Via email:<p>We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally. The applications we receive get
better every funding cycle, and since there's a limit on the number
of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot
of genuinely promising groups.<p>Unfortunately we can't give you individual feedback about your
application. This page explains why:<p>http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html<p>Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know
we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group
to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that
we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall
just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing.<p>We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number
of interviews means 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.<p>Y Combinator Team
I'm just hoping to give a few people some perpective on such rejections:<p>- Damien Katz (creator of CouchDB) was also rejected[1]. He went on and got $2 million from Redpoint Ventures [2]<p>- On this video[3], Jessica Livingston interviews Drew. It shows that he was also rejected the first time he tried out YC.<p>- The oscar of rejected but finally accepted: <i>I got into YC after applying six times</i> [4]<p>- Peteris Krumins also got rejected with his browserling idea, got rejected[5], and went on to raise his own seed funding[6].<p>[1] <a href="http://damienkatz.net/2006/11/how_not_to_pitc.html" rel="nofollow">http://damienkatz.net/2006/11/how_not_to_pitc.html</a><p>[2] <a href="http://damienkatz.net/2009/12/relaxed_inc.html" rel="nofollow">http://damienkatz.net/2009/12/relaxed_inc.html</a><p>[3] <a href="http://blog.ycombinator.com/dropbox-interview-now-online" rel="nofollow">http://blog.ycombinator.com/dropbox-interview-now-online</a><p>[4] <a href="http://iamwil.posterous.com/i-got-into-yc-after-applying-six-times-heres" rel="nofollow">http://iamwil.posterous.com/i-got-into-yc-after-applying-six...</a><p>[5] <a href="http://www.catonmat.net/blog/launching-browserling/" rel="nofollow">http://www.catonmat.net/blog/launching-browserling/</a><p>[6] <a href="http://www.catonmat.net/blog/how-i-raised-money-for-browserling/" rel="nofollow">http://www.catonmat.net/blog/how-i-raised-money-for-browserl...</a>
This reminds me of days around 11 years back, when I was studying for engineering college entrance exams.<p>We would have entrance exams for coaching classes which prepared students for main entrance exams, basically the elite coaching institutes would ask candidates undergo a entrance test and pick up only the best.<p>Many of my friends were rejected, including me. Some were selected. In the end in the main exams we did better than the guys who were selected for the coaching class. It just turns out after we were rejected we were motivated to push ourselves further more than others.<p>Rejection can do wonders if taken in the right spirit. You basically go into the phase to 'prove something' to not just yourself but every one around.<p>This is a very well drafted email.<p>>>Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes.<p>Says it all. YC companies fail too.<p>And there are a lot of non-YC companies that win. At the end YC is like the coaching class entrance exam, not the main engineering entrance exam.<p>Your main test is how and what you do on the ground.
I just want to say that e-mail looks very well-written and comforting for a rejection e-mail. I wish companies sent similar rejection e-mails to job applicants.<p>Keep your spirits up, rejectees, this is not the end of the world. Continue doing your thing. :)
We, Body Boss (<a href="http://bodybossfitness.com" rel="nofollow">http://bodybossfitness.com</a>) didn't even have a product last time year, and we thought just having a good idea was enough for acceptance. In the past year, we've boostrapped like crazy, built a product, launched and acquired plenty of customers to validate our idea.<p>YC rejection for the 2nd year in a row has done little to dampen our spirits and ambition. Here's to another rejection that motivates us to succeed!<p>- Proud Rejectee
I'll throw my "rejected from YC" story into the ring: my co-founders and I applied to the S12 batch. We were fortunate to get as far as the interview phase, only to receive a very kind rejecting email from Garry Tan that evening. His basic criticism was: "you guys aren't serious about this idea" (we hadn't yet quit our day jobs).<p>So we quit. We spent the summer building Meldium, reapplied for W13, and were accepted - and it was an amazing boost to our company. As a founder, you're going to get rejected a lot - use it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
We've offered this before, and are doing so again, because startups are hard and a YC rejection is but one roadblock you will face (among many).<p>So, Tinfoil Security is offering our $59 Basic plan free for life, and 50% off all other plans. Happy to keep startups secure :) Email your YC rejection letter to founders@tinfoilsecurity.com and we'll hook you up.
Stay hungry, stay alive, and be relentlessly resourceful (as PG says). You'll figure it out.<p>A long standing tradition: If you got rejected, please forward your rejection email to free@mixpanel.com and we'll hook you up with a free Mixpanel plan to help out while you're figuring it out.<p>- Suhail
FlightCar was rejected on first pass--don't feel bad guys! The reason most startups fail is because the founders give up. So don't give up and keep hustling!<p>--Shri (Founder, FlightCar)
Kettik, <a href="http://www.kettik.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.kettik.com/</a> (not mobile friendly), was rejected as well. Not very surprised or dejected by it as I was pretty much in the exact opposite founder demographic they were looking for. Single founder, close to 35, middle of the road play by the rules kind of guy loved by all (2) the big corporations that hired me over a span of 11years.<p>Oh well.. targeting for the YC application gave me the required focus in the last 5 months to turn my hobby/personal-use site into a full fledged travel blogging & recommendations platform ready to launch in a couple of months.<p>I don't think i will re-apply any time soon. My goal, starting Kettik, was to achieve creative, financial and geographic freedom. To create something of my own, travel, live and work from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Not sure how free i would've been if i had funding, a team to manage and investors to give returns to. So i guess the best thing to do is to continue on my own and focus on making Kettik profitable enough to sustain itself, me and my co-founders (if i manage to find any).<p>And maybe one day if it grows too big for me to manage, i'll go knocking on YC's doors again.
