

Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned - vantran
http://www.naivehack.com/2011/04/24/tanking-the-yc-interview-lessons-learned/

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kloncks
What a great and honest post. Thank you for that.

As for your company, it looks like an innovative and amazing idea. I, for one,
would be a customer. Please nail San Francisco and then expand to my city.

It's great to read that you've decided to keep going. A lot of companies
rejected by YC have went on successfully; some have even re-applied several
times before getting in. (I remember reading about a company in the most
recent one applying six times?)

So don't despair. Please don't give up. Chalk it up as a learning experience
and keep going forward. Good luck! Hope to hear back from you guys through a
post detailing your future success.

~~~
Alex3917
"A lot of companies rejected by YC have went on successfully; some have even
re-applied several times before getting in."

I applied with someone who is widely recognized as one of the smartest tech
folks on HN. We got rejected. A couple years later I reapplied and got
accepted as a non-technical single founder.

In two years I went from getting shot down despite having a dream team on
paper, to getting accepted despite setting off basically every 'badness' flag
on the app. It's kind of a long story as to why, but the point is that things
change fast in startup land, that's why we do them in the first place.

~~~
stevenj
>...got accepted as a non-technical single founder.

That's interesting. I didn't know YC had funded a non-technical single founder
before.

I wonder how many non-technical single founders it's funded to-date.

>It's kind of a long story as to why

Would love to hear that story.

Also, what startup did you get in with?

~~~
Alex3917
"Would love to hear that story."

I just wrote up the story as a blog post:

[http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2011/04/how-i-
got-i...](http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2011/04/how-i-got-into-yc-
as-a-non-technical-single-founder.html)

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mkull
I love your idea, this is a personal pain point I have been trying to solve. I
am a busy successful startup founder who eats crap takeout food constantly but
would pay a premium for a quality personal chef service that could be easily
managed and customized. I have worked with several chef services in the past
but the lack of web based system to manage it made it too cumbersome.

Please continue forward and make this successful so I can be a customer.

I was rejected by YC once as well (round one in 05!). But moved forward and we
have 'made it'.

Feel free to drop me a line if you want to chat as your idea is something I
have spent some time thinking about (and I have some personal chef connections
in Philadelphia who might be willing to pilot it!). Check my profile for
contact info

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joshu
Fuck 'em.

Product looks great. Would love more specific service regions that "bay area"
-- would love to see who will actually cover my town.

I suspect the market for this is way bigger than people realize. Especially if
you include non-chefs. I will be checking back.

~~~
jayair
I agree. I think there are quite a few non-chefs that would love to do this. I
ran into a semi-retired couple that are running a restaurant in SF and they
sell freshly cooked food at a great price. And I don't think they would have
been considered chefs prior to this.

On the flip side as a user I'd love to get "home cooked" local meals where I
feel like I'm dealing directly with the chef.

PS: Don't take the rejection too hard. We took a couple and its not the end of
the world.

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spencerfry
Its been said by other commentators, but I think this was a super honest and
candid post. It read as if was truly written from the heart. This is the kind
of tech writing that _I_ like reading. Basically as if I sat down with this
guy and he just opened up his heart and soul.

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tansey
A bit of friendly advice: you didn't link to Munchery at all in that article.
The first time you mention it, it should be a link. :)

Also worth noting that the Munchery page contains no way for other chefs to
join.

~~~
chrishenn
Also the praise on the landing page ``I would say I will probably order again
from them'' by an anonymous beta user makes the service seem pretty mediocre
compared to the other quotes.

But I love the idea of it. I'm just north of SF (mill valley)---so close yet
so far!

If Munchery continues to expand I could definitely see myself ordering from
it.

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monicaemiller
The idea is awesome but when I looked at your site, I was confused. I checked
out Chef Indrajit Ghosh since I actually had a craving for Indian food
tonight. When I went to his profile, he's listed under Little Delhi (my
favorite Indian restaurant for delivery). Does this mean that I'm actually
ordering from the restaurant?

~~~
tt
Yes. We like hip chefs who can cook great food and who happen to run
restaurants. Notice how you wrote that Little Delhi is your favorite Indian
restaurant for delivery! :)

Edit: chefs create custom meal menus on Munchery.

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k33n
I got rejected by YC in a similar fashion. They will grill you hard if they
have any doubts about the idea/founders. It was definitely an ego-bruising
moment for my cofounder and I, but we are both alive and kicking.

