A lot of commenters here saying the tone of the OP is bitter. I say the tone is human.
This team has every good reason to succeed: they spent 2 years of their life working together building something that's now getting significant traction - and making them money.
Every fundamental metric indicating whether the business will work or not were established facts. That should put them head and shoulders over anyone else.
Given all that, it's hard NOT to feel emotionally invested after 2 years. And it's hard not to want to spend time processing the experience the way they did.
At this point, it doesn't matter why they didn't get in. It would be great to know, and yes, it's awesome that they got some actionable feedback -
Actually, I want to say something about that too. Even if the feedback isn't what you wanted, shaolin69, it's all the more valuable because it's coming from someone who isn't like you. I agree with your priorities - especially your viral loop tricks (way to go on that, by the way). But I hope you'll tuck it away somewhere for the day you scratch your head and wonder "ok, what can I do now to boost traffic?"
But. As I was saying, it doesn't matter why you didn't get in. You still know you have the makings of a successful business. YC's rejection doesn't invalidate your track record. So be encouraged! I'm glad to see you took advantage of your time stateside to look at other accelerators and got some interest. Best of luck, looking forward to hearing your success stories!
Moreover, the author is exactly right. With ten minutes all they can do is evaluate the lead person and the team. Sadly the takeaway is closer to "we didn't like you (enough)" and the "feedback" is a best guess as to why.
The assessment is thin slicing straight out of Blink by Gladwell and that approach has been shown to be very influenced by a whole host of pre-existing biases by the judges. Even very smart people are subject to those biases and experts are especially prone.
I think a certain amount of angst or bitterness or disappointment is perfectly acceptable.
Their application probably didn't say "First Yoga, Then THE WORLD!!" If it's too niche or couldn't possibly have enough upside you can evaluate that looking at the application. No need for all the flying and jetlag and lost productivity, etc.
On the plus side, I'm very happy to see that YCombinator decides to send, not just a rejection, but actionable feedback that they think the company should follow. I think that's a good thing, and so far samples of these have seemed to usually hit the mark.
On the other hand, the reason they always tell you never to explain why you gave a candidate a "no" is, that it will give them grounds to think you are wrong and discriminated against you. That might (might!) be the case here - the Author seems to give serious weight to the possibility of discrmination, which is of course completely possible. Had YC kept their mouth shut and not offered their valuable advice, maybe there would've been less thoughts of discrimination? I'd just hate to discourage YC from offering advice.
Someone with more legal experience can weigh in, but I wasn't under the impression that people applying for investment were given the same protections as people applying for employment. Disclaimer: I have no legal experience and am talking out of my ass.
With employment, companies have learned to shut up. "Sorry, we're not hiring. Best of luck." As you've said, this is due to applicants getting a lot of protections based on race, gender, color, creed, etc. If the employer admits to rejecting a candidate for being in a protected class, (or even anything that can allude to their status) they're opening themselves up to a lawsuit.
In contrast, I don't think that investing any of this. If you choose only to invest in black-owned companies, it's your money. If you choose only to invest in male-owned companies, it's your money. Sure, you'll be crucified by the press, but I don't think that there's a lawsuit in that.
As a result, investment companies can be a little bit more frank with their rejected candidates.
Now, one thing that complicates things in this case is that YC isn't just investing in companies; they're providing guidance and mentoring. Would this mentoring process (teaching someone how to build a business and then taking a share of the profits) be considered hiring?
I'd hate for YC to be sued for this by some asshole who's just looking for a quick payout and then completely stop giving advice to rejected candidates.
An application for a company to get an investment something very different. (And Y Combinator can use whatever criteria fits them best, they're picking companies, not people)
Also remember, YC payed for the interview, hard to think they didn't have a legitimate interest at that point.
I agree with the poster that shelling out $1500 for a 10 minute interview, and then basing a significant investment decision on that interview, does seem curious - but, as the poster said, they see hundreds of teams, and have done for a number of years now, so you'd think they would know almost instantly what they're looking for.
I've done a lot of technical interviews myself over the years, and, assuming I'm not pairing with a fellow interviewer who wants to spend 20 minutes outlining the history of the company and describing the role before actually asking any questions, I can usually tell within five minutes, and after really only a couple of carefully chosen questions pertinent to the problem domain, whether the person is likely to be someone I'd want to hire. (And, just like YC, I get it wrong sometimes. That's life.)
The tone of this piece sort of read to me as "I want to make it clear that I'm not complaining about the process, but I'm going to complain now anyway" - it seems like their observations were quite fair, adding a space to your product's name hardly seems important, and they were courteous and did actually give you feedback, which is probably more than you can hope for from many companies.
