This was the expected, default even, outcome.
We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally. The applications we receive get
better every funding cycle, and since there's a limit on the number
of startups we can interview in person, 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.http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html
We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number
of interviews means 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.Y Combinator Team
It's a very nice rejection letter. Of course, I'd love it if they gave me feedback and reason(s) for not being interested, but it's completely understandable with their application volume why they can't and don't do that.
I would also like to congratulate my friend Mike Whitby and his cofounder who got to the interview stage, so good luck to the both of you!
However, all this YCombinator talk is not what I will remember the day for. October 31, 2011 will be the day my startup went from simply a project I've been working on for 9 months to a company that earned its first sale. So that flat revenue line finally has shown some signs of life.
While I have still not launched yet (who would have thought it would take this long?) I have started giving limited demos to potential users and testing it to get feedback.
Right now, the last thing preventing me from launching today is design. It's not good looking and doesn't effectively communicate what I am trying to do. I find a lot of users confused by it and unless I spend 1-2 minutes explaining how it works, most users don't get it or the value. So that's a major problem. The good news is that if I do explain it the users seem incredibly enthusiastic about its value. So the signs point to its got a lot of potential but the execution isn't quite there yet.
So the next step is figuring out this design/communication problem. So if you're a design/ui/ux expert or know one that is really good at working with data and visually communicating its value, please contact me :)
