Like many, we were rejected from YC after our third or fourth attempt.
What surprised us, was not even landing an interview.
I'd previously been reached out to by a YC partner saying my application was strong, but just needed a co-founder. We had customers, 4-digit MRR, market validation in an area they've invested in before, etc.
After another accelerator started by an ex-YC partner (Pioneer) also said this, I found a co-founder, and we were accepted into Pioneer, who thought we had a strong chance at YC this batch.
But, despite being further than some YC companies on demo day -- we received the dreaded "top 10%" rejection email.
After the rejection, I reached out to a unicorn founder I'd met (who'd also been rejected from YC) asking for advice, who helped me realize something.
The things we'd been hoping to get out of YC were:
Don't get me wrong, we would have been thrilled to get into YC, and are disappointed to not even merit an interview. Being non-FAANG, non-Ivy engineers, our in-person meetings tend to convey an ability our backgrounds and videos do not.
But recognizing the prevalence of average founders and reduced benefits after going through another accelerator has really made us okay with not getting in
Why do we think we didn't get an interview?
Anyone's guess, but based on differences w/ our prev. application and who we see getting into YC, fundamentally I think it's because we took an intellectual approach based on what we'd done/seen, rather than an emotional story-based approach based on what we could be, manifested in three choices:
What surprised us, was not even landing an interview.
I'd previously been reached out to by a YC partner saying my application was strong, but just needed a co-founder. We had customers, 4-digit MRR, market validation in an area they've invested in before, etc.
After another accelerator started by an ex-YC partner (Pioneer) also said this, I found a co-founder, and we were accepted into Pioneer, who thought we had a strong chance at YC this batch.
But, despite being further than some YC companies on demo day -- we received the dreaded "top 10%" rejection email.
After the rejection, I reached out to a unicorn founder I'd met (who'd also been rejected from YC) asking for advice, who helped me realize something.
The things we'd been hoping to get out of YC were:
- the $500k seed capital to bring my co-founder full-time
- vetted founder network
- investor intros
- YC "stamp" for purposes of easier fundraising
- We'd met several YC founders and learned that far from being this mythical group of powerhouse founders, many were lost, had no idea what they were doing, and/or not as far as we were -- in short, not necessarily better than our current accelerator's founder network
- We'd joined an accelerator with similar investor connections
Don't get me wrong, we would have been thrilled to get into YC, and are disappointed to not even merit an interview. Being non-FAANG, non-Ivy engineers, our in-person meetings tend to convey an ability our backgrounds and videos do not.
But recognizing the prevalence of average founders and reduced benefits after going through another accelerator has really made us okay with not getting in
Why do we think we didn't get an interview?
Anyone's guess, but based on differences w/ our prev. application and who we see getting into YC, fundamentally I think it's because we took an intellectual approach based on what we'd done/seen, rather than an emotional story-based approach based on what we could be, manifested in three choices:
- depth vs conciseness - didn't know whether to provide insights we'd discovered at the cost of being longer, or whether to sacrifice details to keep things short, so went w/ former after Daniel Gross told me the important thing was to just "write well"
- progress vs grand vision - we left out our grand vision to make room for added insights discovered through our progress
- content vs personality in video - I think we focused a bit too much on what we were saying, and it came off a bit flat -- our natural energy and personalities weren't really shown.