[HN Gopher] Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
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Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
Author : _chrischae
Score : 72 points
Date : 2022-09-08 20:00 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.relate.so)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.relate.so)
| jitl wrote:
| I work at Notion.
|
| I advise you to avoid the .so TLD - there's a lot of
| institutional bias against Somalia's TLD, like blanket blocks in
| many corporate firewalls. This problem will be worse if you serve
| public user-generated content from that TLD because the chain of
| communication from you to SomaliNIC might have a bunch of unknown
| third party intermediaries where an abuse report can get lost.
| Today Notion is large & successful enough to be resilient to
| these issues, but in the 2019-2020 years the use of .so was
| responsible for a few long outages. To this day, we have many
| requests to move our service to .com. I'm always a little worried
| when I see other startups using this TLD.
| soheil wrote:
| I like the .so TLD. If enough people keep using it I don't see
| how that would still make people nervous. It's a nice sounding
| TLD and if people have a problem with Somalia they shouldn't
| take it out on an innocent suffix.
| shagie wrote:
| The question is "what control can the government of Somalia
| have on names that are registered under its TLD?" Can it
| seize the name? In 2010, it was regulated by the Ministry of
| Posts and Telecommunications. In 2015 it was a different
| government and managed by Somali Network Information Center.
| In 2018 it was transferred to The National Communications
| Authority. Will the policies change? If the country cuts ties
| with all non-Somali entities will the email addresses
| continue to work for a time? Or will they be snapped up by
| scammers?
|
| Additionally, registration financially goes to the government
| of Somalia (see the controversies with .io TLD).
| stickfigure wrote:
| I would avoid _all_ of the two-letter domain names. I suffered
| 8 hours of excruciating downtime back in 2012 when the .st nic
| went down:
|
| https://github.com/stickfigure/blog/wiki/Beware-cutesy-two-l...
|
| I learned my lesson, I'll take the .com every time, even if I
| have to get creative with the name.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > I would avoid all of the two-letter domain names
|
| Here in Europe all of the national TLDs for countries I can
| think of off the top of my head are two letter TLDs, and will
| be regarded as trustworthy in their respective countries.
|
| .no .se .dk .fi .fr .it .de .ch .at .pl .es .sk and so on and
| so forth
| eftychis wrote:
| ccTLDs are two letter correct. Avoiding two letter TLDs is
| non-practical. If you focus on the local market just take
| your country's TLD.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I certainly trust those and globally, cuz "in their
| respective countries" is not a high enough bar
| ransom1538 wrote:
| There is always therelateteam.com
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Gov.uk - love it. .co.uk - always smelled of cheap, second
| hand, gaudy.
| echelon wrote:
| .ai and .io are hot commodities, though, and I've never once
| had problems with either.
|
| Looking at the ample existential evidence, both startups and
| VCs love these two TLDs.
| pavon wrote:
| What is the secondary meaning that causes people to choose the
| .so domain? I get .tv, .ai and finishing the spelling of a word
| using a ccTLD, but I never understood why people where using so
| (other than local businesses). Whenever I see them my general
| impression is one of (a) I'm not hip enough to get this
| reference, mixed with (b) that company was so desperate to find
| a good domain name they resorted to registering an obscure TLD
| in a war-torn third world country.
| lorenzosnap wrote:
| Well, what can one say ? congratulations. That really shows some
| level of persistence.
| crackercrews wrote:
| > Our ideas were long and vague.
|
| > We had practically zero proof that we could execute our plans
| successfully.
|
| > And as a result, our interview with YC went terribly.
|
| If they were doing so badly, how did they even get an interview
| in the first place?
| pvarangot wrote:
| Article says first three times they didn't
| crackercrews wrote:
| Yup, that's why I wrote "interview" in the singular. Still
| wondering how they got even one if they were doing so badly.
| btheshoe wrote:
| Am I right in my reading that OP went more than 2 years into a
| startup without a single paying customer? That seems a little
| absurd.
| [deleted]
| b2btech wrote:
| It's no longer around in its current form, but this looks like
| the same exact value prop and feature set that RelateIQ had, whom
| Salesforce purchased. I just can't help but wonder if its
| coincidence that your company name is also relate...
| version_five wrote:
| Congratulations!
