43 ms·

Just did the Y Combinator interview: here are my notes

253 points by tnolet 7y ago

austincheney 7y ago
I get the impression from reading stuff like this, there have been several I have read, that for some people start ups are a fashion or a "thing to do". I find this very strange as though some people have money and time to burn without the stresses of daily life of things like a demanding job or children. To me a startup makes amazing sense when you have an original disruptive idea and the passion to unload all your time and energy into the spirit of that idea knowing you will probably fail. That is the anti-thesis of a fashion.
- brudgers 7y ago
  It is as if some people have money and time to burn because some people have money and time to burn. There are also people who operate at lower levels of abstraction than "original disruptive ideas and the passion." I'm probably not either. But my experience is only my experience.
- tnolet 7y ago
  OP here. Fair enough, but I’m 100% all in. I’m as far away from a startup fashionista as they get: trust me. I just like sharing this stuff for catharsis reasons and because I genuinely think it’s interesting to read for some. On the disruption part, I disagree. There are markets that are just old or aging. Fairly small improvements and a rethink of the market can already make a new product viable.
  - sillysaurusx 7y ago
    A startup is fundamentally disruptive. That's what a startup is: something that grows until it can't be ignored. I just tried to think of a single successful startup that wouldn't be classified as "disruptive" and couldn't do it.
    - HatchedLake721 7y ago
      I think you’re confusing a startup with a startup unicorn. You can start tomorrow a niche SaaS, e.g. a debt collection CRM for French market, and become a startup. Are you successful startup? Yes (e.g. you turnover $20k a month solo). Are you disruptive? No. Truly disruptive startups are in two digits range. Successful startups that “made it”, whether it’s revenue, money raised, or profit, are in the hundreds of thousands/millions.
      - sfjailbird 7y ago
        According to YC (at least Paul Graham's classic definition) a startup is something that grows very fast.
      - MCneill27 7y ago
        It might be a startup in the colloquial sense of the word, to friends, family, etc., but I and many others here would argue that it's a small business rather than a startup.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I didn't get that feeling from this article, but I share your feelings about doing a startup as a fashion. It's definitely real. I used to coach at a bunch of startup events, and many people were definitely drawn to the hype. E.g., the fresh college graduate who was trying to decide between going to grad school or doing a startup. The people who were sure they had the "next Facebook". [1] The people who want to be the next Steve Jobs, or whoever the press is lionizing these days. And really, I think a lot of the "Uber for X" wave was of that style. How many of those really had plausible unit economics? Versus just being a bunch of people playing disruption dress-up with a tide of VC money behind them? It is my fervent hope that WeWork's the peak of that bubble. That with less hype and froth, we'll see more companies focused on serving users and creating long-term value. [1] In my view, there will be no "next Facebook": https://www.quora.com/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to-Startup-Weekend-like-events-and-widely-pitch-my-next-Facebook-idea-in-search-of-co-founders/answer/William-Pietri https://www.quora.com/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to-Startup-Weekend...
- jaxn 7y ago
  There are a lot of people who dream of being a musician, or an actor, or an artist, or an athlete, or some other prestigious and fun profession. It's the same thing with startups. There is virtually zero chance they will be successful. It's not that they have time and money to burn. It's just that they are living a dream/fantasy.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  Tons of people have non-demanding jobs and no children. In fact you start out life with neither of them! I'm a university drop out who works non-technical jobs that earn less than most first year programmers would be on and whenever I'm employed full time I work 40-45 hour weeks and save over half my income without really trying. Dependents come with enormous opportunity cost. So does a high standard of living.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  No, this is not the reality for everyone. You do not have to get married to an idea to make money or require capital to make a return for shareholders. Many people have the luxury of trying multiple ideas without needing to top up their personal balance sheet by exchanging time for money. This allows them to rapidly iterate towards a market hit, and solidify the survivorship bias. Many other founders do only get one chance to blow all their savings and then go back to work for the next decade, increasing the likelihood that they encumber themselves with more life circumstances that prevent them from ever having the flexibility to not exchange time for food and shelter.
