Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned • Hacker News Board

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#31

Post by bradgessler » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 6:54 AM UTC

kloncks wrote: post #3

What a great and honest post. Thank you for that. As for your company, it looks like an innovative and amazing idea. I, for one, would be a customer. Please nail San Francisco and then expand to my city. It's great to read that you've decided to keep going. A lot of companies rejected by YC have went on successfully; some have even re-applied several times before getting in. (I remember reading about a company in the…

https://munchery.com/

(Van didn't link to his company in the post, so here it is)

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#32

Post by joshu » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 7:25 AM UTC

Fuck 'em.

Product looks great. Would love more specific service regions that "bay area" -- would love to see who will actually cover my town.

I suspect the market for this is way bigger than people realize. Especially if you include non-chefs. I will be checking back.

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#33

Post by jacoblyles » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 7:43 AM UTC

kloncks wrote: post #3

What a great and honest post. Thank you for that. As for your company, it looks like an innovative and amazing idea. I, for one, would be a customer. Please nail San Francisco and then expand to my city. It's great to read that you've decided to keep going. A lot of companies rejected by YC have went on successfully; some have even re-applied several times before getting in. (I remember reading about a company in the…

>"it looks like an innovative and amazing idea..."

What a different perspective you get living in Silicon Valley. I personally know the founders of half a dozen competitors to Munchery in the same geographical area, and there are probably dozens of serious competitors that I don't know about.

I don't envy startups in that space. It is too sexy; it has the "actor/rockstar" curse. There are too many founders jumping in because they love it and it's fun without thinking carefully about how to build an audience and get traction. Many of them have damn impressive teams, too.

On the other hand if there are that many companies coming up with the idea independently, then maybe it is the "right time" for it and a few will be successful. But from an investor's perspective I don't understand how you pick which one to fund.

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#34

Post by chmike » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 7:43 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #8

kloncks wrote: post #3

What a great and honest post. Thank you for that. As for your company, it looks like an innovative and amazing idea. I, for one, would be a customer. Please nail San Francisco and then expand to my city. It's great to read that you've decided to keep going. A lot of companies rejected by YC have went on successfully; some have even re-applied several times before getting in. (I remember reading about a company in the…

"A lot of companies rejected by YC have went on successfully; some have even re-applied several times before getting in." I applied with someone who is widely recognized as one of the smartest tech folks on HN. We got rejected. A couple years later I reapplied and got accepted as a non-technical single founder. In two years I went from getting shot down despite having a dream team on paper, to getting accepted despit…

I guess it is the business project that made the difference and eventually how well it was thought and prepared. The goal should be the business not to be accepted by YC ;)

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#35

Post by PakG1 » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 9:02 AM UTC

The main point I took away from this post after some thought marination is that if you have limited time, focus hard on a predetermined plan, and don't let anything derail you from telling your story. Having experienced short timeline conversations myself where you need to get in and out really fast, it's advice that I think is important but admittedly hard to follow without extensive practice.

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#36

Post by jayair » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 9:46 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #32

Fuck 'em. Product looks great. Would love more specific service regions that "bay area" -- would love to see who will actually cover my town. I suspect the market for this is way bigger than people realize. Especially if you include non-chefs. I will be checking back.

I agree. I think there are quite a few non-chefs that would love to do this. I ran into a semi-retired couple that are running a restaurant in SF and they sell freshly cooked food at a great price. And I don't think they would have been considered chefs prior to this.

On the flip side as a user I'd love to get "home cooked" local meals where I feel like I'm dealing directly with the chef.

PS: Don't take the rejection too hard. We took a couple and its not the end of the world.

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#37

Post by mdaniel » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 10:41 AM UTC

Forgive my inexperienced question:

Is this something you could take to Kickstarter?

I have seen some absolutely innovative projects such as yours appear on Kickstarter, but I have no insight into whether it is a good idea for both parties.

In short, I guess I would ask: is YC the only path to greatness?

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#38

Post by dschobel » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 10:48 AM UTC

Sounds like a great idea, seems odd that the interviewers would play gotcha ("But you don’t expand your funnel unless you got your conversion rate nailed.") rather than steer the conversation to the big ideas. Weird.

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#39

Post by rch » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 12:42 PM UTC

I know this article is more about interviewing than the business idea, but I have say that I like the idea.

When I'm busy, I'll sign up for a couple weeks of healthy meals (think mint quinoa, raw kale, and 6 oz of grilled buffalo - yum) to be cooked and delivered by a friend of mine. I can choose home or office on the fly. The only thing missing is some web infrastructure -- and that could really be a huge source of value for the business.

Munchery sounds like a bad name to me, but the good idea is pretty good and has a bigger market than you might think. Best of luck.

Re: Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned

#40

Post by rch » Mon, Apr 25, 2011, 12:55 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #33

kloncks wrote: post #3

What a great and honest post. Thank you for that. As for your company, it looks like an innovative and amazing idea. I, for one, would be a customer. Please nail San Francisco and then expand to my city. It's great to read that you've decided to keep going. A lot of companies rejected by YC have went on successfully; some have even re-applied several times before getting in. (I remember reading about a company in the…

>"it looks like an innovative and amazing idea..." What a different perspective you get living in Silicon Valley. I personally know the founders of half a dozen competitors to Munchery in the same geographical area, and there are probably dozens of serious competitors that I don't know about. I don't envy startups in that space. It is too sexy; it has the "actor/rockstar" curse. There are too many founders jumping in…

You have to fund the one with the right vision for the web service - which should be flexible enough to compete with the couch-surfer guys, groupon, and whatever else on a whim.

For instance - if you're selling meals for $20+, then also sell wine storage (maybe like vinfolio, but not so overtly pretentious).

There are some pretty clear growth strategies, I think.

(but fix the name)