skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> If you got a no, think about why, and consider it free advice from someone whose opinion you trust.

I honestly think they are just too pressed for time to do a thorough review. Applicants can check their web logs and see if YC even looked at their stuff. Submitting early is probably a major advantage if it means they (YC) actually have time to take a gander at what you did.
Why is IBM avoiding Open Source in SOA discussions?
regarding feedback, consider how many applicants they get and how many people they have to go thru apps (Paul, Jessica, Trevor, I think). 10 minutes of thoughtful feedback times 1000 or so (I'm guessing) rejected folks.... 10,000 minutes of feedback. If you want feedback, crowdsource it and post it here. You'll get plenty.
Ridiculous. Next they'll say you can teach Sex Ed without...
Sounds kind of like you're disguising your YC-denial under a veil of "I've done this before, and I'm better than you" type of thinking.

Are you sure that's productive? What was your successful execution?
Google and Yahoo to share web ads
Good question, but how about "is" instead of "was." The world always gives you a few thumps to the chest to make sure you really mean it before you succeed.
Ask YC: To my fellow YC Summer Applicants who slipped through the cracks, what is your next move?
As the email said, the process is fraught with errors. What is your next move?

Mine is to launch by the end of next week after four months of work.

Also, don't forget that the Google Android deadline is this coming monday! =)
There's already a thread for this. Can a moderator close this one and move it into a comment on the other thread or something?
I'm planning on applying next summer when I'm done my CS degree and have a bit more experience under my belt, but I would love to know what are usually the reasons of rejections?

As for now I'm looking for a cofounder and a great idea, but I would love to improve on possible weaknesses I have that are import to the eyes of YC.
How much do you look at the news.yc username correlation in your decision making?
I understand that, but I also don't think it would be too complicated for them to just jot their thoughts/comments down as they are going through the apps and have those included in your email, but it isn't a big deal. I'm just disappointed.
Is there a way for me to move it?
it's funny they miss spelled one of our founders email. The domain was la-fem.com instead they send it to la.anybots.com

I wonder why
Delete it, and then create a new comment in the other thread with the text of this one, maybe?
Just got the "rejection" letter, I'm a bit disappointed I couldn't get the team reviewing the proposals as passionate about the project as I am.
I think being a solo founder hurt me, but I've been working on the project full-time for four months (over 12k lines of code). This won't slow me down. =)

What is your company going to make?

We make it easy to jot something down from any device and then share that note with your friends or colleagues to have a discussion.

We are building a web version and apps for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry.

Sample use: You are at a restaurant and like a bottle of wine. You whip out your phone and snap a picture. Now that picture is part of your notes which you can access from anywhere. One more click and the note is shared on your Facebook News Feed so you can have a threaded discussion with your friends.

3banana: your notes are social
http://3banana.com
A Dataset Catalog: http://www.datawrangling.com/some-datasets-available-on-the-...
Advice for Young Entrepreneurs (Talk Includes Matt Marshall, VCs and Founders)
Yahoo! Joint Bid Rumor: Microsoft - News Corp.
I don't think there's anything wrong with positive self-talk. A founder being confident about his or her ability to execute shouldn't make anyone else feel insecure.
Isn't it physics that's trying to have a "Theory of Everything"?
How I Got To Startup School
Meebo Can’t Get Their Price, Goes For Fundraising Instead Of Sale
Readmore I think your application is a good idea. Have you considered letting people choose their own charity instead of the preselected ones you have listed?

Or even better, people could choose their own cause (whether it's a charity, fundraising event, boyscouts, girlscouts etc etc) and could encourage friends, family and acquaintances to use the site to raise money for their cause.
pop me an email: dustin@zivity.com

interested in 3banana
Agree with you 100%. We are nothing without confidence that at first seems baseless.
I'm not sure, but there's a few reasons not to post if you got accepted:

1) just getting picked to go to the interview really only gives you like a 1 in 3 or so chance of getting in to YC.

2) the news of getting accepted into YC is pretty
noteworthy and shouldn't be squandered -
it's useful for PR purposes when you launch your product.
If you blow the news too early, you miss out on a
potential PR-based influx of users from TechCrunch for
example.

Congrats to those who were picked to go to the interview!
It's nice to see that random acts of kindness still have a place in this world.
congratulations whether you got a no or a yes, you just made another step of a very long walk with many paths to choose from, before reaching where you dream.
No for me too. I'm a little annoyed at myself for applying at the last minute. My plan was to solve some key technical issues before applying next cycle, but I changed my mind and applied without thinking it through. Maybe spending more time properly presentating my concept would have made all the difference... on the other hand maybe it wouldn't.

