Going through YC was an incredible experience and even just going through the application process really forced our team to answer a lot of important questions for our business. If you want to do a startup and are in a position to give it your all - it could only help your chances of success to apply.
As a YC reject, I can only say the same. I'm convinced that just going in for interviews to was the best thing that happened to us. Our original idea wasn't going to work and making the trip to California opened our eyes.
So if you're wondering whether you should apply, the answer is yes. Even (especially?) if you get rejected.
I cannot agree more on this; btw, do they tell you why you are rejected or its just that, "We found the 30 companies we were looking for. So better luck next time".
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.
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.
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.
They write an extremely nice rejection letter, stating that even they make mistakes, they turn away a lot of promising people, and that they are trying to get better at this every funding cycle. (been rejected twice) However if you are creating a startup just to get into ycombinator you should not be doing a startup.
"if you are creating a startup just to get into ycombinator you should not be doing a startup."
If this was the case, then I would prefer taking my chances with banks than pg.
Why is that? convincing banks to give you money will be much harder, at a high interest rate, and you have to give the money back whether you're successful or not.
If your company sells for any appreciable amount of money, the "interest" you pay YC will be astronomically larger than any loan anyone would give you.
But the value of YourCompany today is (for any 'big idea') something like P(small)*Size(idea).
The trick of accepting the dilution of YC is to make estimates of whether the idea could 7% become larger/better. Or (more easy to understand) whether the effect of YC on all the components of P(small) could accumulate to more than 7% of P(small).
If your probability of success increases as a function of your investors, for instance, YC easily earns its 7% just due to pure signalling effect. If you're looking to get better hires, then the YC seal-of-approval could easily elevate you into the 'A-Class' of hires that everyone insists makes the difference. Of course, there are a lot of other factors : but scoring a total of +7% on them overall is all that should determine whether to choose a place with YC (supposing that you've been accepted).
