Despite being given the same advice by others that had been through the process we still foolishly wasted time preparing a short 1 minute pitch.
We might have had a better result if we'd invested more time in getting the user experience in our demo right and answering the one critical question - "Why would people want this?"
Heh, waiting for the post-interview phone call was a real nail-biter, we basically spent the entire evening waiting for the phone to ring. But it didn't.
It didn't even occur to us that they might call our land line back home until we got the email the next morning. Remotely checking the answering machine was fun too, hadn't used that feature in ages and the code didn't work (turns out you can't send DTMF tones when calling via Skype).
At the time we weren't sure if they give everyone a call or just the ones they accept, so we didn't take the absence of a call as a 'no', but kept wondering. In the end, we got the answer about 26 (pretty exciting) hours after we left the interview room.
So, unless you're a thrill seeker, put your cell number in the application :-)
You get an email when you don't get in with a nice couple of lines explaining why.
Our email came in the early hours of the morning. I'd encourage you not to respond to it, at least for a few days. I felt compelled at the time to send a few paragraphs the next morning responding to some of the criticisms. Retrospectively it probably wasn't that all that useful to anyone.
It must be an exhausting 3 days for the YC team. I don't think there are enough hours in the day for them to call all the unsuccessful interviewees. Especially when some of them (like us) will want to take more of their time responding to feedback.
The quantity and quality of the questions and feedback you get in the short 10 minute interview alone is brilliant. Even though we didn't get funded it's had a massive impact on the way I think about things. I'd fly out from the UK to do it again even if there wasn't any chance of funding.
Another tiny UI thing- for me the search bar overlays one of the results. For the easter egg I thought they had left pg out of the results until I realized it was underneath the search bar.
First, congratulations! I'm curious how you are setting up a company in the United States if you or one of your co-founders is from Germany? I've been trying to figure out the whole startup-as-a-foreigner thing (I'm Canadian), and so far I haven't been able to find any good info.
Did you guys happen to do much mingling in the waiting area just before or just after your interview?
We got to the interview super early and ended up chatting with Kate (we asked her how to get to In and Out), Skysheets Dan (saw his demo), and two other interviewing teams that were accepted. Then there were two less social teams who sat in the corner with their laptops, I guess nervously testing their demo one last time.
Maybe I'm over-fitting, but for me the nerve-calming benefits of being social in the waiting room was helpful.
We'll fund anything that scales like a startup. We had a very promising startup doing real estate two cycles ago, but they fell apart due to disputes between the founders. I still think it was a great idea.
Thanks for the insight into the process. That sounds a lot more useful than an actual interview, because it seems like you are learning something from the meeting through the brainstorming.
Wheels, this is brilliant and it mostly matches what we learnt from other startups during StartupSchool and the Y-Combinator reception last month. Thanks for putting this in a post.
If you type the beginning of an article name it should autocomplete after a sec (it's a little slower than it should be...) There's also an easter-egg you can use:
I am sorry if this is completely obvious and I am missing something. But I just do not understand, not one little bit.
Why did you fly to America to get $5000? It is not a large amount of money. I am surprised it covered your air fares.
So why? I do not feel the need at all. You did. I would like to here why. Did they really say something in the interview that justified all that time and expense?
update: I have no idea whatsoever why this is being downvoted. There is no way I would fly to the US to collect a pathetic $5k. I'd genuinely like to know why people think it is a profitable thing to do so. Thanks.
You're being downvoted because people think the answer to your question is so obvious that you must be trolling. However, I'll assume you're being sincere.
The money is the least important aspect of getting in to YC. What matters is the advice they provide and the community/network aspects. These things are so valuable that they are a huge state change for most startups.
I'm sorry, but even though the money is the least part of the package, I need to correct you on this one: it's not $5,000, it's at least $10k (2 founders) and probably $15k.
[+] [-] madmotive|16 years ago|reply
Despite being given the same advice by others that had been through the process we still foolishly wasted time preparing a short 1 minute pitch.
We might have had a better result if we'd invested more time in getting the user experience in our demo right and answering the one critical question - "Why would people want this?"
Don't make the same mistake we did. :)
[+] [-] araneae|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrischen|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hussong|16 years ago|reply
It didn't even occur to us that they might call our land line back home until we got the email the next morning. Remotely checking the answering machine was fun too, hadn't used that feature in ages and the code didn't work (turns out you can't send DTMF tones when calling via Skype).
At the time we weren't sure if they give everyone a call or just the ones they accept, so we didn't take the absence of a call as a 'no', but kept wondering. In the end, we got the answer about 26 (pretty exciting) hours after we left the interview room.
So, unless you're a thrill seeker, put your cell number in the application :-)
[+] [-] madmotive|16 years ago|reply
Our email came in the early hours of the morning. I'd encourage you not to respond to it, at least for a few days. I felt compelled at the time to send a few paragraphs the next morning responding to some of the criticisms. Retrospectively it probably wasn't that all that useful to anyone.
It must be an exhausting 3 days for the YC team. I don't think there are enough hours in the day for them to call all the unsuccessful interviewees. Especially when some of them (like us) will want to take more of their time responding to feedback.
The quantity and quality of the questions and feedback you get in the short 10 minute interview alone is brilliant. Even though we didn't get funded it's had a massive impact on the way I think about things. I'd fly out from the UK to do it again even if there wasn't any chance of funding.
[+] [-] jl|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anateus|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramidarigaz|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hussong|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] araneae|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peripitea|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leelin|16 years ago|reply
We got to the interview super early and ended up chatting with Kate (we asked her how to get to In and Out), Skysheets Dan (saw his demo), and two other interviewing teams that were accepted. Then there were two less social teams who sat in the corner with their laptops, I guess nervously testing their demo one last time.
Maybe I'm over-fitting, but for me the nerve-calming benefits of being social in the waiting room was helpful.
[+] [-] anateus|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mahmud|16 years ago|reply
Don't need the money but could really use the "blessing". They have some of the most enviable media contacts in the industry right now.
[+] [-] pg|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannyr|16 years ago|reply
Yeah you get good media contacts with YC but that only takes you so far. What's good is the community of founders who have gone thru YC.
[+] [-] eru|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SlyShy|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bastian|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gord|16 years ago|reply
On DirectedEdge home, can I enter any search term, or does this need to be a well formatted Wikipedia entry url ?
[+] [-] wheels|16 years ago|reply
http://www.directededge.com/?Y%20Combinator
[+] [-] JLaramie|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endlessvoid94|16 years ago|reply
Good luck!
[+] [-] pmorici|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marknutter|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btilly|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sailormoon|16 years ago|reply
Why did you fly to America to get $5000? It is not a large amount of money. I am surprised it covered your air fares.
So why? I do not feel the need at all. You did. I would like to here why. Did they really say something in the interview that justified all that time and expense?
update: I have no idea whatsoever why this is being downvoted. There is no way I would fly to the US to collect a pathetic $5k. I'd genuinely like to know why people think it is a profitable thing to do so. Thanks.
[+] [-] gruseom|16 years ago|reply
The money is the least important aspect of getting in to YC. What matters is the advice they provide and the community/network aspects. These things are so valuable that they are a huge state change for most startups.
[+] [-] cedsav|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drusenko|16 years ago|reply
Saying it's just $5,000 is disingenuous.
[+] [-] unknown|16 years ago|reply
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