Is it just me...or is this a little over-the-top? This essay makes PG out to be the second coming of Christ. YCombinator is great...but it's not the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Keep building your product and pounding the pavement. As Coach K would say...next play.

I wouldn't want to elevate PG as a demigod. Yet upon rejection this was, in many ways, how I felt. This essay comes from an analysis of these feelings. The understanding I came to later represents how I now see things. I'm proud to say we are moving on. But I'd hoped to share my experience, for others currently going through rejection, and for future, aspiring entrepreneurs.

I have been an entrepreneur for the last fifteen years and in retrospect, the two things that are hardest to learn are the following ...

1) How to embrace rejection ... not just accept it but embrace it. Most smart engineers prefer to avoid rejection by spending more time on developing technology or products and they want to get it as perfect as possible before presenting it to a potential user or customer for critique. This is wrong. Get over rejection. Embrace it. Do it early. Any chance you can, get in front of people who are not your family or your friends and get real feedback. You don't learn anything from positive feedback. Your learn a whole lot more from negative feedback.

2) How to develop a sensitivity to other people's inconvenience. For everything that is new, there will always be early adopters. It is easy to let initial success gets to your head. But to going beyond the initial veneer, your product or services have to simplify people's life, not just the smart or motivated people, but the normal and lazy people.

As my base jumping friend told me once, after about 500 jumps, you will start to realize how cold it is up there. This is just the beginning. Suck it up.

> Your learn a whole lot more from negative feedback.

Negative feedback can be more honest. In every criticism (especially if it's someone who you don't have an existing relationship with), there is usually a nugget of truth.

"If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig"

I agree. In startups, there is no worse experience than putting lipstick on a pig. Not only is it a big waste of effort, but it annoys the crap out of the pig.

In high school, I got rejected by McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I really wanted a job at one of those places for money for recording equipment for my band. They all rejected me.

I finally got a job at Roy Rogers after a year of searching, and the rest is history. I got over the rejections, and you can too. Of course it's pretty funny looking back, but only given the proper perspective. You have to look at things for what they are.

I thought pg was god-like for quite a while. And then I came out for the first Silicon Valley Startup School and met him the day before. He was wearing a necklace with a diamond-encrusted "PG" pendant. At that moment, I knew he was merely human.

> He was wearing a necklace with a diamond-encrusted "PG" pendant. At that moment, I knew he was merely human.

Because he has a sense of irony?

Umm...I guess? But now I'm doubting my own humanity, or yours, because one of us clearly lacks humor.

"Worry is the misuse of imagination". Keep moving forward, individuals like you are moving me towards the tipping point of venturing and executing ideas of my own

"This essay makes PG out to be the second coming of Christ."

Despite the hyperbole, I'd argue that a lot of HN users and YC alums express similar sentiments.

FWIW, I've met a lot of people who are similarly worshiped, and PG handles it better than most.

PG is like a tuning fork for the latent change-the-world/entrepreneur/hacker/idealist/realist wavelengths in us

yeah, one of things I find discomfiting is the occasional bouts of fanboyism that I see on the part of some folks here. Respect and occasional admiration are all well and good, but this is article is an excellent over the top example.

YC != 42?

Obviously, YC == 5943

If you want an upvote, you'll have to show your work... ;)

man ascii ;)

Still haven't shown your work... did you remember to assign the numerical values of the string "YC" to the integer variable YC?

And did you remember to test against 0x5943, rather than 5943?

And did you take Endianness into account? ;-)

I guess I could do all that (truth be told, my C's a bit rusty for a prompt answer).

How 'bout:

  $echo -n "YC" > foo
  $hd foo
  00000000  59 43                                             |YC|
  00000002

Yeah, I know, perhaps 4359 might be better.

