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Tell HN: YC W16 rejection emails are out

by AaronO on 10/28/15, 8:48 PM with 82 comments

• by kika on 10/28/15, 11:37 PM

  I've applied 20 minutes before deadline, if I remember correctly. I guess the quality of the application reflects this fact :-) I'm 46, single founder, scratching my own itch, so the expectations were low, in fact I even forgot about 28th until the day before yesterday. More importantly, this rejection is a dead end. You've got rejected now what? What rational outcome you can extract from this simple fact? I think none, there's no feedback. It just says that somehow you do not fit YC profile.

  Rejection from the potential customer is infinitely more valuable, because even if they don't give you any feedback (though they usually do) it means that your mental picture of your market is slightly wrong. Every piece of feedback moves the needle. Rejection from YC doesn't move anything anywhere. Or does it? (may be I'm just over rationalizing, I have such bad habit).

  For example a strangely large portion of my early kicking-tires-users are either from government or some security/military/intelligence related fields. Like some company that says "if you're not from the law enforcement - move on, nothing for you here" on the front page of their website (they're doing some telecom stuff). Why? I'm doing some stupid boring datacenter inventory management! No idea whatsoever. But for me it's a question of the universe and everything.

  So, folks, move on and get some customers. (yeah, go ahead, I'm just finishing one more feature, will follow shortly.... :-) https://www.rackmaze.com

• by bobsgame on 10/28/15, 9:06 PM

  Rejected again. Not much of a surprise since I'm not a good fit- I don't even really consider myself a startup but it never hurts to try...

  Speaking of which, anyone want to throw some cash at a 10 year game development project by one obsessed starving artist?

• by BinaryIdiot on 10/28/15, 9:20 PM

  If my experience has taught me anything (including this go around), rejections and invitations will all go out by midnight PST tonight though the vast majority will probably be out the door by 6pm PST.

  I was rejected but I wasn't entirely expecting to get in. I don't have a co-founder, my prototype isn't finished yet and I am working on my project on the side since I would like to keep paying the bills. Oh well I'll keep working on it, if it can turn into a business when I get some people to actually play with it then that would be awesome otherwise I can pivot easily enough with doing it part time (www.simulated.io if anyone is interested in looking at it).

• by elainelu on 10/29/15, 4:21 AM

  Got rejected. Very much hope to find out why as we have got seed round, two co-founders from top tier tech/startup companies, an efficient and well-collaborate team, and have a Beta product running. So, I guess it's the business idea issue? It's probably a competitive market but we are confident to make difference and our initial campaign showed encouraging result. With all above, we still didn't get a chance for interview. I don't want to be overoptimistic. We will continue working toward our roadmap but meanwhile I sincerely hope to hear from YC about why, as that will be really helpful to us. Please.

• by taytus on 10/28/15, 9:42 PM

  YC is just one of many ways to possibly succeed. Not a big deal. Rejected and motivated :)

• by montbonnot on 10/28/15, 10:29 PM

  When I see some people getting rejected I wonder if YC is still worth it. Giving away %7 of your stake to YC when you already have a solid team, a usable product (already live), some active users and money invested in your business ($1 million seed??). I think it's almost odd now...

  Here's %7 of our company. Take it. Networking? Anyone can send an email to VC's with a link to a product and some stats highlighting its potential.

• by dilipmalave on 10/29/15, 1:31 AM

  Rejected and dejected. Our first application. The process was helpful though, so no regrets. Will apply for the next batch, of-course.

  But back to work now. Focus is getting the goddamn MVP done and get some real users.

  Does this mean, people who haven't received rejection letters, they in all likelihood get invited for the interview? Anyone invited yet?

• by hamhamed on 10/28/15, 9:59 PM

  Got my 8th rejection after 4 years of constantly applying. I'll admit, for this application I got tired of remaking a video with my cofounder so I used the same as the last application.

  This is what I'm currently working on: https://www.stay22.com/

• by rachellaw on 10/28/15, 11:57 PM

  We were rejected, despite being in the YC RFS' category (A.I.)

  Kip is a deep learning search for fashion in IRL stores around you: https://kipsearch.com

  I don't think there was a particular reason why they rejected us, most likely that in a bell curve we just weren't as good compared to other applicants.

  It was great fun doing the application, and we learned a lot! More importantly, we closed a lead investor/partnership the day before, so even though we were rejected it wasn't a big disappointment.

• by big_fish on 10/28/15, 9:44 PM

  Would love to see some links to the projects you guys are working on right now.

