Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

blog.directededge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 76 posts

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#31

Post by cedsav »

sailormoon wrote: post #22

I am sorry if this is completely obvious and I am missing something. But I just do not understand, not one little bit. Why did you fly to America to get $5000? It is not a large amount of money. I am surprised it covered your air fares. So why? I do not feel the need at all. You did. I would like to here why. Did they really say something in the interview that justified all that time and expense? update: I have no id…

What's obvious to the people who downvoted you is that the YC program is about much more than $5k. http://www.ycombinator.com/about.html

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#34

Post by mahmud »

eru wrote: post #29
mahmud wrote: post #14

Anyone know if YC is doing traditional companies? i.e. advertising and real-estate. Don't need the money but could really use the "blessing". They have some of the most enviable media contacts in the industry right now.

They said they need to understand what you are doing.

Well, we got into these businesses from meeting industry insiders and specialists. You sit down with people, chat, and find out business opportunities. Just today we evaluated festival, trade show and expo opportunities; took me about 10 hours to study the industry and see potential, I am still evaluating it, but there is no reason for YC not to understand it fully.

Seems like the whole startup scene is focused on web-based tools and utilities, while we're focused in real-world businesses.

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#35

Post by chrischen »

madmotive wrote: post #2

This is exactly how our "interview" went. Despite being given the same advice by others that had been through the process we still foolishly wasted time preparing a short 1 minute pitch. We might have had a better result if we'd invested more time in getting the user experience in our demo right and answering the one critical question - "Why would people want this?" Don't make the same mistake we did. :)

Is a demo required?

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#36

Post by aberman »

chrischen wrote: post #35
madmotive wrote: post #2

This is exactly how our "interview" went. Despite being given the same advice by others that had been through the process we still foolishly wasted time preparing a short 1 minute pitch. We might have had a better result if we'd invested more time in getting the user experience in our demo right and answering the one critical question - "Why would people want this?" Don't make the same mistake we did. :)

Is a demo required?

No, but obviously better if you have one.

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#37

Post by eru »

mahmud wrote: post #34
eru wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said they need to understand what you are doing.

Well, we got into these businesses from meeting industry insiders and specialists. You sit down with people, chat, and find out business opportunities. Just today we evaluated festival, trade show and expo opportunities; took me about 10 hours to study the industry and see potential, I am still evaluating it, but there is no reason for YC not to understand it fully. Seems like the whole startup scene is focused on we…

I find real-world business refreshing (compared to the reality bubble of web-startups-only). I'd say, go ahead apply. You will at least get noticed easier than the next twitter clone.

By the way, I am also interested in operations research. (I write my thesis about the very real-world problem of scheduling at Deutsche Bahn.)

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#38

Post by aberman »

mahmud wrote: post #34
eru wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said they need to understand what you are doing.

Well, we got into these businesses from meeting industry insiders and specialists. You sit down with people, chat, and find out business opportunities. Just today we evaluated festival, trade show and expo opportunities; took me about 10 hours to study the industry and see potential, I am still evaluating it, but there is no reason for YC not to understand it fully. Seems like the whole startup scene is focused on we…

What you describe sounds more like a small business than a startup. YC only funds startups (i.e. scalable and disruptive). The two are not synonymous. YC primarily funds software and web-based companies because you can create a scalable and disruptive web-based company on $20k.

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#39

Post by sailormoon »

gruseom wrote: post #27
sailormoon wrote: post #22

I am sorry if this is completely obvious and I am missing something. But I just do not understand, not one little bit. Why did you fly to America to get $5000? It is not a large amount of money. I am surprised it covered your air fares. So why? I do not feel the need at all. You did. I would like to here why. Did they really say something in the interview that justified all that time and expense? update: I have no id…

You're being downvoted because people think the answer to your question is so obvious that you must be trolling. However, I'll assume you're being sincere. The money is the least important aspect of getting in to YC. What matters is the advice they provide and the community/network aspects. These things are so valuable that they are a huge state change for most startups.

This is not obvious to me at all. I admit I have difficulty conceiving of advice so compelling I'd travel to America to receive it.

Fair enough I guess. People pay what they think it is worth. That's capitalism; no argument from me. I am not trolling. Carry on.

Re: The “Interview” with Y Combinator That’s Not

#40

Post by sailormoon »

davidw wrote: post #26
sailormoon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a standard Apache error. No big deal. Really, if the user hits a 404 then something has gone badly wrong and I think it's appropriate for them to get an ugly message.

Yes, I know it's a standard Apache error (I know a thing or two about Apache). What you are apparently not seeing is that there's an error when trying to handle the 404 with the ErrorDocument directive, which indicates that their configuration needs a bit of tweaking. Even for 404 errors, it's pretty standard practice on corporate web sites to include at least some of the main site's look and feel, with a link back t…

But it's not a corporate web site. Thank god...
Post reply on HN