I applied as a solo founder with my project http://www.quipvideo.com, but alas I didn't get an offer for an interview. I think a big part of that is the fact that I don't have a team behind me. I don't know too many other awesome hacker types, but maybe you - failed YC applicant - are such a person, or suffer from the same problem. Perhaps we should get to know each other better?<p>Let's turn this unfortunate news into an opportunity to share ideas, brainstorm and meet like-minded folk. Share your thoughts in the comments.
I'm not sure this is the right question. pg repeats time and time again that the product doesn't matter, the team does. So really, the title ought to be:<p>Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?
My partner and I are Ph.D. psychologists who have developed a unique roadmap to permanent behavior change based on our personal experiences (we each lost 40+ lbs. 5 years ago and have kept it off) and professional knowledge. We are longtime friends and business partners so other than being non-hackers we fit the preferred criteria for teams pretty well.<p>We were rejected as well (www.readysteadychange.com) and as I read these comments several things that have been stated seem abundantly clear:<p>1. The YC team is telling the truth when they say the number of high quality applications keeps increasing while the limited spots for interviews/funded teams remains more or less constant;<p>2. The process of thoughtfully completing the application is an incredibly valuable idea stage experience in and for itself;<p>3. Getting to market and crossing the chasm are the real objectives for all of us, not getting into YC;<p>4. There really is no guarantee that getting into YC is the best thing for many of us. As someone wrote they seem to favor particular types of teams and ideas which they know a lot about and are able to mentor well. The rest of us should take rejection as a sign to keep moving forward on our own terms and capture any and all "data" from this experience as valuable learning.<p>As a colleague once said, "the only way out is through," to which I would add, "the only real direction is forward."
Applied in 2010 as solo founder of <a href="http://www.breezy.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.breezy.com</a>.<p>Didn't get in, didn't sweat it, tried other things. We haven't yet built a mammoth company or had a successful exit so I have yet to be able to take pg up on his offer to go to lunch sometime to discuss what they missed when evaluating my application, but I think it's fair to say we're doing reasonably well so far, all things considered.<p>YC is overrated as a gate. (I don't know whether it's overrated in general and I kind of doubt it, but too many people think "I didn't get into YC, oh no, maybe I'm not cut out for this".)<p>Frankly, as others have said in this thread, if a YC rejection stops you then something else would have stopped you anyway. YC is a very good first step in the right direction, but it is only a step - and there are many other good steps you can take in the same direction anyway, so failing to get into YC means very little in itself, imho, about whether you have what it takes to succeed more generally.
<a href="http://viewlo.com/" rel="nofollow">http://viewlo.com/</a>
Crowdfunded internet television and movies.
We were super stoked when we came up with the idea a few months back, and even more overjoyed when we learned Ycombinator's focus this round of funding as we fit the criteria exactly. We are comprised of 3 college level engineers and still have a future ahead of us so no big deal. Really thought they we would seal the deal with our alternate ideas like Instagram for video(that doesn't suck)
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/QbS7o.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/QbS7o.jpg</a>
Don't know I applied as a team and still got rejected, ummm passed over. Should I take that more personally :-). Actually they have quite a tough job to do in reviewing so many applications. I the e-mail was actually almost too nice. It would have been helpful if it had some quantitative data as in what each person thought of it as in. As in a score or something even such as, we liked you but your idea really stunk, or no technical co-founder, or don't give up your day job.<p>Actually open call here. I am very interested in hearing any ideas that didn't get accepted. I hope to modify my site in the next day to allow a discussion on this and to talk to others. Y-combinator is a great way it seems to develop concepts, but not the only way. If other rejected ones are like us then we should really talk to each other. Feel free to e-mail me at joshua.smith@i4edge.com. Better yet here post on this page <a href="http://www.i4edge.com/ycombinator-apply-list/" rel="nofollow">http://www.i4edge.com/ycombinator-apply-list/</a>
Didn't apply but here's my thoughts. I know a number of YC founders and YC rejections. Don't quit, I see too many people not continuing without YC which essentially tells YC that you wouldn't have been a fit as YC is the first hurdle, not the destination. There are many alternatives and funding isn't in short supply.<p>Saying that, it's very positive to listen to any feedback. If you continue then you have to decide do you apply for an alternative accelerator (Many great ones), bootstrap or try to raise some seed money to get you off the grond. YC is incredible but in some circles overhyped.<p>It's supposedly as good as people say but many of the alternatives (not referring to accelerators) are as good or proven further.