You know what guys, I feel honored to have been given the opportunity to apply, be reviewed and then rejected. Today is one of the best days I have had in weeks. I just realized where we were and how far we have come in the month we were 'associated' with YC. YC really got us to speed things up, change our user interface, create a prototype (although YC never saw it, cause we were late), change our entire strategy.<p>I think YC has done more than enough for me. Anything more and this would become a fairy tale :). To be honest, I never wanted this to be an easy fairy tale. I want this to be a story worth telling to my children. I like battles where the victor emerges half-alive.<p>Now its time for me to captain this ship to the shore. And damnit I will :)
This is my ship, my baby, and I will never let it sink alone.<p>Im so thankful for the people in my life. They stick with me and believe in me regardless of my lunacy, willing to take the bullets for me.<p>Keep working hard people. We'll meet each other at the finish line. :)
It's going to get harder and harder to get into YC (as has been the trend) which means getting rejected is going to mean less and less. It used to be an "oh we make mistakes, but mostly we find the right founders" and now it's "we find a lot of great founders, but we miss several successful ones each batch."<p>Don't think it means nothing, it means something about where you are in your life as a founder and how well you can communicate that (and that matters), but not anything more than that.<p>- 5x rejectee and pretty successful dude
Well what is really weird is that yC's top hits as per an annotation on Harj's recent mock letter on Rapgenius got looked over:<p>" We missed Dropbox, Heroku and Airbnb. " [1]<p>If the 3 supposed hits that presently created most of yC's entire known value got passed over by the VCs at first go.. one has to be a bit skeptical about the whole idol contest.<p>[1] - <a href="http://rapgenius.com/Harj-taggar-well-be-circling-back-lyrics" rel="nofollow">http://rapgenius.com/Harj-taggar-well-be-circling-back-lyric...</a>
I've had my rejection letter as well and I was actually surprised how human and respectful was this letter. They're very good at marketing, it's like breaking up: it's not you, it's us! ;)<p>I think it's obvious that this rejection letter should not put a stop to your projects but rather keep improving them, that's what I'm gonna do.<p>I already applied to techstars and I will apply again at Y combinator. Next time I'll be ready!<p>I'm looking for a co-founder in order to launch a new mobile advertising platform for hyperlocalized marketing.<p>You can support my application at TechStars at the following url: <a href="http://www.f6s.com/geome#main/ajax-summary" rel="nofollow">http://www.f6s.com/geome#main/ajax-summary</a><p>I'm still at an early stage but if you're interested, PM me and I'll explain you what this is about.<p>You can also follow me on twitter: @Nicrogo<p>Many thx!!
I've been rejected before. However it is worded, I know it is hard to take. Here is my sincere offer to help.<p><a href="http://gaglers.com" rel="nofollow">http://gaglers.com</a> will be happy to help with our live chat or community chat product. We have unlimited agents and SSL in all our plans. Send your rejection email to founders@gaglers.com and get to use our top plan(Pro) for free for 6 months.<p>We love to help small and agile startups. Here is why,
<a href="http://gaglers.com/blog/2013/03/29/live-chat-software-unlimited-agents/" rel="nofollow">http://gaglers.com/blog/2013/03/29/live-chat-software-unlimi...</a>
If your App or mobile startup got rejected by YC, don't worry, keep going at it. Get a free account at <a href="https://AppStoreRankings.net" rel="nofollow">https://AppStoreRankings.net</a> where we can help you get more users for your mobile (ios+android) apps. Just forward your YC rejection email to support@appstorerankings.net and we'll give you a free lifetime membership of our site.
First time and Declined! Would love to see what you've done. Come check out our application at <a href="http://parlayz.com" rel="nofollow">http://parlayz.com</a>. A social network for sports fans where you can make sports prediction models without data or programming skills. Hope to see you guys soon in the bay area.
I received this exactly email last year,September 16 to be precise,it was the first day of the rest of my life.
Make no mistake about it, receiving this email hurts, but then you pick yourself up ,make your product better and better and keep on going.
All the best moving forward....
Urlbox.io is offering our $9.99 plan free for life and 50% of all other plans. If you are a startup who requires to integrate screenshots as a service. Urlbox.io got easy API to help you up and running.<p>Email your YC rejection letter to founders@urlbox.io and we'll get you going in no time.
Some data points: we had 5 video views. Rejected. Probably too old for YC. But we're doing well, so no biggie.<p>We applied with Arro, <a href="http://arroapp.com" rel="nofollow">http://arroapp.com</a> - tells you which product to get by analyzing millions of ratings online.
With acceptance rates so incomprehensibly, almost farcically low (the rate was under 2% last year, and must be approaching if not already surpassed 1%), I don't see much value in reading into one's rejection.
Rejection by YC does not mean your idea/team/execution is not good. Just keep working on your startup, in the mean time you may want to try some other top programs like techstars, 5000startups, angelpad, etc
Just got it too for Swagmate (<a href="http://swagmate.startupthreads.com" rel="nofollow">http://swagmate.startupthreads.com</a>). Would love to find out about the other projects you all are working on!
I also got the email above for my startup activepractice.com.au. Apparently, they are not joking when they say you need a technical co-founder. Anyone who is interested, drop me a line.
Applied as a single founder with <a href="http://www.class-central.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.class-central.com</a> . Still looking for a co-founder, mail me if interested :)
We got rejected with <a href="http://pathgather.com" rel="nofollow">http://pathgather.com</a>. First time rejection from YC. Oh well...back to work on our beta release :)
It seems YC's scalability issue is their pain point. If anyone of you can apply with a startup to solve this pain point, you will be THE startup to rule them all!
An experiment: I will buy your startup idea.<p><a href="http://getwant.com/view-public?id=lqBhOgBUvIO4ZB" rel="nofollow">http://getwant.com/view-public?id=lqBhOgBUvIO4ZB</a>