• by Tirthal19 on 10/29/15, 12:38 PM

  Applied for the first time and we were a no-go. Great to have found this thread, lot's of positive feedback and agree on lot of inputs on paving forward! We'll be continuing on our path forward as well to make a dent in how professionals network with elloBEE (http://elloBEE.com).

• by joshmn on 10/28/15, 10:50 PM

  Comrades: Don't let rejection discourage you, as there are a million fish in the sea. Just remember: AirBnB didn't have the greatest feedback in the world, and they're doing all right.

  Execute your idea like you did your application, and I'm sure you'll do just fine, because an idea is only 10% of the battle; the rest is execution.

• by jampa-uchoa on 10/28/15, 10:31 PM

  Got rejected too, but it was expected as a solo founder, with a prototype only on Brazil when I applied. What I'm working on http://www.octorb.com/ Well I'm done with VCs and all that stuff for now... Time to focus 100% on the users.

• by algierz on 10/29/15, 5:46 PM

  It's the 29th and we haven't received an email back yet. How many others have not received a response yet?

• by eman2611 on 10/29/15, 3:46 AM

  I was rejected after getting and responding to a follow up question during the application review period. I did some research and discovered that such follow up questions demonstrate that YC is strongly considering your application. That's as good as an in for me! :).

  I honestly didn't think I was ready for YC cause I'm a solo founder and unnaturally focused on upcoming pilot deployments to the detriment of almost everything else. If curious, we're building http://www.smartersocket.com (rebranding as https://www.BeaconGrid.com in like 2 days.)

• by RafiZ on 10/28/15, 9:29 PM

  If you happen to be one of those who received an interview invitation, you could actually practice for your upcoming YC interview here: Pramp.com/YC/faq

• by MCneill27 on 10/29/15, 5:57 AM

  Haven't received anything yet. Does this mean anything?

• by sajclarke2 on 10/28/15, 10:13 PM

  We were also rejected (www.medirevu.com) but our chat with Paul Buchheit during YC Open OfficeHours has already set us on a much better path.

  Rejected and motivated

• by vigneshrams on 10/29/15, 7:02 AM

  Where to find the complete list of YC W16 rejected companies ? I am excited to see what problem each of them solve.

• by Donmario on 10/29/15, 7:42 AM

  I didn't get a message at all. Should I be worried or happy? Who should I contact about this?

• by weingartner on 10/29/15, 2:32 PM

  Will everybody get a rejection letter? We have not received our rejection letter yet.

• by DrNuke on 10/28/15, 9:36 PM

  Rejected and quitting here, will carry on as I can but life is too short to daydream. Thanks YC & community for the five-months excitement here. Good luck.

• by oucil on 10/29/15, 5:26 PM

  No word yet for us at this point, I thought the emails all got sent at the same time. Pragmatically hopeful that we're in the call queue. :)

• by andriesm on 10/28/15, 8:57 PM

  Really? I thought those only get send out at 1 November usually

  Haven't gotten a rejection email yet, so you making me needlessly excited here! :-)

• by weingartner on 10/30/15, 7:01 PM

  Out of curiosity, if a startup is invited, are all of the founders required to attend the interview?

• by dimasf on 10/29/15, 5:41 AM

  got rejected as well... not surprised though - the only founder. Well, I'll still keep working on my product no matter what.

• by weingartner on 10/30/15, 1:39 PM

  Is there anyone else still without an answer?

• by feedbackw16 on 10/29/15, 1:43 AM

  The Feedback Offer

  (I'm not affiliated with YC.)

  I would like to try an experiment if I may.

  For $40 I will give feedback to any startup that got a YC response email tonight. This applies for startups that got rejected and startups that got invited.

  This could be feedback on the main idea, the YC application, beta testing your demo or website, help with writing, or anything else that would help. I expect to spend 30 minutes for every application received.

  If at any time you feel my feedback isn't helping, I will refund the full amount. If I don't find time to review your startup, I will also refund the full amount.

  I'm doing this partly as an experiment: this could be a startup idea. I want to see if it's possible to earn money giving feedback. I'm also doing it as personal training. I'm not an expert on startups. The more sites and ideas I'm exposed to, the better I can get at finding holes in my work. Charging will likely make you and me more committed to the review.

  I want to stay anonymous. I want to see how feasible it is to interpret feedback without knowing who the person giving the feedback is. I believe the way to tell if the feedback you are getting is useful is to pay attention to the explanation you get with it.

  Although I can't promise to respond to everyone I will do the best I can to respond to as many people as possible before the November 9th invitation day for YC.

  I promise not to share information about your startup.

  The email to reach me is in my profile. I'd welcome feedback too on improving the process of giving feedback. Thanks.