- codesushi42 7y ago
  that for some people start ups are a fashion or a "thing to do" This is true, and I was expecting the same sentiment from the post but it was not there. And as far as startups being a "thing to do". As opposed to doing what else? Working for a big company? What pray tell would be better and more meaningful? It probably wouldn't be in tech.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    What’s “meaningful” working for a VC backed startup? Once you take enough VC funds, you are working for multiple “big companies” who decide your fate. It’s an illusion that you are working for a small company.
    - codesushi42 7y ago
      No one said working for startups is meaningful.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        From the post I replied to. “What pray tell would be better and more meaningful? ”
        codesushi42 7y ago
        That doesn't mean startups are meaningful.
- cmdshiftf4 7y ago
  >that for some people start ups are a fashion or a "thing to do" There could be a vast array of underlying reasons for them simply wanting to try doing a startup. Maybe working for someone else 40 hours a week isn't giving them sufficient purpose, and they want to try something that will? How many of us feel this but never act on it? Maybe they believe that their skills and work ethic can gain them significantly more income than what they can get grinding 40 hours in other people's businesses, and grinding interviews every couple of years to get meaningful salary increases, and are willing to take on the risk to see if they can make that happen for themselves? Maybe they see life as being short and want to try something different for themselves to escape the expected timeline of school -> university -> job(s) at compan(y)(ies) -> retirement -> death? Some people seem to simply want to do it for the sake of it, but there could be many underlying motivators than making some sort of vacuous fashion statement which you're implying. >some people have money and time to burn without the stresses of daily life of things like a demanding job or children. Some people inherit money. Some people save like savants. Others may have got a payout from a previous company going public or being acquired. Some are money orientated and have built careers around it, and have a partner with similar traits who'll carry the income if they believe in the other's idea. The main thing is that it's not your money, so why would you care? >To me a startup makes amazing sense when you have an original disruptive idea and the passion to unload all your time and energy into the spirit of that idea knowing you will probably fail. To you, maybe, and thankfully you're part of a tiny minority with such opinions. Stay-in-line, continue grinding at other's businesses and therefore lining other's pockets unless you've something "disruptive" to produce? Businesses should only emerge if they've a niche offering? Really? The free market, and well-being of the consumer, relies on competition. Competition does not happen in a market comprised only of companies "disrupting" one thing or another. Starting a company on the basis of having identified something a product, or service, does already but you believe can be done better, is as legitimate as bringing something "disruptive" to the market. The chains you've bound yourself in with in regards to the life choices you've made and the tolerance to risk produced by them shouldn't be the basis on which you judge the activities or choices of others.
methodover 7y ago
I’m sure other commenters here will comment on the substance of what you wrote. I’ll, however, just toss a complement: You’re a fantastic writer. Pithy, funny, informative. Nice work here.
- tnolet 7y ago
  Thanks. I try. Some come out better than others.
ronilan 7y ago
> I was interviewed by three partners Who? They are people, right? I have a name, you have a name, the three partners must also have names. Who were they?
- sushid 7y ago
  He probably doesn’t want to share that level of detail. Why is this important?
  - ronilan 7y ago
    Thanks for asking. The specific names of the three judging partners aren’t important (obviously) what is important though is that there is a tendency to provide those in position of power (generally, or in a given situation) with a layer of protection (by anonymity) that is not afforded to those whom they have power upon. The omission caught my eye. It reminded me that YC has this glaring asymmetry in other parts of the application process, specifically with the personal video they require people submit, but do not disclose who watched it. I thought that if I say something, someone might ask a followup question, and I can bring that point above in a followup comment. So again, thanks for asking ;) P.S - the downvotes on the comment are worth it, obviously.
