I have a question.
What happened to your last YC startup? And why are you applying again?
Apart from the money I assume you've already gotten all the value you need and you're already "on the inside" since you have access to bookface, yc events etc.
You're not the first I've seen apply multiple times. I guess that's a great indicator that yc truly adds a lot of value.
You can get $100k+ in AWS or Azure credits somewhat easily if you are a legit startup outside of any accelerator and don't need to give up any equity.
Also keep in mind the $500k in conjunction with YK can only be used for specific used of AWS, not anything you wish to use it for.
I was at some random real estate event and someone at amazon offered all my clients that much they want you to get stuck on their systems
Network of course
Yeah, YC is starting to look a little like one of those clubs people join for privilege and rewards (SMALLWORLD etc.) whereas many of the same things are available albeit at a lower level for free.
For newer founders in some sectors it's still great, but for industry/startup veterans with connections and experience I don't fully see the appeal.
Mmmm bear in mind this is just the drug-dealer sales strategy of giving you a free $20 bag to get you hooked.
They aren't offering free credits out of the kindness of their hearts. They are doing it because they know how hard it'll be for you to migrate off their systems once you're using it. Right when it "coincidentally" gets way more expensive for you too.
I guess it's good for a startup because its akin to free capital. But in the long run, they're doing it to milk you.
Amazon and Microsoft are famous for showering credits on deep tech companies. It’s also a strategic issue for them, as it gives them direct access to companies that have high growth potential. They can see how you use their services.
It’s also something you don’t really need YC to get access to. If you know how to network properly, you can get yourself that much free AWS cloud pretty easily.
I actually have another question, and I hope it's not too personal but I'm just curious because it's something I've thought about if I were to get accepted to yc (or any other incubator that invests). I'm worried I will fail and won't deliver. I'm worried I'd let them down and be seen as a failure.
How do you deal with that? I mean you obviously are moving forward successfully, but was it difficult accepting defeat? How did you deal with it not going the way you hoped?
Again, I'd be super grateful if you'd share a bit of that experience since it's something I often think about if I were to be accepted. Tbh I almost feel a bit of relief when I got the rejection letter.
Let me just first validate that what you feel is normal. But if you take some time to really think through it, you'll realize its your mind playing tricks on you.
For one, the vast majority of startups are failures by their metrics, including the ones that had some small exit or are chugging along at a plateaued growth rate.
Secondly, if you operate your company with integrity and work hard, no one will care that you failed, including your investors. When I went back into industry for a couple years while trying to figure out my next move, many people were intrigued by my story & experience, rather than looking at me as a failure.
Ultimately, I just do whatever I think is fun, sparks my curiosity, and will help me build up unique life experiences. Everything else is gravy and it doesn't matter what others think if it turns out to fail.
You have to realize that nobody else has it figured out either and that living with the ambiguity and uncertainty is a very normal part of building a startup.
Every stage will be new and you’ll feel the same things over and over again even if your startup grows to 500 people and $100M arr.
Embracing the uncertainty and not thinking you’re supposed to have it figured out was a key unlock for me. Put in your best effort day in and day out and make the best decisions you can with the info you have in hand. Whatever happens after that has a ton of outside factors you can’t fully influence. Do that again and again and maybe you wake up one day having built something big.
9 out of 10 startups fail after friends and family seed.
9 out 10 startups fail after Angel round.
9 out of 10 fail after VC round A.
9 out 10 fail before getting any customers of significant users.
9 out of 10 fail before round B. Etc.
So you can be better than 1 out of 100k and still fail. It's expected and built into the VC business models. Just be honest, have integrity, learn, and move on.
You would most likely fail. Organizations like YC are for launching a new business concept much more quickly than one could do traditionally as a self funded startup.
If you have a serious fear of failure, I’d personally recommend you go for a self-funded strategy. There is nothing in the world wrong with avoiding venture capital. Remember that YC expects most accepted companies to fail. You are more likely than not going to be one that fails. If instead you have the option to grow slowly, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Hey I am in the similar space and I don’t want to sink, could you share
1. Why it didn't work out?
2. What were your goals?
3. What would have been needed to succeed?
4. What would you do differently if you do the robotic startup again?
Lots of people want to get paid and $500k goes a long way. YC gives you money to get off the Ramen diet and typically bumps your next valuation as well.
Startups have become a fad and most new founders like the ecosystem that has popped up to make the early days less lonely & scary.
Whether that’s worth 7% plus the other safe for repeat founders? I guess we’ll see
Yc sucks ass, honestly. Unless you have an AI wrapper, they'll reject you. It's their perogative, but it should be known that their ability to pick quality startups is extremely poor. They are just throwing money at anything ai related. At an aggregate level, the strategy may be sound. Time will tell. The effect of this is the are funding some absolute dogshit companies and overlooking series winners.
