Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston shares advice on how to get accepted (audio interview) | Hacker News Reader

Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston shares advice on how to get accepted (audio interview)

grid7.com

Thanks adding this interview as emphasis can sometimes get lost in essays. Don't forget another G7 podcast, #24 on Zenter ~ http://www.grid7.com/archives/178_podcast-24-founders-of-zen...

basic points:

1) be determined.

2) know your co-founders well.

3) they like it if you've built stuff before.

>1) be determined.

I had told myself before the interview that I would open with "OK, we've got 15 minutes to convince you that our product is going to be huge and that we're capable of building it." Instead, I got nervous and let them dictate the course of the interview and we didn't talk about the design and big picture of our product. It also really didn't help that we argued against Paul Graham's simplified, buildable in 3 months version of our product. I wonder if we would have got in if we would have said "yes, that's a great idea." Now I know that one of the things they test for is flexibility, so if they suggest changes to your product during the interview, don't argue with them.

He touches on something like that in http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html.

The other way to tell an adult is by how they react to a challenge. Someone who's not yet an adult will tend to respond to a challenge from an adult in a way that acknowledges their dominance. If an adult says "that's a stupid idea," a kid will either crawl away with his tail between his legs, or rebel. But rebelling presumes inferiority as much as submission. The adult response to "that's a stupid idea," is simply to look the other person in the eye and say "Really? Why do you think so?"

So they test flexibility as a sign on maturity.

Sounds to me like they're looking for cool judgement more than simple flexability; flexability without judgement being a third immature response to the challenge: unquestioningly doing what you're told.

Is letting them dictate the course of the interview really a bad thing? It's an admissions interview, not a negotiation. I've pretty much already stated my case by way of the application. Any remaining reservations they may have seem better addressed by letting them ask the questions than by letting my preconceived notions of what they want to hear dominate the conversation. Plus, that way, even if we get rejected, we've still gotten a 15 minute consulting session out of it.

We were rejected because they didn't think we solved the design problem our product was addressing and I know we did solve said design problem. Instead of talking about design, we talked about the difference between our product and yahoo.com.

We could have had a shot if the interview would have gone in a different direction. Most people would be fine letting them dictate the course of the interview, just keep in the back of your mind that you need to convince them your product will be successful and that you can make it. 15 minutes is so short that if you go off on tangents not related to those two main goals you're really hurting yourself.

They're going to dictate the course of an interview to a much larger extent than you are. That's pretty much the nature of the interview.

You should be flexible, I agree, but not wishy-washy. I don't think they'd respect anyone who was willing to totally revamp their idea instantly just because of their suggestion anymore than they would someone who was totally inflexible. There's a middle ground that you should walk, not just in trying to be accepted into YC, but in life in general.

> 2) know your co-founders well.

She says it's good when people have known each other for a long time.

Sigh... it sounds like so much fun, but that's just something I don't have.

I'm in the same boat, one of those dreaded single (and non-genius) founders.

But she makes a good point about that: not knowing your partner well can lead to all kinds of trouble down the road.

Picking a co-founder is not something that should be done lightly.

I feel like we've got all three!

Man...they say submitting early gives you a slight advantage and then they give us little gems like this! I guess that's why they let you submit more than once.

sure thing. And actually one more: #21 Inkling Markets-> http://www.grid7.com/archives/171_podcast-21-adam-siegel-of-...

sean

I think one has to be flexible enough to understand the pros and cons of the modified idea/design suggested by YC ... Paul and his team are experienced enough to have clear big picture about how market (including angels and VCs) will respond to the your idea and whether little bit of tweaking can help !! Flexibility is also directly linked to the listening skills !!! Also i understand that chances of getting selected are high if you have a great team and they may invite you for completely new idea that they have in their mind and they think that you can deliver it, to this I think its a testing time whether you want to give-up on your idea and join the YC team to develop new idea or do you still want to stay with your original idea because you are passionate about it (catch-22 may be) ...

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