This reminds me of days around 11 years back, when I was studying for engineering college entrance exams.

We would have entrance exams for coaching classes which prepared students for main entrance exams, basically the elite coaching institutes would ask candidates undergo a entrance test and pick up only the best.

Many of my friends were rejected, including me. Some were selected. In the end in the main exams we did better than the guys who were selected for the coaching class. It just turns out after we were rejected we were motivated to push ourselves further more than others.

Rejection can do wonders if taken in the right spirit. You basically go into the phase to 'prove something' to not just yourself but every one around.

This is a very well drafted email.

>>Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes.

Says it all. YC companies fail too.

And there are a lot of non-YC companies that win. At the end YC is like the coaching class entrance exam, not the main engineering entrance exam.

Your main test is how and what you do on the ground.