Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants!

Posted by aaroneous on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @09:44PM
from the self-post dept.

As my mouse hovered over the 'submit' button, I felt a little like I had my finger on "the big red button." It was very tense for a few moments. Had we conveyed our ideas the best we could? Was everything proof-read for the 30th time? Could we come off as likable AND smart in under 120 words per question? Was I really that fond of living off Easy Mac again? After running through the mental checklist, I took a big breath in, and gave my trackpad a solid click. (spoiler alert: the submit button changes to a resubmit button).

So, I wanted to wish everyone who is in shoes similar to mine the best of luck on their application, and urge you to press that button and take another positive step towards building something amazing. The mousedown is scarier than the mouseup ;]

( 9 comments | 12 points | on HN )

Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by samwise on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @11:06PM (#65624)

took about 15-20 min to fill out application. would be cool to be accapted but not the end of the word if not. i think many of you rely way too much on YC. If you truly have a good idea and good team you can make work without YC and/or any funding. in any case, good luck

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by aaroneous on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @12:09AM (#65643)

It took me a lot longer than 20 mins to give the sort of concise, well thought out answers that the application asked for. If you were able to do that in such a short amount of time, kudos.

We haven't been holding back on our idea for YC (and I agree, I wouldn't suggest any entrepreneur should wait for YC's acceptance as the green light to start their business).

We started slightly over a year ago, and publicly launched in April (did Techcrunch, GigaOm, Arstechnica, blah blah blah). So there were a few YC funding cycles where we felt we weren't ready, and didn't apply. We feel that now the time IS right for our company and YC would be a great opportunity.

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Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by fleddermaus on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @12:50AM (#65663)

It is the ominous Hal, asking the question, "Are you there Dave? Dave, what are you doing?" The breach into the unknown this is mystifying and satisfying at the same time. May all your future red buttons to that instill confidence.

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Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by german on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @10:04PM (#65590)

You are absolutely right, it may be a big red button!

Good luck.

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Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by kyro on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @01:17AM (#65674)

The most important thing is to take rejection as not so nicely wrapped motivation. Instead of adapting the attitude of 'maybe I should just quit, they don't like my idea,' take your rejection as a challenge to prove them wrong. :P

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Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by ivankirigin on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @10:41PM (#65616)

Good luck all.

For how much people put into these applications, the feedback upon submit and resubmit is notably lacking. Pre-deflation of expectations?

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Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by nostrademons on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @12:06AM (#65641)

It's good practice for when you launch, where, if you're lucky, you'll get to watch your hit count go up. More likely, you'll put all that work into actually building the app and nobody will notice. ;-)

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Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by robmnl on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @10:17PM (#65604)

Thank you, that's nice. All the best back to you, maybe we'll see each other at the interviews.

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Re:Good luck to all Winter '08 Applicants! by nextmoveone on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @10:08PM (#65592)

Thanks, good luck to you too!

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