How We Got into Y Combinator
There's a lot of great material in this post, but as a recent YC alum myself, I have a number of problems with it.<p>1) "If you’re writing your Y Comb application and it takes you less than a month of work, you’re not trying hard enough."<p>No. You should not be spending that much effort on your application to YC -- or any accelerator. Should you have a few people read it over? Yes. Should you spellcheck? Yes. But not much more than that. Focus on building your product and building your business.<p>2) "no one’s video is under a minute."<p>Ours was. 50 seconds, to be exact.<p>3) "But my point is, if your company and team is solid, than you will get in."<p>This is the most dangerous statement in the post. This is simply not the case. Every successful entrepreneur was told "no" and turned down time and time again on their path to greatness. Facebook got "no's" from VCs. Airbnb's founders were told they were crazy. Many people outright laughed at Elon Musk's dream to build rocket ships. SendGrid was rejected from YC. If you believe in your team, and you believe in your idea, trek on. The YC partners are some of the smartest people I've ever met, but they're not infallible.<p>YC has been absolutely amazing for my team and my company, and we're very grateful for having gone through the program. But we likely wouldn't have been accepted and wouldn't have benefitted so much from the program if we weren't focused intensely on what matters -- building our product, talking to our customers, and staying healthy. Apply, hope you get in, but if you don't, carry on.