Tailgating YC

I should know better than to make jokes that align with people's existing fears.

Once we funded someone who reminded me of Zuckerberg, and even then it was far from the only reason. And the fact that the YC partners have taunted me about it ever since shows that if anything we're probably extra skeptical about Zuckomorphs.

I realize it's possible to be unconsciously influenced by applicants' appearance and manner, but can anyone at this point believe we're not aware of that danger, and simply pick people based on matching some crude archetype? That we could remain that naively incompetent after 16 cycles of picking founders and then watching how they do?

An excellent read. Life is rejection. I loved the symmetry between the co-founders' mutual rejection when they first met and then finally their company's rejection at YC.

Cultural matches are important and they drive more decisions than we're all comfortable with. The truth is, we often like to hire, promote, or buy from people who fit a certain stereotype. It's essentially a cargo cult around what successful startup people are expected to look like, and the most uncomfortable thought arising from that is not the number of founders who "wrongly" received funding, but the number of hopefuls who never got the chance.

However, taking the time to really get to know and appreciate a startup person is not something that can reasonably happen a lot when you're in contact with customers, the press, or even your own employees - so the (bad) impression a team makes while interviewing for an incubator or fund raising does tends to follow them around.

People can and do change their appearance to match other people's expectations - and it's a proven, working method of upping your chances. Learning how to interact better with others, while certainly painful, also helps and is more often than not necessary to become successful.

We're often distracted by the Zuckerbergs or Jobs' who are abrasive and embody their own don't-care-for-anything style, but the ugly truth is that those guys got so unbelievably lucky that they never needed to actually work on themselves.

I'm mbellotti's cofounder at Exversion. For me, the main takeaway of her post is just how different the YC interview experience can appear even to members of the same team. As the other female on the team, I've always found my chromosomal makeup to be a huge advantage rather than a disadvantage (especially after establishing some level of technical competence). Despite my own belief in merit over affirmative action, it's one of the biggest tools in my toolkit, frankly. Where males have nepotism, we have novelty and the promise of good PR. I would even go so far as to say it may give us a net advantage over all-male teams.

I digress. My own view of the YC interview is such, taking into account the magic of hindsight: that we shouldn't have depended on PB and our interviewers to drive the conversation toward market size. We should have anticipated the concern on our own and brought it up as it's something we're already used to having to defend. Should've, could've, would've -- who knows if that would've mattered, but it's my best guess. Then again, we also spent our 10 minutes successfully selling them on our team and execution abilities, which we evidently did very well based on the feedback we got in our rejection email. In fact, I don't think our interview could have gone much better than it did and I still feel overwhelmingly positive about it. Contrary to Marianne, perhaps, I feel pretty viscerally that we sell our team better than we sell our product/market fit at the moment. And with the caliber of applications YC sees these days that include companies with crazy good traction, we can't properly apply the YC priorities of yore ("great team, not much else yet? You're in!") to our interview and extrapolate that it was our demographics that didn't get us in. As Marianne's (mbellotti's) experience shows, it is certainly something to consider, but it is just one of dozens of possibilities. It's also worth considering that demographics may have helped rather than hindered us in getting the interview in the first place.

This was a very interesting read and I hope that she continues blogging about her startup journey. Having interviewed the team, I have my own expectations for how it will play out, so I would love to see how that matches with reality.

However, it definitely isn't the case though that we're just looking for a bunch of Zuck clones. In this business, we make all of our money off a small number of outliers, and my assumption is that outliers are likely to be outliers in a number of ways. For example, Brian Chesky was a bodybuilder who graduated from Rhode Island School of Design. If anything, I'm more likely to take a chance on an unconventional team.

Also, a word of advice, if people are consistently getting the "wrong impression" about you, then perhaps you should work on hacking their perception. To build a big business, you're going to need to sell yourself to potential employees, customers, investors, etc.

Always interesting to see how people process their YC experience, it says a lot about where the author's head is.

Any selection process has biases, some intrinsic, some extrinsic. But unless the process is very loosely tuned, such selections are rarely driven by those biases, When I started at Sun the 'top' of the engineering ladder was the title 'Distinguished Engineer' and I wanted to be one, and so to know what it took to be promoted to that role. Some of the best advice I got was that, that was the wrong question. The question was simply whether or not I was a Distinguished Engineer.

The subtle difference in phrasing aligns with whether or not the organization recognizes Distinguished Engineers or appoints Distinguished Engineers. Sun was very much the former and not the latter. It changed my whole perspective from trying to do something which got me promoted, to doing stuff that I was proud of, with the understanding that if that was something Sun considered worthy they would promote me, if not it didn't matter. I know, hard to believe it wouldn't matter but the place you have to be is you're true to your path and in some groups that will be recognized as awesome and in other groups it won't, but that is the group's problem, not your problem.

