I was interested in the concept and applied for a position on the team but was rejected without a phone screen. Thought my enthusiasm would at least warrant a preliminary discussion.
Rejected. Sucks. The idea was very solid and the team was solid (between the 3 of us we have 2 artists, 2 computer science degrees, 2 computer engineering degrees, and an established viral content marketer). The only two issues were that
a) We are planning to build a hardware product and are at the mock-ups/renderings stage so we do not have a prototype, and
b) One of the team members hasn't physically met the other two (although we've worked on projects before and have a ~4 year friendship).
I had some correspondence with some of the partners about the second point-- PG told me it would be a problem, but Garry Tan said its not really a deal breaker. So I'll put it off to the lack of prototype which is what killed us.
I know some of you didn't want HN to make a big deal of it but I thought it at least deserved a post.
Please place your pithy comments here. (And yes, my app was rejected. Or rather, since HN funds teams and not ideas, I personally was rejected for a second time compared to the other teams that submitted)
I'll share a bit. I'm a solo, international founder. I applied with a barely usable, very limited prototype, of a technically challenging project (involving A.I and machine learning). My video was viewed twice, and my demo was viewed, but no other action was taken within it. I was rejected.
I expected that, given that my prototype was pretty bad, and I have a lot going against me. It definitely lit a fire under me just to apply though - and the questions that the application asks, are things you really need to think about. I definitely don't regret applying. And the fact that my demo & video were viewed - makes me think that perhaps my idea is somewhat promising.
Same. And I can think of a couple of reasons why I might have been rejected, which means I now have an area to focus on to develop the company (and the idea) further.
I still wish they'd give reasons why. even if it was a checkbox thing. 'primary reason of rejection: no-cofounder' or 'bad idea', 'need more demo', 'not our area of interest', 'try again with this team and idea in 6 months' etc.
Thank you for applying to Y Combinator; however, your startup was not selected to interview for the upcoming Y Combinator batch. We carefully reviewed thousands of applications and since there's a limit on the number of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot of promising groups. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the interview threshold ends up getting accepted to YC. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold. Furthermore, a much smaller percentage of late applications are invited for interviews.
Unfortunately we can't give you individual feedback about your application. This page explains why: http://ycombinator.com/whynot/
We sincerely hope and encourage you to reapply for the next batch. Applying multiple times in no way counts against you and a surprisingly large number of companies are funded after applying more than once.
We're trying to get better at this, but 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.
Be called for the interview would be fun. I wish I could speak more and better about the project directly to someone. Talking is better than presenting something.
And as I received only two votes in the apply topic, I have no chance.
I was rejected by TechStars NYC with the same idea. My partner and I were really excited by the idea, but like you, ran into a wall of both legal and social boundaries.
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!
Yep. Got rejected here. Trying to make jQuery Mobile web app development easier with drag and drop tools and app management: http://codiqa.com
I've interviewed with a previous startup. Sucks to not make it this time but I'm confident we can help mobile devs solve the same problems we have with mobile web app development.
There were too many reasons against me in my application. The idea is weak, poorly explained, no demo, etc. My cofounder also dropped out on me after we submitted the application so I would have had to disclose that I'm now a single founder which would have guaranteed rejection. Never mind, on to plan B.
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