|
| I've been thinking about this a bit, even for a company as
| renowned as YC, I don't like how the power balance is, and the
| sort of "we made it!" vibe as if you finally impressed some diety
| enough to grace you with good fortune. I see the same kind of
| posts (oddly) about people who tried n times to get a job at
| google and finally they "made it". Like what are we doing?
|
| I think that once an institution has this kind of getting in as
| the goal, rather than the actual hard work of making an
| objectively successful company, incentive structures get all
| screwed up. This is in no way specific to YC, the same happens in
| universities, in investment banking, whatever. But it signals the
| beginning of a hollowing out where the credential is everything
| and what underlies it doesn't matter. There are definitely areas
| where the culture is skewed very much in this direction, and it
| isn't somewhere I'd want to be
| hammock wrote:
| >I don't like how the power balance is, and the sort of "we
| made it!" vibe as if you finally impressed some diety enough to
| grace you with good fortune. I see the same kind of posts
| (oddly) about people who tried n times to get a job at google
| and finally they "made it". Like what are we doing?
|
| Totally. It might be more fun to look at it as "we finally
| suckered them" (choose a less controversial word than
| suckered).
|
| A similar dynamic shows up in the way startup founders are so
| eager to say "we've been acquired" rather than saying they sold
| a company
| andrewguenther wrote:
| I think part of it is that the incentives have changed. A lot
| of people don't see Google as "I've made it" they see it as
| "great, I can work anywhere I want after this." I think we're
| starting to see that in YC as well: "I'm in the YC network
| now." It isn't about the business you get in with, it's that
| you, as a founder, are now part of the YC network and the
| opportunities that opens for you as an individual rather than
| what it means for your business.
|
| My read of the post wasn't that they so desperately needed YC's
| approval to think that their business could be a success, it's
| that they just wanted to be in YC.
| bentlegen wrote:
| I think one of the brilliant things YC (and PG) have done is
| propagate "being a founder" as occupying an elite
| career/employment category beyond anything else. Like,
| there's an under appreciated level of category building that
| YC is responsible for (and the success of their founders
| hasn't hurt).
| wyxuan wrote:
| Surprised at the rigor they had for your process. Just looking at
| a lot of crypto companies that have joined their batch, I was
| questioning whether they even looked at the ideas or not.
|
| Maybe they are just better with b2b SaaS and other verticals,
| with crypto being exceptionally bad.
| andrewguenther wrote:
| This story just really doesn't read like the triumph of will it
| was meant to be...
|
| My takeaway from this is that the founders wanted to get into YC.
| The business doesn't matter, they just wanted to be in YC.
|
| The business morphed around what they thought would get into YC,
| not what would actually make a good business. I have a ton of
| respect for YCombinator, but they are not all knowing oracles who
| get it right 100% of the time. The fact that the immediate
| response to each rejection was "pivot" I think speaks volumes to
| the founder's goals here.
| Swizec wrote:
| > The fact that the immediate response to each rejection was
| "pivot" I think speaks volumes to the founder's goals here
|
| I would go so far as to say this is validation that YC made the
| right decision in rejecting them. If even the founder's dons
| believe in their own idea, why should YC?
| andrewguenther wrote:
| 100% agreed. I think it speaks MUCH more to the conviction of
| founders to apply a few times and then get in on a similar,
| refined idea. Then your lessons learned come off more as what
| you've learned about building a successful business vs how to
| build a business that YC will accept.
| [deleted]
| version_five wrote:
| Yes your comment better captures what I was trying to say here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32772702
|
| It's not like they're excited they get to help people do better
| CRM, they're just excited they got in, and (not uniquely)
| appear to have crafted an optimized offering designed to get
| into YC, which I don't think is YCs (at least initial)
| intention nor do I think it's desirable. It's a signal that
| it's "jumped the shark" and it's time to move on to a new
| construct
| andrewguenther wrote:
| Hah, I just replied to your comment as well. I appreciate
| that you pointed out that this isn't a problem unique to YC.
| At some point, people are just chasing prestige. Considering
| YCs rapid growth over the last few years, I'm not surprised
| this is happening, but given the nature of the business it
| could be a long time before the patterns become apparent.
| There are more live YC companies today than there are
| exited/failed ones. I worry the time it will take for issues
| in the process to become apparent may be too later for them.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Congratualtions on your temerity!