So in the YC selection process, perhaps it is more about recognizing teams that are building YC companies, than it is picking teams to be YC companies. I've never sat in on the discussion so I can't say but from what I've seen of the demo day presentations there is certainly some homogeneity in the "vibe" these companies give off.

I think YC has reached a point where anything PG says is likely to be interpreted in the worst possible light.

That's unfortunate, because YC really doesn't have a type. I don't think there was a single Zuckerberg clone in our batch[1], a large portion of the batch had a foreign accent (me included), there were several awesome women led teams (Shoptiques, HireArt, TheDailyMuse, 99Dresses...) and we all got in.

As I told a friend somewhat indelicately recently, the best attitude to have post YC-rejection is "Screw YC, we are going to go gangbusters on this anyway". Ironically, this makes you more likely to get in the the next time, should you choose to apply. If not, you still win. Mbellotti clearly got that part right with this: "Everything I have ever achieved in life has started with a panel rejecting me, YC was just another notch." So godspeed to her!

[1] The closest may have been Jason Freedman, and he looks nothing like Zuckerberg http://42floors.com/team

"It’s no secret that YC tends to invest in a certain type” That's simply not true. If anything, what I have found is an incredible variety of backgrounds. In the latest batch you could find from teenagers to people in their forties. From former national kickboxing champions to people who could use some gym time. From really charming extroverts to people who were more on the shy side. Everybody was incredibly talented and passionate, though, and that was what everyone I met had in common. Being rejected by YC is not the end of the world (and you can always reapply the next cycle if you still want to do it) but I would not blame it on not fitting an imaginary "type"

Hi all, Jacek here, and third founder of Exversion. Considering that this post has garnered a bit of attention, I figured I might as well chime in.

First let me say that I found mbellotti's post absolutely wonderful, and find that it serves as an example to the type of team we have become in a very short period of time.

We as humans, all have pre-conceived notions of one another whether they be based on appearance, mannerism, figure of speech, etc. For some of us, these first impressions become much more deeply rooted than for others, and I, at least personally, believe them to be a hinderance in getting to understand people.

Social relationships aside, this knowledge of, and understanding of one another is an absolutely pivotal part of any team as it leads to better communication, and more importantly builds trust, and friendship.

But excellence in teams is also derived from hardship. Mbellotti, in her post mentions that we took the RV to save money, which is true, however, as we started this project on a bus, under somewhat strenuous conditions we noticed that much like a hazing of sorts, the experience brought us, much closer together. Would the discomfort of an RV do the same, I dare say it has.

I don't mean to sound trite by saying this, but team really is everything. How often do you see a team fall apart because of squabbles over who's going to be CEO of a 3 person company, or an argument over the hue of blue that's served as a background.

To me the post was more about this anything, the trust, and belief in one another, and the internal knowledge that we can and will make it regardless of obstacles, because (excuse the mush) we actually do have one another to rely on.

As for the YC interview and later rejection, yes it was disappointing as all rejections are, and as a self confessed PR junkie it would have made that as well as fundraising all the much easier, but it was a great experience nonetheless, as was meeting the brilliant people who interviewed along side us, and whose relationships I would like to continue and nurture, because they really are great people.

With that, I highly urge anyone in a startup to get an RV and go a bouts the bay area or NE corridor in it, is a killer experience, leads to some absolutely brilliant stories and elevates the concept of "The "Mobile" Startup" to whole other level. #hackingWhileMoving.

Wow! One of the best self-aware posts I've read in a long time. Looking forward to reading more and following the progress of Exversion (which sounds like an awesome idea, btw).

I'd like to hear about the 'system' that allows you to win at slot machines. That sounds unlikely or perhaps just a martingale[1] applied to slots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(probability_theory)

I can't accept the one off 'hacking the slot machines' comment.

>> It’s how the human mind is designed to operate: looking for connections when there’s not enough evidence to support a connection, jumping to conclusions

Psychologist and Nobel econ prize winner Daniel Kahneman has written about this in his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" [1]. I am currently halfway through this book and it's been an insightful read so far.

[1] - http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/...

The more accounts I read of the YC application process the more resolutely I feel that YC alumni recommendations are basically key to getting to the interview stage. I wonder if PG et al could chime in on how applications are ranked, i.e. how much weighting is given to alumni recommendations, alumni reviewer votes (alumni screen applications to prevent poor ones ever reaching partners), and partner votes. It would be cool to have some insight into how that worked.