True - I hope I didn't come across as bitter, overall this was an awesome experience and the people at YC are amazing. I actually do think that they can probably tell if a startup is a good one or not in a matter of minutes.
I sympathize because I went through almost exactly the same experience with YC - we applied to W14, flew to the interview and did not get in.
Myself and 3 co-founders are all in our early to mid 30's, and have put in about the same amount of time and effort into our startup as OP et al, working on it full time for almost the same period before applying. All of us live half-way around the world from SV (Israel), and got on the plane on mostly our dime to show that we're taking the program, application and interview seriously.
I remember walking into the waiting area and seeing all those fresh-out-of-college-with-a-great-idea founders (not being cynical here), and I immediately felt out of place; very similar to what the OP describes. Not intimidated or phased in any way, just that we were the odd man out. Most of my co-founders and myself are married, have kids, and are in a different place in life than what I'd speculate is the average YC applicant profile. Or perhaps I'm just stereotyping, I don't know - it sure seemed like it from gazing around that room. No offense intended to past/present/future applicants.
The interview was very ordinary and I didn't feel like it went great or terrible. At one point it was mentioned that we're doing something very similar to a recent YC graduate, and that they weren't doing that great [0]. I imagine both were factors in our dismissal. I couldn't say exactly what it was that didn't get us past the interview phase.
Overall I'm not sorry we went - it was an interesting experience, and we managed to arrange other meetings in the valley while there. I'm also not overly upset we didn't qualify - it probably would have helped us move forward, but it's not the only way to succeed and definitely not the end of the world. Take it with a grain of salt and move on.
[0] Don't know if that's true or if I misunderstood the speaker.
Being accepted to Ycombinator is not a signal that your business will be successful in the long term. It might help in the short run being accepted as your instantly validated and have a higher chance of getting VC funding.
Entrepreneurs you shouldn't let getting rejected from Y combinator or any other accelerator bother you. You should consider the feedback they give and try to validate it and if what they are saying is true, try to correct what is wrong.
Consider one other point, while Y combinator partners are successful they are really not that successful. They haven't achieved as much as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page,Jack Ma etc. If Y combinator partners were really successful they would be running multi billion dollar companies, but they are using their skills to filter out applicants to Y combinator. So don't take their rejection as the law.
> Being accepted to Ycombinator is not a signal that your business will be successful in the long term. It might help in the short run being accepted as your instantly validated and have a higher chance of getting VC funding.
If you mean that getting accepted to YC doesn't guarantee that your business will be successful long-term, then I agree completely. Getting into YC is definitely a signal that it will be successful, however. That's why you have a higher chance of getting VC funding.
> Entrepreneurs you shouldn't let getting rejected from Y combinator or any other accelerator bother you. You should consider the feedback they give and try to validate it and if what they are saying is true, try to correct what is wrong.
There's nothing wrong with letting rejection bother you. It's what you do after you get rejected that matters. I think your suggestion to consider any feedback you get, and adjust what you're doing based on that feedback is awesome advice.
> Consider one other point, while Y combinator partners are successful they are really not that successful. They haven't achieved as much as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page,Jack Ma etc. If Y combinator partners were really successful they would be running multi billion dollar companies, but they are using their skills to filter out applicants to Y combinator. So don't take their rejection as the law.
As we saw in YogaTrail's rejection letter, even YC knows that their rejection isn't the law - "we are often wrong in our decisions". On the other hand, while the YC partners may not be as "successful" as Elon Musk and Bill Gates, YC is a billion dollar company[1]. So, the YC partners are technically running a billion dollar company.
I am a potential user of your site. I live (a bit reluctantly) in Columbia, SC, and my yoga studio cut back its advanced 90-minute classes and replaced most of them with hour-long, easier classes. Moreover, the head teacher mostly blew me off when I complained about this -- apparently there is increased competition, and times are rough.
Increased competition, indeed. It is presumably a good time to find out if any yoga studio has taken up the niche that my old studio has mostly abandoned -- and your site claims to offer this information.
So I checked out your site. I'm afraid I didn't find what I was looking for. You got the names and addresses of some local studios, and I'll trust that you found out accurately whether or not they offer free mats or sell bottled water.
But what I really want to know:
(1) Which studios offer the most advanced classes? You list "beginner", "intermediate", and "advanced" on your website, but these seemed a bit arbitrary. I didn't really trust them.
(2) More to the point, I like training that is a little bit more "sink or swim" than is the norm in this town -- not in any bad way, but where the teacher wants to get you to Reverse Bird of Paradise Pose, and if you're not getting there today, that's okay! -- but the teacher is focusing on those who will.
