| I have to digress a bit initially to answer this... I think one of the most frustrating things for inexperienced founders is not understanding why investors say no, because founders believe so strongly in their vision it is hard for them to understand why someone might not be persuaded by their pitch and investors just want to make more money, right? But ultimately the decision to invest, at least at the seed stage, is largely emotional. It's a question of feeling good about the team, the idea, and believing it will gain traction. Nobody has product-market fit at this point, so you have to use incredibly limited information to make a decision. YC excels at this stage. They only have 10 minutes of face time to make a decision, so they're using that time to try to evaluate you and your company as quickly as possible. There is no magic rubrik for this decision, they just try to assess the founders and their idea and whether or not they think it will work. When I say they're meritocratic, I don't mean there is some single metric you can use to compare all companies to make a perfectly rational decision. What I mean is they evaluate everyone based on that 10 minute conversation, not on their pedigree. FWIW, I applied to YC and was accepted without knowing anybody. Maybe I just like to believe the process is meritocratic and I'm special. |