
My Y Combinator Interview (W2011) - Judson
http://judstephenson.com/blog/archives/2010/11/My-Y-Combinator-Interview.html
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nhashem
Very interesting read, although that's probably because my cofounder and I had
nearly the same exact experience you did. We got an interview for this round
of Y Combinator with an idea that could be summed up as, "it's pretty much an
improvement of X."

But ultimately what any pitch comes to like that, whether it's the innovative
minds at YC or the cruftiest, oldest-school VC, is always the same:

a) If X has competition and it that competition already has existing traction,
they will point out it will be hard for your idea to catch on because of
established players.

b) If X has competition and it's bad, they will point out that nobody will
adopt X to begin with even if your version is better (generally "chicken and
egg" problems)

c) And if any of them have any direct experience with X, they will point out
they already did this and it didn't work.

My cofounder and I ran into scenario (b) and despite spending the spending the
majority of our preparation time on (what we thought were) convincing answers,
we didn't get accepted either.

If I had one regret, it's that we had a potential pivot for our idea that I
think could have been spun off as a completely original idea W, and we spent
barely a minute talking about it. We brought it up, PG went into brainstorming
mode with us, and I walked out wishing we had just pitched W to begin with.
But perhaps that story is for a blog post of my own.

~~~
jellicle
You forgot one:

d) If X doesn't have competition, they will point out that there's clearly no
market desire for the product or someone would have built it already.

~~~
JarekS2
There was an interesting blog post about this problem few weeks ago on HN. In
general you can defend your b) or c) or d) situation with on word "Timing".The
only problem is that you must convince people in the audience that Timing is
right and why it was hard/impossible before and right now is easier/possible.

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naz
I was part of Auctomatic, and I still think inventory management is a space to
be disrupted. I think that we were free from day one was a reason that people
were reluctant to start paying.

The one trouble with eBay inventory management, or any space where there are
existing competitors, is every user has their own pet feature they absolutely
can't live without. It becomes a battle to implement them all and keep a clean
interface.

Also make sure you can import everything from every competitor. It lets people
try your software very easily and gives you all of their data. So even if they
don't become a hardcore user you can see what one looks like.

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theoppositeof
For a story with a (bad) ending, that was really engaging to read. It sounds
like you're still optimistic, and I'm definitely wishing you a ton of luck.

Rejection notwithstanding, I think the advice to get the system installed into
a few other businesses is actually golden -- not just from a revenue
standpoint, but from the product perspective. You'll get non-family feedback
on how the system can be improved.

To be fair, building/selling a cool system is a higher goal perhaps than doing
YC. (I say this knowing that for a ton of us, the hierarchy is confused in our
own minds, haha!).

Either way, Jud, plug on, keep tooling and keep writing. I loved reading
this...

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robobenjie
To be clear, we don't subject ALL our airbnb guests to 4loko. Jud was a
special case.

-Benjie

~~~
tbrooks
True story. Jack and I politely declined the 4loko and opted for beers
instead. The Holson Farm was great!

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jcr
Jud, first of all congratulations!

You ought to be proud of the fact you have built a working inventory
management system. You also ought to be proud of just interviewing with YC.

Keep Going!

If there was no market for inventory management systems, then you would have
never been invited to interview.

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huhtenberg
That was strangely interesting. Thanks for the write up.

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citizenkeys
I have added this to my list of links to people that have actually done the
YCombinator interview:

<http://ycuniverse.com/interviewees.php>

So now that page has 3. Feel free to contact me if you have more links to such
information.

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pclark
Are you continuing?

~~~
Judson
Yes. I haven't pushed anything public yet, which is why Inventory.io doesn't
show anything.

I really took Paul's email to heart, because it was great advice. I'm looking
for other places to get Inventory.io installed.

~~~
citricsquid
If it doesn't take off like they suggested, what's your plan? I'm curious how
someone in your position would (and should?) handle this. Did they give any
specific advice to you re: your future? Dump the project and work on something
else?

~~~
Judson
I guess I forgot to write about the email that Paul sent me regarding my
rejection.

He suggested that I try and get the software installed in 5-10 more
businesses. That would be "the best for both the product and investors".

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ibagrak
Sounds a bit categorical with respect to inventory management. I know of one
company, moysklad ('my warehouse' - in Russian), which has done quite well for
itself in Russian-speaking countries. They are a couple years old and they've
already taken venture capital from Ambient Sound Investments. I found a little
snippet of info about them in English here:
[http://www.chubbybrain.com/companies/moysklad/investors-
fund...](http://www.chubbybrain.com/companies/moysklad/investors-funding-
history#axzz17iGcYaTo)

So I wouldn't get discouraged just yet.

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nhangen
Thanks for sharing this. I read the line "the rest is history" and wasn't sure
if I knew what that history was. Maybe a link to more info in the footer would
help.

Anyway, it just goes to show how difficult it really is to get your ducks in a
row and truly get to the root of the problem you're solving.

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trustyfedora
Personally I think the Four Loko made the pill a bit easier to swallow.

-Ray

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askar_yu
it's great to read these stores. Especially from those who are able to
describe the lessons they've learned despite being rejected.

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AmyRyan
thanks. that was interesting.