Be positive. Stay determined. Keep Hustling.<p>It sucks to be rejected with anything in life, but you only truly fail if you give up. You all seem smart and there are some great ideas here; don't give up and I am sure I'll be hearing about you all in the future. :)
We received our rejection letter as well.<p>We are building a centralized platform as a service which allows vacation rental home owners and property agents to launch and create their own marketing website which they can manage from a single location. Property owners can also receive marketing and exposure on any number of sites. (We're placing more emphasis on enterprise rather than the social side that AirBnB went down). ie Agents can launch their own marketing website, manage their own property portfolio and run their own branding. Kind of like how you can launch your own Desk.com website and create your own knowledge base... on our platform you can do the same by managing your own catalogue of properties and revenue share with other advertisers who might make a booking on your behalf.<p>The enquiry management, booking tools and payment facilities are all built in. We haven't launched yet. Which was why this cycle would of been the best fit for YC.<p><a href="http://rentivo.com/how-it-works" rel="nofollow">http://rentivo.com/how-it-works</a><p>We will be launching soon (so no demo is available), but in case anyone knows a designer send them to the post on Baby Unicorns and Rockstar Designers I wrote this morning.<p><a href="http://rentivo.com/blog/baby-unicorns-and-rockstar-designers" rel="nofollow">http://rentivo.com/blog/baby-unicorns-and-rockstar-designers</a>
I applied as a solo founder with no idea, so I knew a rejection letter was inevitable. In all fairness I am not quite ready to build a company, I just hope my application was read once or twice.<p>So who am I? Just a guy who started as the online banking help desk at $1B bank. I took the position just to get my foot in the door, and promptly proved my awesomeness with jack-of-all-trades problem solving that revamped their IT department from the ground up. My accomplishments drew c-level attention (walking into the CEO's office and telling him how much money I save him helped) so I'm now the lead sysadmin and further promotions are in sight.<p>But like many here on HN, developing software is my passion and what I really want to do is start my own tech company.<p>I'm taking small steps. I've completed 2 bonus projects to build custom web-apps for the bank intranet. Semi-formal contracts between myself and the CIO for the bank to purchase software I built on my own time and maintain my own IP. Yes it is awesome that they let me do this.<p>From that point of view, I'm already developing and selling software to a small business, I just need to expand. If I had explained myself this way in the application I may have generated some more interest.<p>Instead I mentioned that the timing wasn't very good and I want to learn some things from gauntlet of challenges ahead in my current job.<p>Applying to YC was another small step to help push myself in the startup direction. My main goal was just to get my name in front of someone at YC. If my video was watched then I consider it a smashing success.
We are building <a href="http://listypedia.com" rel="nofollow">http://listypedia.com</a><p>Listypedia is like Wikipedia for lists. It is a place for the users to find precise and
concise information about the things they are looking for. It allows users to create and share
lists with their social network. Few examples of the lists could be most scenic places on earth,
things to carry for a camping trip, must have productivity apps for iphone, etc. The items added to the lists will be character limited precise answers. The users will be able to create protected lists that will be visible only to authorized users. Users will be able to create new lists or use existing lists and share it with their network to keep track of what they want or things that should be done as a group by using the list as a checklist.<p>There will also be curating features where in the list creators and also the curators will be able
to control what goes in to only allow relevant content. It will also allow users to vote and
comment on individual items.<p>Listypedia will bring in all the good features of yahoo answers, wikianswers and stackoverflow. It
aims at organizing the unorganized content on the web in the form of social comments, blog posts,
etc.<p>We are planning to launch soon in a month.
