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Comment by ianbutler | Hacker News Reader

This is good advice. I've interviewed with YC 3 times. I practiced rapid fire questions about my then business from multiple angles with multiple different people.

It's a 10 minute conversation, the first two times it was worth 150k and the last time was worth 500k. (Not counting the intangibles and immense benefit to later stages of the business)

Not practicing would have been a mistake.

Anticipating the types of questions we were going to be asked and prepping in a series of mock interviews with a few different YC founders who have also experienced the interview help to make the answers reflexive and such that we could steer the conversation to our strengths.

We didn't get in, but it wasn't our ability to talk about the business that did us in, based on our feedback.

Practicing for high stakes one offs helps you keep things tight and see weak spots before actually having to do the thing.

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> the first two times it was worth 150k and the last time was worth 500k

> We didn't get in

How was your interview prep worth money if you failed anyway?

i think it means that the business deal would have brought in that amount of money if successful, not that he paid it for training. it was worth training because of all the money he could have received.

> could have received.

But he didn't

If I somehow had the opportunity to do one of those things where you get one attempt at making a three-pointer for a million dollar prize, then I'd be well served by shooting a few over the week leading up to the event. I'm still unlikely to make the shot on the day but the expected value of the time spent on those practise shots is still definitely going to be worth it

But would you practice tying your shoes instead of shooting the shot?

Poster said they they failed for reasons other than their Q&A. Maybe they should have spent less practice on window dressing and more on substance. We don't know.

I assume that meant VC didn't think their idea was lucrative enough, despite loving their pitch.

Having had this shot at a sold out college game (for a more modest $500), it's weird playing under those very bright lights, against a glass backboard and the people filled stands behind it. Hard to practice that.

Thank goodness it wasn't for $1million.

If someone later described that prep, after failing the shot, as having been worth any amount of money, I do think that would be pretty weird, even if technically there might be some (difficult!) way of valuing it at some fraction of the $1m, according to whatever percent-likelihood chance improvement the pep afforded.

Sorry, the prep isnt worth money, the 10 minute conversation if successful was worth those amounts

> How was your interview prep worth money if you failed anyway?

You can learn a lot from failure, and from the conversations and practice runs leading to the interviews.

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