I'll throw my "rejected from YC" story into the ring: my co-founders and I applied to the S12 batch. We were fortunate to get as far as the interview phase, only to receive a very kind rejecting email from Garry Tan that evening. His basic criticism was: "you guys aren't serious about this idea" (we hadn't yet quit our day jobs).
So we quit. We spent the summer building Meldium, reapplied for W13, and were accepted - and it was an amazing boost to our company. As a founder, you're going to get rejected a lot - use it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
So we quit. We spent the summer building Meldium, reapplied for W13, and were accepted - and it was an amazing boost to our company. As a founder, you're going to get rejected a lot - use it as an opportunity to learn and grow.