Eleven YC Rejections. A Yes at 350kph

Still smelling of flux and sweat after fourteen hours on the assembly line, I rushed to the airport. I had to get from Shenzhen to Beijing in time for our YC interview at 1:45 a.m. that same day. I reached the Beijing hotel at 1:35 a.m.

When I reached my room, I opened the laptop and saw the problem: the VPN was off, no link, no way to reach my team. Scrambling, I restarted my phone, enabled the VPN, and joined the Zoom moments before the partners appeared.

“Thanks for taking the call at such an odd time,” Tyler said. Odd was one word for it.

A few hours later, at 7 a.m. on a bullet train moving at 350 kph, Omar called, “We made it.”

That was application number twelve.

I’ve spent my career making physical products. I worked on the Apple Vision Pro, a robotic basketball trainer for Hoopfit, and analog tools at Noble Crafters. Most recently, a brief but meaningful stop at Amazon. Over those years, I continued to apply to YC, and I kept hearing ‘no.’ The tenth application was for a children’s bionics company that still matters to me. The eleventh was a rushed co-application that became Blue; we filed hours before the deadline. And then life arrived at once: a death in the family, travel for my wife’s surgery, and a factory visit in Asia that couldn’t wait.

The eleventh rejection landed in the middle of all that.

So, how did I finally get in with number twelve? It was showing up in person before the interview, showing a demo to Tyler, our YC partner, and earning us the shot. The interview went well. The answers came from real experience, not slides. I was in Beijing, mid-build, showing I knew firsthand how to build. We knew what we were making, how it worked, and how we would ship it.

Blue is simple to describe and hard to fake: a voice assistant that can use any app on your phone. Our tiny USB-C device, Bud, gives Blue “hands,” so it can tap, swipe, and type through iOS Accessibility/HID. It doesn’t need app integrations. In practice, that means I can say, “Compare these two flights, text the best to John, then buy,” and watch it happen across apps while my hands stay free. We created Bud to hide under the phone. It allows pass-through charging and CarPlay to work too, so you can leave it attached and forget about it. Our idea was simple, straightforward, and had a clear use case.

The interview questions were direct: What are you building? How does it work? Why wouldn’t Apple do this? How will you build hardware on time? We answered with sincerity and humility. My partners were building the software, while I was building the hardware. My connections and partnerships in Asia were in place, and I had a well-defined plan to execute mass production.

Getting the “Yes” after so many tries wasn’t dramatic. Life didn’t change on the train. Acceptance wasn’t the point. It was another step in a life I already found meaningful. That season, I said goodbye to my grandmother. I visited new factories, worked with the Dubai Police on an event, and committed to a TED talk. I suppose I 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.

I think the difference between the earlier rejections and number twelve wasn’t a bigger vision. It was a smaller demo that worked and a clear plan. What we had to offer would make it impossible to say no. We kept that approach after the interview. In 55 days, we built 100 working units and put them in people’s hands. We simplified instead of decorating: one board, one enclosure, one reliable software path. We had more complex solutions, like a battery-powered, Bluetooth concept. We paused this because it added unknowns we didn’t need. Reliability first. Universality first. Our partners even hand-carried the hundred units to avoid delays, ensuring they would be available when needed. We sold the first hundred within hours, and nearly another hundred bought the second batch over the course of several days. We’re working toward about 500 units by November 2025.

I almost didn’t apply again. Eleven felt like enough. I also hesitated to leave Amazon so soon; I liked the people and the work. In both cases, I chose the path that would teach me more. YC or not, the work continues.

My rule for decisions is simple: live a life worth sharing and worth writing about. If a choice makes my time here more meaningful and helps the people around me, it becomes an easy choice.

For me, the answer is to build, then build again.