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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!

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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...)

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