I want to know that from browsing your site. That is more ambiguous, and I think a lot harder to get right... but that kind of information (presented reliably) is what would drive me to return to your site.
p.s. Along the lines of (2), I would recommend trying to get yoga teachers to answer a short multiple choice quiz. For example:
> Although both of these are important, which is the following is the biggest priority in your yoga teaching?
> (a) Making sure everyone achieves their full potential
> (b) Ensuring that everyone in the class feels comfortable, and no one feels left out
Etc. Find out from your users which questions best differentiate between studios. But make it multiple choice, so that teachers can't hedge their bets.
I recently went through the instant interview/rejection process at an up-and-comming SV start-up, and can relate to the OP's confusion. I am also in my 40s and at first wondered how the obviously flawed process could produce reasonable results. The number of false negatives must be staggering. I think the key for them is that incoming volume more than compensates for missed opportunities. This is the luxury of the hyper-successful. I think that for a business owner (or very busy engineer in my case) applying into these types of organizations, you need to expend a lot more effort on applying, researching and preparing for the actual interview than on the specifics of your skills and/or business.
They're really trying to minimize false positives. Those tend to be very expensive opportunity cost mistakes. This is true for both hiring employees and business partnerships. Especially business partnerships.
A number of comments seem to be wondering why YC doesn't provide detailed feedback to each rejected party. Some are assuming it's due to fear of discrimination claims, but I doubt that's the case. I would guess YC doesn't provide detailed feedback for three primary reasons:
1) They interview over 300 companies in a batch, and detailed feedback for each rejection would simply be time prohibitive.
2) They admit to being wrong occasionally, and will often fund companies on subsequent applications. Providing a laundry list of "things they dislike about you" would diminish that probability.
3) In most cases, it's probably less about your deficiencies, and more about the companies ahead of you. There may not be anything inherently wrong with the founders or company, you just got beat out by seemingly better alternatives (see point #2).
Of course that statement can come across in many different ways, so saying that and bluntly is not going to happen.
The rest of the feedback is mere rationalization after the fact. Some may be right, some wrong, it doesn't matter. They choose based on the people.
Always tough to realize that some people don't like you. Our goal is to find the people (customers, friends, spouses) that love us and really treat them well. Some of us are just a bit less loveable.
If you are getting tired of reading all the "our YC interview" stories on HN, this is the only one you'll want to read. It's different from all the others. Bitter? Maybe. But way more interesting and thought-provoking than the average "teenager just met their idol" version.
I'm curious what these review posts say about the market. They only really recently started appearing. A bubble signal that ambition is outpacing quality?
YC: Unfortunately, we were unable to get to believing that you had a strategy for supplanting Yelp as the top Google search results — having worked on SEO extensively in the past a better product often times isn’t enough. // You clearly have a product that is better than what else is out there. I encourage you to spend more time on figuring out customer acquisition (possibly through non-search channels). In any case, we are often wrong in our decisions, and I hope that you continue to build your business and wish you the best in doing so.
YT: The feedback about beating Yelp in Google Search results and looking for ways to get customers other than search channels – pretty solid indicators that they hadn’t understood what we had told them.
To me this seems like a pretty solid indicator that they (YT) hadn't understand the feedback they were getting, or knew what to do with it. This is a shame since it makes YC less likely to give feedback in the future.
Embrace feedback, don't explain it away. Especially if you are a fragile upstart.
"I seemed alien to them somehow, with a weird background that was just too different from their own… so they didn’t know what to make of me on a purely emotional level."
Not saying this was the case here, but I feel like this effect, even if it occurs subliminally, plays such a staggering role in business relationships and decisions that it can be discouraging for anyone outside of the "main" group. Aaron Swartz talked about this in some of his blog posts but it wasn't until I was thrown into the corporate workforce that I saw it for myself first hand.
I don't think it's a conscious malicious effort to keep minorities/non-americans out of executive positions, just a consequence of the reality that people are more comfortable dealing with others that share a similar cultural background. This becomes doubly true when dealing with extremely high value contract negotiations and business decisions - you want to know exactly where the other person is mentally and emotionally - and that's much easier to decipher if you share a culture/race with that person.
Sorry to hear you did not get in. Must be very disappointing. I'd have a deeper look at the feedback though, and assume good faith in the rejection. From the rejection:
Unfortunately, we were unable to get to believing that you had a strategy for supplanting Yelp as the top Google search results — having worked on SEO extensively in the past a better product often times isn’t enough.
