Are you guys affiliated with http://www.backblaze.com ? If not, you should change your logo and website design fast. Possibly your name too.
Logo and name, yes. Website design? I see two generic landing pages; they all look alike these days.
Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
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Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#42Are you guys affiliated with http://www.backblaze.com ? If not, you should change your logo and website design fast. Possibly your name too.
We are not affiliated in any way. We have come across them before and we feel the name and market is different enough to not be a problem. As for the logo, it's kinda difficult to make a fire (as in, blaze) look different.
Our name story is that, our original project name was just "stack" but stack.com was taken. After struggling for a new name, a historic chimney stack local to us caught fire and the newspaper headline was "Stack Blaze".
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does anybody else find it ironic that pg uses an abnormally high amount of filler words himself?
Not in person, and not during the YC dinners.
So these seem to be low stress situations for him, unlike public speaking. YC interviews are obviously high-stress for the founders though.
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#44Are questions such as "How will you make money?" answerable in 15 seconds? I tried it with my personal concept, and even with trying to remain concise and to the point, I can't answer that question without it becoming a string of words that would not pass as a sentence.
If it takes longer than 10 seconds you don't have the right answer.
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#45When 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).
This sounds like MBA advice and is good, general business practice, however highly intelligent people capable of extraordinary things often do not act in accordance with these rules (likely because they are PHDs and not MBA students). I imagine this stuff is only on the surface and PG and others are able to evaluate the depth of a person and what they are truly capable of (or maybe not I've never met them).
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#46This 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.
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#47Press N
If all else fails, apply Nyan cat
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#48The 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 who your competitors are. Before talking to anyone you don't know about your product, you should be able to describe your product quickly.
You're trying to convince YC to invest in you. Why would anyone want to give money to founders who haven't thought about these questions?
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#49To 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.
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iPG: Who might become competitors?
M-x doctor: What do you think?
iPG: How big an opportunity is there?
M-x doctor: I'll ask the questions, if you don't mind!
iPG: What do you understand that others don't?
M-x doctor: Can you elaborate on that?
iPG: Why will you succeed?
M-x doctor: I could ask the same thing myself.
iPG: Who would be your next hire?
M-x doctor: I would appreciate it if you would allow me to do the questioning.
iPG: Would you relocate to Silicon Valley?
M-x doctor: Why do you say?
iPG: How much does customer acquisition cost?
M-x doctor: I have asked myself that question many times.
-----
So, the tactic seems to be stay firm, and let him know who's asking the questions.
Can we have our money now?
Re: Show HN: iPG - YC Interview Simulator
#50Are questions such as "How will you make money?" answerable in 15 seconds? I tried it with my personal concept, and even with trying to remain concise and to the point, I can't answer that question without it becoming a string of words that would not pass as a sentence.
http://book.personalmba.com/12-standard-forms-of-value/
It is likely you fall into one or more of these.
"We're depending on user aggregation to drive advertising revenues initially, but hope to move to move into white label SaaS as we develop our platform." would be a good 15 second answer.