|
| I looked at relate.so, and I already use a CRM that does
| everything listed on your website. What are the new features that
| relate provides compared to other CRMs?
| mchusma wrote:
| Yes, I had the same question. I'd love to know what makes this
| different than other CRMs (Salesforce, front, hubspot,
| pipedrive).
| ipaddr wrote:
| What CRM do you use and what features are important. So many
| different crms out there.
| ska wrote:
| I think you mean tenacity...
| IncRnd wrote:
| No. I meant temerity as in excessive confidence.
| [deleted]
| dandigangi wrote:
| Congrats! Made it to the final round once upon a time and then
| got turned down. Interesting process though.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| People question why startups are so focused on getting into YC.
| They ask the reasonable question "Why care so much about getting
| into YC? How about focusing on building a great product instead
| of optimising for YC?"
|
| I think the answer is that YC is a significant success factor,
| and if your company is a member of YC then many future objectives
| and challenges will become easier.
|
| People who have attended certain universities gain many ongoing
| benefits from the recognition of the university. "Oh, you went to
| Harvard/Standford/Melbourne University? Yes please come talk to
| us."
|
| People who have worked at certain companies many ongoing benefits
| from the recognition of the company. "Oh, you worked at
| Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Netflix/Apple? Yes please come talk to
| us."
|
| "Oh, you're a YC company? Yes please come talk to us."
|
| It's instant credibility and that really helps open alot of
| doors.
|
| Dress well, be kind to people, go to a recognised elite
| university, start your career working at one or two of the top
| tech companies, get your startup into YC and you're likely to be
| able to pay your bills into the future.
| [deleted]
| eins1234 wrote:
| This is obviously based on anecdata, take it with a healthy
| helping of salt, but from what I've heard from a bunch of founder
| friends who have applied to YC with varying results, I get the
| sense that if you want to get in, you might be better off
| applying before you even start working on your startup.
|
| Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get much
| higher, because there's suddenly a lot more concrete data points
| to benchmark your startup against. Before that all they have is
| basically an idea and a bunch of resumes. This is of course
| contingent on the fact that you have impressive looking resumes
| and at least a plausible idea.
|
| It's a bit of a catch 22 for B2B startups hoping to use the YC
| startup network as a source of early customers, but didn't apply
| early enough. If you're thinking of starting a B2B startup that
| could make good use of YC's network, my recommendation would be
| to apply as early as possible, before you even start working on
| it. Worst case scenario is you get rejected and end up having to
| apply again in 6 months (which is fine because you applied 6+
| months earlier than you might have otherwise, and now have
| feedback from their rejection to make your next application
| better).
| bdominy wrote:
| YC does offer a free version of their program open to anyone
| called Startup School (https://www.startupschool.org) that can
| be a good way to gain validation and judge interest. Applying
| to YC seems to be best for idea staged founders with impressive
| resumes and people skills or startups that have already gained
| some traction. If you are in the "Trough of Sorrow" stage as
| Paul Graham described it, then I'm not sure where you really
| turn for help.
| romanhn wrote:
| The show Silicon Valley had a great bit that mirrors this
| advice (on why you don't want revenue):
| https://youtu.be/BzAdXyPYKQo
| rl3 wrote:
| > _Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get
| much higher, because there 's suddenly a lot more concrete data
| points to benchmark your startup against._
|
| I started in late 2013 and was rejected by YC in 2016. Haven't
| applied to anything since, with the exception of Apollo.
| Certainly was very aware of that dynamic at the time.
|
| As a solo founder who lacks the aforementioned impressive
| resume, and who's nearly a decade in, I no longer have much
| hope for accelerators.
|
| This was written less than a month before COVID inflicted a
| great deal of pain and delayed things by a little more than a
| year:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22429827
|
| But hey, at least I'm at step one now.
| dpweb wrote:
| No disrespect intended but YC's acceptance rate is 3%? With a
| couple of co-founders w some solid B2B sales skills - I'd
| probably be more inclined to try and beat 3% in getting a decent
| problem solving product into at least a POC in companies and more
| likely get into SMBs.
|
| My point is, I don't think you ever want to be in a pick-me
| situation (unless it's customers picking a product) - if it makes
| sense to avoid it. I'd probably try to get some traction to the
| point where people are calling us, instead of trying to get
| accepted to them.
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