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My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I haven't pushed anything public yet, which is why Inventory.io doesn't show anything. I really took Paul's email to heart, because it was great advice. I'm looking for other places to get Inventory.io installed.
If it doesn't take off like they suggested, what's your plan? I'm curious how someone in your position would (and should?) handle this. Did they give any specific advice to you re: your future? Dump the project and work on something else?
I guess I forgot to write about the email that Paul sent me regarding my rejection.
He suggested that I try and get the software installed in 5-10 more businesses. That would be "the best for both the product and investors".
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#13Thanks for sharing this. I read the line "the rest is history" and wasn't sure if I knew what that history was. Maybe a link to more info in the footer would help.
Anyway, it just goes to show how difficult it really is to get your ducks in a row and truly get to the root of the problem you're solving.
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#14thanks. that was interesting.
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#15Jud, first of all congratulations!
You ought to be proud of the fact you have built a working inventory management system. You also ought to be proud of just interviewing with YC.
Keep Going!
If there was no market for inventory management systems, then you would have never been invited to interview.
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#16Very interesting read, although that's probably because my cofounder and I had nearly the same exact experience you did. We got an interview for this round of Y Combinator with an idea that could be summed up as, "it's pretty much an improvement of X."
But ultimately what any pitch comes to like that, whether it's the innovative minds at YC or the cruftiest, oldest-school VC, is always the same:
a) If X has competition and it that competition already has existing traction, they will point out it will be hard for your idea to catch on because of established players.
b) If X has competition and it's bad, they will point out that nobody will adopt X to begin with even if your version is better (generally "chicken and egg" problems)
c) And if any of them have any direct experience with X, they will point out they already did this and it didn't work.
My cofounder and I ran into scenario (b) and despite spending the spending the majority of our preparation time on (what we thought were) convincing answers, we didn't get accepted either.
If I had one regret, it's that we had a potential pivot for our idea that I think could have been spun off as a completely original idea W, and we spent barely a minute talking about it. We brought it up, PG went into brainstorming mode with us, and I walked out wishing we had just pitched W to begin with. But perhaps that story is for a blog post of my own.
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#17For a story with a (bad) ending, that was really engaging to read. It sounds like you're still optimistic, and I'm definitely wishing you a ton of luck.
Rejection notwithstanding, I think the advice to get the system installed into a few other businesses is actually golden -- not just from a revenue standpoint, but from the product perspective. You'll get non-family feedback on how the system can be improved.
To be fair, building/selling a cool system is a higher goal perhaps than doing YC. (I say this knowing that for a ton of us, the hierarchy is confused in our own minds, haha!).
Either way, Jud, plug on, keep tooling and keep writing. I loved reading this...
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#18Very interesting read, although that's probably because my cofounder and I had nearly the same exact experience you did. We got an interview for this round of Y Combinator with an idea that could be summed up as, "it's pretty much an improvement of X." But ultimately what any pitch comes to like that, whether it's the innovative minds at YC or the cruftiest, oldest-school VC, is always the same: a) If X has competiti…
You forgot one:
d) If X doesn't have competition, they will point out that there's clearly no market desire for the product or someone would have built it already.
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#19To be clear, we don't subject ALL our airbnb guests to 4loko. Jud was a special case. -Benjie
True story. Jack and I politely declined the 4loko and opted for beers instead. The Holson Farm was great!
Re: My Y Combinator Interview (W2011)
#20I have added this to my list of links to people that have actually done the YCombinator interview:
http://ycuniverse.com/interviewees.php
So now that page has 3. Feel free to contact me if you have more links to such information.