Tell HN: YC Summer 2015 rejections (and presumably invitations) have been sent
67 comments
I got the rejection email for PressureNet. http://pressurenet.io
5th attempt. No problem, we'll keep going.
5th attempt. No problem, we'll keep going.
Awesome platform! I'm impressed:) I didn't see how you get sensor information from phones. I worked on a messaging system for an aviation weather observation system for a North American government agency that was written in Java, and the sensors we used were not the kind you find in phones.
Have you looked for investment anywhere else?
Have you looked for investment anywhere else?
I've always loved your project. When I'm back in Toronto, we'll catch up if you're still at MaRS.
Your rejections are proof positive to me that Y!Combinator has to many good startups applying for their program.
Cheer up, and celebrate your hard work. God has a special plan for you. In the morning its back to work:)
You may not be partnering with Y!Combinator, but you are walking away with a 7% stake in your company that gives you 100% control over your own destiny, and potentially millions, or even billions of dollars in wealth you would of given away had you been selected. Who am I kidding, we all wanted the support of Y!Combinator.
The good people of Y!Combinator are some of the of the best in Silicon Valley. I personally would love to have a board that could show my team the ropes. Lets face it. Hackers are pros at learning the ropes through trial and error. Persistence will get us through.
I fantasized about a little more rest than my current environment of working a full time job that pays the bills, and another full time job developing new technology that doesn't yet pay any bills. Having to focus on multiple things at once, instead of focusing on one with pinpoint accuracy is painful. You do what you gotta do, and you will get there.
Our company has built a foundation for Strong AI, and an autonomous robotic framework that connects Robotics to third party AI. Google has spent over a billion dollars the last couple years buying companies in these two areas, and we are going to beat them connecting AI to Robotics by months, and we have been developing our technology for 3 years. AI, and Robotics were Y!Combinator's top 2 desired business categories, and we didn't even get an interview.
In summary don't stop, but do look for alternative options to getting to your next milestone in regards to funding. Most of the sites I've looked at in rejected Y!Combinator posts, I would of been interested in if I were an investor. I think each of you is onto something (Except the dude who submitted a swinger ad. He did get a good chuckle out of me though:).
Cheer up, and celebrate your hard work. God has a special plan for you. In the morning its back to work:)
You may not be partnering with Y!Combinator, but you are walking away with a 7% stake in your company that gives you 100% control over your own destiny, and potentially millions, or even billions of dollars in wealth you would of given away had you been selected. Who am I kidding, we all wanted the support of Y!Combinator.
The good people of Y!Combinator are some of the of the best in Silicon Valley. I personally would love to have a board that could show my team the ropes. Lets face it. Hackers are pros at learning the ropes through trial and error. Persistence will get us through.
I fantasized about a little more rest than my current environment of working a full time job that pays the bills, and another full time job developing new technology that doesn't yet pay any bills. Having to focus on multiple things at once, instead of focusing on one with pinpoint accuracy is painful. You do what you gotta do, and you will get there.
Our company has built a foundation for Strong AI, and an autonomous robotic framework that connects Robotics to third party AI. Google has spent over a billion dollars the last couple years buying companies in these two areas, and we are going to beat them connecting AI to Robotics by months, and we have been developing our technology for 3 years. AI, and Robotics were Y!Combinator's top 2 desired business categories, and we didn't even get an interview.
In summary don't stop, but do look for alternative options to getting to your next milestone in regards to funding. Most of the sites I've looked at in rejected Y!Combinator posts, I would of been interested in if I were an investor. I think each of you is onto something (Except the dude who submitted a swinger ad. He did get a good chuckle out of me though:).
Guess we'll be building Levered Returns (leveredreturns.com) into a billion dollar business without YC. I really think the application process was exactly what we needed to vet out the idea. It's like getting some great advice and keeping the 7%! More excited than ever!
I liked your site, but I wasn't certain what you offer that other money sites don't. I'm sure you have some market changing technology, but I didn't know what it was. Can you clarify?
Rejected with http://www.stay22.com/ (hotels and rentals for events)
Though we've only been working on it for 2 weeks
Though we've only been working on it for 2 weeks
Got rejected 3rd time for http://www.innGrid.net despite the real revenue & growth. Perhaps it's beacuse I'm a sole founder.
