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Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

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Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#31

Post by pg »

kevingao1 wrote: post #12
nhashem wrote: post #6

My partner and I got a YC interview last round (no luck this time, unfortunately) and one thing I'd like to caution is that if you have a "chicken and egg" situation ("Why would X users use your site until you have Y users and vice versa?) or an "established competitor" situation ("What's to stop Google from just adding a link to X product?"), you should have as close to bullet-proof responses to those questions as p…

nhashem, great point. i think its important to get users as fast as possible, and what investors really care about is what you LEARNED from those users (what they like, don't like, data that supports your hypotheses). better a poor product + hundreds of early users than a polished product that hasn't been launched, imo

IMO too. Though a product that has hundreds of genuine (= highly active) users can't be that poor.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#32

Post by 6ren »

pg wrote: post #27
dtran wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good corollary question to "How do you know that people actually want this?" is "How are people solving this problem now?" If founders respond that there aren't really any current solutions, then it usually means that either a) They aren't making something that people really want, or b) They haven't talked to enough users. If it's a problem people actually have, then they must be coming up with crazy hacks or solut…

This is such an important test that we have a question about it on the application form. I learned about this heuristic from Sequoia, who care a lot about it. They call it "proxy for demand."

Christensen talks about this too, as "non-consumers" who have a job they need to get done, but can't because they lack skills, or money. Instead, they pay a professional to do it for them, or "cobble together a solution". There are also "non-consuming contexts" where you just can't use a product (e.g. a landline phone in a car).

What I found really interesting was that the reason successful disruptions are "more convenient, simpler and/or cheaper" is not because that's an improvement, but because it enables the disruption to be used by non-consumers... (who lack the skills for a complex product; or the money for an expensive one; or access to an inconvenient one.) They are delighted to have a solution better than what they have now, so it doesn't need to be as good as the incumbents'. Secondly, if it's not good enough to appeal to incumbents' customers, it won't provoke a competitive response.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#33

Post by pg »

rocamboleh wrote: post #28

Is anyone aware of the number of submissions to YC per year and the chance of getting an interview?

I realize this will sound like a flippant answer, but I mean it seriously: the chance is either very high or very low, depending on how good your application is.

It took me a long time to realize that when the odds of getting into something were described as e.g. 1 in 10, that didn't mean the odds for any given applicant were 10%, but rather (to the extent the people deciding were good judges) that for 10% of applicants the chance was nearly 100%, and for the other 90% nearly zero.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#34

Post by paulgerhardt »

pg wrote: post #33
rocamboleh wrote: post #28

Is anyone aware of the number of submissions to YC per year and the chance of getting an interview?

I realize this will sound like a flippant answer, but I mean it seriously: the chance is either very high or very low, depending on how good your application is. It took me a long time to realize that when the odds of getting into something were described as e.g. 1 in 10, that didn't mean the odds for any given applicant were 10%, but rather (to the extent the people deciding were good judges) that for 10% of applica…

See also "Ecological Fallacy": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy

The famous example mentioned is W.S. Robinson's 1950 study of literacy among immigrants[1]. He found that states with higher populations of immigrants had higher literacy rates, but the average literacy rate among individual immigrants tended to be less than the average population. He concluded that immigrants must move to areas where the literacy rate was higher.

It's not too much of a stretch to make a similar argument for Silicon Valley as a whole or refute any individual startup's odd's of success as 1 in 20.

[1] http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/38/2/337.full

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#35

Post by waterlesscloud »

"Are you going to work on your startup even if we don’t fund you?"

Do they really ask that? Do people really ever answer anything other than "Yes"?

I could see it if you had some idea that needed millions in funding to start moving, but then you wouldn't be at YC, I wouldn't think.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#36

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #23
ianl wrote: post #19

In general, answer the question directly and be honest. Trying to use bullshit marketing speak similar to what is taught during an MBA is a turn off and limits their ability to access whether or not you know what you are talking about. At least, thats what I get from this article and every single essay I've read that was authored by PG.

That's good advice. We're interviewing 21 groups a day, and we have to converge on a decision in 10 minutes, so there is nothing more important than speaking plainly. Trying to decode marketing-speak exhausts us. I think people use marketing-speak to seem more impressive, but on us it has the opposite effect. The phenomenon is very much like the artificial diction that inexperienced writers so often adopt, and which…

[deleted]

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#37

Post by iki23 »

dtran wrote: post #25
pg wrote: post #24

These are all things we care about, but they are probably not the most common questions we ask. E.g. we already know about the equity split because we ask about it on the application form, so we only bring it up during the interview if we noticed something odd about it. The thing we care most about in interviews (at least of things one can change) is how engaged the founders are with users. How do they know people ac…

A good corollary question to "How do you know that people actually want this?" is "How are people solving this problem now?" If founders respond that there aren't really any current solutions, then it usually means that either a) They aren't making something that people really want, or b) They haven't talked to enough users. If it's a problem people actually have, then they must be coming up with crazy hacks or solut…

"Very rarely is there simply not some kind of existing solution."

Yep, when you talk about known problems. Still often both the problem and solution (which is just another view of problem) lie just outside current scope of people imagination, and are only found by prospective minds when the way is open (other conditions met).

There was not simply some kind of existing solution for Internet 50 years ago.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#38

Post by lehmannro »

iki23 wrote: post #37
dtran wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good corollary question to "How do you know that people actually want this?" is "How are people solving this problem now?" If founders respond that there aren't really any current solutions, then it usually means that either a) They aren't making something that people really want, or b) They haven't talked to enough users. If it's a problem people actually have, then they must be coming up with crazy hacks or solut…

"Very rarely is there simply not some kind of existing solution." Yep, when you talk about known problems. Still often both the problem and solution (which is just another view of problem) lie just outside current scope of people imagination, and are only found by prospective minds when the way is open (other conditions met). There was not simply some kind of existing solution for Internet 50 years ago.

If you solve an unknown problem (ie. an issue nobody is concerned about) you will have a very hard time to market it and show people how they need it.

There were solutions for this Internet thing 50 years ago, even if it's hardly imaginable today. If the problem you are speaking about is communication we had that 2000 years ago, in form of smoke signals. It sucked and was dog slow but it was not an unknown problem.

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#39

Post by genera »

dtran wrote: post #25
pg wrote: post #24

These are all things we care about, but they are probably not the most common questions we ask. E.g. we already know about the equity split because we ask about it on the application form, so we only bring it up during the interview if we noticed something odd about it. The thing we care most about in interviews (at least of things one can change) is how engaged the founders are with users. How do they know people ac…

A good corollary question to "How do you know that people actually want this?" is "How are people solving this problem now?" If founders respond that there aren't really any current solutions, then it usually means that either a) They aren't making something that people really want, or b) They haven't talked to enough users. If it's a problem people actually have, then they must be coming up with crazy hacks or solut…

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford

Re: Questions you’ll (probably) get asked at your YC interview

#40

Post by kevingao1 »

genera wrote: post #39
dtran wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good corollary question to "How do you know that people actually want this?" is "How are people solving this problem now?" If founders respond that there aren't really any current solutions, then it usually means that either a) They aren't making something that people really want, or b) They haven't talked to enough users. If it's a problem people actually have, then they must be coming up with crazy hacks or solut…

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford

another great quote along these line (who knows if rumor or not): "we never would've invented the ipod with a/b testing"

think there's a good balance between customer development/research and your own instinct/vision

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