We applied a few years ago. I won’t lie, I was sad and disappointed we didn’t get in, but even more so because our application was just ignored. Left a very bad taste in our mouths.
I won’t again spend days on an application to have it be ignored. Since then, we have been grinding away at the same business and it’s now making 7 figures, giving us the perfect life of a 20% YoY growth business with no VCs breathing down our necks trying to 10x that growth rate. Not taking VC money was the best thing we ever did, albeit inadvertently.
So sure, you won’t get in (statistically), but it could be the best thing you ever don’t do!
I spent most of the last 20 years in bootstrapped companies, helping grow two of them into 8 figures (which, when you don't have a board, is pretty neat). Bootstrapping is where my heart is, and almost all of the best memories of my career are from times when those kinds of companies were at the knife's edge of maybe having some kind of market fit and maybe just starting to have an identity and maybe just getting up on their legs. If that's your happy place --- again: it is mine! --- probably don't apply to YC.
I'm at a company now (Fly.io, W20) that simply would not make sense without funding (we rack hardware all over the world). I've advised close friends through other startups that might could have worked without funding, but worked better with it. I've seen the before/after on YC, years into the life of some companies (Fly.io started in 2016) and the win was significant.
It depends on what you're trying to do.
But like, pretty obviously, the point Dan is trying to make here is that there are lots of people negotiating against themselves, talking themselves out of taking the swing. And I'm not all that great at business or whatever, but one thing I think I've learned is that overriding the instinct not to take swings, succumbing to the urge to avoid potential nociception, it's a pretty important tool in the toolbox of entrepreneurship.
There are good reasons not to apply to YC, but "they will probably reject me" is maybe not one of them, unless your time is very scarce, in which case you probably already know why you're not applying to YC.
The only way that would happen is a bug. YC always responds to applicants. Rejections usually aren't personalized because that can't scale—but not hearing back at all should never happen. If you want me to look into what might have happened there, I'd be willing to try if you email hn@ycombinator.com.
We applied a few years ago. I won’t lie, I was sad and disappointed we didn’t get in, but even more so because our application was just ignored. Left a very bad taste in our mouths.
I won’t again spend days on an application to have it be ignored. Since then, we have been grinding away at the same business and it’s now making 7 figures, giving us the perfect life of a 20% YoY growth business with no VCs breathing down our necks trying to 10x that growth rate. Not taking VC money was the best thing we ever did, albeit inadvertently.
So sure, you won’t get in (statistically), but it could be the best thing you ever don’t do!