If you just received a rejection letter from YCombinator, don’t worry. I’ll fill you in on what you’re missing and share some tips on how to create your own community in your area.
The Interview
This has been covered so many times. It’s not really worth mentioning. You basically get grilled in front of an audience of partners. They typically don’t tell you if you’ve been accepted just yet. After some time, PG will call and tell you that you’ve been accepted and give you their offer. Typically this is non-negotiable but some people will try to negotiate and will fail anyway. Congratulations, you are now a member of YC.
Introduction to the YC structure
YC lasts 12 weeks and every week you meet at their offices. YC offers office hours with the partners. Some of them are better and more insightful than others. PG himself is definitely the most entertaining. When I was in YC, I would call this our weekly “kick in the pants.” PG’s time is spread pretty thin, so if you met with him, he’d ask you what your problem is and why you haven’t solved it yet. Then you’d typically stumble around searching for an excuse and PG would just say, “Do the right thing.” Then he’d set you back on course.
In addition to office hours, there are dinners. Dinners are typically catered now, but in the early days, PG would make some goulash for the handful of YC companies. The objective of the dinners is never the meal itself, but rather the exchange between you and your peers. This is a room of people both excited and scared -- excited because they were selected and the possibilities seem limitless and scared because now they’re competing with the best. Everyone wants to be the darlings of YC.
For every dinner there is a speaker, ranging from Mark Zuckerberg to previous founders to super-angel Ron Conway to an investors panel. At the end of the talk, there is an opportunity for the audience to ask questions. Some of these questions are better than others, some of the talks are better than others. Some of the talks sound very well-rehearsed and some sound like a sales pitch. Very rarely are there any truly juicy bits tossed around.
After the questions have all been answered, the speaker will usually stick around to get mobbed by startups desperately pitching them and trying to get feedback. The speakers have always been very pleasant in offering their time to the batches.
Race to the finish line
Over the coming weeks you’ll be busy pumping out product [1], meeting with investors that visit YC for scheduled meetups, building your deck, and learning how to perfect your pitch and presentation. There are several “workshop” meetups at the YC office to help you out.
One of my favorite aspects of YC was after the decks were prepared. At that point, they have you present in front of your peers while PG and Jessica critique from the back. At the end, people vote on the startup they are most likely to invest in. It adds another level of competition to motivate you to work harder and faster than you ever have before. From here on out, you work on your product and pitch deck very closely with partners.
All of this buildup is working towards Demo Day, typically held at the Computer History Museum. Rows of chairs are lined up with investors from all backgrounds, from institutional, angels, and even stars like Ashton Kutcher. This is the time that every company has prepared for: you’re now pitching for real. Some companies bomb, some previously lackluster companies might shine like a diamond under such pressure. It becomes a mad house with alumni and investors walking around, talking, networking and negotiating after all the pitches have been heard.
The reality
Not all YC companies raise money. Some companies just can’t get it together. Some companies can’t even keep founders together long enough to get through all of YC. The companies that do raise money seem to blow through it pretty quickly, some manage to coast long enough to do something with it. Some are rockstars, absolutely. But success, even at this level, is still a lottery.
How You Can Create Your Own YC-Like Experience
Even though you’ve been rejected, you can take away some of the best parts of YC. You can start a peer review meetup that meets up once a week to keep motivation going and helps to make you accountable. This will keep momentum in your product strong. We’ve done that with http://tribes.techendo.co/. This can be your weekly “kick in the pants”. You, too, can arrange dinners and put yourself out there by attending speaker events and meetups (check out SFHN, we’re all-inclusive, YC or not).
Gather a group of supportive people around you or find people who are supportive and give it your all.
You also have the same chances of building a successful company that any YC startup does. If you’re able to meet the metrics, you can bootstrap your way to success without giving away some of your company.
Ask any questions and I’ll answer them. I’m an open book about my experiences at YC.
[1] a fellow YCer says you should be networking with investors as opposed to working on product, contrary to what PG asks of you.