I read this not bluntly as: You should be able to beat Yelp, else you will fail, I hone in on: 'unable to get to believing that you had a strategy'. From an outsider perspective this is unfortunately what happened: You did not have a solid enough online marketing/acquisition strategy (social, search, advertising, partners, email etc.), or failed to convey it during the interview.
I don't think yCombinator failed to see the market potential, in my view they are actively looking for potential (from SF-based sleeping bag site to world-wide bed and breakfast replacement). I also do not think you were invited to make them seem more outsider-friendly, only to have you be rejected for being an outsider. It is about the online marketing strategy. In their (and my) experience, just having a better site is not enough. For an online directory company, SEO should be in the companies DNA. Preferably a founder has knowledge on SEO and can weave marketing opportunities into the decision making process.
If you think back to the interview part about online marketing, do you remember there being confusion? Or not having a concrete answer at-the-ready? Did your pitch include a slide on marketing strategy?
Also, the questions they asked like: How are you different from competitor X? Were these questions unprovoked? If so, enhance your pitch by listing your competitors, and their differences, pro's and con's compared to your company. This preemptively clears away such doubts.
Take a look at Mint's pitch deck: http://www.slideshare.net/hnshah/mintcom-prelaunch-pitch-dec... They make you believe they've done their market research and have a solid customer acquisition strategy from the get-go. Perhaps you can use it to improve your pitch.
I'll have a deeper look at your website and perhaps will send you over some on-page SEO issues to fix or ignore. But strategy/conversion/campaigns will contribute a lot more.
Also, your site already looks great, you've told us you have decent numbers, a nice community, a great team, so probably: you will get there, wherever 'there' is.
Wouldn't the point of YC's investment and share have been to help and teach them how to work out SEO (in addition to other things) so that they could beat Yelp? (if truly Yelp is a competitor)
Isn't the point of YC to pick and help startups that will elucidate a path to rapid, lasting growth?
That reason for rejection doesn't make sense, unless one is to believe that nobody can ever build a successful specialized directory because Yelp is already and will always be king of the world. Did YC invite them because they were somehow going to be the New Yelp?
"I don't think yCombinator failed to see the market potential, in my view they are actively looking for potential "
Much of life as we know does have a luck factor involved.
Who is to say if they had spent the money (could afford to) to fly all three people out and not been near the last interview whether the outcome would be different?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Thing is you never know about the minor details that lead to, or prevent success.
When I was younger I once spent my own money to fly out to a trade show, stay at a hotel, walk the floor and as a result landed a job that I wasn't really qualified for that I would have never gotten by resume alone (that I am pretty sure of). [1] Perhaps the person was in a particularly good mood that day perhaps I just said and did the right things. I could spin this story a dozen ways (depending on the point I was trying to make).
My general rule though has always been to "spend money to ensure success". The downside of spending money is very clear (it's finite, the amount of money that you spend and of course the time in this case. Ok sure there is opportunity cost as well.). The upside is unlimited. As a generality people tend to focus on the upside and not the downside in decisions.
[1] There was also quite a bit of leg work upfront prior to doing this as well.
I'm not sure what your alternative user acquisition strategy is but not able to supplant Yelp in Google search results is a pretty valid observation. How do you respond to this?
The bulk of our user growth is due to viral loops we've built into things - we're pretty much getting each new user to successfully invite another at this point. Unlike Yelp, we're very "yoga-centric", and while Yelp is all the rage in San Francisco, that's not the case in the rest of the world... so we don't think that Yelp will be the place people will use to find their yoga, especially their yoga teachers. One persons 5 star is another's 1 star.
That's not to say we're neglecting SEO; we're working on strategies to get more search traffic (and in many places we're doing very well with that) and convert it into registered members. It's just not our main and only strategy.
But the real answer is: we're planning a feature (not there yet) that will solve a big pain point for millions of people (getting the schedule of their yoga teachers at a glance), and which will provide an even better viral loop (yogis inviting their teachers, and teachers using our site for their online presence).
Has anyone over 40 ever been accepted to ycombinator?
What is the percentage?
I'm not saying ageism. In my mind there might be valid reasons why not. I notice the US army doesn't take older people and I assume there are valid reasons. I don't see people crying ageism in that case... I'm just curious.
(For the record: over 40. Not a startup guy. Not interested in applying to ycombinator.)
> Livingston said the latest class of startups entering the program will be its most diverse ever, containing both the oldest entrepreneur the group has ever back at 57, the youngest entrepreneur they’ve funded at 17, the most female entrepreneurs they’ve ever admitted, the most foreign entrepreneurs they’ve ever admitted and, for the first time, 6 nonprofits as well as the normal mix of tech hopefuls looking to make it big.
According to this [0] article, the oldest person was 57 years old.
