Good luck to you all, I know how tough the last hours are when you are waiting for a life changing event (especially when the odds are so bad - not because you are not good enough, but because the number of seats is limited).
I wish there was a way to demultiply the number of projects accepted by YC. You'd think that with all the technology, someone would have found a solution!
Oh well, that reminds me, that's what I applied to YC about. Does anyone see a funny recursive loop in my being rejected? If I had been successful, there would have been many more spaces, so I would have been much more likely to be accepted... and vice versa :-)
Patience grasshopper. If they've not notified us yet then they are probably too busy to come on here and tell us when they will notify us. It won't be long now...
Congratulations. We got a No answer.
Good luck to you and your team. I personally would be interested in learning more about your application...may be at a later date when you are done with the process and have some time :-)
Check your Google Analytics.That should be a great start. If you do not see any traffic from California, you know you (EDIT) are not selected . If you do, then look deeper and figure out the referral website etc...
I made a preview page that I handed out to people personally to maintain secrecy. Nearly nobody saw it, and nobody saw it without my handing out the link.
I didn't think it was worth monitoring something as private as that.
I made a preview page that I handed out to people personally to maintain secrecy. Nearly nobody saw it, and nobody saw it without my handing out the link.
I didn't think it was worth monitoring something as private as that.
If a kid asks "Is there a Santa?" you can tell him "No" and feel not-so-bad. But if he says "When will Santa come?", if your response is "Don't be silly, Santa doesn't exist," then you're being a jerk.
There is being a jerk, and then there is being realistic. Yes most people will get rejected, but most of them fit your basic mold. I dunno about you, but I haven't heard of pg backing a single non-techie founder...have you?
I have no clue, to be honest. I don't know half of the YC companies that exist.
Realistic is fine, but he's not saying "Do you think I have a chance?", he's saying "When will we hear back?" It's rude to answer a question that hasn't been asked.
Anyone who understands math will at least get what the issues are in hacking, even if they don't understand random details. They won't panic at the sight of formal notation.
Yep this was Kulveer and Harjeet Taggar from Auctomatic, as far as I know they only met up with their hackers (Patrick and John Collison) once at Y Combinator. And Auctomatic was an extremely successful investment, I doubt we've seen the last of those guys.
You can't make good predictions based on a HackerNews profile, but let's pretend...
>>I am a 36 year old Rochester, NY based entreprenuer. At 25 I founded and bootstrapped a sales & marketing company to $9M in sales, 50 employees and >$2M in personal income.
If all we knew about this person was that:
1) They built a ~$10M company and earned more than $2M personally
2) They weren't a hacker
versus:
1) Some hacker
I would put bet person 1 would be a better investment.
I've always seen YC as a place that's not based on rigid requirements. There may be a trend, but what I've learned is that history does not always dictate what the next best thing will be based on. Just because he's not a hacker doesn't immediately give him a disadvantage.
YC is also a place to get feedback, constructive or just plain encouraging. Negative comments about someone's profile is pretty bad in YC, let alone in common decency.
What you read on the internet is never a good indication of who someone really is.
Since we're talking about jdileo's profile, here's a question: why apply for something like YC? Yeah, I totally get that YC isn't about the cash. But still, couldn't you buy way more connections and press than the YC companies get?
Alternatively, you could take like $500k to Demo Day and sink $100k each into five of the YC companies as an angel.
I just don't get why someone who had built that big of a company at 25 would go for YC. What am I missing?
No, you can't really buy the connections and press that YC companies get. You can buy mediocre connections and press, but YC companies get a lot of good access to good connections, and the press they get (many good links and discussion from established websites) is better than you can buy, certainly better than you can buy for ~$15,000
If you're a YC founder with the capital to do angel investing, you will probably get a substantially higher quality deal flow than someone just walking around with half a million to invest.
Being that you're addressing this question to me, thought I would answer.
YC's value extends FAR beyond the minimal dollar amount it gives each startup. If you really don't get that, you simply haven't been paying attention. SAD.
Whoa, dude...relax. I know you're on edge waiting for the results, but damn :)
If you read my comment above, you'll see where I said: Yeah, I totally get that YC isn't about the cash.
My point was that YC is worth far more than the cash it invests. But I still don't get why someone who had built a company worth millions and taken millions out of it would go back to the YC model. YC has always struck me as being more for single college-aged founders with no track record than for older, more established entrepreneurs with plenty of money to fund their future startups.
1. Per my profile, which you have read, I am a technology novice.
2. Any successful business owner will tell you that the biggest question need answered when entering a new verical is "what is it I don't know that I don't know".
jdileo, your profile actually looks interesting, and I'm sure some of us hackers would want to talk to you. Please add your email address to your profile; note that the email field itself is not visible to others.