This was a great read, and for the most part it is the exact attitude you should take. YC is a great experience but it is not the end all be all, and if you really should go in to an interview with the mindset "If we don't get in, screw it". Mass rejection is the norm when starting a new company with a new team.

One note though: I really give a lot of credit to YC for thinking outside the box in the interview process, I would consider myself far from the typical tech founder archetype and our company sits in an industry that is typically not that interesting to the startup community. They took a chance on my team and me and we strive to prove them right.

This comment may get a significant number of downvotes, but here I go. I think there has been an increasing number of these types of posts on HN -- especially in the past couple of years (for some reason). Having a good attitude when faced with rejection is great. I'm not a fatalist in the sense that I would encourage anyone to jump off a bridge if they get rejected by YC.

HOWEVER, it's important to understand the role that rejection plays. And it's also important to understand the baggage that rejection carries with it. Sort of blowing off rejection - to me - seems utterly stupid. Especially if it's something you want. The point of founding a start-up is to be successful (whether that's an exit strategy, positive growth, getting into YC, etc. is irrelevant). Failure/rejection loses all of its beneficial characteristics if all you do is blow it off ("oh it's just another notch"). You need to ask yourself:

1. Why did I fail?

2. What can I do to not fail again?

In some cases (1) will simply be bad luck. Consider an athlete that slips and tears his achilles or consider me asking a pretty girl out that happens to have a boyfriend. Oh well -- that's just bad luck. However, if the athlete in question failed to train hard or I made a bad joke that completely irked a girl I'm interested in, that's something completely different. I truly believe that the start-up world is, in many ways, a lottery. By that I mean that not only do you need to be in tip-top shape, but you also need to get pretty damn lucky to end up like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

Blowing off failure prevents any positive improvements (hey maybe I should've trained harder, maybe that was a bad joke, etc.) and encourages a kind of isolated entrepreneurship where you think you know best and you're convinced you're doing your best (even though you may not be).

Also, lets face it: failure sucks. Being rejected by a cute girl/guy sucks. Not being accepted into YC sucks. Not getting into your school of choice sucks. I think that downplaying the suckiness of these events is not the way to go. Instead, figure out how to get what you want next time. It's a careful balancing act. On one hand, you don't want to be a fatalist that gives up after the first failure; but on the other, you don't want to be a hard-headed and obnoxious positivist that doesn't acknowledge failure when it's staring them in the face.

According to the OP the interview process went quite smoothly. Since this appears to not be typical YC style I would think that this shows something else at play here.

It seems to be a matter of perception. They sound like a rather alternate bunch that don't appear to go to great lengths to sell themselves as a team. They were probably doomed in the first 10 seconds. The failure to stress test them out on their ideas would make it appear that the interviewers were just going through the motions to be polite.

Not sure there is any blame to apportion here. The world is what it is and people are what they are. In an ideal world they would have been a given a thorough grilling about their ideas, enthusiasm, skills and approach despite an initial very negative perception - but in an ideal world they would have recognized their potentially negative appearance/behaviour and done something about it, so it would not have been an issue in the first place.

I like this attitude:

Everything I have ever achieved in life has started with a panel rejecting me, YC was just another notch.

Think I will subscribe to her blog.

The big optimization I would make during interviews, if you possibly can, is stay with alumni and meet up with them first. That only really works if you know them already, or have some connection to them.

(If anyone applies in the future that I know, I'd be happy to meet up with you if you get an interview. Offer extends to people I don't know yet if it is security, network infrastructure, or if you are US/UK/CA/AU/ZA military or comtractor from Iraq/Afghanistan/HOA, or MIT or Technion. Maybe IL mil too, but in that case you already know plenty of people...)

Off-topic: After reading that tiny white text on black background and returning to HN I can see stripes going across the screen.

It is the first time a site has managed to actually hurt my eyes, ye gods.

> I walked out of the casino at a profit just by being aware of what the actual odds were and sticking to a system that would milk the machine of as much money as possible.

Care to explain this in more detail? Are you sure you know what the actual odds are?

If you were actually making money through the odds, why were you only playing for cents? I'd be looking for higher stakes machines with similar exploits.

Great article.

mbellotti: Just a comment on your blog's style: my eyes didn't take well to the white-on-black colour scheme, and I had to install Chrome's High Resolution extension to finish it without killing my eyes. Of course, YMMV.

Does anyone know what the slot machine strategy is?

fascinating read - thanks for posting, took guts.

Had to stop reading after incorrect use of 'infinitesimally'