Anyone hear from Sequoia Arc?

T

truthseeker2022

New member
We applied three weeks ago at the deadline. Got confirmation E-mail to prove it. We have a quite strong team and idea; have since gotten some investment offers and a second-round interview.

No word from Sequoia yet. Cohort starts in under a month. Are they ghost-rejecting u, or are they just slow?
 
@truthseeker2022 I had an interview 15 days ago, but no response since then. Interview itself was unlike the interview you'd normally expect. Very casual and friendly. I loved the vibe. From limited materials I have found online, it appears that unlike YC, they do not make decisions on a rolling basis, but wait till they're done reviewing each every applicant.

I am referring to this article: https://medium.com/@bdjidi/what-to-know-ahead-of-sequoia-arc-ad0d48c49211. I did some math and they waited for almost 3 weeks since the interview to receive an invitation. And that happened ~18 days ahead of start, so I would say there are still interviewing and you should be expecting a message till end of August.
 
@camnmaksmom Quick update:

Those who interviewed, I would expect decisions by Monday. The guys from article did receive a decision 3 weeks ahead of the start (2nd May vs 23rd May). In our case, that means this Monday - 28th.

If I am correct, I will give myself a medal 😂🫡
 
@isabell16 Hey @isabell16 , @camnmaksmom when did you folks receive the result and how was it ? We had an interview ~12 days ago and haven't heard back anything. The wait is making us anxious.
 
@camnmaksmom Thanks for the info, the article also notes it was 16 days after application when they were notified about the interview. How long after you applied did you get the interview? Of course they may have more applications close to the deadline so it may take longer. Obviously its an even more of a longshot than YC given how few they have in their cohort, they can't take all the qualified ones and can easily miss good ones.
 
@vizzz No matter the outcome, already a winner. At least I made it to the interviews. At that rate, I will get in next year 😆 (or ship in the meantime)
 
@camnmaksmom I'd suspect if you got to the interview stage with them, given how small their cohort is, that is a sign you have a good shot with YC (I assume you applied) with their larger cohort, as long as you don't get missed in the huge pile of applications since its easy for even good things to be overlooked.

If you can ship without funding, it seems likely you can get funding from some VC even if not these high profile ones, or perhaps even bootstrap entirely. If I had the funds I'd bootstrap until I got closer to launch, but I used up my resources on another idea I set aside to work on this better AI one.
 
@vizzz Thanks for the encouragement! Sometimes you loose hopes when rejections come from all sides, but honestly, my advice to everyone reading is… just keeping doing your job. With accelerators, IMO, there’s a lot of luck beyond your control in play. The fact I managed to secure interview was actually a positive surprise, because I felt like I completely failed on the submission side!

Agree with you on the overall strategy if you have resources to bootstrap on your own. To me, the biggest benefit (hope I am not wrong) of those accelerators is having some quality time with people with actual skin in the game. I think that’s more realistic with Arc given their boutique size, but haven’t done any accelerator yet, so I might be overestimating that!
 
@isabell16 If decisions are coming Monday as you guessed, it may be a bit late for this, I was figuring if I got an interview someplace like that I'd update other accelerators in hopes that'd inspire interviews there as well to compete.

Funds obviously can accelerate things, it'd just be nice to be sure of a path before seeking outside investment: but YC at least understands a bit of exploration&pivoting. I'd say a big benefit if you get in with Sequoia is their credibility helping for any future rounds, and depending on your market it may be credibility for some types of customers or the tech press. The terms for Arc and YC are pretty good overall and $ do help accelerate things, which can be important. I've been applying mostly for those benefits, not for the content of the accelerators themselves.
 
@isabell16 re: "With accelerators, IMO, there’s a lot of luck beyond your control in play. "

Yup, I'd say that is a huge factor for the places dealing in high volumes, its easy for things to get lost in the noise and for personal preferences to make a difference, or if the reviewer just is distracted by something else and in a quick skim doesn't "get" it. I didn't get an interview with Arc (yet, meaning I won't I assume), nor SPC or AI Grant or Embed, so I chalk it up to bad luck :) I'm hoping YC changes that. Good luck with Arc.
 
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