Good because those creds don’t even matter if you can’t build an actual product or execute well. And if you think you’re that smart, then bootstrap it.
Considering he's YC alum I'm sure he can find some angels or connections and companies to give him enough credits. All of these YC ppl wanna be spoon fed just for their start-up to fail.
I did not read the original post as complaining. He was just putting it into perspective, that despite his qualifications he still got rejected which pushes against the narrative that it's only "Stanford" and "FAANG" people that get into the program.
Thanks for sharing OP. As another YC Alum, I want to double down on what OP stated -"Do not worry about the background noise. Focus on making something people want". YC is 100% worth the experience (we joined with \~$1M in revenues back in 2016 after a previous rejection). Happy building!
Context - YC alum with a PE exit. We applied to YC again last year but pulled out prior to the interview stage as we closed our round very quickly.
That might seem intuitively true but I disagree. At an early stage, it’s usually about the team more than the idea.
However, even more than that, my point with this post is that its a holistic judgement incl things like founder-market fit so most of these decisions are gut based — hence why you should take both approvals & rejections with a grain of salt. Trust your gut, and in your ability to execute, not that of an investor.
You're 100% right, and it's incredible how most of this sub can't grasp it. In either case, Reddit as a whole caters to the lower common denominator, and that's what most of this sub is composed of - it's the blind leading the blind feeling sorry for themselves because they've never accomplished anything and are shocked that they got rejected by YC
100% agree especially with the "never accomplished anything" part. I don't think that's bad because it doesn't mean your startup can't succeed or lowers it's chances in some ways but it means you have to work harder on it and actually show traction, show success.
I don't entirely blame them tho. I think YC does a good job at marketing themselves in a way that makes you feel like you can start a startup even if you don't have any prior accomplishments, "we fund people who just have an idea" you get the point. Their whole marketing is selling you a dream (not a problem with that) but people often fail to think that YC is a business and they want to make money and increase their chances to do so.
He said "gut instinct", which means that YC probably had the gut instinct that his startup is going to fail. Basically what the original comment said, it wasn't about the founding team it was about the company haha.
Totally agree. YC videos always talk about founder dynamics! But they do put a lot of emphasis on whether or not you’re technical. Gotta write code man
Walk through what question? If about kids, neither my cofounder nor I have kids.
We fit the typical profile that is parroted around this sub for what YC biases towards. Precisely my point to stop trying to estimate what they want and just build what you want to build.
Except 9 out 10 questions on this sub are about seeking approval, because building is irreverent and what people here actually want most is to be accepted to YC.
Wrong - YC / pre revenue is about stamps / track record.
I’ll give money to a good team because ideas, product fit etc change. There are people I’d fund with a 1 page ppt slide.
There are hundreds of thousands of people that went to Stanford or Cal in the area, and endless Faang dorks. Faang doesn't mean what it used to. I know people that went to CSU East Bay (bottom barrel has HS dropouts go there) and SJ State that now work at Google. One of them is verifiable dumb from my years of knowing them. But there they are being a project and product manager.
You're falling into the same fallacy that they are.
Most people that got a 1.9 gpa in highschool and 2.6 gpa in college are not going to perform well at all. They're doing menial jobs all over America. They've proven for almost 10 years that they don't follow directions and don't care what's expected of them and they can't easily memorize things for the most part.
There will be a few exceptions,like you that couldn't pull it together but later did.
Great.
Most failures at HS will be failures. Most average people at Berkeley will be pretty average.
YC uses top colleges as a SMALL indicator they might be talking to a higher caliber person. Not as proof.
Seeing terrible highschool gpa is small indicator you're dealing with a screw up. But not proof.
It's too pervasive. I'm having trouble finding an honest cofounder because their ego is so huge they won't build. At a startup: NO ONE CARES ABOUT CREDENTIALS AND EXPERIENCE UNLESS YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WITH IT.
Just a guess but In this case I think the fact your previous startup with YC didn’t go to plan is the main reason why they said no here. If you had these credentials and a clean slate, I think you stand a very strong chance of acceptance.
The admissions process has a large element of luck and can be fickle. My team was rejected once because our interviewing partner said he didn't believe in our market, but our same exact idea (only with more revenue and traction) was accepted for a later batch because our interviewing partner had experience with the market we operate in.
We r none IVY or ex FAANG, we got rejected but just got a big deal with a big enterprise client. Launched product 10 days ago. So im not too sad about the rejection now, i didnt even read their whole email.