Rejected.
We build mobile mall app with indoor positioning based on wifi fingerprinting. App allows user to find what he wants inside of mall, and retailers get ability to analyze user's routes and push location aware ads. Think of point inside with better accuracy.
Yc is awesome opportunity but not the only one so rejection is not painful at all.
We built <a href="http://embark.at" rel="nofollow">http://embark.at</a> - the easiest way to buy and sell cruises online. We're a marketplace that connects people that like to cruise with travel agents who have awesome unadvertised deals. We have a demo video at <a href="http://embark.at" rel="nofollow">http://embark.at</a>
We are PayGuard and we're building a payments platform that would specialize in long-distance/cross-border transactions. <a href="http://stark-river-6968.herokuapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://stark-river-6968.herokuapp.com/</a> We do this by combining your normal payments gateway with the global network of an international money transfer company (Western Union) with the twist of "escrow". We got our rejection letter too but we are forging ahead with launching our beta late this May. We believe eCommerce will globalize and payments will be at the forefront to make this happen. We want to create a world where anyone can buy or sell anything anywhere. We would appreciate any candid feedback on our idea....intellectual honesty is the best weapon against self delusion.
We got rejected also. We're a designer & developer in Ireland, both early 30s (one American, one Irish). We've built a platform for designing/building magazines & newspapers once and publishing them everywhere (epub, .mobi, html, ipad, pdf, etc.)<p>It's called Woop.ie (Write Only Once, Publish It Everywhere), and we have a small number of customers at the moment. We just have a holding page here: <a href="http://woop.ie" rel="nofollow">http://woop.ie</a> but our demo page was live and allowed magazine creation, issue building, previewing, etc. It got some visitors from yc. Unfortunately guess it wasn't enough this time around.<p>We'll keep working on it obviously. Considering applying to Brooklyn Beta summer camp, actually, anyone else?
Well, rejection letter is just a part of the game. Now we will have to learn things on our own instead of having guidance from YC, which is kind of more work on our part. But hey, we love to work and learn, don't we?
After creating drawmics.com & findero.us, I started working on a new idea, however, I applied to YC with no idea in particular as I was not sure whether to pursue it or not. In the last few weeks, my gut feeling on the success of this idea has become stronger by the day and I am actively pursuing it with my co-founder (yeah, now I have a co-founder). I hope, by the next demo day at YC, we would have already gone live.
We got rejected too.
We are building <a href="http://www.pajap.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.pajap.com</a> . A DIY service that allows you to build 100% native mobile applications with a drag n drop designer without a single line of code.
Apps made with pajap don't have to bee installed on the phone or updated.<p>Videos
<a href="http://goo.gl/WkVZ8" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/WkVZ8</a> (sample app)
<a href="http://goo.gl/Fhmbl" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/Fhmbl</a> (making of)<p>Enough with the promotion...<p>The rejection means we don't get to lean back and watch the magic show.
We have to try , run , try again and create magic ourselves. We'll do that.<p>Best of luck to all YC2012ors accepted_or_not.
Didn't apply to YC but interesting idea. I thought of the same idea but there was one fundamental problem I couldn't solve. That is, the text on the side is too distracting. I hope you can think of some ways to solve that problem!
I'm the author of this post, and I'm building a way for people to annotate online video. Hopefully in a way that isn't annoying! The grand ambition is to be able to search inside video based on annotations. Check it out: <a href="http://www.quipvideo.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.quipvideo.com</a><p>Who am I: I'm getting my PhD in 2 months in applied math at UCSB. I'm always looking to meet interesting people. I think I'm interesting myself. As proof, I can show you some of my fire sculptures :-)<p>Check out my blog: <a href="http://www.davidvaldman.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.davidvaldman.com</a>
We're building <a href="http://HuntersDB.com" rel="nofollow">http://HuntersDB.com</a> - a big-game hunting database with search, data and maps.<p>This process forced me to ask myself the tough questions and for that we are better.
