Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In

Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by jaysonelliot on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:44PM (#17804744)

Mistakes happen, but it should not have taken them over two hours to contact people who'd been celebrating their acceptance.

We got the "you're in!" email, and the whole team was pumped. Having to go back to them hours later to let them down was really hard to do.

The fact that Ycombinator sent the "oops, sorry!" email from a do-not-reply address and basically did nothing to make up for it showed a real lack of respect for the companies that were affected.

Will it make a difference in the long run? Probably not, no one wants to shoot themselves in the foot over what is basically just a disappointment. But it really does lower Ycombinator's brand for a lot of people. Not a great example to set.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by nautical on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:45PM (#17804754)

And worst part is had shared with family and friends .. such a let down ..

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by snowmaker on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:57PM (#17804863)

I really feel terrible about that part in particular.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by torartc on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:58PM (#17804875)

My team and family were already celebrating. It was humiliating to have to email my wife and tell her about the denial email.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by dang on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:21PM (#17805046)

That is painful. I'm so sorry we put you through that.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by kilroy123 on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:09PM (#17804958)

I'm more embarrassed than anything. I put it on Twitter/Facebook.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by mwseibel on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:53PM (#17804828)

I agree - not only should we have not made the error but we should have caught it and fixed it faster. My apologies.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by ModernMech on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:56PM (#17805367)

I think you can use this as a teachable moment for the course. Lesson 10: when a launch goes wrong - the YC Startup School Story

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by torartc on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:48PM (#17804770)

The "do not reply" was particularly upsetting.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by snowmaker on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:11PM (#17804973)

I can totally understand why. It was yet another mistake - we rushed to get the email out and didn't realize it was sent from a no-reply address. You can reach us at [email protected] and you are absolutely welcome to do so.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by depressedfounda on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:00PM (#17804895)

And the “accepted to audit” stings super hard. We were accepted and then rejected. I’m a stoic person but this really hurts. We were on a pathway to earning success with help and now we’re off again on our own in the wilderness.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by dang on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:31PM (#17805152)

You're right. That phrase is lame and in this context is salt in the wound.

People at YC are trying to come up with ways to make this at least partly better. If you have an idea, or anyone else has, this thread would be a good place to post it. Or email the team at [email protected].

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by depressedfounda on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:44PM (#17805235)

Don’t think there’s much that would help short of actual help like startup school provides.

Giving us a chance to shine is what gave us so much hope. For those 90 minutes anyway.

I get that it wasn’t malicious but knowing this doesn’t really change anything for us. Thanks.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by cvaidya1986 on Monday August 20, 2018 @08:32PM (#17805636)

I sent an email on how I can help somewhat fix this.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by torartc on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:06PM (#17804941)

Right. The accepted to audit should have just said "you didn't get in" accepted to audit made it briefly seem like we were still accepted to something.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by yesimeanno on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:51PM (#17804808)

I sent a pretty snarky email. Glad it didn't go through.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by snowmaker on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:58PM (#17804872)

You can email us at [email protected].

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by ds16462n on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @01:40AM (#17807280)

Hi I have sent an email and would really appreciate your feedback on my application.I thought startup school was for people just starting out and need the most help but it doesn't seem like that.Thanks

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by snowmaker on Tuesday August 21, 2018 @01:48AM (#17807305)

Hi! Please see https://blog.ycombinator.com/startup-school-every-company-th... - I think you will be happy with the result!

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by snowmaker on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:49PM (#17804784)

You're right - it took us a while to realize we had made the mistake, and then we responded as fast as we could.

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by RedneckBob on Monday August 20, 2018 @08:04PM (#17805440)

There ain't no do over with email :)

Ran a legit email service for over a decade and at one point we had list with 800k people it, I'd pucker up every time I had to hit "send".

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by jaredsk on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:21PM (#17805044)

what exactly, actually happened?

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Re:Startup School Advisor Track: You Are In by zilongli on Monday August 20, 2018 @06:51PM (#17804813)

Exactly! I replied to the 'apologies' email and only to find out it also came from a no-reply address. Fine.

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