
My Y Combinator interview. - StavrosK
http://www.korokithakis.net/node/125
======
logop
"I got an email from Paul Graham saying basically that being a single founder
put me at a disadvantage, because two founders can talk each other out of bad
ideas, but I appeared too stubborn."

Fortune 500's biggest company is a single-founder company. Most Fortune 500
companies were founded by a single person. Don't let detractors tell you
single-founder companies don't work.

~~~
mkarmac
Fascinating. Source?

~~~
fredex
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/full_...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/full_list/)

and Wikipedia. I went through most of the list. It's right to me.

~~~
ojbyrne
If you look at the wikipedia page for Sam Walton, the founding looks a little
more nuanced: "Walton went on to open more Ben Franklin Stores with the help
of his brother, father-in-law, and brother-in-law."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton>

~~~
fredex
Sam Walton's autobiography mentions that his father-in-law provided the
initial capital (that was about it), and his brother played an insignificant
role (like buying things from suppliers). His brother, who was younger, was
more of a helper while Walton built his first store (a Ben Franklin store that
he later sold and started Walmart on his own based largely on his Ben Franklin
stores).

~~~
ojbyrne
Perhaps I'm quibbling, but an autobiography that downplays the contributions
of others? Quel surprise!

------
lionhearted
> I got an email from Paul Graham saying basically that being a single founder
> put me at a disadvantage, because two founders can talk each other out of
> bad ideas, but I appeared too stubborn. I’m not entirely sure what this
> means, as I was under the impression, from reading his essays, that Paul was
> against single founders because they might give up too easily, so a founder
> who sticks to his idea would be desirable.

Having worked both solo and with partners, I will never again run a business
solo for an extended period of time. If the business is already profitable,
I'll hire a competent GM-level person to help run it. If it isn't profitable
enough to do that, then I'm going to spend a majority of my time recruiting
someone for whom the company will be greater than the sum of its parts.

Having someone to talk to is _huge_. If they pick out a single one of your
blindspots or bad points, that could make the business 20% more successful.
Really, there's a long list of things that can go wrong in business. Tweaking
and refining at _any_ stage could easily give a 1%, 2%, 5% edge. Those stack
up really fast.

Solo isn't so good. Partners are good. If profitable, you can hire some
talented to take that role. If not profitable, I'd strongly encourage you to
get over your... well, I was about to call it delusions of grandeur, but that
isn't fair to say. For me, in the past I've fallen in love with my ideas,
thought they were worth more than they were, and thought the execution would
come fairly easily. I was delusional. Maybe you're not, but if you don't have
money coming in and an _obvious_ winner on your hands, you might rethink what
the business is worth and go recruit someone. Have some sort of vesting or
buyout provisions if it doesn't work and go get a cofounder.

I was the biggest pro-solo guy in the world previously, but I was mistaken.
You got a high fever? Tough shit, it's just you running the business, make it
work anyways. You ripped the cartilage in your knee and can't walk? Tough
shit, hobble over the taxi stand, get a taxi to the bank, and limp/drag
yourself in to do your business.

Having a team is good. If profitable, hire a GM-type, that'd work. If not
strongly think about recruiting a cofounder.

~~~
GICodeWarrior
I interviewed as a single founder as well. They spent the entire interview
trying to directly match my idea to existing markets. I probably appeared
stubborn as I tried to explain how my idea was different.

How could I appear other than stubborn?

If they had said, OK I think we understand your idea but your market doesn't
seem big enough (or something to that effect), maybe things would have turned
out differently than 11 minutes of what seemed to me like "we don't get it,"
when they probably did and didn't believe in it.

Well, in any case, I got some good feedback and I still appreciate the
opportunity to discuss my company with them.

Hindsight may be 20-20, but I still have to fend off the regret for not
redirecting the conversation.

