Y Combinator rejection reasons

We applied (and interviewed!) for YC last season. We didn&#x27;t get in, but they were dead on about the issues with our business.<p>Since then, we&#x27;ve addressed the issue and are continuing to move forward.<p>Remember, not getting into YC isn&#x27;t the end - and YC does make mistakes. Just remember to hear their reasons out and really consider what they have to say. They&#x27;re all brilliant people and have an uncanny ability to unravel your business in less than 10 minutes.<p>Build, fail, listen, learn, keep building, keep listening, keep learning, keep moving.

I think there is a sweet spot that you have to hit where you have the focus to start on a solution to a small part of a big problem, but still show investors that there is a clear path to eventually tackle more and more of the bigger problem. Reid Hoffman talks about &quot;boil the ocean&quot; startups that are just too big to tackle, but if you approach it as boiling a cup or a pot first, and convince investors that there is still an ocean to be boiled down the line, you have a good shot.

YC is not going to be completely transparent in their selection process because doing so would make it easier to manipulate the interview process. Jessica Livingston already mentioned in an interivew that they&#x27;ve revealed too much. Now founders are going in lying about working together for years on projects and being life-long friends.<p>Entrepreneur: &quot;Hey YC, what do I have to tell you in order for me to get in? You know, so I can practice it and avoid being weeded out by your process. So I can tell you all the things you want to hear during the interview. I promise I won&#x27;t lie during my interview.&quot;

Is this a joke that I am not getting? Is linking to google supposed to be a suggestion that there are a very large number of reasons for rejection?

Just because a business is too small for investors like YC, doesn&#x27;t mean it will not be profitable if the team stays small and delivers to it&#x27;s niche.

Most common Y Combinator rejection reasons:<p>1. Facebook is already the best &quot;Facebook for X&quot;.<p>2. The founders are old enough to know better.<p>3. Co-founder looks like an extra from &quot;Wayne&#x27;s World&quot;<p>4. The co-founder is the founder&#x27;s left hand inside a sock puppet.<p>5. Someone mentioned &quot;Java&quot; and it killed the mood.<p>6. The founders somehow discovered that the VCs are reptillians, as are most world leaders

I remember that some years ago while reading &quot;Hacker and Painters&quot; I got the naive impression(I was 18) that I could just go to grad school and then become rich by just building a technically superior product, without having business experience. How wrong I was.

Thanks for the post; very helpful. You might consider sharing the link via your own product; this way people will see how it works ...

I don&#x27;t know why YC needed an interview to tell Sniply that &quot;we can’t see it becoming the huge type of company that investors like to fund.&quot; Surely that should have been weeded out in the initial selection. Their story highlights a lack of transparency in the YC selection process. Those who are rejected at the application stage get no reasons at all. Then they hear stories like this and wonder if there is any method to the selection process at all.<p>If YC has internal tools to assess all the applications (as they claim) then what is the harm in publishing those criteria, and publishing the results publicly. For example, let&#x27;s say Sniply got 5&#x2F;10 for market size, but had 10&#x2F;10 for member ability (and that ability was weighted evenly) then we could see how it was selected, and we could see why it was selected over other applicants. Then all applicants could see where they stand. As it stands it seems to be a real crapshoot, which gives false hope to companies like Sniply, while denying others the chance to be selected.

There can be umpteen number of reasons for rejection. As long as the process is opaque, people can only speculate.<p>Time to move on, focus on what&#x27;s critical for <i>you</i> to succeed.