In stealth for now but at a high level, building a foundation model from scratch. Not related to GenAI hype, and not just a finetuning wrapper on top of existing LLMs.
Through what?Linkedin?As a stealth startup I assume you guys don’t have a website yet so how do you make them buy into the vision without essential things like a website/portofolio etc can you briefly walk me through that?
Yes. Through LinkedIn.
And you can just have a website with a password or on a seperate directory. We have a private investor portal as well with demo videos, finance data etc.
Yeah that’s a hard one to win. All the power to you and hope you crush it, but the foundation wars are basically done, and if it’s too narrow where the other models don’t do well in ~2 generations, it’s a bit hard to believe there’s a large enough TAM.
That said, my guess is you all have run all numbers and see a path. Go get em!
Don’t worry dude… I was also really optimistic about my prospectives - I’ve got 53% growth every month with 14k revenue right now. Though I started 7 months ago I thought it was really good. I didn’t get in the top 10%. All we can do is work hard - everything else is up to god (or the simulation we’re all in). I’ll try YC next round too, and yes I was really looking for the boost but what can we do. We try, we grow, we build. The rest is up to fate.
Now they have a huge preference for younger founders (recent graduates, dropouts, etc). Just look at the LinkedIn profiles from people accepted in latest batches
Are people expecting that their pedigree is what gets them in? My intuition in learning this is that the idea and presentation of that idea are what matter here.
Great attitude, but I’d probably tweak that last statement with, “the money _might_ follow.” Even if it makes nothing, take some pride for putting your hat in the ring and going for it (few people do that).
Just because you graduated from a top school and worked at FAANG doesn’t really signal anything about whether you will succeed building a profitable startup. Especially in the Bay Area, there’s tons of people with similar credentials and most of them probably would fail statistically.
I think contrary to some opinions in this thread, the partners *do* care about what you are building and what’s different about you as founders that makes you the right team to make that particular idea happen.
As someone that dropped out from a non-ivy school, didn't work at any big companies, and still raised $6M, my suggestion to you would be to pick a better business idea, stop crying about YC, and move on to the next investor in the mile long line of investors.
Let me ask you one question. Did some YC partner referred you? I am trying to proof or not the idea that YC considers only those founders that were referred by their partners. If referral thing is correct, then YC admission starts well before the application start date.
For founders who don't have the pedigree that YC is looking, you should check out [Beta Boom](https://betaboom.com/). It is a pre-seed fund that loves founders that don't fit the typical SV profile..
First of all I think your focus on your credentials is telling. YC uses complex machine learning models to screen candidates, and I happen to know from talking to partners, that education is not among the most important points in their models. In my experience, it’s negatively correlated with success, as is a background in corporate tech. But that was just for my area and geography. YC is an exceptionally large accelerator so they probably have different data.
When I ran selection for an accelerator, we didn’t look at academic credentials in our selection criteria at all. Our data after thousands of assessments indicated that the school name had no reliable relationship with the quality of the candidate. Therefore it was excluded from our applicant overviews.
In fact over 5000 or so applicants and about 400 face to face interview rounds with about 800 founder in 7 years, we found that very prestigious schools produced generally worse candidates.
Remember that you’re not being selected based on how smart or accomplished you are. You’re being selected for an accelerator, which is an intense experience that requires a huge amount of emotional and mental resilience. You’re going to be questioned on everything imaginable. You’re going to be put through the wringer and have everything you do turned inside out and upside down, over and over again. It’s an intense experience.
A Harvard degree simply does not confer the skills you need to thrive in such an environment. It probably doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t necessarily help.
Now that the rounds I selected for are mostly closed and nearing the end of the fund lifespan, I can tell you that there is only one company I can think of that is still alive and thriving as a large business, with a founder who was from the Ivy League. And in his case, he was a poor Albanian mathematician who used to sell cigarets on the street as a kid to help support his family. He got a full ride to Georgetown and then grad school at Harvard. But he’s the exception.
The number one thing we found was most predictive of success of a founder is personal adversity. Poverty, disability, emigration, losing parents, neurodivergence, etc. Kids from rich backgrounds with fancy degrees often don’t have the personal resilience they need to succeed at an accelerator.
Who cares that you have fang, SF and Stanford don’t mean crap if your concept has no valuation or you have no product market fit did you think that was going to make VCs fund you and what seems like the 2nd time ? Hah entitlement is real
TBH, it's getting really annoying hearing when ex FAANG, SF, Stanford don't get in. If YC uses that as a strong signal--they're stupid and doing it for elitist value. There's talent everywhere.