From their website:
"Not knowing the first thing about building a website, we were lucky to meet Sven Ernst here in Chiang Mai, really by chance. Sven is Managing Director of Buzzwoo!, a German digital agency that does web development, strategy, as well as creative internet design work. After a few short discussions, we all decided to form a partnership, and YogaTrail was officially founded in early 2012."
Perhaps this is outdated. Is Sven full-time on YogaTrail now or still running an agency/doing other work? The only technical team member being a part-timer would be another red flag if that's the case.
... Sven here (sharing this acccount with Alex). I'm full-time on YogaTrail. Besides me there are 2 full-time employees (Drupal Developers) on board, plus we use lots of free development resources from BUZZWOO!, a digital agency I co-founded. I consider this a huge advantage compared with other bootstraped start-ups and it enabled us to actually produce lots of software. Other than the main website YogaTrail has a very successful facebook app (we use for content marketing), several mobile apps and a bunch of very cool tools we use for marketing and growth hacking.
YC is one potential path to success, and they have their criteria, which OP's idea and current business did not meet. That doesn't mean the idea won't be successful. Just keep at it, OP. Don't let rejection from any one investor have an out-sized impact on your attitude. If you believe in the idea just put your head back down and get back to work. Look at it this way: the further along you are when you take on investors, the more you keep.
"could it be that my interviewers have worked on SEO so much that it’s difficult for them to conceive of non-SEO related strategies for growing a user-base?"
...And from the rejection email
"I encourage you to spend more time on figuring out customer acquisition (possibly through non-search channels)."
So I don't think that "it’s difficult for them to conceive of non-SEO related strategies" is the reason, since they actually suggest the non-SEO strategy in their rejection email.
I think that you need to view this from the perspective of ycombinator. The only investments for them that makes sense is a startup with high growth rate. (the very definition of a startup by PG).
When you are playing the David against the Goliath of "Yelp" you can not compete on SEO. So you have to have an alternative DEFENSIBLE advantage to allow you to dominate your market.
Another thing from what I have read over the years is that ycombinator looks for teams that are not married to their initial idea. In fact they prefer the team to the idea. So if in the interview you come off as very defensive about the validity of your idea that could be a red flag.
Thanks for writing that. The first part was interesting, but the last part probably comes across as more bitter than you intended.
About YC's interview policies - it would be very interesting to do some kind of cutoff analysis (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2157932) and to see the difference between the companies that do make it in and those that do not. The problem is that making it into YC gives companies that are barely over the cutoff a huge boost (which is why you give them 7% of your company, afterall) so it would be very tricky to take that into account rigorously.
[+] [-] roberthahn|12 years ago|reply
This team has every good reason to succeed: they spent 2 years of their life working together building something that's now getting significant traction - and making them money.
Every fundamental metric indicating whether the business will work or not were established facts. That should put them head and shoulders over anyone else.
Given all that, it's hard NOT to feel emotionally invested after 2 years. And it's hard not to want to spend time processing the experience the way they did.
At this point, it doesn't matter why they didn't get in. It would be great to know, and yes, it's awesome that they got some actionable feedback -
Actually, I want to say something about that too. Even if the feedback isn't what you wanted, shaolin69, it's all the more valuable because it's coming from someone who isn't like you. I agree with your priorities - especially your viral loop tricks (way to go on that, by the way). But I hope you'll tuck it away somewhere for the day you scratch your head and wonder "ok, what can I do now to boost traffic?"
But. As I was saying, it doesn't matter why you didn't get in. You still know you have the makings of a successful business. YC's rejection doesn't invalidate your track record. So be encouraged! I'm glad to see you took advantage of your time stateside to look at other accelerators and got some interest. Best of luck, looking forward to hearing your success stories!
[+] [-] robg|12 years ago|reply
The assessment is thin slicing straight out of Blink by Gladwell and that approach has been shown to be very influenced by a whole host of pre-existing biases by the judges. Even very smart people are subject to those biases and experts are especially prone.
[+] [-] msandford|12 years ago|reply
Their application probably didn't say "First Yoga, Then THE WORLD!!" If it's too niche or couldn't possibly have enough upside you can evaluate that looking at the application. No need for all the flying and jetlag and lost productivity, etc.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] edanm|12 years ago|reply
On the plus side, I'm very happy to see that YCombinator decides to send, not just a rejection, but actionable feedback that they think the company should follow. I think that's a good thing, and so far samples of these have seemed to usually hit the mark.
