know of one startup in stealth mode doing this, so it's probably a feasible plan). Sorry for playing devil's advocate - really like what you got so far though.
email is in my profile.
Oh well.. targeting for the YC application gave me the required focus in the last 5 months to turn my hobby/personal-use site into a full fledged travel blogging & recommendations platform ready to launch in a couple of months.
I don't think i will re-apply any time soon. My goal, starting Kettik, was to achieve creative, financial and geographic freedom. To create something of my own, travel, live and work from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Not sure how free i would've been if i had funding, a team to manage and investors to give returns to. So i guess the best thing to do is to continue on my own and focus on making Kettik profitable enough to sustain itself, me and my co-founders (if i manage to find any).
And maybe one day if it grows too big for me to manage, i'll go knocking on YC's doors again.
I think YC has done more than enough for me. Anything more and this would become a fairy tale :). To be honest, I never wanted this to be an easy fairy tale. I want this to be a story worth telling to my children. I like battles where the victor emerges half-alive.
Now its time for me to captain this ship to the shore. And damnit I will :) This is my ship, my baby, and I will never let it sink alone.
Im so thankful for the people in my life. They stick with me and believe in me regardless of my lunacy, willing to take the bullets for me.
Keep working hard people. We'll meet each other at the finish line. :)
Don't think it means nothing, it means something about where you are in your life as a founder and how well you can communicate that (and that matters), but not anything more than that.
- 5x rejectee and pretty successful dude
I think it's obvious that this rejection letter should not put a stop to your projects but rather keep improving them, that's what I'm gonna do.
I already applied to techstars and I will apply again at Y combinator. Next time I'll be ready!
I'm looking for a co-founder in order to launch a new mobile advertising platform for hyperlocalized marketing.
You can support my application at TechStars at the following url: http://www.f6s.com/geome#main/ajax-summary
I'm still at an early stage but if you're interested, PM me and I'll explain you what this is about.
You can also follow me on twitter: @Nicrogo
Many thx!!
http://gaglers.com will be happy to help with our live chat or community chat product. We have unlimited agents and SSL in all our plans. Send your rejection email to founders@gaglers.com and get to use our top plan(Pro) for free for 6 months.
We love to help small and agile startups. Here is why, http://gaglers.com/blog/2013/03/29/live-chat-software-unlimi...
Email your YC rejection letter to founders@urlbox.io and we'll get you going in no time.
