As a sort of real-time answer, my startup[1][2] just had a booth at the NMX/NAB show in Las Vegas and completely blew up from a user acquisition perspective, and had applied to this upcoming round without getting an interview. We wanted to sign about 8 blogs in order to cover the costs of going to the show, and wound up signing over 1200 blogs, 5 major retailers, a couple licensing deals, and a lot of smaller retailers (some fashion startups among them) whose products we could list in our catalog.<p>I'm kind of glad that the interview wasn't even an option, since we're based out of San Diego and it simplifies the logistics of our operations for not having to move to SF for a period. Having no idea of how NMX/NAB was going to go, YC seemed like the best way to get our idea out there whilst getting their great support system. Now, we can just go heads-down in development and prepare for our June release.<p>It's always extremely discouraging to get rejections -- we got rejected from EvoNexus[3], TechCrunch Disrupt NY, and YCombinator (twice). This pretty much tells me that I'm horrible at filling out applications. I'd like to think that if the YC partners had walked up and talked to us at our booth, we would have definitely gotten the interview.<p>This Vegas trip was the most amazing thing that has happened since I came up with the idea of pleenq[4], because we barely had to sell the product -- people were so excited by the possibilities it would bring, and about all the monetization opportunities it opens up. Most of our customers were referrals from others who had seen our booth, and were told to "make sure they saw pleenq before they left the show". I closed every single person I talked to at our booth over the 4 days of the show, which was basically the highest form of encouragement I could have hoped for.<p>[1] <a href="https://facebook.com/pleenq" rel="nofollow">https://facebook.com/pleenq</a> and <a href="http://pleenq.com" rel="nofollow">http://pleenq.com</a><p>[2] Demo of PLEENQ that we showed at NAB/NMX: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wu4gaiaA7I" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wu4gaiaA7I</a><p>[3] A San Diego-based incubator that takes 0% equity and is really great for startups with a little bit of traction<p>[4] Pleenq lets you tag items in any image on the internet and link them to where they can be purchased