How You Know Whether You Got Accepted Into Y Combinator or Not
If you're a founder or employee at a startup you may have heard of Y Combinator. It's one of the well-nigh sought-after Silicon Valley accelerators that's harder to go into than Harvard and a consummate game-changer for startups. Depending on your source, the Y Combinator acceptance rate is between ane.5% to iii%.
There is no formula for getting into YC. Every founding team'south story is different to ours, which makes for a diverse group of companies. Each yr batches have more than international founders, P.O.C and underrepresented minorities too. This is our YC awarding journeying. I hope reading this encourages you to apply.
What happens earlier applying to YC?
Rebank'due south first git commit was back in Jan 2018. At the fourth dimension Simon, my co-founder, had decided to leave his part at a fledgling tech incubator in London and I was halfway through my MBA. We started working on our FCA Sandbox tests whilst developing the MVP for rebank - we had no money and a launch date felt like an eternity away.
Equally weeks passed we learned about the sway external validation had with pilot customers. Nosotros started wondering whether fundraising or getting into a startup incubator would be a useful external validator. I started doing some inquiry and we decided to utilize to a few accelerators as we were also early on to fundraise.
Facing (a lot of) rejection
We had heard that accelerators were something that startups get through. We never thought we'd go into one though as we were too early-stage to be accepted (or so nosotros thought). The companies that accelerators talked about seemed so impressive to us but we did our best not to compare ourselves to them.
We applied to EVERY possible accelerator and faced rejection after rejection. With each interview and failed application the way we described rebank evolved. We always asked for feedback, and would actually receive information technology sometimes. Every rejection taught us something.
The only accelerator program left was Y Combinator. We felt we were too early but had naught to lose at this stage.
On applying to YC
Past now I had applied to about a dozen accelerators so I had a workflow. I started by devouring hours of partner interviews on YouTube, memorizing the YC website, and reading articles from Y Combinator alum. We were nonetheless working on our MVP and almost had our payment licenses (As a Fintech, you tin can't operate until y'all have this), everything would come together in the 11th hour if we worked hard enough, or so we thought. Nosotros submitted the Y Combinator awarding and waited. One morning time in Apr 2018 - 3 months after nosotros started working on rebank - nosotros received an email from YC.
Nosotros were ecstatic (I may have screamed into a pillow) about going to Mountain View and meeting the partners. We contacted the only YC founder we knew to acquire well-nigh the Y Combinator interview procedure and practised every day with friends. Recording each session allowed us to play it back and examine our answers.
Nosotros were feeling confident when we landed and spent time planning our pitch and getting to know Mountain View (it's tiny). We timed our walk down to 335 Pioneer Way - I wanted to leave nothing to hazard.
There'south not much to think about the morning time of your interview. Waiting in the main hall with other founders was daunting. Tired and worried founders lined the halls, some of them wanted to be left alone whilst others were extremely chatty - everyone dealing with nerves in their own mode. We worked out who the partners would be in our interview and waited.
The YC interview
When we were called we made our way to the interview room and so greeted each partner, earlier nosotros could sit down down the questions started. You lot spend ten minutes in a room with 3 - v partners who ask a lot of questions very quickly. Your job is to answer questions concisely and become at least one partner to say yeah.
Afterward seven minutes, the door is opened to signal that it's time to wrap up. A few moments afterwards, the partners give thanks y'all for your time and that's information technology. Weeks of training for a 10-minute interrogation.
We let time laissez passer (very slowly) with a few Icelandic founders and just waited for YC to contact us. About 8hrs afterwards the interview, we receive an email
We didn't go in 😢. The rejection email explained why, which is something partners do for all companies they interview. Information technology was difficult to admit to ourselves that we had been rejected yet again and a lot of feelings happened on the journey back habitation; we were so close to changing the trajectory of our company but we failed.
YC applications are hard... just it wasn't the end of the road.
That's all for part i. In part 2, I'll go into how we bounced dorsum from our rejection and got a second YC interview!
Source: https://www.rebanknow.com/post/how-we-got-into-y-combinator
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