Example of a good YC application video: Directed Edge | Hacker News Reader

Example of a good YC application video: Directed Edge

scott-oviwe.posterous.com

218 pointspg29 comments

I encouraged Scott to let people see this, to show that it's better to just sit down and start talking than to spend a lot of time trying to make something carefully scripted.

Thanks!

Any chance you'd be willing to mention what it was you liked about their video?

I think the video part might be one of the more challenging parts of the application, partly because of the 1 minute time limit, and partly because it's supposed to be unscripted and off-the-cuff but the applicants still need to describe what they're doing, which takes some preparation.

One of the great lessons I learned in college is that it is very difficult to fake skill. Indeed, skilled people have better long-term memories for domain information, encode domain-related information more efficiently. Similarly, skilled people are able to better deal with distracting tasks while still maintaining their train of thought in the domain-related area.

That being said, through the offhand way they impart information, it is clear that they have a significant degree of skill in their domain. (Short lookup times, unaffected by distraction). Moreover, their body language was not urgent or desperate. I have a sneaking suspicion that getting VC is like dating; the needy don't get fed.

So my advice to you: spend more time cultivating expertise in your field. This has multiple benefits: 1) you're more likely to actually succeed, and may be able to avoid having to take (YC) funding altogether; 2) you'll be able to talk offhand more easily about your startup.

Good point, but our problem is mostly that the startup involves several different applications and has to solve problems in a several different spaces.

We've got pretty solid expertise in all of the necessary fields, it's just a matter of getting the entire project described without forgetting anything important.

I think that might indicate a fundamental issue with what you're doing with your business.

One of the biggest rules in business, and even more importantly startups, is FOCUS. While your technology/process may apply to many different areas and industries, you realistically can't tackle and market to them all. Therefore you need to focus the process/technology into one area/industry and there should be an easy to understand compelling case on why it makes life better and easier.

There's a reason why you're only given 1 minute.

An aside. There's benefit the other way, too: a sense of self-confidence also helps one concentrate despite distractions, and prevents urgent and desperate body language. If you can concentrate, and not be overwhelmed with urgent or desperate feelings, you have more cognitive power available, and will perform closer to your potential.

I agree with your points, especially about memory. Expert chess players have superior recall of chess positions - but only those that could occur in play. For other positions, their memory is comparable to ordinary people.

That is exactly it. They seem like they know what they're talking about. Not because of some clever trick about the way they presented themselves, but because they actually do know what they're talking about.

Which means the way to make a successful video is not to focus on the video. It's to do what Scott suggested: work on the company. Then you'll be able to just sit down and do the video in a single, unscripted shot. And that is so much more convincing than someone sitting reading from a script.

If I sit down in front of a camera, I just blank out. If I'm just talking to myself in a room it's fine. So I kept going over 2 minutes because I would pause for multiple seconds constantly.

The great thing about recording a video is that you get to try multiple times. :-p

Yea problem is that the blanking out is an intrinsic problem. I essentially brute force these videos and one of those times I will blank out less than other times!

Wow, haven't seen that one in a while, feels like years ago. We actually tried a couple takes until we stopped caring and just wanted to get it done and have the application sent.

The first 30 seconds reminded me of beavis and butthead. It turns around after that for the better.

I was thinking more "I'm Bill S Preston Esquire" "and I'm Ted Theodore Logan" "and we're DIRECTED EDGE!"

Which of these points was a selling point:

  -Building a recommendation engine. 
  -Started with general approach, now focused on e-commerce
  -Cheap/easy alternative to expensive/hard "enterprise" option. 
  (the easy integration part is 'the next step)
  -Amazon drives 25% ($5bn) of sales via recommendation.
   They want to bring this to the masses.
  -Identified: 75% of sites don't have a recommendations,
   50% have identified it as something to get.
  -Already capable of 100s of recommendations per second

I guess this doesn't work without the application to fill in the gaps. I felt that the application was missing an explanation why this recommendation engine is good or how it works.

It was delightfully playful, yet very concise and informative, which is how I imagined it would be based upon the writeup posted yesterday.

I wonder if this will be a catalyst for people to be more informal with their videos, just speaking freely about what they are trying to do.

I think it depends on who you are pitching to. The YC founders are from the startup culture themselves so I think that by itself allows them to recognize others that have something on the ball, no formality necessary. When you're good you don't have to "act" smart; it will come across if you just be yourself, and I think that video illustrates that.

Like apgwoz said, the first 30 seconds are not very good at all, but things get better after that. But even then, the best things in the video would have been in the written application, too. I'm not sure how useful this video really was to YC other than as a basic filter, as in, "Hey, these people were willing to make a video and talk about their product, and they say at least a few things that make some sense. It's fine to bring them in for an interview."

Cranking up the volume on my MacBook I could barely make out every other word. That and the crappy 8fps + terrible lighting was a big turn off. Putting in the tiniest effort to production value goes a long way and shows you care a lot about what you're talking about!

The YC application specifically asks you not to do that.

The sound was fine, and they did pretty much exactly what the app asked for -- no post-production, no fancy stuff, just a video of you talking.

What you're saying is no doubt true for a general audience, but that's not what this is for. You may be forgetting that a lot of hackers haven't the slightest idea about (or interest in) "production value", so it would be very much the wrong thing to optimize for. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if making a slick video backfired.

I think all he's saying is "make sure you have good lighting and can be heard clearly." Good production values doesn't have to mean high budget or slick.

Yeah, but this video succeeded. Therefore, its "production values" were just fine. How good the video is, qua video, is irrelevant. Talk about a bicycle shed!

I'm beating this dead horse because I know that a lot of great hackers would feel intimidated about having to make a video of themselves, and it would be a pity if that dissuaded anyone from applying. Of course YC have already made all this clear.

It's better, in fact, that the OP had low "production values" because it shows that there isn't much of a barrier to entry here.

This might be true if the application asked for a 10 minute video, but the extreme time limit makes it such that production value means next to nil (as long as you can understand what they're saying...)

Interesting...

I can still remember that I talked to one of the founder guys of directed edge at a party at the web 2.0 conference in Berlin last year, and he was like "ooh, you are one of the few here having an interesting project".

His project wasn't uninteresting as well ;). Good luck!

Heh sounded very rambly. I'm kinda happy that this is all it takes.

Rambly while still communicating:

   + the problem
   + market size
   + distribution 
   + salient features

I'll take this 2 minutes over most of the TC50 demos.

Agreed it had substance. Rambling wasn't a criticism it's just an actual demonstration of the fact that YC aren't measuring pitch ability but simply enthusiasm + domain knowledge. Passionate, Smart and Gets Things Done seems to be the key, and the fact that they are willing to release this "prototype pitch" so early is probably a good sign for the kind of startup YC wants (release early, innovate).

That's hosted as a Posterous private post. One of the founders in the video should probably claim that account now that the post isn't really private anymore.

If there's a real reason to do that, I don't really understand it. I don't use Posterous; we just sent the video there since that's what the application asked for.

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