Anyways, I am going to continue this journey with YC on board or not. Here's the vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6OGHW9rrLY
You have a good site, and it looks like a good product from first impression, however, the demo was a bit confusing to me. The easy to use UI, looked complicated with all the colors, and charts, and sections. I assume this is something that could be fixed with additional time. Just wanted to share feedback. Thanks for sharing! It looks like a product you can make money selling.
[deleted]
Rejected with https://www.denarri.com/ - The shopping app that helps users get the best price on the products they love in 3 clicks by learning their shopping habits.
3rd rejection so far. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a solo founder. Oh well, gotta keep pushing through and making the best user experience possible. Best of luck to everyone, we go this!
3rd rejection so far. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a solo founder. Oh well, gotta keep pushing through and making the best user experience possible. Best of luck to everyone, we go this!
Hey, lets chat, send me an email.
We applied with http://ymoment.com for the first time this year. Unfortunately we got rejected but this doesn't mean the end for us we already have a decided what to do next.And btw what we are trying to do is to make a change in video consumption experience by letting users make micro videos out of youtube videos.
The worlds first Social Operating System rejected.. We know not everyone will understand it, frankly we don't care about rejection (not different then the hot blonde bombshell telling you no at the dance ;). Break it down add the fuel to the fire, burn the whole forest down! Power to the believers who will still keep grinding because of their visions to change the world!
www.notospy.com
www.notospy.com
Just wondering, is this an operating system or a social network? Your landing page calls it an OS and then describes it as a social network - I haven't got a clue if I can use it as an operating system.
Hey, guys! We still don't have any answer. Is that suppose to mean refuse? We are barbudo.net and we are developing easy-to-use SaaS platform for making web sites more secured, we focus on startups and SMBs.
Thanks for sharing this. Well done for making an application, and you attitude toward creating your business sounds like it works.
Second rejection here: solo founder from weird country in the middle of Europe, HW startup in agtech (actually just small niche of wine analysis) is probably not great fit for YC. It is great thing to just fill the application to summarise what I learned about the business in past six months.
Rejected with http://www.appodeal.com/ (squeeze more revenues from mobile ad networks)
Have been working on it for almost a year now and really close to break even. Probably, because I am the only founder.
Have been working on it for almost a year now and really close to break even. Probably, because I am the only founder.
Here's my video that I submitted to YC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdR_2AODciE&feature=youtu.be
Might be useful for someone in the future.
Might be useful for someone in the future.
If you're "close to break even" that implies you're getting revenue somewhere. But your site says your product is free. So where is the money coming from?
We don't charge publishers.
Appodeal makes money by selling to direct advertisers in bulk at a higher rate. Basically we charge advertisers, rather than publishers.
Appodeal makes money by selling to direct advertisers in bulk at a higher rate. Basically we charge advertisers, rather than publishers.
Hey i really like what your working on, lets chat.
Thank you, really glad to hear that. Inboxed.
Interesting project. Could we chat? My email is on my profile page.
Thank you. Just sent you an e-mail. Would love to chat.
This is very similar to the mediation tool Heyzap (YC W09) https://www.heyzap.com has.
True. Hard to object.
Just to double check, are you from YC?
Awesome site! Really really well done.
Apparently, not well enough, haha.
Anyway, it might be a good thing after all.
One of the last things YC cares about is your landing page. Yours is pretty good, don't sweat it.
Edit: To clarify, a good landing page is important but the other things like team, demo, video, and well written answers are more important IMO.
Edit: To clarify, a good landing page is important but the other things like team, demo, video, and well written answers are more important IMO.
Well, it took like 3 months to make it look like this.
First version was much worse. Luckily we had enough time to polish it up before public launch.
Rejected with https://brotherportal.org/ - a fraternity/sorority/collegiate organization management software and social network
It wasn't until I saw the faux comments in the screenshot on the about page that I realized this was software for organizing college frats. Between the image of a cloud and the word "Brother", I thought it might be software for organizing groups of men committed to Christ.
How about "We handle the logistics of organizing your fraternity and connecting its members."
How about "We handle the logistics of organizing your fraternity and connecting its members."
My mail and response:
Your Y Combinator Application
Y Combinator to me 1 hour ago
Thank you for applying to Y Combinator; however, your startup was not selected to interview for the upcoming Y Combinator batch. We carefully reviewed thousands of applications and since there's a limit on the number of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot of promising groups. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the interview threshold ends up getting accepted to YC. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold.
