It's been such an incredible journey, HN has been such a huge source of inspiration.<p>I still vividly recall some my of earliest conversation on HN and what a transformative effect they've had on me (thank you Paul Buchheit!)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=157432<p>It was early 2008 and I had just moved to San Francisco. I was working on Catch.com with the idea of making it easy for people to capture what matters to them and let them recall the interesting ideas, notes, places, images that they had captured. I had a basic web and Android app with a fairly goofy name (3banana), but it worked.<p>I applied as a solo founder to Y Combinator for the Summer '08 class with high hopes. Then I get this email:<p><pre><code> Date: 10 Apr 2008 03:13:28 -0000
Subject: YC Funding Application (aschobel)
We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally. ...
</code></pre>
Ugh. I was pretty devastated, but fortunately had enough money to bootstrap my baby for a bit longer. I knew in my heart that the time for Catch.com was right, folks we moving to smartphones in droves and that enabled a huge part of the vision.<p>A few weeks later I hit uninteresting roadblock, a recruiter for a hot startup contacted me. I ended up interviewing and getting a job offer for a role where I could impact millions of users.<p>Should I keep burning money and follow my dream or join this startup with a ton of traction? To the dismay of my parents I turned down the job and pushed forward with a renewed sense of purpose.<p>Later that summer I met my co-founder Steve. We connected right away and I knew this was something special.<p>The Catch.com story continues, we raised a bit of money and made a bet on Android. We grew pretty quickly with Android and everything transformed when we change the name to Catch.com in Fall of last year.<p>It's humbling to see how far we've come and the huge opportunity in front of us.<p>It would have been so much harder to get to this point without the HN community, you are a beacon of hope.<p>Be determined and trust your gut.<p>Thank you HN & PG,<p>Andreas<p>Oh, and a bit of celebration: http://mashable.com/2011/02/15/evernote-competitor-catch-com-raises-7-million/<p>Yay! :P
98% of companies that apply to YC get rejected. Around 10% of startups succeed. Given this, YC rejects about 3 out of 4 successful startups even if their selection method is absolutely perfect.<p>YC is in an amazing position where hundreds (thousands?) of great entrepreneurs come to them, and they get to pick and choose the cream of the crop. So please, don't their their rejection too seriously.
Funny I just downloaded Catch on my android over the weekend and thought it was a great app. Well designed and more straight-forward than Evernote.<p>Good to see you're HN'ers. Congrats on raising capital.
Glad to see Catch thriving. It has become an app that I cannot live without.<p>A question though. Catch has no ads in the mobile apps or on the web site, so there isn't any revenue generated there as far as I can tell. The entire product is completely free, the API is free to use, etc. How does a product like this generate revenue?
I used to use 3banana, thought it was great. One day after updating, the 3banana icon disappeared and was something called Catch. I had no idea what was going on, so quit using it and started using evernote.<p>But glad to hear the story behind the change and see that are you doing well!
Congratulations Andreas! I don't think that getting passed on by YC invalidates an idea and means it's no good. You clearly had a vision you knew was great and kept pushing. An inspiration to us all.
Wow that's some story...
It is so awesome to know that you (one of us) actualy made his dream come true in such a short period of time...
I am sure we all get to hear "do the logical/right thing and take that job" strategy from their family/friends.<p>I know I do a lot.....<p>It's great to see you were in the same situation and chose otherwise....it's really hard to make that choice and stick with it....Kudos to you brother....<p>About me, I am still having to make this part time, since I felt lost after getting rejected twice for investments...and decided to take a job to stay in US and continue building my dream part time....
It is really really tought to do this part time....but I sure hope I won't give up, and come across stories like yours to keep me going, since I too feel my product's gonna touch many thousands, if not millions of lives (just like yours did?)<p>Thanks a lot for sharing your success story Sir, these are few and far between....<p>P.S. - just FYI, I was also not accepted October 2009, and have been trying to make my product....wow it;s been too long but I was really sick in between, so meh....another month might actually get my prototype going....
Hey--
Could you remove the javascript alert from delete and change it so the question appears on page? I think it's much more user-friendly to keep the confirmation in the same area as the delete button instead of popping open in the middle of the page.
Congrats, and a note about rejection:<p>I see a lot here on HN, that people take a YC rejection to mean that YC doesnt think they'll succeed, and the outcome is.. quit or set out to prove them wrong.<p>Perhaps when YC doesn't accept your application, it only means that PG doesn't see your project as a good fit for what YC has to offer or the current class. I wouldn't take it to mean that YC is betting against your success.<p>edit: I mean that as a general note to other HNers, because it doesn't seem like you do harbor any negativity toward YC
Very inspiring! Thanks for sharing<p>I have one question. When you started working on Catch.com, did the knowledge that an app like Evernote or other similar ones existed bother you? What did you tell yourself when that question cropped up in your own head?<p>While talking to investors, how important was the question of competition and how did you handle it.<p>I am sorry but I talk in ignorance as I haven't used your application yet. (I don't use an Iphone)
I wish HN would enable links in self posts.<p><a href="http://catch.com" rel="nofollow">http://catch.com</a> (yes it was easier to type it out here, than in the browser)
I have been working for more than 3 years on a similar thing. I have to admit that you nailed it focusing on a simple interface with just the essential features. I still like mine better of course ;) but I am overloading mine (notepub.com) with features very few people use, just because I am having fun at it. And I do not have the capacity to expand to mobile apps, so I am kind of stuck.
Congratulations! I hope you the best for you.
<p><pre><code> A few weeks later I hit uninteresting roadblock
</code></pre>
Did you use speech-to-text to write this post, or is that just an odd mental slip?
Hi Andreas! Congratulations!<p>I'd say this is amazing but I know the amount of work you and your team have done. It's well deserved.<p>Dan (from Chicago)
What an interesting update for me. I met you (or your cofounder I would guess) at TED a few years ago, and installed your app. I didn't "get" it at the time. I used to look at it on my iphone all the time, but never used it. I would have thought that was the end of the story.<p>Great to see that you persisted. Keep after it!
This is super inspiring. I am still working on finding a co-founder and I have not started looking for funding.<p>Do your thing my friend. This is great news for you!