I really enjoyed reading this post. Keep on keeping on and DO NOT stop working
on this idea. I know I'd be a paying customer right now if you had a site up.

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bradgessler
This is probably the best YC interview post I've read.

I really appreciated there was no tone of, "I got rejected by YC, now I need
to prove I'm better than YC"; that's irrelevant. Its very matter of fact,
poignant, and very representative of how YC interviews play out.

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mdaniel
Forgive my inexperienced question:

Is this something you could take to Kickstarter?

I have seen some _absolutely_ innovative projects such as yours appear on
Kickstarter, but I have no insight into whether it is a good idea for both
parties.

In short, I guess I would ask: is YC the only path to greatness?

------
tt
I didn't feel too bummed about the reject. I feel like we didn't get in
because: a) we are not first to market (it was immediately pointed out that
there are many like us as soon as we sat down), and b) we are more of a
service-oriented company instead of a product company. There are always
exceptions, but investors typically want to fund product companies.

Because there are similar companies in this space, we need some unique insight
in order to stand out (and our explanation on how we plan to give complete
flexibility, or "leave it to the chef," apparently weren't convincing).

It's amazing how we picked ourselves up that very same night, had great
discussions, revised our approach based on great feedback from other YC
founders we met earlier in the day, and are moving forward. Thank you for all
your support!

------
DanielRibeiro
Now this idea seems very interesting. Don't forget that there are other
incubators, and if you are feeling bold, you can pitch directly to Angel List.
I've made some comments on the subject in the past:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334415>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2179197>

(which is a comment of this great post
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2178339>)

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d0m
And, with that post, you had a chance to explain it to PG a third time
(Application + Interview + Blog) :) Good idea.

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alain94040
I'm intrigued by the concept (food is important to me and your business has
synergies with <http://letslunch.com>). How does the logistics of delivering
quality, unique meals, work?

What would worry me is that cheap chefs will just list their restaurant menus,
and then you truly end up with waiters on wheels.

~~~
kloncks
I'd love to see a vetting process for this. Either:

1\. Approve new chefs. Meaning "chefs" that are just restaurant menus aren't
allowed in.

2\. Allow both in. Highlight the actual Chefs.

3\. Just have different sections of the site, one for actual restaurants and
one for Chefs. Highlight actual chefs?

Just a couple of ideas that came to mind.

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sahillavingia
Thanks for being so candid. I'm sure this is going to help a lot of the
interviewees in the coming days.

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dschobel
Sounds like a great idea, seems odd that the interviewers would play gotcha
("But you don’t expand your funnel unless you got your conversion rate
nailed.") rather than steer the conversation to the big ideas. Weird.

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rch
I know this article is more about interviewing than the business idea, but I
have say that I like the idea.

When I'm busy, I'll sign up for a couple weeks of healthy meals (think mint
quinoa, raw kale, and 6 oz of grilled buffalo - yum) to be cooked and
delivered by a friend of mine. I can choose home or office on the fly. The
only thing missing is some web infrastructure -- and that could really be a
huge source of value for the business.

Munchery sounds like a bad name to me, but the good idea is pretty good and
has a bigger market than you might think. Best of luck.

------
allanscu
There's also YC Reject. We are currently accepting late applications at
<http://www.ycreject.com/p/apply-to-ycr.html>

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PakG1
The main point I took away from this post after some thought marination is
that if you have limited time, focus hard on a predetermined plan, and don't
let anything derail you from telling your story. Having experienced short
timeline conversations myself where you need to get in and out really fast,
it's advice that I think is important but admittedly hard to follow without
extensive practice.

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vantran
Wow, thank you everyone for the incredible responses and support. I'm really
glad people found the post useful.

I didn't link to Munchery because I intended to write something to help future
interviewees, not to promote the company. But it's really encouraging that
people seem to like the idea :)

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marquis
Hi, this is great and I'm already recommending busy friends to it who like to
eat properly but time is limited. A big problem on the site for us is that we
are all over the city, can you browse by delivery location? It would save a
lot of time when choosing a chef.

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z0r
Page won't load :p - nevermind, got it after a handful of attempts

~~~
gexla
At this time it's number 1 on the first page. You can view it via Google cache
if it won't load for you.

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MenaMena123
I love your damn idea, I would buy into it. I know what its like to be busy
and come home with a burger and fries everyday. If I could use that service I
would love it!

I think its dumb to have nail one city then move forward, with certain things
you can have a few in each city and keep growing. I never understood the one
city at a time, its 2011 and we have the internet. lol Keep up the good idea.