    - com2kid 7y ago
      > The specific names of the three judging partners aren’t important (obviously) what is important though is that there is a tendency to provide those in position of power (generally, or in a given situation) with a layer of protection (by anonymity) that is not afforded to those whom they have power upon. If the author hadn't posted about this experience, no one at YC would've made a public post saying they interviewed him. Indeed, that would be a bit on the weird side if YC made a post saying "we spoke to someone from Checkly, his sense of humor was kinda funny."
      - ronilan 7y ago
        > Indeed, that would be a bit on the weird side if YC made a post saying "we spoke to someone from Checkly, his sense of humor was kinda funny." Weird is in the eye of the beholder. I personally would love to see publicly something like “Me and Paul (and/or Paul) reviewed Ron’s application in 2010 and decided not to invite him to an interview because of XYZ”. It’ll be entertaining. Edit: actually maybe it was in 2011. Damn, that was a long time ago.
ericand 7y ago
3 interviewers in a single 10 minute interview, correct? Surprised they don't have 2 for 15 or 1 for 30 min.
- random42 7y ago
  They want to avoid the unconscious bias of a single mind, and non decision due to conflicting opinions of even number of interviewers.
  - richmarr 7y ago
    Presumably there's more to this than comes across in your comment. After all, you don't avoid the unconscious bias of a single mind by adding more minds. That just gives you three sets of unconscious bias and adds biases caused by group dynamics. Do you have a link? I may be googling the wrong terms.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      You can still avoid most of the effects of a worst-case bias by adding two additional measurements. Rather than 1 person, 30 minutes (one measurement), given 3 who all had the same experience, you are less likely to have all three have an impression unconnected with the substance of the conversation.
      - richmarr 7y ago
        > You can still avoid most of the effects of a worst-case bias by adding two additional measurements... given 3 who all had the same experience You're right that it's an advantage, but it reduces noise, not bias. Bias by definition skews systemically in the same direction so the positive effect of taking multiple measurements is minimal.
        random42 7y ago
        A huge part of it is resulting discussion that happens between different observers which puts the onus to check for biases and map the signals on objective parameters.
mettamage 7y ago
> Order your thoughts. Keep it short. Communicate one idea in one sentence. etc. etc. etc. This is true in general. I remember when I did consulting interviews you needed to talk like that and the feedback I got was that I didn't do enough of it. Funnily enough, I could clearly tell that whenever I had a programmer job interview, everyone was always really impressed with how 'structured my thinking' was. Other than being impressed the biggest benefit that you also describe in your blog post is that it is simply very clear what you are about! And people seem a lot happier when listening to you feels like a simple thing to do. Here's an example of how I do it. The following that I wrote down was typed as quickly as possible. --- Interviewer: So tell me about yourself Me: Alright, there are three perspectives I'd quickly like to touch: 1. Personal 2. Educational 3. Professional With 1. personal, I'm all about fantasy and curiosity. Understand that and you understand me. Educational: I studied to become the bridge between the business world and the computer world while also trying to become an expert in both. Therefore, I started of with business informatics. Upon graduation I immediately started studying psychology - people, and computer science - computers. And I studied game studies to merge them back into one topic again. Professional it's rather interesting: the past 8 years I saw my university as a playground and I just applied to any job that didn't feel like work. This resulted in me becoming a teaching assistant, a coach for teaching assistants, a bootcamp instructor and a programmer/web developer. In total I have about 2.5 years of work experience, 1.5 on teaching development and 1 on development. --- It was a huge improvement compared to my standard 15 minute answer. This answer above is just told under 1 minute.
- Yajirobe 7y ago
  > Interviewer: So tell me about yourself > Me: Alright, there are three perspectives I'd quickly like to touch: > 1. Personal > 2. Educational > 3. Professional That seems so forced and unnatural that it makes me cringe. 'Tell me about yourself' should be a natural conversation starter, not an exam that you did your homework for.