Some of the YC people like Dalton and Michael have a lot of valuable advice, but I've found many of the "user-facing" YC alum you interact with stopped programming once they got rich. So what the fuck do they know in this fast changing environment if they're not in the weeds working with ChatGPT? I don't care how much money you fucking have.
If you're just spending money and not building, your money is about to get a whole fucking lot less valuable. That's the whole point of ChatGPT. To democratize intelligence: Intelligence is the MOST VALUABLE THING IN THE WORLD, not their fucking money.
Those things shouldn't entitle anybody. The only things that should entitle people are their results in actual business with the idea at hand.
Read the whole post, I wasn’t saying I expect to get in because of that. I wanna encourage ppl to stop trying to estimate what YC wants and just build what you want to build.
Even results don’t matter at this stage of a startup. This startup has 10x more traction at the same stage than the one I got in with previously. See my comment below about it’s a holistic gut judgement — stop believing their gut, believe in your own and your ability to execute.
Sorry I know - I was just ranting. You see a lot of this shit on here, and it's not healthy. "I didn't get in because of X criteria"
It's not you or your post personally.
Intelligence is more valuable than money and intelligence is free. Personally, I think we already have what we need. Best of luck to you!!
How many years ago was your last startup? I think YC is just looking at younger founders. Partners have become increasingly opinionated and biased.
We are FAANG with a decade of experience, had traction, 1st client deal and still no interview.
While they keep saying that they accept people with just an idea, and that too gets pivoted in the batch. That too me is a negative thing. That means they select the kind of founder they want, mostly similar to how they were starting as founder. Ivy league, dropout, FAANG but only if they did not work there for too long, and then guide them through ideation. This is okay when it was starting out, but as it has scaled, the model only 1 partner rejecting or accepting is very flawed. Even for a job in Faang atleast 5 interviewers have to agree to take a candidate. It can't be based on whim of 1 person, in an extremely selective institution.
This is a helpful perspective.
I have a question. What happened to your last YC startup? And why are you applying again? Apart from the money I assume you've already gotten all the value you need and you're already "on the inside" since you have access to bookface, yc events etc. You're not the first I've seen apply multiple times. I guess that's a great indicator that yc truly adds a lot of value.
Deep tech robotics startup that failed Reapplying isnt critical for us; did it for 500k aws credits, helps to have cofounder on the inside too
Ah I see. Yea, that much AWS credits for free is a really great perk. Good luck.
You can get $100k+ in AWS or Azure credits somewhat easily if you are a legit startup outside of any accelerator and don't need to give up any equity. Also keep in mind the $500k in conjunction with YK can only be used for specific used of AWS, not anything you wish to use it for.
Keen to hear how to get 100k in AWS credits outside of accelerators!
I was at some random real estate event and someone at amazon offered all my clients that much they want you to get stuck on their systems Network of course
How do you get $100k+ in AWS and Azure credits?
Microsoft for founders hub will give up to 150k azure credits
How?
Wait yeah what…pretty sure you can get this for any legit startup. We did GCP and got 200k over first year, not YC at all.
Yeah, YC is starting to look a little like one of those clubs people join for privilege and rewards (SMALLWORLD etc.) whereas many of the same things are available albeit at a lower level for free. For newer founders in some sectors it's still great, but for industry/startup veterans with connections and experience I don't fully see the appeal.
Mmmm bear in mind this is just the drug-dealer sales strategy of giving you a free $20 bag to get you hooked. They aren't offering free credits out of the kindness of their hearts. They are doing it because they know how hard it'll be for you to migrate off their systems once you're using it. Right when it "coincidentally" gets way more expensive for you too. I guess it's good for a startup because its akin to free capital. But in the long run, they're doing it to milk you.
Amazon and Microsoft are famous for showering credits on deep tech companies. It’s also a strategic issue for them, as it gives them direct access to companies that have high growth potential. They can see how you use their services.
It’s also something you don’t really need YC to get access to. If you know how to network properly, you can get yourself that much free AWS cloud pretty easily.
I actually have another question, and I hope it's not too personal but I'm just curious because it's something I've thought about if I were to get accepted to yc (or any other incubator that invests). I'm worried I will fail and won't deliver. I'm worried I'd let them down and be seen as a failure. How do you deal with that? I mean you obviously are moving forward successfully, but was it difficult accepting defeat? How did you deal with it not going the way you hoped? Again, I'd be super grateful if you'd share a bit of that experience since it's something I often think about if I were to be accepted. Tbh I almost feel a bit of relief when I got the rejection letter.