My idea is fairly wacky, and may need to be seen to be believed, so back to plan A: solving problems and building the alpha!
Ivan Krstić: Will Google fulfill the promise of WinFS? (Good discussion of Google's datastore)
I only received 2 page views from them on April 2nd. I probably shouldn't have waited until the last minute to apply.
When you're rejected, you can interpret it as this "says something about me" and take it personally, or you can interpret it as an opportunity someone else missed out on for whatever reason, (not a good match, not web 2.0 enough, who knows!) and move on. If you believe in your idea and yourself strongly, there's usually only one clear interpretation you should take. And yes, self confidence is generally a productive strategy.

As for my success, I built a shareware business that made me significantly more than my salary, as a single founder, while still working full time. It enabled me to leave my job and work for myself.
Neat. I wish there were libraries for more languages though.
May I ask where the web logs I should look at are? (I see comments and submit logs)

I agree with you otherwise though. I think submitting the day before was... not a mistake... but I found YC a week before the deadline and spend the time working up an application and looking for a co-founder.
May I ask where the web logs I should look at are?

I think he's saying that you can check the logs of your own server.
He means, if you included an online demo, presumably on your own hosting space, check your web stats to see if/when/for how long they looked at it.
It won't be like that forever? Um... that's kind of the point of working for large companies. The stability.
I agree... but it would be nice to know if there was something that gave me (or anyone else) a black mark.

I think my idea is great.

It's more of a "can I do anything to improve". I believe in always trying to find ways to be better. If my idea was rejected because they thought it was too niche, I would want to know. If it's because I couldn't think of other things I've done, I'd like to know. etc, etc.
the first part sounds a bit like twitter/ letsprovewhere
Awesome. Maybe I mistook your tone.

I agree that a positive, confident attitude is probably productive, but you made your point by turning the positivity against Y Combinator because you are upset that you were not accepted. Right?
Programmers in Miami
Hi, I'm in Miami and I have a great idea and I'm looking for some coders down here to help me work on it. It is a social investment network but it is nothing like we already have out there. We won't work with stocks. If you are here in Miami and wants to be a co-founder in a startup contact me.
Why not parameterize it and let anyone do just that? Just a thought...
ah... seems like yc had a note about checking something here for comments/questions. I thought he was referring to that.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=68598

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=113610
I am working on building an online pencil and paper rpg play system. It would support a character database, dice rollers, major P&P systems, the usual forums, npc character search, all sort's of toy's for players/ST's,GM's,DM's, and a chat system. And eventually support for a subscription service for the books. Much like O'Reilly's Safari.
1) Network, network, network.

2) Present to VCs.

3) ???

4) Exit.

Just kidding about the "???" part, by the way. We have at least two of those question marks figured out.
I hear you! And doesn't it feel great to be able to say you've done that? I'm in the same boat: been working for myself for 7 years, now just trying to duplicate that success on a (much) larger scale :)

We're far enough along, and we have enough buzz among companies testing our app already, that we're not worried at all. YC wasn't a make-or-break deal for us by any means. Good to hear it's not for you too. If you really believe in your idea, it shouldn't be for anyone on here.
That's great, congratulations :]

BTW, your blog totally breaks in Safari... might wanna take a look at that.
I agree, I'd have loved a reason as well--it would have justified the time spent on the application. Although I would love it, it's probably not practical and may just open them up to angry emails.
I also got a no, but that's okay. I don't think the infrastructure is in place for mine yet, anyway.

Maybe in a little while! :D
Probably get back in shape, rebuild social life, find money, reassess the best path.
> I'm 100% sure my idea is rock solid, I've executed successfully before AND I have a cofounder, but I was turned down.

Send them a letter rejecting their rejection letter and show up anyhow. From gettingintogradschool.com:

Thank for your letter of April 9. After careful consideration, I regret to
inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me admission
to our department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large
number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of
candidates it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite W.M.U.'s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in
rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at
this time. Therefore, I will join the ranks of graduate students in your
department this September. I look forward to seeing you then.

Sincerely,
Indonesian economics blog
I don't see where I turned anything against y combinator in my posts. Please clarify.
When I was visiting Harvard one time before undergraduate college applications, my tour guide mentioned something that stuck with me -- that after a round of auditions for the highly selective a capella groups on campus, the students that were passed over for all the existing groups decided to band together and form a new group. And that that group ended up training more seriously and later that year came in first in some a capella competition.

There's a lot of potential value floating around HN.

Perhaps an informal BarCombinator of sorts could be formed?

