I spent months polishing my pitch deck, filling out applications, rehearsing my pitch and still got rejected by every accelerator I applied to. For a while, I thought it meant my idea was trash and I need to stop thinking about business for a while and focus on my job career. But after talking to a few founders, I realized that the system isn't against me or broken, its just narrow as the accelerators can mentor only a certain number of startups. The rest of us (97%) aren't necessarily bad ideas, we are just unpicked. Being unpicked does something strange to you as a founder as you start to question everything, including your idea, your worth, your timing. But in hindsight, those rejections became a filter. It forced me to get sharper, clearer, and more self-directed. If a door closes, another always open up. Because if you are building something great and you feel like it is your calling, but the world keeps saying "no", it just means you have to find a different door. I am curious to know if anyone else here been rejected by the prestigious accelerators and kept going anyway? What did you do next?