My YC Interview Experience S09 by James (Listia.com) | Hacker News Reader

My YC Interview Experience S09 by James (Listia.com)

blog.listia.com

54 pointssiong198720 comments

Overall, I like the message, and I'm a big fan of people recounting their experiences to give everyone else a glimpse into the process. However, I do take issue with the following points of advice:

# Read as many essays as you can that PG has written. Watch any videos you can find as well. Get a sense of his style.

# Research previous YC companies. Take a look at the types of companies YC has funded and see where you could fit in.

I think it comes down to answering this question: Do I want to do my startup, or do I want to be a YC company? If it's the former, then don't spend time trying to study and cram on your YC/PG knowledge, unless that info will be useful to your company. It's not a trivia game, after all.

If the answer is the latter, then by all means read up and prepare for the application/interview process, as you'll need every shred of advantage you can get. Everything is riding on the application and interview. It's a risky bet, but at most you'll lose a couple weeks effort if you don't get accepted, and you can re-apply in a couple months time.

I suppose it doesn't hurt to do your research, but I think YC applicants who see YC as an avenue to do their startup, rather than the reverse, are better off just working on their idea and trying to get closer to a release.

Anyways, good luck with everything and thanks again for sharing your experiences.

(Note: I'm not singling listia out here, as I have no idea what their answer to the question would be. I'm just suggesting that all YC applicants ask themselves that question, be honest about the answer, and use that knowledge to help decide how much effort will be spent on the YC application.)

And yet this is the sort of advice I'd give to anyone talking to any investor: learn what that investor cares about, judging from what they've said and the companies they've funded. In fact giving founders this sort of information about later stage investors is a not insignificant part of what YC does.

It's another example of how distracting fundraising can be. Instead of working on new features or releases, you're trying to learn the likes and dislikes of a particular investor. If you're seeking funding, it's definitely something you need to do, but it really seems like a big gamble to me. You can spend a lot of time learning about a particular investor and still come up with nothing to show for it. I went down this route when I went to Techstars for a Day. Conversely, if you're working on new features or interacting with your customers, there's pretty much some sort of guaranteed return.

Still, if you've managed to line up a chance to pitch, it's probably not a bad idea to spend a little time doing your homework about who you're pitching to. Just don't go overboard and let it become a distraction (like I did...)

The really distracting part of traditional fundraising is the amount of time it takes investors to make up their minds. Spending a couple hours learning about the people you're going to talk to is rounding error by comparison. It's no more than you'd do for a job interview.

Good point. I suppose I conflated interview and application. An interview does demand a higher level of effort than an application.

It's not that risky of a shot at the point that you've got an interview. It's roughly a 50/50 chance.

Assuming that you put a relatively high value on being part of YC, I think it's very reasonable to spend some time preparing for the interview itself.

That's true. Once you're at the interview stage, chances are much higher, and consequently the effort you should invest should be changed to reflect that.

In my own case, I think I put to much emphasis on trying to put together a great application and it was a waste of time. I should have put together a decent application and waited to get a bite (ie. an interview), before investing more time.

Thanks for the feedback.

The main idea I was trying to make behind those 2 points (as PG mentions below/above) is research your investor, not change your idea. Reading a few essays in between coding sessions doesn't take too long and it definitely doesn't hurt to know more about who you're going to talk to.

Good read. However, I was curious about Listia (it was familiar but I couldn't remember exactly). Anyway, the point is, I didn't find a link back to listia.com to click on, on either the posterous blog, or their twitter account. Seems like Listia might want to do that.

One common report of these interviews is that it becomes a super intense brainstorming session for ten minutes. Are the applicants allowed to record the session? Certainly they are not trying to write it all down in real time, and it seems that some good ideas might get lost in the flow.

Is there some unwritten universal law that says, all demo must fail when you are feeling nervous?

Murphies law?

But it is pretty ballsy to assume that Skype works - who is to say that the there is wireless internet there?

Who is to say that Skype will ever work, even when connected to a 100% reliable wired source?

I love Skype, but I always get really nervous when it becomes a required part of any interaction. It's just too shaky for that.

The more likely 'law' is that you are feeling nervous because you know there are several points of failure in your demo that you haven't taken care of.

I'll always remember as a first-year CS undergrad our professor came into class one day and told us about how he just came out of an interview with this recently minted Phd for an associate professor position.

The candidate's demo just totally crashed and burned and he was a wreck for the rest of the interview.

Since then I've developed a fundamental fear of live demos. Rarely is the cost/benefit worth it over a pre-recorded demo.

being able to say this is my real, live production site and demoing it is pretty valuable.

To this day I don't know if it was Skype of my old T43. Most likely the latter.

Moral of the Story: Don't rely on Skype for major presentations.

Touche.

Post was boring, but listia looks like a really awesome idea.

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