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I applied for the S18 and I was rejected. I have to admit that at least 80% of these startups are much better than mine one. I can also notice that almost all

by raresp 8y ago

I applied for the S18 and I was rejected. I have to admit that at least 80% of these startups are much better than mine one. I can also notice that almost all of them are in the public beta, whereas my project is still in development. It seems that this is also an important factor in the approvement process. What happened with: "we also invest in ideas", "you don't need a finished product in order to be accepted".. Those days are gone :)

newman8r 8y ago
Some of these companies probably launched after they initially applied to the program, but that's just a guess.
mamurphy 8y ago
My understanding is that Demo Day projects are near the end of the 3-month Y Combinator experience. They could have been at a similar level of progress to you 3 months ago and gotten stuff done, with YC encouragement, over the past 90 days.
- semerda 8y ago
  Best use of ones time during YC is to focus on growth, talking to customers and making sure you are building something that is a real pain point than initial development. This also helps in the program when you hold yourself accountable to a metric (user growth, revenue etc) and after demo day raising capital.
a13n 8y ago
Agreed. YC has moved "upstream" from the idea stage. Startup growth is a funnel. Idea stage is at the top, and unicorn is at the bottom. The further down the funnel you invest, the more likely you are to end up with a unicorn. YC is in the business of investing in startups that become unicorns. YC's brand, and initiatives like Startup School, have gotten them so many more qualified applications. They no longer have to invest in idea stage companies, unless they're insanely promising.
- mkagenius 8y ago
  > YC is in the business sadly it has become a business. I guess we need a new old YC.
  - chirau 8y ago
    It has always been a business
  - CPLX 8y ago
    > it has become a business It is, literally, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- dalton 8y ago
  I'm the head of admissions at YC and I can assure you that a huge percentage of the companies that we interview and fund are at idea stage. One explanation I have for why it my appear the startups we fund are "far along" at demo day is that the startups moved so quickly during the batch. For example, the startup Inokyo in the current batch recently put out a video of the autonomous store they built in Mountain View: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/16/inokyo/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/16/inokyo/ When we funded this startup 3 months ago it was for a different idea and so they quite literally started from scratch. Startups moving fast should hopefully seem far along by demo day, irrespective of their starting point :)
  - adtac 8y ago
    >a huge percentage A hard number would say more than that phrase :)
- amitutk 8y ago
  YC has moved "downstream"! Upstream is where things emerge and then they travel downstream.
sama 8y ago
You are comparing startups at the end of 3 months of intensive work to ones at the beginning. They're totally different. It never stops being amazing to watch a team go from an idea to a profitable, fast-growing business in 3 months.
hyperpallium 8y ago
After your third sentence, I thought you were going to say "I really need to get to launch". But instead you blamed YC. So that's two attitudes that undermine you. It requires a tremendous amount of trial and error, as you learn about the market, and the technology. Get data from reality as soon as you can. This requires a kind of courage... and behind it, a pragmatic ability to see how to get that information with minimal work/time, and then personal productivity and energy to get the work that is needed done quickly. Sorry to be critical. If it's any consolation, I'm totally unqualified to be critical. And some projects do require longer deveploment (e.g. the R&D startups in this batch), maybe yours is one of them.

by raresp 8y ago

newman8r 8y ago

Some of these companies probably launched after they initially applied to the program, but that's just a guess.

mamurphy 8y ago

My understanding is that Demo Day projects are near the end of the 3-month Y Combinator experience. They could have been at a similar level of progress to you 3 months ago and gotten stuff done, with YC encouragement, over the past 90 days.

semerda 8y ago
Best use of ones time during YC is to focus on growth, talking to customers and making sure you are building something that is a real pain point than initial development. This also helps in the program when you hold yourself accountable to a metric (user growth, revenue etc) and after demo day raising capital.

a13n 8y ago

Agreed. YC has moved "upstream" from the idea stage. Startup growth is a funnel. Idea stage is at the top, and unicorn is at the bottom. The further down the funnel you invest, the more likely you are to end up with a unicorn. YC is in the business of investing in startups that become unicorns. YC's brand, and initiatives like Startup School, have gotten them so many more qualified applications. They no longer have to invest in idea stage companies, unless they're insanely promising.

mkagenius 8y ago
> YC is in the business sadly it has become a business. I guess we need a new old YC.
- chirau 8y ago
  It has always been a business
- CPLX 8y ago
  > it has become a business It is, literally, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
dalton 8y ago
I'm the head of admissions at YC and I can assure you that a huge percentage of the companies that we interview and fund are at idea stage. One explanation I have for why it my appear the startups we fund are "far along" at demo day is that the startups moved so quickly during the batch. For example, the startup Inokyo in the current batch recently put out a video of the autonomous store they built in Mountain View: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/16/inokyo/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/16/inokyo/ When we funded this startup 3 months ago it was for a different idea and so they quite literally started from scratch. Startups moving fast should hopefully seem far along by demo day, irrespective of their starting point :)
- adtac 8y ago
  >a huge percentage A hard number would say more than that phrase :)
amitutk 8y ago
YC has moved "downstream"! Upstream is where things emerge and then they travel downstream.

sama 8y ago

You are comparing startups at the end of 3 months of intensive work to ones at the beginning. They're totally different. It never stops being amazing to watch a team go from an idea to a profitable, fast-growing business in 3 months.

hyperpallium 8y ago

After your third sentence, I thought you were going to say "I really need to get to launch". But instead you blamed YC. So that's two attitudes that undermine you. It requires a tremendous amount of trial and error, as you learn about the market, and the technology. Get data from reality as soon as you can. This requires a kind of courage... and behind it, a pragmatic ability to see how to get that information with minimal work/time, and then personal productivity and energy to get the work that is needed done quickly. Sorry to be critical. If it's any consolation, I'm totally unqualified to be critical. And some projects do require longer deveploment (e.g. the R&D startups in this batch), maybe yours is one of them.