It depends on the situation. The old title went against the site terms, but also it was just a distraction. What's the point of thumbing your nose at YC for the initial rejection when at the time it had many strikes against it?
Single founder, yes -- that makes it harder to succeed (certainly not impossible, but investment is about risk assessment). But more importantly, notice the step that comes after the YC rejection:
"The rejection email came on November 2nd, and I got the app into the store a week later.
"At that point, it was pretty clear the app wasn't ready for prime time, so I worked on it and racked my brain for a viable near-term business model and marketing strategy."
Once he'd finally hit on the successful approach, it was too late for the YC cycle. If he'd gotten through the brain-wracking phase earlier in the year, maybe YC would have selected him in spite of the single-founder risk.
"My idea development process didn't align with the YC application cycle but now I'm racking in 100K/month in revenue" is more accurate, but doesn't have much of a ring to it. So why not just focus on the success story? It's a good one.
Single founder, yes -- that makes it harder to succeed (certainly not impossible, but investment is about risk assessment). But more importantly, notice the step that comes after the YC rejection:
"The rejection email came on November 2nd, and I got the app into the store a week later.
"At that point, it was pretty clear the app wasn't ready for prime time, so I worked on it and racked my brain for a viable near-term business model and marketing strategy."
Once he'd finally hit on the successful approach, it was too late for the YC cycle. If he'd gotten through the brain-wracking phase earlier in the year, maybe YC would have selected him in spite of the single-founder risk.
"My idea development process didn't align with the YC application cycle but now I'm racking in 100K/month in revenue" is more accurate, but doesn't have much of a ring to it. So why not just focus on the success story? It's a good one.