(UPDATE: fixed code spacing)

:-D

    printf("%hx", *(unsigned short *)"YC");

...works on big endian machines. this works everywhere:

    printf("%hx", htons(*(unsigned short *)"YC"));

if you have a great idea, build a prototype. that's the great equalizer -- if you have working code, or better yet, traction, then most concerns about being a "proven" team evaporate.

if your code isn't quite ready, build a screencast, then submit it to news.yc. doing this was probably instrumental in our eventual YC acceptance. (this lets you convey the cool parts of your idea in a way you can control even if there are a lot of missing pieces.)

otherwise, if you've only got a team and a hunch, you're in this _giant_ pile of "eh who knows if it'll work, who knows if they're good, but maybe" applications (many of which ultimately fail), and it's basically a crapshoot. yc gets enough apps w/ 1) amazing people 2) amazing products or 3) amazing traction to avoid having to place these kinds of shaky bets.

the more risk (product risk, people risk, market risk) you can eliminate on your own, the better you'll look to _any_ investor (and the more equity you'll keep for yourselves.)

obviously, there's a catch-22 that to prove some of these things you need initial capital, but for most software startups it just means locking yourself up and hacking out a prototype and letting it rip to a few people.

then just apply next cycle -- mercifully, it's not like college admissions where you (generally) only get one shot. (my first yc app was rejected a year before ultimately getting in.)

Absolutely. That's the plan.

"YCombinator has it’s own personality. Their opinions are their own. They have perspective and wisdom and the will to apply it. But they have no more dominion over truth as the rest of us, nor are they immune to the blindspots that all beings must endure, nor would they suggest otherwise. It’s taken much for me to fully understand this"

"But none will succeed as YCombinator does, winning successes from strange ideas with unproven players, unless like YCombinator, they cultivate a personality of their own, and call upon their imagination to see as the bright minds applying dream."

"Upon rejection, it couldn’t feel like a group in Mountain View had overlooked our ideas in favor of ideas more compelling to them."

I get an sense that a YC rejection is quite a bit different than the average rejection (not getting into Google, not getting into Harvard, not getting into the finals of a competition, not getting a date, etc.). The fact is, getting into YC really _is_ a big deal and really is life changing.

All the reading, obsessing, thinking that we as Hacker News participants do, build up hopes and expectations in an unhealthy way. But then again who can drink the YC kool-aid and not get drawn in?

Anyhow, cheers to you for being brave and making a go at it.

> I get an sense that a YC rejection is quite a bit different than the average rejection (not getting into Google, not getting into Harvard, not getting into the finals of a competition, not getting a date, etc.). The fact is, getting into YC really _is_ a big deal and really is life changing.

Take that, Harvard! ;-)

Honestly if you don't know why you were rejected then you need to pitch to more investors and friends. There are tons of angel forums out there. Move to sv and start combing the circuit. YC is a great program but other angels will be way better at giving feedback to your pitch / idea / company. After a few rounds you'll know your weak spots and sell toward your strengths.

One of the point I've tried to make is that what seems strong or weak is at times a subjective judgment too.

But you're absolutely right. We need to pitch more. And we'll need to listen, and ponder, and most of all, build.

We have in fact located to SV (or, Berkeley, rather). If you have any tips as to which angel groups would be most suitable to approach, we'd love to hear from you.

You will be more likely to get funding from angels if you have launched and can show some sort of growth. So if you can get to launch on the money you have, do that. Then find angels by asking acquaintances who work for startups to introduce you to their angel investors. They will do it if they think highly of your product.

You'll start hearing the same thing again and again. Expect much more focus on how you're going to get to what market than you would for a yc app. Google "angel forum" for starters, make a list and start applying. Email me for more specifics. In car on iPhone right now.

what bout your former colleagues at Scribd? seems like they may know a person or two.

when do we get to see a preview?

That's a good idea. We'll ask them.

We'll be able to show a preview when it's ready for everyone else, though earlier private showings remain possible. I hope not to jinx myself, but I think it will be fairly soon, within the month, or by early summer.

>It started with a question: could software help people connect in real life? Nothing we knew about was any good. Nobody sane would sift through lists of events online. Dating sites mostly sucked. Put people in the position of a judge, and romance cannot bloom. Chat rooms sucked. There are trolls and perverts everywhere. And the internet at large has no location. Rarely would you find someone nearby.

Ah, local social software. A chat room that you can only access if you are close enough to start a conversation in real life. A forum that you can only post to if you are sitting in the same coffee shop.

I hear that they are working on such things for the iPhone.

I can't wait until the world realizes that social software is not social unless you actually meet people through it.

If so then what about a blind man? If he does not see or touch other people then he can never be social?

Humans are able to have significant interaction through more than physical means. It is incredible, I know.

It's the best thing to have happened. You were a little obsessed. Now become a lot obsessed with yourself. Essays and some rent money don't have all the answers. No one really does.