(incidentally, we made it past this round, but...)

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

No match for "BARCOMBINATOR.COM".

( Let the domain race begin? )
That website proves its point.
My startup, http://www.FuseCal.com (previously discussed at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=146134), scrapes calendar events out of web pages and into your personal calendar. In the general case, we don't know anything about the layout of the page before trying to extract the events, so there's something of a classification problem first.
We've been developing parallel plans so the 'no' just means we take plan B now. We've already got a 4-city tour planned to showcase the app this summer, a promo video with a local new media/technology group, and lots of press planned, among other things. We're still preparing the online 'blogosphere' and podcast marketing strategy too. And we'll probably try to hold off on VC as long as possible anyway, build a profitable business, then talk to them when we have something to show for ourselves.
I got a no as well and my feeling is that the entire process is pointless for an applicant without any feedback. I'm not bitter about being rejected, but going into this I expected at least some amount of commentary, and not 5 hits on my site and a form rejection letter. Maybe I should have tapered my expectations or the website should have been more clear about saying that if we don't pick you, you won't hear anything from us.
If they have... had a question it would show up at the top of the page on this site.
So, anyone got a yes?
The New Economics of Outsourcing
Dilution. But.. maybe!
Humor helps, I figure. My serious answer is that we continue as planned. From the moment we realized we'd have to set 'badness' to 'yes', we made sure we were doing things as we would if we weren't going to be a part of YC.

For us in particular, that does mean looking for opportunities to interest venture capital funds. As our time-to-market(s) decreases, our profit-potential increases correspondingly.

One of the main things we're going to do is get early reactions from potential customers. Letting them know what we're trying to build, and what it would offer them, should be a great way to get good guidance, and possibly even some proof of value we can take to investors.

Other than that, we're building, iterating, and talking. #startups on irc.freenode.net is a great place to find smart people with similar interests, in YC and out. Hope to see you there!
Thanks!

I've thought along those same lines, and I'm hoping to make that an option in the future. Currently I'm not confident that I can track everything well enough to attribute purchases to an individual user. I didn't want to say a user could pick their own charity and then not actually be able to donate the money for them.

As I get traffic I'm hoping to find a way to pull that off.
Haha, brilliant!
The problem is, you need at least one person (someone who has deciding power) to be impressed enough with your pure stubborn flippancy to let you in even after having been rejected.
Previous rejection letters had a bit more detail; hope this helps:

We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally, because most of the proposals we
rejected, we rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the
quality of the applicants. For example, we were very reluctant to
accept proposals with only one founder, because we think starting
a startup is too much work for one person. We also had a higher
threshold for applicants who were still in school, groups where one
or more members planned to keep their current jobs, and groups that
couldn't all move to California. We rejected a lot of proposals simply
because we couldn't understand them, or didn't understand the problem
domain well enough to judge them, or because the project seemed too
big to start on only three months of funding. Sometimes we even
rejected good ideas, because another group proposed the same idea
and seemed further along.
Yeah, exactly. Fake it 'til you make it.
http://dbpedia.org
Kinda, but this is a very different animal.

There are two itches I'm scratching with 3banana.

The first is that I want to keep track of small bits of information and make it easy to retrieve them from any device. Right now I email myself notes, which is clunky. The site has full text search and allows you to label your notes.

The site also automatically labels stuff like Address/Phone Numbers/etc, so you can query it to give you all the Phone Numbers you jotted down in the last week.

The second itch is that sometimes you have an existing note that you want to share. You click one button and the note is shared to Facebook/Twitter/Email/AIM/wherever your social graph is. Your note is now a instant threaded discussion forum.

3banana: your notes are social
http://3banana.com
I think it more has to do with modesty. It would make me feel bad to exclaim how great it was that I got an interview when so many other people are really sad about getting rejected.
I think a good deal of the applications may have to be overlooked (filtered out by app questions) so there might not be any notes, other than something like "doesn't have a co-founder."
I'll be the first to admit it might just be me ;)

I prefer XML and haven't used JSON extensively enough to be proficient with it. If there are pluses to using JSON over XML I'm ignorant to them.
If anyone actually went through with it I'd like their chances. If you have that kind of chutzpah why stop there? Hit up every other VC/Angel in the area and something will stick.
Thanks, that's good to know.
I do think it is your expectations.

I didn't expect more, but it would be nice to have more.

try again next time.
It seems generally imprudent to talk publicly about where you're seeking funding, or who is and isn't funding you prior to to it being a done deal.
In hindsight I probably should have focused a bit more on that aspect in my application. =)
No as well, but frankly I expected it (as my idea really has very little programming in it). For a form letter, the email they sent was pretty well written. I feel more challenged after reading it, and fully plan on making some serious money and turning around and sending them an email of how successful I was, and what exactly they missed out on.

