
So you got a YC interview? Now what.. (from the founders of Snaptalent, YC winter 08) - sharpshoot
http://blog.snaptalent.com/?p=5
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RichardPrice
It's a really well-written and interesting article Sumon, thanks.

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fallentimes
Very insightful - thank you.

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freax
> _1\. Product advice: Paul Graham is one of the most astute product advisers
> i know._

I am sure this is true, but _how many_ product advisers do you know?

When I look at that last batch of acceptees... I am very surprised at some who
made the cut. I'm not sold on YC's judgement. I think they may hit a few home
runs just due to taking a lot of swings rather than due to an ability to
identify the good pitches, and get lucky that a couple hundred fair pitches
are proffered every time. Which leads into the next point...

> _Pg and co get so many applications and have so little time to read them
> that you should expect that the YC partners don’t have any idea what you do_

...Which means you're giving ownership to people who don't care enough about
what you do in particular to spend time on it; this is a big mismatch if
you've spent a lot of time on your project, so their approach is more aligned
with people who come in with ideas sans code. They have dozens of other start-
ups to deal with, not to mention all the time some of them spend on this site.

So the main value in YC seems to be demo day -- getting a stage to present to
a large number of moneyed interests at once, plus the news coverage, so you
either get the real investment dollars you need or get acquired.

All the information _you_ get is pretty much replaceable -- you can find it
other places -- but YC takes the write-protect tab off the floppy so instead
of just you being stuck in read-only mode you can write out information that
is seen by people you want to see it.

At least that's what it appears their primary value is to me.

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sharpshoot
To point 1: YC backs teams not ideas. Smart early stage investors back teams.

To point 2: AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you
expect someone to be once you've read 500 forms. This is a pretty selfish
viewpoint. Once you get into YC and get to know everyone YC (in particular
Jessica) works extremely hard for you and care about what you do.

Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage when
they did YC. So your comments are a bit of an overgeneralisation.

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freax
> _YC backs teams not ideas._

Every team works on an idea. A lot of the last batch are underwhelming:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/y-combinator-demo-
day-r...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/y-combinator-demo-day-roundup-
for-spring-2008/)

> _AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you expect
> someone to be once you've read 500 forms_

If they're flying you in for an interview you're no longer in the pool of 500
forms. If they are asking questions that make it clear they aren't paying
attention to the information you've already given them it just goes to show
that your grandiose plans are fairly inconsequential to them and they're only
tossing their spare change at you.

> _Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage_

Companies that have a lot done already are the ones that are going to run into
the mismatch I talked about. Here's this great thing you made; now you're
giving ownership to people who don't feel about it the same way. There's not a
lot of investment of money, time, or emotion on the part of YC. So it seems to
me that the exchange is equity for exposure -- basically you've started off
your marketing budget at the 6% that YC takes.

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pg
_Here's this great thing you made_

The mistaken assumption shows in the use of the past tense. The fact that a
product's launched doesn't mean it's done. In most startups, most of the work
happens after launch.

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freax
The mistaken assumption is reading things into the statement that aren't
there. I'm simply talking about having done _something_ concrete and
functional rather than only having a proposal. You're leaping to conclusions
by projecting some kind of finality onto that.

