If they got in YC, then sure: The network and possibly external SEO companies and designers will help them.

I find this discussion somewhat tiring. It seems that people want to talk about age discrimination, about like-ability, about luck, about SEO being a dirty thing, about 10 minutes being too short for an interview, about outsiders not making it in, about Yelp not being a competitor to online service directories etc.

If they asked: where do you see yourself in 5 years? What is your long-term strategy to entrench yourself in the rankings? And did not receive a satisfying or believable answer, then no amount of help and teaching will suffice. Else YC could better buy that company, outsource some SEO and design and do it themselves. Then they don't have to do it by proxy with 2-year-old founders.

Crude: It does not matter what the point of YC is. The people at YC decide that, not us. What YC does with companies they accept has no bearing on what YC does not do with companies they rejected.

The reason for rejection does not make sense to you (and probably to Yogatrail, because they do not focus on the feedback). It probably made sense to YC, else why take such a decision? Again crude: Why is it relevant that you can not find reason in the rejection?

>unless one is to believe that nobody can ever build a successful specialized directory because Yelp ...

This is not the reason. The reason was that the company was unable to make YC believe that they had a solid marketing strategy and knew what they were doing, now and in the future. Then it does not even matter if they have the best strategies in the world, the take-away is that they failed to convey these strategies. What is more likely: That YC failed to understand what it takes to build a successful online business? Or that these founders kinda flunked the interview?

You have to be aware of Yelp if you are doing this. You have to discuss where you differ and what your plan is to take over their Yoga-services niche. After the latest search engine updates, thin content directories suffer. You have to be aware of this and make others believe you have the strategy to insert more quality content into your sites, to save that channel, and to open up other channels, so one channel can not break your entire business. Educate yourself, especially if you are an online business. Like design, not everyone is naturally good at it, but it helps to familiarize yourself.

>Did YC invite them because they were somehow going to be the New Yelp

At least a similar potential. If Yelp is totally unrelated, then you should be able to convince them of this. But IMO Yelp is not unrelated to an online services directory. Yelp has unique problems like Google taking their traffic with their own rating system, and they adapted well. If Yogatrail will face similar problems in the future, no one can tell, but if I were to invest money into a company, I'd want to know they have a strategy ready for when this happens, that they are aware that this can happen, that they know the webmaster quality guidelines and don't make million dollar SEO blunders. You can't really help and teach preparedness like this. Help and teach yourself: convince YC you know your stuff. You can't change it if YC does not get it. What you can change is your pitch: You did not get YC to get it.