Cheers!

(and congrats to those who were accepted)
Got invited for an interview! :)

This was actually my third time applying to YC. First time I applied (last summer) the application and idea were pretty crappy, so we never came close. We had a slightly better application during the winter round and almost got an interview.

I guess the third time was the charm. This is great news of course, but it only increases your chances - the real test will be at the interview.
Statistics on Friendfeed usage provide interesting insights
“All the best things I did at Apple came from (a) not having money and

(b) not having done it before, ever. Every single thing that we came out with

that was really great, I’d never once done that thing in my life.”

-- Woz
yeah and think of "I got interviewed".... back from the interview. "didn't get accepted..."
What's wrong with YAML?
Freedom of Speech: the long tail of Google
I'm happy some Semantic Web proponents understand that blind crawling won't work. But TimBL disagrees:

> I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers... The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.

The debunking explicitly agrees with Shirky's conclusion, and should have given more serious scrutiny to his premise. The RDF format deals with "triples" precisely to enable inferences ("syllogisms"). Syllogisms are the only thing the SemWeb brings to the table that wasn't there before. If we have to pick sources and massage data by hand as you say, then I'll go with CSV files.
I'm half tempted to register and build theinternetisshit.orgisshit.org (beautiful use of subdomain, don't you think?). Alas, I'm pressed for time.
Sorry, thanks: I should remember to always check for the print version.
thats pretty cool. One project I'm working on is designing a much of tools for algorithmically determining when either a game design or a map for a game is "fair", for various notions of fair.
I'm with you on this one, I get to start swimming again tomorrow.

Huzzah, nothing like a couple of my guy friends doing it alongside me to get me moving.

I seem to have a competitive streak...
http://theburningbiscuit.com/Pictures%20for%20site/Demotivat...

http://theburningbiscuit.com/Pictures%20for%20site/Demotivat...

http://theburningbiscuit.com/Pictures%20for%20site/Demotivat...

http://theburningbiscuit.com/Pictures%20for%20site/Demotivat...

http://theburningbiscuit.com/Pictures%20for%20site/Demotivat...
It would have been incredible to get into the YC program and be able to bounce ideas off of all those brilliant people, but on the positive side I don't have to worry about moving to Boston. I really dig SF =).

So the plan still is make something people want and ship!

How hard can it be?
This just means that I have to do actual 9 to 5ish work while launching this summer, that's all. In the end though, ALL the rewards will be mine, so I'm not too worried about it.
I thought this idea was generally known as "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
what's wrong with the idea you applied with?
Maybe you could set something similar to what ebates.com has done? Each user has an individual login and everytime they go to an affiliate site they are provided with a tracking ticket. It's a really cool system and I've made over a few hundred dollars with them related to business trips for my "real job". If your site ever starts marketing towards fundraising groups, a user could be asked to enter a simple identifier code to tell the system that all proceeds should be directed to XX cause OR the group could be provided their own sign up link which automatically associates the user with XX cause.
Congrats Marty! Just curious - how do you know that you almost got an interview during the winter round?
to be fair. this was the full letter

We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally. The average quality of applications
this cycle was significantly higher than in previous ones, and
because there are physical limits on the number of groups we can
interview, we were forced to turn away a lot of groups who would
have made it to interviews in the past. We hate doing this, and
we're thinking of schemes that might allow us to interview more
groups in the future.

We realize this process is fraught with error. 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.
Anybots is Trevor Blackwell's company.

Wild guess: the parsing barfed at the hyphen in name@la-fem.com and sent it to name@la -- and the email system will fill in the local domain name if you don't use a FQDN. They sent it through anybots.com's mail system so it got filled in as la.anybots.com
Congrats! Good luck with the interview.
Ask YC: Finding a Co-Founder
I've seen a lot of people say that they felt they weren't going to get into YC because they didn't have a co-founder. It seems like a shame that good ideas would go to waste because people don't happen to know anyone else who wants to try a startup.

Does anyone in the YC community have any ideas for helping people to meet co-founders? There are some websites for this purpose, but they don't seem to be working. Maybe if we come up with a solution to our problem (meeting other founders interested in ycombinator) we can then apply to it a more general audience.

Here are some existing co-founder websites:
http://partnerup.com
http://cofoundr.com
http://www.founderlink.com
I thought Campfire was written by 37Signals, not the rails core team.