
How we got a Y Combinator interview but blew it - teuobk
http://www.keacher.com/1113/how-we-got-a-y-combinator-interview-but-blew-it/
======
SeoxyS
Being rejected from YC is not necessarily the end of the world. I speak from
experience, when my company first started out, we tried to get into YC S11,
got the interview, but did not make it. We continued along bootstrapped for a
while, and ended up raising a couple millions in Series A. We haven't had to
touch the money, we're profitable and have ~30 people now.

Point is, PG is one of the smartest guys around; but don't be discouraged if
he thinks your idea is terrible, he's not _always_ right.

~~~
pg
Did you use a different HN id when you applied? I was curious which group you
were part of, but there has never been an application including this HN id.

~~~
SeoxyS
I don't think my HN id was mentioned in the application, but the co-founders
were `progolferyo` and `marialegre`.

I'd be super curious what you think of us now, actually. We struggled for a
bit to find the right approach but I think we've come a long long way; even
though we still have a long way to go.

~~~
pg
I found it. I vaguely remember the interview, but not what we thought. I asked
the other YC partners if anyone else does.

As for what I think of you now, at your stage you can use the same test I
would: monthly revenue growth rate. If it's over 20% that's impressive.

------
jtchang
Why wouldn't you compare it to Dropbox? It makes total sense. As a
photographer wouldn't I just drag my photos to a dropbox folder and it would
be backed up? I generate a lot of data but not an incredible amount that it
can't be backed up through a consumer internet connection.

Now the problem that I face and would like to solve eventually is video
editing storage and retrieval. Ever wondered how raw video gets sent around
today? Through FedEx in removable hard drives. The sheer amount of raw data is
staggering when making any sort of film. Then storing it for archival. All a
pain. 1TB of video is common these days. I have a few ideas to solve this and
I think videographers would want a solution.

~~~
ekianjo
Backing up online has two issues: 1) cost. Dropbox does not offer very high
storage solutions so far. I have 3TB of videos and photos, where am I going to
store it ? 2) access speed and upload speed. Especially upload. It takes
forever to upload, unless maybe you have fiber connection...

The technical solution for most people is just not there yet. It's way cheaper
to backup on a solid drive and store it at your friend's.

~~~
vilya
There are a few online backup services which let you mail them a disk if
uploading would take too long. A quick bit of googling found Mosaic Archive
(<http://www.mosaicarchive.com/online-photo-backup/>), for example. I haven't
used them & don't know anything about them, but their website says they
provide this service. I'm sure there are others too.

------
the_bear
I've got to give you credit for not being at all defensive. I have a hard time
with that, and it's something that I need to get better at. When someone gives
you feedback, you need to take it graciously. Either they're right, or you
didn't communicate yourself well enough, and that's why they're wrong.

~~~
rohern
Or they are lying.

------
relix
Weird that they were comparing it to Dropbox, while to me it sounds like they
should've compared it to Backblaze or Crashplan.

~~~
avree
They were comparing it to Dropbox because that's the comparison actual users
will make. Regardless of whether they want to brand as 'backup' or 'photo
storage', people are starting to view those things equally and Dropbox is an
EXTREMELY popular backup tool [1] [2] [3].

Dropbox even launched a feature to automatically capture photos from a device
[4]. If they can't answer the 'compare to Dropbox' question well, they can't
defend the business.

[1] - <http://www.labnol.org/software/backup-files-dropbox/18634/> [2] -
[http://lifehacker.com/5406806/best-online-backup-tool-
dropbo...](http://lifehacker.com/5406806/best-online-backup-tool-dropbox) [3]
- [http://workawesome.com/software/data-backup-and-
sync-3-dropb...](http://workawesome.com/software/data-backup-and-
sync-3-dropbox/) [4] - [http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/12/dropbox-responds-to-
tumblrs...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/12/dropbox-responds-to-tumblrs-
photoset-app-with-new-photo-focused-update-on-android/)

~~~
davidjohnstone
I suspect that the target market wouldn't compare it with Dropbox, which gets
expensive if you want lots of space. They were building something for serious
photographers, with one of the mentioned pain points being the time it takes
to backup a photo library. I understand this — I have about half a terabyte of
photos (shot in RAW) and I don't take nearly as many photos as some.

That said, Backblaze works fine for me, although the initial backup did take a
while.