As a word of advice to future single founders, they are going to aggressively
push you the entire time. Be prepared to concede to them at some point even if
they don't "get it." Otherwise, you will appear stubborn.

~~~
lionhearted
Okay, another lesson I learned the hard way. People tend to like their own
opinion more than your opinion. If they say you might be wrong, they usually
want you to say, "Wow, that's a really, really fascinating point you bring up.
I'm going to strongly think about that." Maybe not YCombinator, but like
99.99% of the rest of the world.

> As a word of advice to future single founders, they are going to
> aggressively push you the entire time. Be prepared to concede to them at
> some point even if they don't "get it." Otherwise, you will appear stubborn.

People need that. And y'know, you might be wrong. Or not. If you have a
_great_ reply, then maybe say, "You know, that's a fantastic point, I spend a
lot of time thinking about that myself. Can I show you the numbers I ran on
that?" Then show them, and say, "I still think about it. Do you think these
numbers look good to go, or would it be worth considering more? What would you
do about that concern, in my shoes?"

I'm going to keep the details vague here, but I remember one time I was
selling something. The client wanted something else, that was stupider than my
idea. But I was swallowed my pride and did it their way. Y'know why? _Because
I wanted their money more than they want my expertise_. Oh, it was still a
good deal for everyone. But they demanded it a certain way, and okay, you've
got the money, you win, let's do it your way.

You wanted someone's money. Okay, they win, let's do it your way. Well, not
_that_ wishy-washy. But "I'll strongly consider that" (and then do! maybe even
follow up on that point later with a few page brief/plan/strategy or
something) is good. If you've already got the answers, stress how you think
the other side is _brilliant_ to bring that up, and you think about it and
worry about constantly. Nobody wants to give money to someone that makes them
feel stupid.

I don't know. Maybe this doesn't apply to YCombinator, they seem like the top
1% of intelligent and savvy people. But the other 99% of the world,
definitely.

Edit: Once you've got a proven track record for doing massively amazing
things, you can maybe just tell people how it's going to be and insist you're
right. But that comes much later. If you seem like a commodity at all, you
pretty much have to do it the way the people who have the money want it. When
they bring up a concern, they _really_ don't want it dismissed by some kid as
not a big deal. Even if you're right (which you might not be).

------
endlessvoid94
I hope you continue your startup. YC is NOT the end of the line.

~~~
StavrosK
I will, but it's very disheartening, sadly...

~~~
chesser
> _I got an email from Paul Graham saying basically that being a single
> founder put me at a disadvantage, because two founders can talk each other
> out of bad ideas, but I appeared too stubborn._

This applies equally for being talked out of good ideas.

And if your idea is good to start with, then there would be no point in
changing it until you've pursued it long enough to see where it leads.

The thing to remember about YC is that it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling
prophecy. For example, let's say that Cal State Chico (not a top school)
somehow convinced all the top students to attend next year. Pretty soon, it
would start to be known as a top school. And let's say Stanford only got
applications from the bottom 5%... you see where this is going.

Paul Graham's evangelizing means that, regardless of the utility of Y
Combinator, if he convinces the top start-up prospects to join the program, it
will make the program look good. They are looking for people who would be
_successful even without them_.

Y Combinator could be _minorly_ helpful and they would go on to success; it
could be a wash, and they could go on to success; it could be a slight
negative, and the strongest candidates would mostly still go onto success.

People could also FEEL that it's an incredible experience, even if this isn't
objectively the case. Many people join various kinds of self-help or self-
empowerment groups and enjoy the events and believe in them strongly, even if
there is demonstrable practical harm.

Y Combinator could also have a net negative effect on the startup landscape,
because NOT getting in can be so disappointing that it can lead people to give
up (I wrote that before your post, but the link expired; I reloaded, and made
this a reply instead of top-level comment); in other cases, they've found
people who applied and got in, who considered _getting in_ to be the
accomplishment. Paul's viewpoints have been increasingly dominating the
national conversation on startups the last few years, so the hypothetical
indictments are meant to address its success as propaganda. Obviously if it
really WERE the best approach, criticizing it for being too successful _in its
results_ would be disingenuous.

There's also a huge emphasis on getting funded being an accomplishment, which
is a big distraction from the real priority for a business, which is making
something that makes a profit. (A nice big funding round also means now you
need an even BIGGER exit. This can actually reduce your chances for personal
success. Xobni couldn't sell to Microsoft for $20 million because it wouldn't
have been a big enough ROI for its investors. Perhaps they really thought they
could be a billion dollar company and didn't want to sell anyway, but you see
the point.)

Paul's talk about angels and super-angels and valuations focused on the main
point being "the percent chance that the start-up is Google," if I recall
correctly.

To me it looks like Y Combinator has the wrong model for that. The resources
and timeframe favor much smaller ideas. According to the unofficial
YClist.com, the top exit was 280 North at $20 million, which means not only
have they not had another Google, they haven't yet had another ViaWeb.

It would be interesting to find a list of angels and their investments for the
last 5 years and see which ones had bigger deals than that. I'm guessing a
lot. So, that covers instincts and judgment, at least so far.

As for changing your idea, there are market segments that have been goldmines
which I have yet to see a single YC company delve into. Thus, I'm not so sure
on the advice portion.

There is a pretty big generation gap with the hot web properties and I don't
know if any of the YC principals really grok it.

If PG reads this I expect to be told I'm wrong on every point except perhaps
for a token concession for decorum. It's hard to talk people out of bad ideas
when they're stubborn ;)