People, please stop obsessing over this stuff. It's nice. It's great. But imagine this: Instead of spending your time raising money, spend your time making money. If your product isn't ready then take on some part time consulting.

It's not hard to earn enough to pay the rent.

For me the holy grail would be 100% in control of my destiny. Taking early seed money is actually being rejected from the world of 100% ownership.

So rewind. Do some part time work to pay the bills. Launch and make a ton of money, and keep it all for yourself (and your cofounders).

How much fun would that be?

Wow . that was the most well written thing I've read this week.

I wouldn't know. Small, grey text over a black background? Forget it. Tab closed.

Is it genuinely hard to read? YC News uses small grey text over a white background.

I found it to be so, yes.

What see on news.yc is black text over a beige background (except for posts' metadata, which is grey over beige).

I would say no - it's actually a pretty nice site.

Thank you.

Amazing resume. If they rejected you, I'm glad I saved myself a couple hours by not applying. ;)

http://daniellefong.com/?p=25

I've mentioned this in the past, but it's worth mentioning again: YC are not school snobs.

The schools I attended aren't worth mentioning, and I couldn't remember what school my co-founder attended when I filled out the application (and it was within a couple of hours of the deadline, so I didn't wait to find out--it turns out to be among the best in Australia, but YC didn't know that when we were accepted, or even now, for that matter). So, while I get the feeling graduating from a good school is one currency with which you can show you're capable of doing something hard and completing it, I believe the YC folks are very amenable to accepting many other forms of payment.

There are certainly plenty of Stanford and MIT grads that make it in...but it's definitely not a requirement. (Seriously, I attended community colleges, and for crazy crap like audio recording and Jazz performance. You can't get much less impressive than my post-high school educational record.)

Yeah, that was the impression I got from some of the earlier PG essay's (replete with "top coders", "top CS departments", "top schools"). I remember thinking while reading that, "how does that prove the person can build a product, or do anything other than what they have been told to do?"

Later on I think he toned that down a bit.

Exactly.

Why, because the market will reject appropriately priced goods and services from people without Princeton on their resume?

One thing I don't understand: why is building applications for people interested in local events a "perennial tarpit"? Does it have to do with having a limited market of potential users?

Our contention is that it's because it's easy to get wrong. To attract users one must simultaneously execute well on visual design, on formatting data in an easily understood format, and suggesting local events aptly, and most importantly on getting interesting local events posted in the first place. Monetization is a challenging problem too.

In our opinion none of the existing players have really thought deeply about the problem, and most attempts are similar to what's out there. A good service will require a substantial rethinking.

It's a hard problem, but one we're prepared to try to solve. We want to help people get out more.

There is nothing stopping you from creating it with or without the validation of YC. You're right that just because it's been done doesn't mean you can't do it better and get it right. Would Yelp exist if they thought -- oh, darn, Citysearch seems to have the whole market, we'll never win.

That being said, you should consider starting with a specific community you know, getting it in the hands of real users, and iterating like crazy. These things can't be developed in an intellectual vacuum.

Best of luck!

We hear you. There are advantages besides proximity to investors to siting in the bay area. San Francisco and Berkeley are wonderfully vibrant communities.

Presumably the same tar pit Craig Newmark is drowning in.

As one who nearly drowned in that tar pit a few years back, I have few insights.

1) Your product needs to be an order of magnitude better than your competitors in order to get users to switch. There is a reason craigslist, despite its obvious flaws, has not had a serious competitor.

2) If your product is not an order of magnitude better, design will not make much of a difference. Usability can, but not as much as you'd think. Many companies have produced a better evite, but none have gained the traction they deserve.

3) Right now, if you count on local merchants to purchase advertising, you might as well wait until hell freezes over. There's a whole set of entrepreneurs in the world who don't understand the internet and took their hard earned money to open up small bricks-and-mortar stores. Go to a website like Yelp or Menupages (both have substantial local market page views). You'll find almost no local ads, despite the fact that local businesses stand to benefit enormously from purchasing them.

I hope you figure it out. Someone has to rescue us from the mediocrity of most local websites. Might as well be you. :-)

On local merchants purchasing advertising, I think there's been poor adoption partly because it's difficult for advertisers to see the value and tell if it's working, and partly because it is currently absurdly hard to target local advertising.

Now I feel dumb :(

why?

Is your startup public yet?

Not yet.