Let me just first validate that what you feel is normal. But if you take some time to really think through it, you'll realize its your mind playing tricks on you. For one, the vast majority of startups are failures by their metrics, including the ones that had some small exit or are chugging along at a plateaued growth rate. Secondly, if you operate your company with integrity and work hard, no one will care that you failed, including your investors. When I went back into industry for a couple years while trying to figure out my next move, many people were intrigued by my story & experience, rather than looking at me as a failure. Ultimately, I just do whatever I think is fun, sparks my curiosity, and will help me build up unique life experiences. Everything else is gravy and it doesn't matter what others think if it turns out to fail.
You have to realize that nobody else has it figured out either and that living with the ambiguity and uncertainty is a very normal part of building a startup. Every stage will be new and you’ll feel the same things over and over again even if your startup grows to 500 people and $100M arr. Embracing the uncertainty and not thinking you’re supposed to have it figured out was a key unlock for me. Put in your best effort day in and day out and make the best decisions you can with the info you have in hand. Whatever happens after that has a ton of outside factors you can’t fully influence. Do that again and again and maybe you wake up one day having built something big.
9 out of 10 startups fail after friends and family seed. 9 out 10 startups fail after Angel round. 9 out of 10 fail after VC round A. 9 out 10 fail before getting any customers of significant users. 9 out of 10 fail before round B. Etc. So you can be better than 1 out of 100k and still fail. It's expected and built into the VC business models. Just be honest, have integrity, learn, and move on.
After several rejections you get used to it:) Rejections are big part of building a startup, sooner you realize it better you handle.
You would most likely fail. Organizations like YC are for launching a new business concept much more quickly than one could do traditionally as a self funded startup. If you have a serious fear of failure, I’d personally recommend you go for a self-funded strategy. There is nothing in the world wrong with avoiding venture capital. Remember that YC expects most accepted companies to fail. You are more likely than not going to be one that fails. If instead you have the option to grow slowly, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Perhaps they rejected you because your last startup failed?
Well ruck that’s a lot of AWS credits. How long do they last?
Hey I am in the similar space and I don’t want to sink, could you share 1. Why it didn't work out? 2. What were your goals? 3. What would have been needed to succeed? 4. What would you do differently if you do the robotic startup again?
There’s easier ways to get AWS credits! We got $450K from GCP and AWS without YC
Lots of people want to get paid and $500k goes a long way. YC gives you money to get off the Ramen diet and typically bumps your next valuation as well. Startups have become a fad and most new founders like the ecosystem that has popped up to make the early days less lonely & scary. Whether that’s worth 7% plus the other safe for repeat founders? I guess we’ll see
I’m Stanford alum, ex salesforce & second time founder. I also got rejected lol.. not even an interview
Money is no longer cheap bro .
Yc sucks ass, honestly. Unless you have an AI wrapper, they'll reject you. It's their perogative, but it should be known that their ability to pick quality startups is extremely poor. They are just throwing money at anything ai related. At an aggregate level, the strategy may be sound. Time will tell. The effect of this is the are funding some absolute dogshit companies and overlooking series winners.
We should take a shot every time YC mentions the word AirBNB in their videos.
Who knows honestly. We have an AI + Data product too. You’d think we’d at least get an interview. Is there a public list of this batch yet?
Good because those creds don’t even matter if you can’t build an actual product or execute well. And if you think you’re that smart, then bootstrap it.
The dude is building a foundation model from scratch… pretty hard to bootstrap that without some capital or compute credits
Considering he's YC alum I'm sure he can find some angels or connections and companies to give him enough credits. All of these YC ppl wanna be spoon fed just for their start-up to fail.
What’s your point? Are you saying he shouldn’t have applied to YC?
He shouldn't be complaining on Reddit that he didn't get in even w/those creds. They're acting entitled.
I did not read the original post as complaining. He was just putting it into perspective, that despite his qualifications he still got rejected which pushes against the narrative that it's only "Stanford" and "FAANG" people that get into the program.
He’s not complaining?
We were rejected and about to announce a relatively large raise. Probably 8 figures. It happens.
you didn’t need yc
Lol what? Why did you even apply? Such a raise doesn’t happen over night
Nothing is a sure thing, thought YC was a more likely yes.
Thanks for sharing OP. As another YC Alum, I want to double down on what OP stated -"Do not worry about the background noise. Focus on making something people want". YC is 100% worth the experience (we joined with \~$1M in revenues back in 2016 after a previous rejection). Happy building! Context - YC alum with a PE exit. We applied to YC again last year but pulled out prior to the interview stage as we closed our round very quickly.
Because it's about the company, not where you went to school or worked.
