How to plan for Y Combinator interview
1–10 of 12 posts
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#2Generally ill-advised to mention meetings with specific VCs and angels ("Facebook was truly interesting and led to three new meetings. Next four days went like a breeze - in total we had 15 meetings - with blue chip VCs ([...]) who have presumably passed (otherwise I assume you'd have announced them as investors).
Saying "met with top-tier VCs and angels" is usually good enough, without the downside.
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#3We got rejected as well after travelling all the way from Denmark. We landed saturday afternoon and got to the interview sunday morning and took the plane home sunday afternoon. We didn't even reach a point where we had jetlag.
I think one of the reasons we got rejected was our response to some of Paul Graham's suggestions. One of them was to expand the concept to include game characters (Iconfinder is currently an icon search engine). We didn't respond to his idea in a positive way but instead defended icons as a large enough niche to build a initial service people would pay for.
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#4Generally ill-advised to mention meetings with specific VCs and angels ("Facebook was truly interesting and led to three new meetings. Next four days went like a breeze - in total we had 15 meetings - with blue chip VCs ([...]) who have presumably passed (otherwise I assume you'd have announced them as investors). Saying "met with top-tier VCs and angels" is usually good enough, without the downside.
Ouch, thanks for pointing that out. Rephrased it now.
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#5We got rejected as well after travelling all the way from Denmark. We landed saturday afternoon and got to the interview sunday morning and took the plane home sunday afternoon. We didn't even reach a point where we had jetlag. I think one of the reasons we got rejected was our response to some of Paul Graham's suggestions. One of them was to expand the concept to include game characters (Iconfinder is currently an i…
So do you wish you had accepted his suggestion?
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#6We got rejected as well after travelling all the way from Denmark. We landed saturday afternoon and got to the interview sunday morning and took the plane home sunday afternoon. We didn't even reach a point where we had jetlag. I think one of the reasons we got rejected was our response to some of Paul Graham's suggestions. One of them was to expand the concept to include game characters (Iconfinder is currently an i…
So do you wish you had accepted his suggestion?
I still don't like that specific idea, but I regret trying to defend our idea during the interview. I think they test the teams by suggesting different ideas to see how we react to new things. The more open you are to new ideas, the better. Just like Reddit, the team came to Y-combinator with totally different idea.
So I think it's very important to be open and positive to th ideas bring up during the interview - because if they like you (but not your idea), you can very well be working on theirs instead.
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
So do you wish you had accepted his suggestion?
I still don't like that specific idea, but I regret trying to defend our idea during the interview. I think they test the teams by suggesting different ideas to see how we react to new things. The more open you are to new ideas, the better. Just like Reddit, the team came to Y-combinator with totally different idea. So I think it's very important to be open and positive to th ideas bring up during the interview - bec…
I wonder if they ever flip out "bad" ideas to see if they're dealing with a "yes man". Doesn't seem to be their style, but it's not like I really know them well.
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#8I'm interested to know more about why PG thinks that people typically don't pay for software tools? Do others feel this way? In my own experience, if a software tool saves me time, I have no problem paying for it. I've seen this in others. I realize that my observational sample is quite limited, but what do you think?
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still don't like that specific idea, but I regret trying to defend our idea during the interview. I think they test the teams by suggesting different ideas to see how we react to new things. The more open you are to new ideas, the better. Just like Reddit, the team came to Y-combinator with totally different idea. So I think it's very important to be open and positive to th ideas bring up during the interview - bec…
I wonder if they ever flip out "bad" ideas to see if they're dealing with a "yes man". Doesn't seem to be their style, but it's not like I really know them well.
Not intentionally, but we get the same effect unintentionally because a lot of the ideas we suggest are bad and we later realize it.
Re: How to plan for Y Combinator interview
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still don't like that specific idea, but I regret trying to defend our idea during the interview. I think they test the teams by suggesting different ideas to see how we react to new things. The more open you are to new ideas, the better. Just like Reddit, the team came to Y-combinator with totally different idea. So I think it's very important to be open and positive to th ideas bring up during the interview - bec…
I wonder if they ever flip out "bad" ideas to see if they're dealing with a "yes man". Doesn't seem to be their style, but it's not like I really know them well.
Be careful. A non-yesman might still say "yes" in the room to shut the guy up, and then just not do it.