Tales from the trenches: our Y Combinator Interview Experience
tomaitch.com
tomaitch.com
If you care so much for third party approval from PG and folks (not that they are not nice/smart ppl) but then just go to a B-school dude and get that nice degree which will surrogate for your competencies in the real world.
BillG didnt need no YC, neither did Google guys and neither did the ipod god - infact even PG didnt need no YC, so please stop this gushing/blogging over your yc interviews as if they are like the biggest thing to happen to your entrepreneurial careers. Its beginning to sound almost like a b-school interview and I wudnt be surprised if YC starts attracting the entrepreneur wannabes for the 'stamp' that they missed from going to a b-school.
We were very lucky to have Julian, and we would have been even better off with YC, which is a superset. In addition to all the above, you get other startups as colleagues, and startup-specific advice.
I am not saying YC is bad - far from it - I am myself a big fan.
The only thing I was pointing out was that the YC interview rejection/acceptance should ideally have only as much importance as being rejected/accepted from probably another angel investor - which happens more often than not in the startup world and consequently should not be given a lot of importance.
The entrepreneurs who are in the trenches shouldnt really care as much about a rejection or two - its no big deal and even an acceptance might not be a big deal - but if you build something that people want and have something to show for it then feel free to jump over the moon.
Success in the flights industry can be lucrative but if you don't hit a home run you get zip. Solution: impress some knowledgeable, connected people who will be determined to help you if they like you. These guys passed, maybe they have reason to be happy.
Where did I say that? My point was that we were lucky to get a subset of YC.
If you live in the USA and have ways of working yourself into Silicon Valley or some other startup culture, or have some other kind of access to seed funding and mentorship, then you don't need YC to succeed.
For us here in Melbourne, it was much harder. There's a few successful tech entrepreneurs from the 80s and 90s but they don't really get the web. And the angel and VC communities are tiny and unsophisticated.
Sure we could have backed ourselves, left our Melbourne lives behind and headed for Silicon Valley in the hope of finding a way to make things work. And had there not been any other option, perhaps we might have tried that, although at our age, probably not.
YC allowed us to fast-track the whole process. In the space of 5 months we went from just another unknown little startup from Melbourne to demoing our product to some of the world's most astute tech investors and being acclaimed by fellow startup founders and high-profile Valley identities alike.
That's not to say we've succeeded... we have a huge task ahead of us. But YC has helped us do in a few short months what might have taken us years any other way.
With what we know now, we realise we possibly could have come to Silicon Valley and successfully launched our startup without YC-backing, although it still would have taken much longer.
But we didn't know anyone who could introduce us into the culture, and we had no way of knowing how much potential we had and how reasonable it was to believe we could succeed. We weren't even convinced that our idea was a good one until YC backed it.
So I guess, if you're already confident, you don't need YC.
If you have a good idea, just do it. Doesn't really matter where you are if you have the determination to succeed.
On a funny note: We just had TechCrunch party here in Prague over the weekend, and it was like an AA meeting. No investors, just startups pitching to themselves and consoling themselves. When you're starting you take all the help you can get. So don't tell me about it doesn't matter where you are -- it matters.
Eterno said "do real entrepreneurs need to be less excited about this YC interview thingy." and "please stop this gushing/blogging over your yc interviews". I think his ire was targeted at the "gush" factor vs the more rational question of whether a YC acceptance would be useful (I imagine it would be).
I have some sympathy for this view point. The blog entry certainly seemed to have an element of "gush" to it, along the lines of a Biz school admission process. That said, hey if two entrepreneurs find every detail of the YC interview process worth gushing about, what is our problem? :-).
If i were ever to apply to YC (and I probably will once I come (back) to the United States), my reading is that except for the actual presentation preparation most of the other thinking should have been done while a startup is being conceived of , well before YC acceptance becomes a factor.
"How will you distinguish yourself from your competition" for example is (I would think) an obvious question entrepreneurs have to answer well before a YC interview. Preparation for the YC interview would more or less be just be figuring out what to fit into the 10 minutes I get. It should take about an hour or so I imagine.
I didn't quite get the ecstasy/depression/all-consuming preparation vibe in, for example, "We walked back towards downtown Mountain View, talking a little but not making much sense, as the intensity of the experience dissipated. As my composure returned," This sounds like someone coming down from a drug high!
In my (undoubtedly too cold blooded for some) view, PG, Trevor, Jessica etc are just very talented, nice, well connected people, not demi-gods to be worshiped or placed on a pedestal to the degree where their approval (perhaps in the form of a YC acceptance) invokes some kind of mind fogging ecstasy and their disapproval a corresponding level of disappointment, which is a bit of the vibe I got from the post.
So I understand what the OP meant by (paraphrasing) "you are entrepreneurs. Don't gush!", but hey it is your blog write what you want! :-)
The fact that YC exists now, and the fact that it gets the attention it does make the YC brand a great one to be associated with if you are looking for investment.
The founders you mentioned didn't need YC, but if they were doing it again today, are you saying they wouldn't derive any benefit from applying to YC?
Also, blogging about a YC interview may be a way to get alternate funding back home. For instance, I got a job interview (in Toronto, Canada) in the mid nineties in part because I had interviewed at Microsoft, in Seattle. I didn't get the Microsoft job.
YC is in the business of creating entrepreneurs, which I'd expect most people here would agree is a noble (and profitable) cause. You don't have to read the interview writeups if you don't want to. :)
In reading through most of the YC-funding companies, it seems they cater not only to Web-type startups, but also very young (on average) founders.
If you've been doing startups for a while, you don't need YC. If you're new to the whole starting/operating a business and raising money, it would seem to be a very valuable relationship. I learned most of the lessons that YC-funded founders will learn along the way. But I did it on my own, and at a cost of about $500K of my personal money when I was in my 20's. I would have gladly given up a few % for the money, and most importantly the advice and experience.
Brilliant! Congratulations on your successful first step!
On that note though - congrats guys - always great to see some Melbournians doing great stuff on here.
But we did it on the cheap, and you're in the ballpark with the cost. YC reimbursed us USD $700 like everyone else.
Yep it was a big punt, but totally worth it.
I have this experience all the time (not just in this sort of situation). Thanks for telling us about it!
If it's a hardware gadget, can you produce renders of the device and mockups of the UI? How have you been able to convince others so far?
IMHO, a good demo can help you sell. You're selling your team. What can you do to help yourself convince investors that you are smart and can execute?