I bet understanding the acceptance process here would be fascinating.
YC is, by all accounts, is an organization tirelessly focused on making decisions based on the merit and potential of the founders. They have clear opinions of what is a good indicator of merit, but have shown a willingness to test their opinions and refine.
If anyone involved would be willing to shed light, I'd love to know how you've refined the process of identifying good Startup School participants over the years.
I got in and I am not not even a active contributer to HN (read everyday, just don't comment or post). Pretty excited to hear PG, Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Zuckerberg. Should be a good time.
A few hours ago, I was getting ready to post a question on HN that would have been phrased something like this: "Ask HN: I got rejected from Startup School. How can I improve myself to get accepted next year?"
Fortunately, I didn't have to ask this question because, to my surprise, I got accepted. I guess pg+co. saw the hacker spirit in my application.
I'm humbled and incredibly excited to attend this event, meet all of the other hackers there, and learn from people much smarter than me. I can't wait!
I think there are pretty cheap flights from LAX->SFO. You could also look into Amtrak (which I think only goes to Oakland, which is ~2 hours away from Stanford by BART and Caltrain), but often Amtrak's just about as expensive as flying. If you're really looking for cheap, there's buses like Greyhound, but they're slow and you'll encounter some sketchy people. But I think they've gotten better, and some buses even have WiFi.
I was planning on being in the area that week, and this would've been the icing and cherry on top. Unfortunately, didn't get in. I figured my #gov20 work would count for something, but it seems it doesn't (which is fine, perhaps I'm just not that interesting of a hacker!) - any pointers for how to frame the pitch so it seems more appealing to the YC crew?
Are there any meetups/after parties/etc in the area that one could attend? Half of the value of being in that auditorium would be meeting other hackers/entrepreneurs, I would hope not to lose out on that completely while i'm in the valley.
I figured if I got in everyone got in, but seeing this post, I guess not.
Now, I have to schedule a flight (from Oklahoma), find a place to stay and schedule PTO at work.
Also, I guess I can't do this and Rails Rumble... if anyone wants a spot in Rails Rumble who was unable to get in, they can have mine if I can give it out. Or, is it possible to do this and Rails Rumble? Perhaps that is pushing it.
I would guess so. I was surprised by the rejections that were posted on this thread as well. I use to think that they only rejected biz devs, as it's more of a way for hackers to get up to speed on what is involved in a startup.
But it seems like when your demand outstrips your capacity, you need to make cuts. And since most people fall in the middle as an average, chances are, you'll end up making a large number of small mistakes when you're picking teams.
I've been to the last two startup schools, and for what it's worth, you can see the talks on justin.TV. You do miss out on the atmosphere, but most of the socializing happens after the day's events, not necessarily as much time to do so during the intermission.
So check out the talks online, and then see what after parties there are.
Yeah, I'm a mobile + UX designer and my cofounder is an iOS developer and software engineer. I was surprised we didn't make the cut since we both specialize and can execute for both web and iPhone and have known each other since high school. Oh wells, next time.
I (who was luckily invited) think they look for more than school. I doubled in two non-CS majors from a non-MIT grade college. I learned to code on my own for kicks at first and then out of necessity.
I highly doubt this had much if anything to do with it.
I think it has much more to do with how you presented yourself and what you put on your application. I graduated from Oklahoma State University and do not have a résumé that I would brag about, especially compared to many here.
I wonder what the age distribution is between applicants and those accepted. Rejected as well. But I'm "old" in YC-years so I didn't expect to get an invite.
Flying in from Toronto. The person I was planning to go with didn't get accepted, so any founders who want to grab a drink Friday in SF, my emails in my profile.
I'm guessing the best area to stay is San Fransisco, is that right? Or is Palo Alto better? I haven't been to the Bay Area in years, so I'm really not sure which area of either place would be best, any suggestions.
From San Fransisco, what's the best way to get to Palo Alto, is there good public transportation, or should I rent a car? If anybody else is going to be around, and is interested in exploring, drop me a line, we can probably figure something out.
There is a public train service (Caltrain) that runs from San Francisco downtown (4th and King) to the Stanford campus (Palo Alto station). Renting a car is advisable if you're going to spend any significant time in the Bay Area but if you mostly plan to go to SS and then hop around SF, public transportation should be fine.
If you're entirely here for SS, staying in Palo Alto is probably the wiser choice but there are more options in SF.
Or you can stay in nearby cities like Menlo Park or Redwood City. I used to live in Menlo Park and I went to Palo Alto all the time. You may want to get a bike, though ;-)
Nevermind, turns out I did get accepted, but the email got eaten by my spam folder. This is the first time I've lost an important email to the spam folder - kinda scary, particularly when you realize there's 1500 threads of spam in there...
wow,i saw the acceptance email today and am super excited! after watching similar videos on youtube over the years, i am looking forward to being there in person and meeting some of you folks there! thanks pg and ycombinator!
I refuse to accept that I suck Paul. Seriously. You're 1-5 people trying to judge on what you think is going to work. I personally think reddit gave you a bit of an ego trip. I think your vision of the future is clouded by visions of the past. The future is strange and you're going to miss it. Enjoy your 15 minutes.
I applied and got rejected and was wondering if I was rejected on the quality of my application or on the quality of my product. I guess in the grand scheme of things rejection is rejection and it dosent matter but I was still wondering.
Use this "rejection" to empower you to build something amazing. I know if I was rejected I would use it as motivation to be great. No one can tell you what you are made of besides yourself.
PG, the YC team, and YC as a company is there to help those who they think they should help. It's their discretion. Decrying YC isn't going to help.
Refusing that you suck is awesome. PG would agree that they do judge on what they think is going to work. But thinking you have a better idea than anyone else about what the future holds, or whether YC is going to be a part of that future, is pointless.
i'm not sure what the startup school email said (i live on the east coast), but my rejection from yc was pretty civil...
We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally. The quality of the applications
continues to increase with each cycle, and since there's a limit
on the number of interviews we can do, we had to turn away a lot
of genuinely promising groups.
Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know
we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group
to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that
we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall
just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing.
We're trying to get better at this, but 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.
There's a difference between being rejected from something (which has a fairly low acceptance rate, strong applicant pool, and brief application) and sucking.
Now, if you're going to complain and get discouraged by one unimportant failure (hell, you can still see the talks on Justin.tv), then you do suck because everyone that doesn't suck has failed lots of times and gotten over it.
YC is, by all accounts, is an organization tirelessly focused on making decisions based on the merit and potential of the founders. They have clear opinions of what is a good indicator of merit, but have shown a willingness to test their opinions and refine.
If anyone involved would be willing to shed light, I'd love to know how you've refined the process of identifying good Startup School participants over the years.