It's not the rejection that bothers me, it will be what they end up accepting that will sting. Don't get me wrong, they have made some great selections in the past, but there were a lot that also seemed very weak. I may have been overconfident simply because of the thought, "Well hell, if they accepted that group, surely we'll be accepted."
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I'm just hoping to give a few people some perpective on such rejections:
- Damien Katz (creator of CouchDB) was also rejected[1]. He went on and got $2 million from Redpoint Ventures [2]
- On this video[3], Jessica Livingston interviews Drew. It shows that he was also rejected the first time he tried out YC.
- The oscar of rejected but finally accepted: I got into YC after applying six times [4]
- Peteris Krumins also got rejected with his browserling idea, got rejected[5], and went on to raise his own seed funding[6].
[1] http://damienkatz.net/2006/11/how_not_to_pitc.html
[2] http://damienkatz.net/2009/12/relaxed_inc.html
[3] http://blog.ycombinator.com/dropbox-interview-now-online
[4] http://iamwil.posterous.com/i-got-into-yc-after-applying-six...
[5] http://www.catonmat.net/blog/launching-browserling/
[6] http://www.catonmat.net/blog/how-i-raised-money-for-browserl...
Chartboost got rejected from YC in S11. These days we're at $21M in funding led by Sequoia for Series B and ~55 employees. :)
It's not the end of the world.
Way to go Chartboost.
Oscar of Rejected wasn't exactly on my list of life goals. But I'll take it.
Interviewstreet was rejected twice before applying the third time to get an email asking them to come in for a 10 min interview.
It's not the rejection that bothers me, it will be what they end up accepting that will sting. Don't get me wrong, they have made some great selections in the past, but there were a lot that also seemed very weak. I may have been overconfident simply because of the thought, "Well hell, if they accepted that group, surely we'll be accepted."