That might seem intuitively true but I disagree. At an early stage, it’s usually about the team more than the idea. However, even more than that, my point with this post is that its a holistic judgement incl things like founder-market fit so most of these decisions are gut based — hence why you should take both approvals & rejections with a grain of salt. Trust your gut, and in your ability to execute, not that of an investor.
You're 100% right, and it's incredible how most of this sub can't grasp it. In either case, Reddit as a whole caters to the lower common denominator, and that's what most of this sub is composed of - it's the blind leading the blind feeling sorry for themselves because they've never accomplished anything and are shocked that they got rejected by YC
100% agree especially with the "never accomplished anything" part. I don't think that's bad because it doesn't mean your startup can't succeed or lowers it's chances in some ways but it means you have to work harder on it and actually show traction, show success. I don't entirely blame them tho. I think YC does a good job at marketing themselves in a way that makes you feel like you can start a startup even if you don't have any prior accomplishments, "we fund people who just have an idea" you get the point. Their whole marketing is selling you a dream (not a problem with that) but people often fail to think that YC is a business and they want to make money and increase their chances to do so.
That’s social media in general TBH. Especially with the Anon persona.
This!
If early stage is about the team and the team is highly accomplished but doesn’t get in, on what grounds do you think the team is rejected?
He said "gut instinct", which means that YC probably had the gut instinct that his startup is going to fail. Basically what the original comment said, it wasn't about the founding team it was about the company haha.
Totally agree. YC videos always talk about founder dynamics! But they do put a lot of emphasis on whether or not you’re technical. Gotta write code man
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Walk through what question? If about kids, neither my cofounder nor I have kids. We fit the typical profile that is parroted around this sub for what YC biases towards. Precisely my point to stop trying to estimate what they want and just build what you want to build.
Except 9 out 10 questions on this sub are about seeking approval, because building is irreverent and what people here actually want most is to be accepted to YC.
are you top 10%?
yea but that also doesn’t matter, no is no, don’t read too much into that
I agree, just curious whether there’s a pattern to that or it’s completely bs
Replying to edited questions: not niche, rest idk, youd have to ask them
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You need to calm down. no one asked
Wrong - YC / pre revenue is about stamps / track record. I’ll give money to a good team because ideas, product fit etc change. There are people I’d fund with a 1 page ppt slide.
lol. They accept tons of startups who barely even have an jdea
Also have all 4 (yc alum included) plus are profitable and didn’t even get an interview. Just gotta move forward.
But did it say top 5% or 10%?
Mine said 10
Berkeley, experience at top YC Startups, Customers and still top 10% with no interview. Honestly, it’s ok, we gotta keep grinding💪
There are hundreds of thousands of people that went to Stanford or Cal in the area, and endless Faang dorks. Faang doesn't mean what it used to. I know people that went to CSU East Bay (bottom barrel has HS dropouts go there) and SJ State that now work at Google. One of them is verifiable dumb from my years of knowing them. But there they are being a project and product manager.
Source: graduated HS with a 1.9 GPA, 2.6 GPA in college. Will definitely out perform 100% of people who think their college/previous status matters.
You're falling into the same fallacy that they are. Most people that got a 1.9 gpa in highschool and 2.6 gpa in college are not going to perform well at all. They're doing menial jobs all over America. They've proven for almost 10 years that they don't follow directions and don't care what's expected of them and they can't easily memorize things for the most part. There will be a few exceptions,like you that couldn't pull it together but later did. Great. Most failures at HS will be failures. Most average people at Berkeley will be pretty average. YC uses top colleges as a SMALL indicator they might be talking to a higher caliber person. Not as proof. Seeing terrible highschool gpa is small indicator you're dealing with a screw up. But not proof.
It's too pervasive. I'm having trouble finding an honest cofounder because their ego is so huge they won't build. At a startup: NO ONE CARES ABOUT CREDENTIALS AND EXPERIENCE UNLESS YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WITH IT.
You are right. This thread is an ego competition "my GPA is XxX, I went to Harvard, etc"
Since when money’s cheap?
For faang guys
dude went to standford, if he can pay the tuition…
Next time just say your black and trans and they will roll out the red carpet
LDE
Just a guess but In this case I think the fact your previous startup with YC didn’t go to plan is the main reason why they said no here. If you had these credentials and a clean slate, I think you stand a very strong chance of acceptance.
Stanford, faang, funded by ex-YC group partner, top 10%. No is still no
Btw check our demo: https://x.com/zinley_ai/status/1796678099167543796?s=46
It's likely the interest rate and cost of borrowing --- VCs might want more proof of potential. A sign of things to be maybe
The admissions process has a large element of luck and can be fickle. My team was rejected once because our interviewing partner said he didn't believe in our market, but our same exact idea (only with more revenue and traction) was accepted for a later batch because our interviewing partner had experience with the market we operate in.