~~~
staunch
Two parts that seem incorrect:

1) YC has one company with very high potential of a billion dollar exit in
Dropbox. An IPO in a few years isn't out of the question either. They also
have at least a half dozen that are likely to be as big or bigger than Viaweb:

2) Google took seed funding early and then raised VC. That is the model YC
uses.

~~~
atirip
Dropbox is AFAIK a one founder company. Go figure.

~~~
chegra
"It was founded in 2007 by MIT graduates Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi as a
Y Combinator startup" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_%28service%29>

~~~
atirip
This therad disagrees: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=801503>

------
endlessvoid94
Djangy got an interview and then after several days, a rejection letter. We're
too similar to Heroku.

You know what? I'm not really that upset. They made a good decision from their
point of view. But we have 200+ beta users, lots of positive feedback, and
have a good product.

We don't need YC to tell us that. So just keep on truckin. Get users, iterate,
and make YC regret rejecting you :-)

~~~
ig1
I could imagine YC might consider there might be a conflict of interest in
funding you (although they have funded competitors before).

~~~
endlessvoid94
Right. Like I said, it's a totally reasonable reaction. I really enjoyed the
interview and talking to the other companies while we waited.

If I was them, I probably would've made the same decision. But we're still
kicking ass :-)

~~~
ig1
Out of curiosity, are you going to apply to TechStars ?

~~~
endlessvoid94
Didn't plan on it.

EDIT: to clarify, YC was never about the money for us.

~~~
ig1
Was it specifically the Heroku-connection that made YC attractive to you (i.e.
their expertise in this marketplace) ?

~~~
endlessvoid94
No way. It actually had very little to do with Heroku. We wanted to be
involved in the network (I already know several folks from recent YC batches),
to contribute, to tap the collective wisdom of the YC alumni, and the
connections to publicity outlets.

Like I said, it had very little to do with Heroku and the money. We have a
product with users and we wanted some help and to contribute.

------
StavrosK
I would like to post here to thank you all for your amazing support, you are a
fantastic group of people. I hope everyone who didn't get accepted to this
batch can see this, I know it will help their morale, as it has greatly helped
me.

Thanks again!

------
davidw
It's not clear from the article, but I hope you had the chance to spend a bit
of time in California, looking around, seeing some of the sites, and so on.
It'd be a pity to go all that way and not have a look around!

Also: it looks like you live in a part of the world that is particularly nice
and beautiful in its own way. You ought to do something to encourage visiting
hackers to stop by so as to have some people to chat with once in a while.

~~~
StavrosK
I'm in LA now, and it's great! I'm glad I have friends here and can take a
small break.

Greece is fantastic, it's just amazingly beautiful. Maybe we can organise
sprints on the beach, that would be quite nice...

------
gspyrou
Καλημέρα , Κατ΄αρχάς συγχαρητήρια που έφτασες μέχρι την συνεντευξη! Η γνώμη
μου ειναι οτι δεν θα πρέπει να απογοητευτείς αλλά να το δεις σαν ευκαιρία για
ένα νέο ξεκίνημα. <http://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/the-power-of-no-1.746628>
George.

~~~
alexandros
I see this is the Greek corner of the comments section, so I should also
congratulate Stavros for going through the experience, and hopefully it
altered his perception in ways that will help him in the future. Stavro, my
offer still stands, if you're ever back in London, drop me a line and I'll buy
you a beer.

