We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally, because most of the proposals we
rejected, we rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the
quality of the applicants. For example, we were very reluctant to
accept proposals with only one founder, because we think starting
a startup is too much work for one person. We also had a higher
threshold for applicants who were still in school, groups where one
or more members planned to keep their current jobs, and groups that
couldn't all move to Boston. We rejected a lot of proposals simply
because we couldn't understand them, or didn't understand the problem
domain well enough to judge them, or because the project seemed too
big to start on only three months of funding. Sometimes we even
rejected good ideas, because another group proposed the same idea
and seemed further along.
We realize this process is fraught with error. 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.
I'm sure, it's frustrating if you don't know real reason why they rejected you so I wish you good luck, As we say, "what don't kill you that gives you more power".
Hard to say, I think the reason we were rejected is that we flat out aren't ready and the application made it pretty obvious.
I greatly appreciate Y-Combinator taking the time to review our app, because if I'd accepted "we're not ready" as a reason to not apply at all, then there's a good chance I'd have abandoned the idea of starting a business altogether.
Rejected here too. I'm not surprised; it was a long shot to begin with, and I don't think my goals as a founder and their goals as investors really lined up. It probably didn't help that I'm a sole founder, either.
Time for Plan B. Powerball tickets. Er, I mean, the slowly growing micro-ISV approach.
$10-$15K is the difference between being able to quit my day job and get the company going in 3 months and having to keep my day job and get the company going in 9 months to a year.
And if I need to keep the day job, slow sustainable growth -- meaning I can project income, and project reasonably accurately when I can quit my day job -- is much better than a spike that I need to deal with in crisis mode.
C'me.... with the age of EC2 and S3, there are no reason you cannot bootstrap the whole thing yourself?
And there are tons of other ways to make money, if you are smart enough to build a startup.
Surely is nice to have somebody written you a $10,000 check to start of with... but believe me, you will never forget the moment you received the first payment from the credit card gateway company.
It is better if you can grow your business with your own money, if you have a choice.
We realize this process is fraught with error. 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.
Thanks,
Y Combinator Staff