Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

jamescun.com

51–60 of 82 posts

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#51

To prepare for demo day, I've decided to use iPG with M-x doctor (she's from a small, not widely known country that has some native naming eccentricites and is in constant war with their two lettered neighbors), the CEO at my new health startup Psychologr. Obviously I'm the technical cofounder and she's the ideas person, so I let her do the talking. ----- iPG: Who might become competitors? M-x doctor: What do you thi…

If someone's looking for a fun, kind of silly weekend hack, I've always thought it would be lots of fun to feed PG's essays and comments into Megahal or something like that that is more advanced than M-x doctor.

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#52

This is both stimulating and depressing at the same time. As if there's only one correct way of thinking and communicating. Why conform yourself to someone else's nature? You're not Steve Jobs, and you're not pg, you are yourself -- forget the pro-tip and be yourself.

You can be yourself after you've spent 3 to 5 minutes getting through these questions qualifying yourself as somebody worthwhile getting to know better. Investors are busy people with thousands of proposals crossing their paths every year - they need a quick way to disqualify the proposals that haven't been thought through properly.

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#53
post #48

The person who is perhaps the brightest [1] person I've ever met would - if this is a fair simulation - be rejected by YC. When answering a question he often won't even have begun to reply after fifteen seconds. I wonder how often YC rejects people such as that. [1] I mean this in a particular way: capable of extraordinarily deep insight very, very rapidly. Just not 15 seconds rapid.

This page really has a different lesson than what you think. The lesson is not "respond quickly"; that only shows that you can think on your feet. While that's useful, you don't build a business by thinking on your feet. The real lesson is that you should have already answered these questions. Before you try to get funding, you should already know who's going to use your product. Before you launch, you should know wh…

Right - none of these questions are difficult to answer quickly and concisely or to prepare for - if you have a valid business model. Applying for investment without a business model you understand through and through is like applying for a job without a resume.

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#54
Wow! This is exactly what we have been playing around with. The tool looks really good.

Is this something you are looking to take further?

What has been the feedback in terms of usefulness? Do users this this type of mock interview works?

Have you done any research or analysis on the effectiveness?

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#55
post #11

Heh, I thought my team was the only one that made this kind of thing before interviews. This one's got much better content than ours though; thanks for sharing! For those like me who are curious what the RNG missed, here's the data list: http://www.jamescun.com/ycs12/data.js

Why do your team use this approach?

Does it improve your performance? If yes, why and how? What do you do better in the actual pitch?

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#56

When talking to PG and the other YC partners, be substantive, and get straight to the point. DO NOT BEAT AROUND THE BUSH. Do not hem and haw. "Uhm"s and "uh"s don't lend an aura of intelligence. Use precise and concise language. You aren't pitching a VC that will ask you what your "secret sauce" is. He talks quickly, and so do the other YC partners. Try to match their tempo (as you should when talking to anyone).

> Try to match their tempo (as you should when talking to anyone).

That's stupid advice. Why should I always match my tempo to somebody else?

I'm not going to adapt to your talking speed for the same reason that you're probably not going to try to match mine. I'm not your monkey.

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#57
post #53
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This page really has a different lesson than what you think. The lesson is not "respond quickly"; that only shows that you can think on your feet. While that's useful, you don't build a business by thinking on your feet. The real lesson is that you should have already answered these questions. Before you try to get funding, you should already know who's going to use your product. Before you launch, you should know wh…

Right - none of these questions are difficult to answer quickly and concisely or to prepare for - if you have a valid business model. Applying for investment without a business model you understand through and through is like applying for a job without a resume.

So do you disagree with the questions or technique/method?

If the questions were better or more relevant would it help you?

what are your feelings on this method of reversal?

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#58
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right - none of these questions are difficult to answer quickly and concisely or to prepare for - if you have a valid business model. Applying for investment without a business model you understand through and through is like applying for a job without a resume.

So do you disagree with the questions or technique/method? If the questions were better or more relevant would it help you? what are your feelings on this method of reversal?

Oh no don't get me wrong - the site is great and I expect it'd be very useful for any entrepreneur, whether seeking investment or not! I'm commenting on the GP's post, which implies some people aren't capable of answering questions this quickly because they have a different mental processing style.

The reality is they need to realise they're approaching people with little free time who have to quickly sort the wheat from the chaff, and asking basic, targeted business model questions like these are a fair way of doing so.

These types of questions aren't meant to make any sort of statement about the person's worth; they are there to determine (a) if the person, at this point in time, is investable as an entrepreneur at the most basic level, i.e. do they understand the basics of business, and have they done their homework with respect to their business; and (b) whether the results of that homework suggest a business potentially worth investing in.

A person with positive scores on both these accounts would be able to easily answer these questions in the time allocated. For the remainder, either they don't have a viable business model (fail at (b)), or they aren't familiar with business (fail at (a)), and that's why the site is valuable -- it gives the latter experience validating their business model before the pitch, which may otherwise cost them a missed investment opportunity.

(That being said I didn't like some questions: "Tell us something surprising you have done" or "What's the funniest thing that has happened to you." Have a few beers with me and all kinds of stories will come out, but I don't have a reverse lookup for my experiences -- my mind goes blank when I'm asked questions like these! That being said, it's good to be aware they might be asked, and to at least prepare in some way to respond.)

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#59
post #51

To prepare for demo day, I've decided to use iPG with M-x doctor (she's from a small, not widely known country that has some native naming eccentricites and is in constant war with their two lettered neighbors), the CEO at my new health startup Psychologr. Obviously I'm the technical cofounder and she's the ideas person, so I let her do the talking. ----- iPG: Who might become competitors? M-x doctor: What do you thi…

If someone's looking for a fun, kind of silly weekend hack, I've always thought it would be lots of fun to feed PG's essays and comments into Megahal or something like that that is more advanced than M-x doctor.

Incidentally, Hailo is in pretty much every way a much better Megahal (esp. when your text corpus is large): http://search.cpan.org/~hinrik/Hailo-0.70/bin/hailo

Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator

#60
post #56

When talking to PG and the other YC partners, be substantive, and get straight to the point. DO NOT BEAT AROUND THE BUSH. Do not hem and haw. "Uhm"s and "uh"s don't lend an aura of intelligence. Use precise and concise language. You aren't pitching a VC that will ask you what your "secret sauce" is. He talks quickly, and so do the other YC partners. Try to match their tempo (as you should when talking to anyone).

> Try to match their tempo (as you should when talking to anyone). That's stupid advice. Why should I always match my tempo to somebody else? I'm not going to adapt to your talking speed for the same reason that you're probably not going to try to match mine. I'm not your monkey.

Because you want to persuade them? When you speak someone's language, using similar posture, vocabulary, style, and being attentive and tuned into them, they're more likely to react positively and buy what you're selling.

http://lifehacker.com/5894462/use-mirroring-and-matching-to-...

Post reply on HN