~~~
StavrosK
Thank you, I think it has. I'll definitely be coming to London soon, so I'm
not missing that beer :)

~~~
alexandros
Looking forward to it. Good luck with everything.

------
akkartik
_"I was under the impression, from reading his essays, that Paul was against
single founders because they might give up too easily, so a founder who sticks
to his idea would be desirable."_

Discussion of determination vs flexibility:
<http://paulgraham.com/founders.html>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1820561>

~~~
StavrosK
I see. However, when your users like your service so much that they volunteer
their time building browser extensions and integrating it into their services,
I don't think it's "too stubborn" to follow through...

EDIT: I realise that's not the point you were making, I am just commenting
with my thoughts on the matter.

~~~
akkartik
No comment on this specific scenario. I don't know you, and what do I know
anyway? But it's so hard to distinguish 'determination' from 'stubbornness'
that I've decided those labels are useless. No matter which you are, people
will call you stubborn until you succeed.

~~~
StavrosK
I know, I reflected that in my edit. I agree with the latter, I think history
decides if your stubbornness was misplaced or not.

~~~
akkartik
Max Levchin: "Being an entrepreneur is not about being in love with an idea,
it's about being in love with running a company." [http://www.quora.com/Max-
Levchin/What-are-your-greatest-less...](http://www.quora.com/Max-Levchin/What-
are-your-greatest-lessons-learned-as-a-young-entrepreneur)

When he puts it like that, I'm not sure I'm an entrepreneur.

------
mcxx
Have you considered applying to The Openfund (<http://theopenfund.com/>) or
HackFWD (<http://hackfwd.com/>)?

~~~
iworkforthem
Or perhaps techstars.org too.

~~~
mcxx
Yeah, too bad the application deadline for Techstars NY was closed couple of
hours ago. I suggested Openfund because it's also based in Greece, but it's
Pan European.

------
hackoder
I would see this as a win for you :)

Being invited is a strong sign that you/your idea have merit. But instead of
having to deal with funding/investors/other crap, you get to work on your
idea, in a "remote area of Greece", be your own boss and grow the company how
you want. I can very easily see this idea being modestly successful and giving
you a lot of freedom to work on other ideas.

~~~
StavrosK
Thanks, I think that would be ideal. Still, I think YC would facilitate this
in that you don't really need to put as much effort into networking (they do
it for you), so I can work on my idea in Greece while still getting introduced
to interesting people.

------
paradox95
Your site and idea look great. I would probably move away from the paid
accounts and try to monetize another way. I am sure you probably do have some
paid users but I wouldn't pay for a service like this even though I like the
idea. You'd probably be better off with an advertising model.

~~~
StavrosK
Thank you. I've found that paid users actually provide the most revenue at
this stage, as the advertising model needs a bit of scale to work well. I
think it does have great potential to work in the future, though.

------
inovica
A very well-thought out site and a good implementation (I've just tried it).
I'm going to use it.

I'm a single founder and whilst I've never reached a point with stratospheric
income, the businesses that I have built in the 15 years I've been an
entrepreneur have been great. I've enjoyed life. For me, being a single
founder has always meant quick decisions and I employ people to compliment me.
I'm not a 'finisher' - I'm an ideas person - and so I needed to employ people
who would keep me on track and help me finish. There is no right or wrong way
in terms of the number of founders, my opinion, and indeed I have both seen
and experienced that having more than one founder can lead to disagreements.
Good luck with Historious. I really like it

~~~
maneesh
perhaps your income would be more stratospheric if you hire fewer employees
that compliment you and more that complement you :)

~~~
inovica
Yeah, and maybe check my spelling :) Thanks for pointing that out!

------
PStamatiou
Ah darn, would have loved to meetup with you Stavros, as a fellow Greek
startupper. :) I'll let you know next time I'm in Greece.

~~~
StavrosK
Dude stop thinking about Greece and write that notifo Android client!

Also: I'd love to meet up.

