YC interview advice • Hacker News Board

Re: YC interview advice

#11

Post by sho » Sun, Apr 12, 2009, 5:58 PM UTC

Sam_Odio wrote: post #3

sho wrote: post #2

"It has become clear that in this market you should have revenue by demo day. Ideally you're ramen profitable. It'll be much harder to find investment if you're not." If you're "ramen profitable", why do you need a VC at all? You're self-sufficient by that time, you have proven your product - you should be talking to a bank, not YC.

You're partially right, although this is outside the scope of my article. The article is simply stating that it's easier to find any investment (debt or equity) when you have revenue. Ironically, its easiest raise money when you're already making it. Regardless, there are still good reasons to seek VC investment when profitable. Several YC startups are going down that path. A bank might lend you $10-50k if your net i…

"Regardless, there are still good reasons to seek VC investment when profitable."

Oh I agree of course. VC will be judging you on future potential; a bank will be judging on current performance. If you need a million dollars to really scale up, you need the VC. Facebook or Youtube come to mind, they could have never achived what they have without VC.

But if you don't need the huge cash injection, if you just need to incrementally ramp things up slowly, then VC is not your only option; that's all I'm trying to say.

Re: YC interview advice

#12

Post by sho » Sun, Apr 12, 2009, 6:13 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #10

sho wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might not give you much money, but they'd give you some! There are plenty of small businesses out there without any real saleable assets beyond their viable business activities and future income, indeed for many banks such a market is their speciality. You won't see a $10m loan on $2k/month, of course, but I should be very surprised if you couldn't at least get a $10k or $20k overdraft, which may well suffice to…

Just try it. Small business loans require collateral. Banks aren't in the business of betting on the success or failure of companies. They're in the business of liquidity.

Fair enough. You're probably right. I haven't tried it, after all.

I was actually thinking in terms of personal loans, which have less onerous collateral requirements since the debtor can't simply walk away from the loan, but I guess I am making assumptions about the creditworthiness of the founders in that instance, too.

It does kind of beggar belief that a couple of smart middle class kids with an obviously working business plan couldn't get someone to loan them a few grand. I guess you can't count on it, though. Point ceded.

Re: YC interview advice

#13

Post by palish » Sun, Apr 12, 2009, 6:39 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #8

"the answer probably shouldn't involve ads" Actually we're not as down on ads as other investors seem to be. We liked Heyzap, and they make money from ads. "The last thing you want to do is argue with the partners." That's an overstatement. We don't like people who supinely agree with everything we say. That's as bad as refusing to listen to anything we say. What we look for is a middle ground: people who respond int…

What do you do when you realize you invested in a stupid team?

Re: YC interview advice

#14

Post by danielrhodes » Sun, Apr 12, 2009, 7:59 PM UTC

The YC interview is so quick you are going to be out of there before you realize it has started. In other words, be on top of your game. Anticipate questions, especially the ones that you don't want to answer about the weakness of your product (they will come up). Don't be defensive. Have a demo ready to go when you walk in the room which gives a quick and good first impression. It's not going to be a lot of idle chit-chat, they are going to dive right in.

Re: YC interview advice

#15

Post by medianama » Sun, Apr 12, 2009, 8:08 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #11

Sam_Odio wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're partially right, although this is outside the scope of my article. The article is simply stating that it's easier to find any investment (debt or equity) when you have revenue. Ironically, its easiest raise money when you're already making it. Regardless, there are still good reasons to seek VC investment when profitable. Several YC startups are going down that path. A bank might lend you $10-50k if your net i…

"Regardless, there are still good reasons to seek VC investment when profitable." Oh I agree of course. VC will be judging you on future potential; a bank will be judging on current performance. If you need a million dollars to really scale up, you need the VC. Facebook or Youtube come to mind, they could have never achived what they have without VC. But if you don't need the huge cash injection, if you just need to…

I am not convinced that Facebook needed all the money that they've spent to reach this level.

What do they need money for?

Re: YC interview advice

#16

Post by pg » Sun, Apr 12, 2009, 8:12 PM UTC

palish wrote: post #13

pg wrote: post #8

"the answer probably shouldn't involve ads" Actually we're not as down on ads as other investors seem to be. We liked Heyzap, and they make money from ads. "The last thing you want to do is argue with the partners." That's an overstatement. We don't like people who supinely agree with everything we say. That's as bad as refusing to listen to anything we say. What we look for is a middle ground: people who respond int…

What do you do when you realize you invested in a stupid team?

I don't think it's happened yet. Between the application form and a 10 minute conversation, we can usually tell roughly how smart people are. And being super smart is not that critical anyway. Determination is more important.

The real problem is when a team turns out not to have enough determination to see a startup through. Startups are hard; most people wouldn't be determined enough.

When a group we've funded seems demoralized, we try to encourage them. It takes a few iterations to tell whether a group is just suffering from a temporary setback, or whether they intrinsically lack energy. If by Demo Day they've gotten nowhere, we start to think it may be the latter. But we're naturally optimistic. Usually groups give up before we give up on them.

Re: YC interview advice

#17

Post by sho » Sun, Apr 12, 2009, 8:22 PM UTC

medianama wrote: post #15

sho wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Regardless, there are still good reasons to seek VC investment when profitable." Oh I agree of course. VC will be judging you on future potential; a bank will be judging on current performance. If you need a million dollars to really scale up, you need the VC. Facebook or Youtube come to mind, they could have never achived what they have without VC. But if you don't need the huge cash injection, if you just need to…

I am not convinced that Facebook needed all the money that they've spent to reach this level. What do they need money for?

Early on they needed money, and a lot of it, for servers. They were highly cashflow negative and realistically only VC or outright acquisition could have paid for it.

A case could certainly be made that they took too much money, and I would agree with that, but they did need money from somewhere.

Re: YC interview advice

#18

Post by potatolicious » Mon, Apr 13, 2009, 12:15 AM UTC

sho wrote: post #2

"It has become clear that in this market you should have revenue by demo day. Ideally you're ramen profitable. It'll be much harder to find investment if you're not." If you're "ramen profitable", why do you need a VC at all? You're self-sufficient by that time, you have proven your product - you should be talking to a bank, not YC.

Mentorship and non-financial support? I don't know the full scope of what YC does for its startups, but you may get to ramen profitability on your own, but growth may be extremely difficult.

Re: YC interview advice

#19

Post by netsp » Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 4:32 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #8

"the answer probably shouldn't involve ads" Actually we're not as down on ads as other investors seem to be. We liked Heyzap, and they make money from ads. "The last thing you want to do is argue with the partners." That's an overstatement. We don't like people who supinely agree with everything we say. That's as bad as refusing to listen to anything we say. What we look for is a middle ground: people who respond int…

Maybe the statement should be a little sideways: "If your answer is ads it is likely to be the wrong answer."

At least more so then other answers you might hear.

Doesn't mean there aren't good businesses to be built on ads. Just that there tend to be many not good ones.