On the other hand, the reason they always tell you never to explain why you gave a candidate a "no" is, that it will give them grounds to think you are wrong and discriminated against you. That might (might!) be the case here - the Author seems to give serious weight to the possibility of discrmination, which is of course completely possible. Had YC kept their mouth shut and not offered their valuable advice, maybe there would've been less thoughts of discrimination? I'd just hate to discourage YC from offering advice.
[+] [-] omegaham|12 years ago|reply
With employment, companies have learned to shut up. "Sorry, we're not hiring. Best of luck." As you've said, this is due to applicants getting a lot of protections based on race, gender, color, creed, etc. If the employer admits to rejecting a candidate for being in a protected class, (or even anything that can allude to their status) they're opening themselves up to a lawsuit.
In contrast, I don't think that investing any of this. If you choose only to invest in black-owned companies, it's your money. If you choose only to invest in male-owned companies, it's your money. Sure, you'll be crucified by the press, but I don't think that there's a lawsuit in that.
As a result, investment companies can be a little bit more frank with their rejected candidates.
Now, one thing that complicates things in this case is that YC isn't just investing in companies; they're providing guidance and mentoring. Would this mentoring process (teaching someone how to build a business and then taking a share of the profits) be considered hiring?
I'd hate for YC to be sued for this by some asshole who's just looking for a quick payout and then completely stop giving advice to rejected candidates.
[+] [-] raverbashing|12 years ago|reply
An application for a company to get an investment something very different. (And Y Combinator can use whatever criteria fits them best, they're picking companies, not people)
Also remember, YC payed for the interview, hard to think they didn't have a legitimate interest at that point.
[+] [-] a2kadet|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bshimmin|12 years ago|reply
I've done a lot of technical interviews myself over the years, and, assuming I'm not pairing with a fellow interviewer who wants to spend 20 minutes outlining the history of the company and describing the role before actually asking any questions, I can usually tell within five minutes, and after really only a couple of carefully chosen questions pertinent to the problem domain, whether the person is likely to be someone I'd want to hire. (And, just like YC, I get it wrong sometimes. That's life.)
The tone of this piece sort of read to me as "I want to make it clear that I'm not complaining about the process, but I'm going to complain now anyway" - it seems like their observations were quite fair, adding a space to your product's name hardly seems important, and they were courteous and did actually give you feedback, which is probably more than you can hope for from many companies.
[+] [-] shaolin69|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shiloa|12 years ago|reply
Myself and 3 co-founders are all in our early to mid 30's, and have put in about the same amount of time and effort into our startup as OP et al, working on it full time for almost the same period before applying. All of us live half-way around the world from SV (Israel), and got on the plane on mostly our dime to show that we're taking the program, application and interview seriously.
I remember walking into the waiting area and seeing all those fresh-out-of-college-with-a-great-idea founders (not being cynical here), and I immediately felt out of place; very similar to what the OP describes. Not intimidated or phased in any way, just that we were the odd man out. Most of my co-founders and myself are married, have kids, and are in a different place in life than what I'd speculate is the average YC applicant profile. Or perhaps I'm just stereotyping, I don't know - it sure seemed like it from gazing around that room. No offense intended to past/present/future applicants.
The interview was very ordinary and I didn't feel like it went great or terrible. At one point it was mentioned that we're doing something very similar to a recent YC graduate, and that they weren't doing that great [0]. I imagine both were factors in our dismissal. I couldn't say exactly what it was that didn't get us past the interview phase.
Overall I'm not sorry we went - it was an interesting experience, and we managed to arrange other meetings in the valley while there. I'm also not overly upset we didn't qualify - it probably would have helped us move forward, but it's not the only way to succeed and definitely not the end of the world. Take it with a grain of salt and move on.
[0] Don't know if that's true or if I misunderstood the speaker.
[+] [-] pptr1|12 years ago|reply
Entrepreneurs you shouldn't let getting rejected from Y combinator or any other accelerator bother you. You should consider the feedback they give and try to validate it and if what they are saying is true, try to correct what is wrong.
Consider one other point, while Y combinator partners are successful they are really not that successful. They haven't achieved as much as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page,Jack Ma etc. If Y combinator partners were really successful they would be running multi billion dollar companies, but they are using their skills to filter out applicants to Y combinator. So don't take their rejection as the law.
[+] [-] mkolodny|12 years ago|reply
If you mean that getting accepted to YC doesn't guarantee that your business will be successful long-term, then I agree completely. Getting into YC is definitely a signal that it will be successful, however. That's why you have a higher chance of getting VC funding.
> Entrepreneurs you shouldn't let getting rejected from Y combinator or any other accelerator bother you. You should consider the feedback they give and try to validate it and if what they are saying is true, try to correct what is wrong.