------
jdp23
excellent writeup, great perspectives -- thanks for sharing!

> They did seem to be a bit dismissive about the product (as in “why would I
> use this, I already have bookmarks in my browser”), but I’m sure that’s just
> standard procedure in this sort of interviews.

i'm curious what others' experiences are on this front?

------
atirip
Nevertheless, you kick ass. You are from Europe (me too), from "secondary"
country (me too), one founder (me too), you did make it to the interview (I
didn't).

------
_grrr
Just an aside on histori.us, it's a useful feature, we wanted to do the same
but never got round to it. I noticed today however that when you're logged in
to Google, and search, there is the option to just search "Visited pages".
Although a super-set of your bookmarks, it's still useful, and free... I'm not
sure how long the option has been there.

------
necrodome
what did you tell them when they said 'i have already bookmarks in my
browser'?

i started hacking on a similar idea (a chrome extension that monitors every
url I visit and logs them with a web service that performs snapshots and full
text searches), but then realized chrome's history already performs full text
searching.

~~~
StavrosK
I said that it's not comparable, as the browser only stores the title and
gives you lists, etc. Something like Google Bookmarks is a more direct
competitor, but I don't think that's the thing to watch out for either, as it
seems to be someone's weekend project and they don't really develop it any
more. I'm much more worried about Pinboard, for example.

------
JofArnold
I can't speak for your specific case, but I would guess that stubborness would
indeed work against you. The rules for single cofounders work the same as for
teams: call out YC when they incorrectly correct something you know to be
valid (and back it up) but if the criticism/idea they inject is good then roll
with it and riff on it with them. You'd do the same, presumably, if you were
chatting with your entrepreneur friends... I'm not sure it's really that
different; it's basically a panel of hackers :)

~~~
StavrosK
I wasn't aware of them suggesting anything that I dismissed. It's my policy to
consider every suggestion, be it from users or not, and I don't recall them
suggesting anything...

------
citizenkeys
I really admire you for posting your details about this.

Are there other blog posts by other people that have been through this
experience?

~~~
StavrosK
Thank you, I'm not aware of the YC guys saying anything about not talking
about the experience, and I don't think I'm being disrespectful to anyone, so
here it is!

------
archon810
I have to ask what benefits your idea offers over something like diigo.com or
even delicious.com. You present the idea slightly differently from diigo, but
in the end diigo does exactly the same things, and then some (a lot more
actually). I don't mean to discourage you at all, I'm just wondering what I
may be missing here.

~~~
StavrosK
The disadvantage I see in all these services is, actually, the fact that they
do more. Most people don't want to think about bookmarks, they just want an
easy way to add them and then find them again. The fact that you never really
have to visit the site, and that you can just click a button to bookmark
things and then find them just by recalling the slightest detail is what sets
historious apart, in my opinion.

However, different people will need different things. I just think there's a
market there for both approaches.

------
Dramatize
I really like the design of your site.

~~~
StavrosK
Thank you, it's a themeforest template! Having no cash presents interesting
challenges.

------
drdo
It's great that you are going forward with your idea.

From a user point of view of your application, my main concern would be
privacy, how do you address this?

~~~
StavrosK
Well, your bookmarks and data are never shared with anyone unless you make
them public, so we take very good care of your private data remaining
private...

------
andrewcamel
Please continue your startup. I use it constantly.

~~~
StavrosK
Thank you, it's already profitable enough to run so it's never going away!

------
citizenkeys
i'm trying to create a web page with links to information by people that made
it to the interview round:

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

If you have links to posts/blogs/etc about the interview experience, please
forward the links to me. thanks.

------
thomaspun
Glad the ride was enjoyable :)

------
epynonymous
it's good feedback, find more people to join your cause, keep up the good
work!

~~~
StavrosK
Thank you, I did find out that referrals work well, so stay tuned :P

------
davidmurphy
don't give up!

------
UXMovement
The reason why I think they rejected you is because you are a single founder.
That means if you get hit by a bus they're fucked. Whereas, if you had a team
or a co-founder the company can still go on without you.

~~~
StavrosK
Maybe so, but I wouldn't be averse to recruiting a cofounder...