------
PaulJoslin
Perhaps half the reason they kept asking about the business model / trying to
compare it to Dropbox was that they were trying to evaluate whether they had a
potentially billion dollar + company on their hands, or a niche nice little
side business.

It has been discussed in detail in one of PG's essays [1] about how it's only
the big wins that matter to them these days and trying to determine whether
the company has the chance to become that big is all part of the problem.

The fact that you didn't get into Y Combinator shouldn't have stopped you
continuing with your idea. It is a problem that needs a solution and your
solution may have ended up being a multi million dollar idea which would have
given you both great success. The problem is, the start up space these days
and incubators in particular are on the hunt for the billion dollar ideas -
thus they can gamble on many, for the few successes to help break even.

At the end of the day, you guys seem really switched on and the effort / level
of detail you went through suggests you are capable of success - just
potentially you need to re apply with a bigger idea next time, after reading
PG's 'Black Swan' essay to understand what they're wanting to hear you pitch.

[1] <http://paulgraham.com/swan.html>

~~~
goldfeld
I think ultimately the problem was centering their 'solution' around offsite
backup. Most people don't see it as a solution to a real problem, something
pressing, but rather as prevention that they might get around to having.
Dropbox, on the other hand, solved from day one the nagging problem of syncing
between devices, and went further to solve file sharing among people.

------
charlietran
Great post. Kudos for having the resolve to follow through on execution and
knowing when to move on. Best of luck on your other project!

------
iomike
So, why would you develop something for photogs but do it on windows instead
of mac? that seems like a bad step, right out of the gate

~~~
brudgers
For a prototype, it really shouldn't make a difference. People mock up UI's in
Photoshop, after all.

~~~
avree
That's a mockup, not a prototype. If they're spending development time making
a prototype, they should build it for the people who would be using it so they
can collect user feedback properly.

I do think, however, that their time would have been better spent fleshing out
their business plan/idea and creating some nice mockups rather than trying to
slam together a subpar prototype.

~~~
brudgers
So call it what you want.

They got meaningful feedback.

------
SurfScore
It seems to me that this isn't the first YC interview story that ended with
rejection, and being too set on a certain idea being cited as a possible
reason why...

~~~
unreal37
Also, YC can't accept every applicant, even if that application can accept the
solution might change as time goes on.

Maybe it's that YC just saw a pitch a few hours/days before about a similar
product with a better team/solution. Maybe it's that YC already invested in a
few similar companies in the same space. Maybe it's the lack of a track record
of the founders in building things. Maybe it's the black shirts. There are a
lot of reasons besides being tied to a solution.

------
jimbobimbo
Sorry for thread-jacking: I have a strange feeling seeing CC-entry form on
blurity.com without any indication who processes payments. Yeah, it's https
and all, but I don't know blurity. I know PayPal and maybe a few other payment
processors, or there could be some badges of third-party security monitors
(McAffee, VeriSign, etc.) that could reassure me that the page is safe.

Just my 2c.

~~~
teuobk
Good point. The payment processor for Blurity is Stripe, but that's not
apparent unless you inspect the page's source. I suppose that might explain
why some people bail to the PayPal option. Regardless, I'll look into adding
something to reassure potential customers of their payment security. Thanks!

------
rdl
On your video, it really is amazing how much better a good mic makes the whole
thing -- the video part is kind of irrelevant, but being able to clearly hear
you speaking without a ground loop hum, wind noise (people doing videos
outdoors for some reason!), fan noise from a computer and built-in mic, etc.
is a big improvement over many online videos.

~~~
teuobk
Even I was amazed by how much better the audio became. The camera still
recorded audio for sync purposes, and it was remarkable how much more
"present" the audio from the Zoom H4n was versus the camera audio. I highly
recommend getting some sort of dedicated audio solution for anybody doing
online video. Something like the Zoom H1 can be had for less than $100, and it
will make a world of difference.

~~~
rdl
I really like the Blue Snowball ($50-80) USB microphones for a lot of
purposes. Not as portable as an H1, but really convenient.

(I _love_ my H4ns, though -- I use them for everything. For conferences I
usually have cameras with shotguns on L, board audio on R, and a zoom doing
the same thing near the board. I still use a Sony HDV with 3 big chips and
uncompressed HDMI out to an Atomos Ninja, though, and HDV tapes for backup.
Picking the best audio track and getting it all in sync is a pain, though.)

------
debacle
The problem with this kind of backup scheme for photographers is that the
utility in having a backup is huge, but the cost of doing that backup _at the
bandwidth the photographers need_ is ludicrous.