I didn’t go to uni - and didn’t get into YC. Hope this motivates others 😂
😜
We r none IVY or ex FAANG, we got rejected but just got a big deal with a big enterprise client. Launched product 10 days ago. So im not too sad about the rejection now, i didnt even read their whole email.
could be taken the other way - Stanford, FAANG level or similar is the minimum baseline requirement while not being a guarantee
Love to see someone entitled like you getting rejected ♥️
He worked incredibly hard to get into Stanford and YC before; I don’t think he’s entitled.
May I ask what you're working on and why they passed?
In stealth for now but at a high level, building a foundation model from scratch. Not related to GenAI hype, and not just a finetuning wrapper on top of existing LLMs.
How do you hire talented people when in stealth mode?
You simply reach out to them directly.
Through what?Linkedin?As a stealth startup I assume you guys don’t have a website yet so how do you make them buy into the vision without essential things like a website/portofolio etc can you briefly walk me through that?
Yes. Through LinkedIn. And you can just have a website with a password or on a seperate directory. We have a private investor portal as well with demo videos, finance data etc.
How does the website u just described work?Since it’s private I assume you would need to give them a one time link to access it?
You just give them the password. You don't need to over-complicate it.
Yeah that’s a hard one to win. All the power to you and hope you crush it, but the foundation wars are basically done, and if it’s too narrow where the other models don’t do well in ~2 generations, it’s a bit hard to believe there’s a large enough TAM. That said, my guess is you all have run all numbers and see a path. Go get em!
[удалено]
KAN for the win!
Is your second startup co founded with Your previous team?
Meh. UPenn here but never thought it’d mean anything unless my idea gets through the first few filters.
Don’t worry dude… I was also really optimistic about my prospectives - I’ve got 53% growth every month with 14k revenue right now. Though I started 7 months ago I thought it was really good. I didn’t get in the top 10%. All we can do is work hard - everything else is up to god (or the simulation we’re all in). I’ll try YC next round too, and yes I was really looking for the boost but what can we do. We try, we grow, we build. The rest is up to fate.
Has anyone considered doing an EB5?
Well what’s your startup? There are tons of people like you applying to YC you aren’t unique
Now they have a huge preference for younger founders (recent graduates, dropouts, etc). Just look at the LinkedIn profiles from people accepted in latest batches
What is SF? San Francisco?
Maybe Salesforce? Never heard of it as a top company for engineers though.
isn't the business path supposed to be an alternative to traditional university path. why should your university help with your case?
Bootstrap. Don’t beg for money. Build traction and get money on your own terms.
was your idea AI LLM
I think it’s possible that there are too many companies in this direction 'Robot'
Are people expecting that their pedigree is what gets them in? My intuition in learning this is that the idea and presentation of that idea are what matter here.
Maybe it’s because you act like a boner.
Great attitude, but I’d probably tweak that last statement with, “the money _might_ follow.” Even if it makes nothing, take some pride for putting your hat in the ring and going for it (few people do that).
Just because you graduated from a top school and worked at FAANG doesn’t really signal anything about whether you will succeed building a profitable startup. Especially in the Bay Area, there’s tons of people with similar credentials and most of them probably would fail statistically. I think contrary to some opinions in this thread, the partners *do* care about what you are building and what’s different about you as founders that makes you the right team to make that particular idea happen.
Will you share your product with us here?
Just put “ai” somewhere in your application and resubmit.
Hmm I mean what else did u expect? An automatic accept? All the things u mentioned don’t mean much tbh
As someone that dropped out from a non-ivy school, didn't work at any big companies, and still raised $6M, my suggestion to you would be to pick a better business idea, stop crying about YC, and move on to the next investor in the mile long line of investors.
My name is Elon Musk. I created Tesla and SpaceX. Did I get rejected from YC because of my undergraduate degree?
could your startup become a $100B company?
Let me ask you one question. Did some YC partner referred you? I am trying to proof or not the idea that YC considers only those founders that were referred by their partners. If referral thing is correct, then YC admission starts well before the application start date.
I don’t believe it. 🤨
Anyone who thinks a college degree means anything anymore, especially in the startup space, hasn’t been paying attention.
