Eleven YC Rejections. A Yes at 350kph.

The difference between rejection and acceptance wasn’t a bigger vision. It was a smaller, working demo and a clear plan.

I almost didn’t apply again.

I’ve spent my career making physical products. I worked on the Apple Vision Pro, I invented a robotic basketball trainer for Hoopfit, and I created analog tools at Noble Crafters. But every time I applied to YC, I heard back “no.”

Eleven YC rejections felt like enough. Besides, I had recently started a job at Amazon, where I liked the people and the work. And I had already learned a lot about businesses by starting them (and failing many times). My guiding principle is to live a life worth living. I had that, YC or no.

So when I filed application #12 for Blue, a voice assistant that can use any app on your iPhone, I had already let go of getting in because I didn’t think YC would accept me. We filed mere hours before the deadline. And then I kind of forgot about the application. I was building regardless.

The next few weeks were chaotic. My wife had surgery, my grandmother passed away, and I had a factory visit to Asia I couldn’t put off. Of course, that’s when we got the interview request.

Still smelling of flux and sweat after fourteen hours on a Shenzhen assembly line and then a midnight flight, I reached my Beijing hotel 10 minutes before the scheduled YC interview at 1:45 a.m. A few hours later, at 7 a.m. on a bullet train moving at 350 kph, I got the call that we were finally in.

Getting the "yes" after so many tries was almost anticlimactic. Life didn’t change on the train. My chaotic few months, filled with family tragedy and professional milestones like getting a TED talk and partnering with the Dubai police, meant I had stopped worrying about big events that would make my life meaningful and instead enjoyed any that came my way. These “smaller” events made it a life worth living. Getting into YC was just one step, not the entire staircase.

Ironically, I think it’s exactly that kind of non-attachment that helped me finally get in with number twelve. Here’s what felt different:

Not waiting for YC validation. Instead of relying on YC to give my idea validation, I found ways to validate the business myself. When we interviewed, the answers came from real experience, not slides. I was in Beijing, mid-build, showing I knew firsthand how to create the thing.

Evidence over intention. I did not list plans. I showed what had shipped, what was in flight, and which constraints we had already hit.

Momentum over polish. I accepted that the first version could be rough. The point was steady progress and a tight loop. That felt more honest and made the interview conversation easier.

Ownership and help. I stopped trying to do every function alone. I proved the concept with 3D prints, Arduinos, breadboards, and a soldering iron. Many parts did not work. I found a manufacturing partner to close electrical and layout gaps. I kept writing firmware on the rough prototype while they cleaned the board. I brought in industrial design so it felt right in a pocket and in the hand. Delegating did not dilute the work. It accelerated it.

Clear trade-offs. I wrote down what we cut, what we kept, and why. Power, heat, tolerances, latency, packaging, safety. Naming limits invited better questions in the interview.

The point is that what I did before the interview helped us answer the interview questions. That might sound obvious, but you can get caught up in creating the perfect application for YC and miss out on learnings that only come through executing on an actual product.

That realization, I believe, helped me get into YC on the final try. But it also gave me peace of mind. My rule for decisions has become simple: If it makes my time here more meaningful and helps the people around me, do it. So even if that 12th application had been another rejection, building something was still an easy decision.