Rejected 2 years ago for what some other guys in Cali launched as Gigwalk last May. I had a PhD and a CS guy on my team (albeit none of us were in the same city). I'm an information professional with a background in media production and ed tech. So since GW launched I've been watching closely and thinking about pivoting only slightly to something aimed at professional journalists, photographers and videographers, worldwide, who want to be able to charge their regular rates and have the option of being completely anonymous.
I'm building <a href="http://moodstir.com" rel="nofollow">http://moodstir.com</a> and <a href="http://kothpoker.com" rel="nofollow">http://kothpoker.com</a>. If the idea's shortcomings weren't the reason I was rejected, it was likely because I'm currently a solo founder. It seems like there are a lot of awesome teams applying and that alone is hard to compete with.<p>I would be happy to meet up in SF with fellow failed YC S12'ers.
I applied as a single founder and was rejected as well. The project I am working on is <a href="https://codetique.com" rel="nofollow">https://codetique.com</a><p>The goal being to make code reviewing easier. Think pastebin but with inline commenting and comment karma. Click any line in a code review to leave a comment for that line. You don't need an account to create a review or comment on one.
Hey-o. My co-founder and I got rejected.<p>We're making an iOS universal app (we call it Cook) that uses grocery lists and recipes to keep a current record of all the food in your kitchen. With said current record, you can do cool things like reccommend recipes you have all the ingredients for, or tell them to use an ingredient before it spoils :)
We applied with our app Spotter last fall. We wanted to be the app to find mobile video of places. Sad to be rejected, but we loved what we had so we kept going. We recently added twitter integration and were excited about our upcoming version (much better UI).<p><a href="http://www.spotterinc.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.spotterinc.com</a>.
I coded Streamenizer.com to learn Flash. Its a video chat with 4 people and a queue of waiting to stream, but never got around chicken-and-egg problem. Planning or redesigning it to one streamer plus users willing to ask questions. If anyone is interested in participating anyhow, drop me a line via HN profile email.
I'm building <a href="http://www.iwaat.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.iwaat.com</a>, a search engine for web applications that I'm working to turn into a Yelp for apps. Also a solo founder looking for others to join me on this project.<p>If you're building a web app feel free to add it to the site.
Any mobile app developers get rejected? I'm involved with a new VC co standing up a soon-to-launch fund called WeHeartApps Fund that is focusing on early-stage mobile app/game developers. Feel free to email me at dane@villainhq.com (still getting our @glidecapital email set up).
Also a solo founder building <a href="http://comics-headquarters.com/" rel="nofollow">http://comics-headquarters.com/</a>, a place to publish your comics online. :)<p>I am currently looking for artists who can help either write stories or/and draw. You can contact me using the web form in the site.
What: Built a social network for shoppers; Who: A solo founder outside US; Rant: I think I've done a job at least on par with another YC11 company <a href="http://jerryji.posterous.com/on-yc-demo-day-40956" rel="nofollow">http://jerryji.posterous.com/on-yc-demo-day-40956</a>
Got my rejection letter as well. Beta not quite ready, but if you are interested, my landing page <a href="http://www.cardzeum.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.cardzeum.com</a> will give an idea of what I am developing.<p>Feedback welcome
3 founders 1 idea. The idea to aggregate notes, textbooks, internships, housing, course/professor ratings, online tutoring, and take a fat dump on them so you don't have to. Check us out at www.coursegain.com
Yup, we were rejected. We tell you which model of anything to buy by crunching owner ratings. Would much appreciate any comments on the beta:<p><a href="http://daring.is" rel="nofollow">http://daring.is</a><p>Congrats to YC S12.
Agreed. And there's no time to start like the present:
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850511" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850511</a>
I have not got anything yet be it rejection or acceptance for interview. Checked all my mailboxs (spam & inbox).<p>Is it all over and out? Any one who haven't got anything yet?
Hi guys,<p>Keep building!<p>I'm a founder located in Seattle looking for co-founders. If you're around here and interested please ping me on: elkhourygeorges@hotmail.com