Unfortunately we can't give you individual feedback about your application. This page explains why: http://ycombinator.com/whynot/
We sincerely hope and encourage you to reapply for the next batch. Applying multiple times in no way counts against you and a surprisingly large number of companies are funded after applying more than once.
We're trying to get better at this, but 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.
-- YC
Cris S to Y
3 minutes ago
Thanks for the consideration. It's a shame we are not working together at this time. Maybe in another format in the future. If you feel like investing again later, I encourage you to reach out.
I wouldn't worry too much about the ones you missed, there's so much talent you've already curated that their potential works and advice buffer whatever inefficiencies exist in the process, whether from gaps in your assessments or from founder applications, and at an increasing rate each year.
You're in the business of investing in the future. I'd say you're doing pretty well so far!
Your Y Combinator Application
Y Combinator to me 1 hour ago
Thank you for applying to Y Combinator; however, your startup was not selected to interview for the upcoming Y Combinator batch. We carefully reviewed thousands of applications and since there's a limit on the number of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot of promising groups. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the interview threshold ends up getting accepted to YC. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold.
Unfortunately we can't give you individual feedback about your application. This page explains why: http://ycombinator.com/whynot/
We sincerely hope and encourage you to reapply for the next batch. Applying multiple times in no way counts against you and a surprisingly large number of companies are funded after applying more than once.
We're trying to get better at this, but 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.
-- YC
Cris S to Y
3 minutes ago
Thanks for the consideration. It's a shame we are not working together at this time. Maybe in another format in the future. If you feel like investing again later, I encourage you to reach out.
I wouldn't worry too much about the ones you missed, there's so much talent you've already curated that their potential works and advice buffer whatever inefficiencies exist in the process, whether from gaps in your assessments or from founder applications, and at an increasing rate each year.
You're in the business of investing in the future. I'd say you're doing pretty well so far!
[deleted]
Rejected with http://datastack.co/ - a analytics and visualization tool that can be integrated with any REST api.
Rejected folks: when you go to https://apply.ycombinator.com/ does it say anything?
No, nothing.
Just the standard:
You created a startup application.
You submitted your application.
with no additional information (just to clarify) or nothing at all? ?
with no additional information (just to clarify) or nothing at all? ?
Standard. Nothing changed.
Thanks!
Hey for those who got an email did they send it to each co-founder's email address or just the one listed on your account?
Only to the applicant not each co-founder.
Did you mean the email of the person who applied or the email listed on the application?
damn...still no response and just noticed our email server was having issues...
Did everybody of you guys got an email from YC already? We did not get one yet, still waiting...
Check your spam folder.
Rejected, although to be fair my startup was about 6 weeks behind where it needed to be to be in YC S15.
I got the rejection email for Vidpanel.com
First try first rejection gonna start trying harder :)
rejected with https://scribie.com - Mturk for audio/video transcription. Have been working on it for 5 years now, 3 of which were a side project.
Do late applications get late rejection email?
I'm fairly certain they all get sent together. It would give late applications an advantage if they spent more time reviewing them.
Emailed YC and asked if late applications will be read and given responses. This is what they said:
Yes. We can't give out a precise date of when we will be getting back to everyone about late applications, but we'll respond to everyone before the cycle starts.
Yes. We can't give out a precise date of when we will be getting back to everyone about late applications, but we'll respond to everyone before the cycle starts.
Nothing here so far. Wonder if YC forgetting/glitching about me is worse than a rejection email or not?
I didn't get an email but my co-founder who submitted the application did.
I think only the application (not all the listed co-founders) gets the mail. :)
Same in here. Submitted a late application btw
Still nothing... What about you ?
we got it near 23PM on the 10th. Applied on a last day.
1. YC is just a means to an end. It's cliche but getting rejected to YC should not deter your startups path. If it does, it's a bad sign.
2. My team and I were excited about the opportunity as usual but we made sure we kept our expectations realistic and didn't get our hopes up. There are too many ups and downs in a startup to let this have a big impact on you. We didn't get in last time either, but I'm thankful because we wouldn't have been ready and it would've been a wasted opportunity.
Focus on growth and executing toward your goal above all else, that's the tl;dr of the YC experience anyway. Keep fighting the good fight. If anyone wants to chat or needs encouragement, you can email me at [email protected].
Edit: For those curious, we are doing a CRM and inventory management tool for heavy equipment dealers. You can check out our website here, http://dirtjockey.com and demo here: http://demo.dirtjockey.com. We just launched with a small group of customers and are almost cash flow positive already.