There's nothing wrong with letting rejection bother you. It's what you do after you get rejected that matters. I think your suggestion to consider any feedback you get, and adjust what you're doing based on that feedback is awesome advice.
> Consider one other point, while Y combinator partners are successful they are really not that successful. They haven't achieved as much as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page,Jack Ma etc. If Y combinator partners were really successful they would be running multi billion dollar companies, but they are using their skills to filter out applicants to Y combinator. So don't take their rejection as the law.
As we saw in YogaTrail's rejection letter, even YC knows that their rejection isn't the law - "we are often wrong in our decisions". On the other hand, while the YC partners may not be as "successful" as Elon Musk and Bill Gates, YC is a billion dollar company[1]. So, the YC partners are technically running a billion dollar company.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/25/y-combinator-13-7b-valuatio.... ~7% of ~$14B is ~$1B.
[+] [-] impendia|12 years ago|reply
Increased competition, indeed. It is presumably a good time to find out if any yoga studio has taken up the niche that my old studio has mostly abandoned -- and your site claims to offer this information.
So I checked out your site. I'm afraid I didn't find what I was looking for. You got the names and addresses of some local studios, and I'll trust that you found out accurately whether or not they offer free mats or sell bottled water.
But what I really want to know:
(1) Which studios offer the most advanced classes? You list "beginner", "intermediate", and "advanced" on your website, but these seemed a bit arbitrary. I didn't really trust them.
(2) More to the point, I like training that is a little bit more "sink or swim" than is the norm in this town -- not in any bad way, but where the teacher wants to get you to Reverse Bird of Paradise Pose, and if you're not getting there today, that's okay! -- but the teacher is focusing on those who will.
I want to know that from browsing your site. That is more ambiguous, and I think a lot harder to get right... but that kind of information (presented reliably) is what would drive me to return to your site.
Best of luck to you.
[+] [-] impendia|12 years ago|reply
> Although both of these are important, which is the following is the biggest priority in your yoga teaching?
> (a) Making sure everyone achieves their full potential
> (b) Ensuring that everyone in the class feels comfortable, and no one feels left out
Etc. Find out from your users which questions best differentiate between studios. But make it multiple choice, so that teachers can't hedge their bets.
[+] [-] t1m|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] localhost|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _sentient|12 years ago|reply
1) They interview over 300 companies in a batch, and detailed feedback for each rejection would simply be time prohibitive.
2) They admit to being wrong occasionally, and will often fund companies on subsequent applications. Providing a laundry list of "things they dislike about you" would diminish that probability.
3) In most cases, it's probably less about your deficiencies, and more about the companies ahead of you. There may not be anything inherently wrong with the founders or company, you just got beat out by seemingly better alternatives (see point #2).
In any case, hustle on.
[+] [-] robg|12 years ago|reply
4) We didn't like you.
Of course that statement can come across in many different ways, so saying that and bluntly is not going to happen.
The rest of the feedback is mere rationalization after the fact. Some may be right, some wrong, it doesn't matter. They choose based on the people.
Always tough to realize that some people don't like you. Our goal is to find the people (customers, friends, spouses) that love us and really treat them well. Some of us are just a bit less loveable.
[+] [-] colmvp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alain94040|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oskarth|12 years ago|reply
YT: The feedback about beating Yelp in Google Search results and looking for ways to get customers other than search channels – pretty solid indicators that they hadn’t understood what we had told them.
To me this seems like a pretty solid indicator that they (YT) hadn't understand the feedback they were getting, or knew what to do with it. This is a shame since it makes YC less likely to give feedback in the future.
Embrace feedback, don't explain it away. Especially if you are a fragile upstart.
[+] [-] darkrabbi|12 years ago|reply
"I seemed alien to them somehow, with a weird background that was just too different from their own… so they didn’t know what to make of me on a purely emotional level."
Not saying this was the case here, but I feel like this effect, even if it occurs subliminally, plays such a staggering role in business relationships and decisions that it can be discouraging for anyone outside of the "main" group. Aaron Swartz talked about this in some of his blog posts but it wasn't until I was thrown into the corporate workforce that I saw it for myself first hand.
I don't think it's a conscious malicious effort to keep minorities/non-americans out of executive positions, just a consequence of the reality that people are more comfortable dealing with others that share a similar cultural background. This becomes doubly true when dealing with extremely high value contract negotiations and business decisions - you want to know exactly where the other person is mentally and emotionally - and that's much easier to decipher if you share a culture/race with that person.
[+] [-] blauwbilgorgel|12 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, we were unable to get to believing that you had a strategy for supplanting Yelp as the top Google search results — having worked on SEO extensively in the past a better product often times isn’t enough.