We have worked with many designers and photographers, and all of them have the
same problem - they can generate hundreds of gigabytes of important resources
in almost no time at all, and even with a relatively solid pipe normal backup
solutions just don't work.

What they really need is a bulletproof storage device that can be transported
to a safe location when it needs to be. LaCie has some products in this space,
but they don't offer the service that the customer needs - reliable,
accessible storage.

The real solution is tape drives. Try to sell an Ultrium drive to a designer,
though.

------
rdl
I don't think photography workflows are really that difficult (even if you
shoot raw D-SLR or DMF, it's not THAT huge). Video is where most workflows
break down -- you might need 20TB SAN just for your working set, and there's
not really any good way to archive ProRes 4:2:2 footage very well. Mostly I
see people with numerous 1-2TB hard drives, many of which are infrequently
accessed and may go bad.

------
djbender
I'm still looking for an automatic photo archival service. I was hoping that
Snaposit was that solution. Good luck in your future endeavors.

------
davidw
Liquor seems to be a common theme in these stories: someone should open a bar
outside of YC...

------
btyrad
May I ask did PG, Trevor, or Robert have and Ipad or computer in front of them
during your demo? -I'd love to know!

~~~
fbuilesv
Not the OP but from our interview: 6 interviewers, two had laptops, everyone
else was working from paper or nothing at all.

------
photogger
Paying for Blurity? Meh. There are free AND open source implementations out
there, including SmartDeblur (<http://yuzhikov.com/projects.html>) that has
been recently publicized all over the net. Here's a detailed article for those
who are interested in image deconvolution: <http://habrahabr.ru/post/147828/>

~~~
suhastech
Every solution has a free and open source implementation.

It's like saying I'll bake a cake at home with the free and open source
implementation available online instead of buying it from the store.

It about how much you weigh your time and the quality of your product.

Of course, there are exceptions, the cake you buy from the store might be bad
but, that's unlikely if you buy from a reputed store.

~~~
netcan
I really like the analogy, especially regarding software that needs to run on
a server vs an saas option.

Because home baked vs store bought also have some very different qualities,
both emotionally and practically. Price is just one difference.

Some people just buy cakes. A few make & buy cakes. People who never buy cakes
because they can make it themselves are few, opinionated, and kind of cranky
in a lovable way.

------
piokoch
Hmmm, they wanted to create Dropbox for photographers...

Have they heard about Flicker (as far as I remember they offer unlimited space
for a few dollars a year)?

What's the big surprise they did not get funding? True, Venture Capital
bussiness is totally broken, they throw money into a lot of crap ideas, but
not _that_ crap.

I guess that Dropbox for storing MS Office documents or Dropbox for storing
MP3 files (I have so many of them!) are also weak ideas, given the generic
Dropbox can handle that (and Skydrive or Google Drive too).

~~~
retube
Christ your comment is both rude and ignorant. You have no idea what the tech
being proposed was. The point is photographers have huge data volumes to deal
with. A similar problem exists with media companies who need to transfer
around massive video files - and there is indeed a niche indistry that
specialise in providing fast file transfers (e.g using UDP not TCP).

Your sarcastic and insulting commentary is not needed here.

------
hnriot
Just because you got rejected doesn't mean you should give up or conclude your
idea was the wrong solution. Soon all cameras will have wifi capabilities, so
my advice would be to consider that if you peruse the idea further.

I was very surprised that your rejection email said "you guys", I know YC keep
it casual but that's really stunning word usage coming from an investor. As an
EIR I saw many acceptance and rejection emails and never have any been written
with such sloppy English. I guess it's part if the YC image, but I'm still
surprised.

Your video sucked, and I'm sure you're far better at math and software than
presentation skills, but that stuff doesn't matter if the idea is solid. You
can hire those people later. Check out the kickstarter video Brydge for an
example of how to make a great video.

I would agree with others though, forget Windows, build prototypes for a Mac,
because every single photographer uses a Mac.

I think your CSI-like unblurr proves you go both have first class skills, keep
at it, there's definitely a product that's not yet been built that deals with
photographers' needs specifically. Dropbox isn't is for sure.

~~~
tghw
Regarding the video, we were instructed not to spend too much time on it. As
it was, we spent too much time on it. Making a great video is difficult, and
ours was there just to meet the requirements of the application. Since we got
the interview, clearly it was good enough.