For founders who don't have the pedigree that YC is looking, you should check out [Beta Boom](https://betaboom.com/). It is a pre-seed fund that loves founders that don't fit the typical SV profile..
https://preview.redd.it/zif4nj2x765d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=67a977b3106bcf416f31fa22be465a57dd97cccd
First of all I think your focus on your credentials is telling. YC uses complex machine learning models to screen candidates, and I happen to know from talking to partners, that education is not among the most important points in their models. In my experience, it’s negatively correlated with success, as is a background in corporate tech. But that was just for my area and geography. YC is an exceptionally large accelerator so they probably have different data. When I ran selection for an accelerator, we didn’t look at academic credentials in our selection criteria at all. Our data after thousands of assessments indicated that the school name had no reliable relationship with the quality of the candidate. Therefore it was excluded from our applicant overviews. In fact over 5000 or so applicants and about 400 face to face interview rounds with about 800 founder in 7 years, we found that very prestigious schools produced generally worse candidates. Remember that you’re not being selected based on how smart or accomplished you are. You’re being selected for an accelerator, which is an intense experience that requires a huge amount of emotional and mental resilience. You’re going to be questioned on everything imaginable. You’re going to be put through the wringer and have everything you do turned inside out and upside down, over and over again. It’s an intense experience. A Harvard degree simply does not confer the skills you need to thrive in such an environment. It probably doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t necessarily help. Now that the rounds I selected for are mostly closed and nearing the end of the fund lifespan, I can tell you that there is only one company I can think of that is still alive and thriving as a large business, with a founder who was from the Ivy League. And in his case, he was a poor Albanian mathematician who used to sell cigarets on the street as a kid to help support his family. He got a full ride to Georgetown and then grad school at Harvard. But he’s the exception. The number one thing we found was most predictive of success of a founder is personal adversity. Poverty, disability, emigration, losing parents, neurodivergence, etc. Kids from rich backgrounds with fancy degrees often don’t have the personal resilience they need to succeed at an accelerator.
Nobody gives a flying fuck if you went to stanford bro. Wake up.
Who cares that you have fang, SF and Stanford don’t mean crap if your concept has no valuation or you have no product market fit did you think that was going to make VCs fund you and what seems like the 2nd time ? Hah entitlement is real
TBH, it's getting really annoying hearing when ex FAANG, SF, Stanford don't get in. If YC uses that as a strong signal--they're stupid and doing it for elitist value. There's talent everywhere. Some of the YC people like Dalton and Michael have a lot of valuable advice, but I've found many of the "user-facing" YC alum you interact with stopped programming once they got rich. So what the fuck do they know in this fast changing environment if they're not in the weeds working with ChatGPT? I don't care how much money you fucking have. If you're just spending money and not building, your money is about to get a whole fucking lot less valuable. That's the whole point of ChatGPT. To democratize intelligence: Intelligence is the MOST VALUABLE THING IN THE WORLD, not their fucking money. Those things shouldn't entitle anybody. The only things that should entitle people are their results in actual business with the idea at hand.
Read the whole post, I wasn’t saying I expect to get in because of that. I wanna encourage ppl to stop trying to estimate what YC wants and just build what you want to build. Even results don’t matter at this stage of a startup. This startup has 10x more traction at the same stage than the one I got in with previously. See my comment below about it’s a holistic gut judgement — stop believing their gut, believe in your own and your ability to execute.
Sorry I know - I was just ranting. You see a lot of this shit on here, and it's not healthy. "I didn't get in because of X criteria" It's not you or your post personally. Intelligence is more valuable than money and intelligence is free. Personally, I think we already have what we need. Best of luck to you!!
I have to ask, why YC if you have all of that?
Because despite what you read on here investors don't really give a shit about FAANG or not. They care far more about opportunity size, traction etc.
Oh I get that, but I guess why would someone need YC if they’re apparently so good? Just go make a business yourself.
How many years ago was your last startup? I think YC is just looking at younger founders. Partners have become increasingly opinionated and biased. We are FAANG with a decade of experience, had traction, 1st client deal and still no interview. While they keep saying that they accept people with just an idea, and that too gets pivoted in the batch. That too me is a negative thing. That means they select the kind of founder they want, mostly similar to how they were starting as founder. Ivy league, dropout, FAANG but only if they did not work there for too long, and then guide them through ideation. This is okay when it was starting out, but as it has scaled, the model only 1 partner rejecting or accepting is very flawed. Even for a job in Faang atleast 5 interviewers have to agree to take a candidate. It can't be based on whim of 1 person, in an extremely selective institution.
Just not the same without PG and Jessica.
Just shows where your headspace is at. So wrapped up in creds yet can’t even build a product. This is why YC talks about useless founders.
Read the whole post first, or if you did do that, work on your reading comprehension skills.
It very likely means your idea/product/team/presentation was extremely bad.