I read this not bluntly as: You should be able to beat Yelp, else you will fail, I hone in on: 'unable to get to believing that you had a strategy'. From an outsider perspective this is unfortunately what happened: You did not have a solid enough online marketing/acquisition strategy (social, search, advertising, partners, email etc.), or failed to convey it during the interview.
I don't think yCombinator failed to see the market potential, in my view they are actively looking for potential (from SF-based sleeping bag site to world-wide bed and breakfast replacement). I also do not think you were invited to make them seem more outsider-friendly, only to have you be rejected for being an outsider. It is about the online marketing strategy. In their (and my) experience, just having a better site is not enough. For an online directory company, SEO should be in the companies DNA. Preferably a founder has knowledge on SEO and can weave marketing opportunities into the decision making process.
If you think back to the interview part about online marketing, do you remember there being confusion? Or not having a concrete answer at-the-ready? Did your pitch include a slide on marketing strategy?
Also, the questions they asked like: How are you different from competitor X? Were these questions unprovoked? If so, enhance your pitch by listing your competitors, and their differences, pro's and con's compared to your company. This preemptively clears away such doubts.
Take a look at Mint's pitch deck: http://www.slideshare.net/hnshah/mintcom-prelaunch-pitch-dec... They make you believe they've done their market research and have a solid customer acquisition strategy from the get-go. Perhaps you can use it to improve your pitch.
I'll have a deeper look at your website and perhaps will send you over some on-page SEO issues to fix or ignore. But strategy/conversion/campaigns will contribute a lot more.
Also, your site already looks great, you've told us you have decent numbers, a nice community, a great team, so probably: you will get there, wherever 'there' is.
[+] [-] mkempe|12 years ago|reply
Isn't the point of YC to pick and help startups that will elucidate a path to rapid, lasting growth?
That reason for rejection doesn't make sense, unless one is to believe that nobody can ever build a successful specialized directory because Yelp is already and will always be king of the world. Did YC invite them because they were somehow going to be the New Yelp?
[+] [-] larrys|12 years ago|reply
Much of life as we know does have a luck factor involved.
Who is to say if they had spent the money (could afford to) to fly all three people out and not been near the last interview whether the outcome would be different?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Thing is you never know about the minor details that lead to, or prevent success.
When I was younger I once spent my own money to fly out to a trade show, stay at a hotel, walk the floor and as a result landed a job that I wasn't really qualified for that I would have never gotten by resume alone (that I am pretty sure of). [1] Perhaps the person was in a particularly good mood that day perhaps I just said and did the right things. I could spin this story a dozen ways (depending on the point I was trying to make).
My general rule though has always been to "spend money to ensure success". The downside of spending money is very clear (it's finite, the amount of money that you spend and of course the time in this case. Ok sure there is opportunity cost as well.). The upside is unlimited. As a generality people tend to focus on the upside and not the downside in decisions.
[1] There was also quite a bit of leg work upfront prior to doing this as well.
[+] [-] ritchiea|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamsalman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaolin69|12 years ago|reply
That's not to say we're neglecting SEO; we're working on strategies to get more search traffic (and in many places we're doing very well with that) and convert it into registered members. It's just not our main and only strategy.
But the real answer is: we're planning a feature (not there yet) that will solve a big pain point for millions of people (getting the schedule of their yoga teachers at a glance), and which will provide an even better viral loop (yogis inviting their teachers, and teachers using our site for their online presence).
[+] [-] ronaldx|12 years ago|reply
I find that a pretty curious assumption.
[+] [-] jqm|12 years ago|reply
I'm not saying ageism. In my mind there might be valid reasons why not. I notice the US army doesn't take older people and I assume there are valid reasons. I don't see people crying ageism in that case... I'm just curious.
(For the record: over 40. Not a startup guy. Not interested in applying to ycombinator.)
[+] [-] B-Scan|12 years ago|reply
According to this [0] article, the oldest person was 57 years old.
[0] http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/02/06/want-to-g...
[+] [-] justin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untilHellbanned|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whbk|12 years ago|reply
Perhaps this is outdated. Is Sven full-time on YogaTrail now or still running an agency/doing other work? The only technical team member being a part-timer would be another red flag if that's the case.
[+] [-] shaolin69|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markbnj|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aregsar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fede_V|12 years ago|reply
About YC's interview policies - it would be very interesting to do some kind of cutoff analysis (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2157932) and to see the difference between the companies that do make it in and those that do not. The problem is that making it into YC gives companies that are barely over the cutoff a huge boost (which is why you give them 7% of your company, afterall) so it would be very tricky to take that into account rigorously.
[+] [-] 6thSigma|12 years ago|reply