  - short_sells_poo 7y ago
    Same here. If I heard this in an interview I'd feel like I'm being fed a presentation deck instead of an honest answer. Now, I do think that one should do a little bit of homework to give a somewhat structured answer to "Tell me about yourself", but there is such a thing as too perfect, at which point it becomes jarring.
mmmuhd 7y ago
Haha, I thought I am the only one who joined the startup school this year mostly for the AWS credit, honestly the credits helps, being from African developing country, AWS charges are a bit expensive for us to expirament with and build a startup. I am glad we are not alone in the AWS credits wagon.
dysoncdn 7y ago
>I have no idea if Checkly is "in" yet — I'll find out within a week or so Is this delay only for interviews outside the Bay Area?
- tnolet 7y ago
  Honestly, I don’t know. I thought 5 days to a week was pretty good already.

253 points by tnolet 7y ago

I get the impression from reading stuff like this, there have been several I have read, that for some people start ups are a fashion or a "thing to do". I find this very strange as though some people have money and time to burn without the stresses of daily life of things like a demanding job or children. To me a startup makes amazing sense when you have an original disruptive idea and the passion to unload all your time and energy into the spirit of that idea knowing you will probably fail. That is the anti-thesis of a fashion.

brudgers 7y ago
It is as if some people have money and time to burn because some people have money and time to burn. There are also people who operate at lower levels of abstraction than "original disruptive ideas and the passion." I'm probably not either. But my experience is only my experience.
tnolet 7y ago
OP here. Fair enough, but I’m 100% all in. I’m as far away from a startup fashionista as they get: trust me. I just like sharing this stuff for catharsis reasons and because I genuinely think it’s interesting to read for some. On the disruption part, I disagree. There are markets that are just old or aging. Fairly small improvements and a rethink of the market can already make a new product viable.
- sillysaurusx 7y ago
  A startup is fundamentally disruptive. That's what a startup is: something that grows until it can't be ignored. I just tried to think of a single successful startup that wouldn't be classified as "disruptive" and couldn't do it.
  - HatchedLake721 7y ago
    I think you’re confusing a startup with a startup unicorn. You can start tomorrow a niche SaaS, e.g. a debt collection CRM for French market, and become a startup. Are you successful startup? Yes (e.g. you turnover $20k a month solo). Are you disruptive? No. Truly disruptive startups are in two digits range. Successful startups that “made it”, whether it’s revenue, money raised, or profit, are in the hundreds of thousands/millions.
    - sfjailbird 7y ago
      According to YC (at least Paul Graham's classic definition) a startup is something that grows very fast.
    - MCneill27 7y ago
      It might be a startup in the colloquial sense of the word, to friends, family, etc., but I and many others here would argue that it's a small business rather than a startup.
wpietri 7y ago
I didn't get that feeling from this article, but I share your feelings about doing a startup as a fashion. It's definitely real. I used to coach at a bunch of startup events, and many people were definitely drawn to the hype. E.g., the fresh college graduate who was trying to decide between going to grad school or doing a startup. The people who were sure they had the "next Facebook". [1] The people who want to be the next Steve Jobs, or whoever the press is lionizing these days. And really, I think a lot of the "Uber for X" wave was of that style. How many of those really had plausible unit economics? Versus just being a bunch of people playing disruption dress-up with a tide of VC money behind them? It is my fervent hope that WeWork's the peak of that bubble. That with less hype and froth, we'll see more companies focused on serving users and creating long-term value. [1] In my view, there will be no "next Facebook": https://www.quora.com/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to-Startup-Weekend-like-events-and-widely-pitch-my-next-Facebook-idea-in-search-of-co-founders/answer/William-Pietri https://www.quora.com/Is-it-foolish-to-go-to-Startup-Weekend...
jaxn 7y ago
There are a lot of people who dream of being a musician, or an actor, or an artist, or an athlete, or some other prestigious and fun profession. It's the same thing with startups. There is virtually zero chance they will be successful. It's not that they have time and money to burn. It's just that they are living a dream/fantasy.
austhrow743 7y ago
Tons of people have non-demanding jobs and no children. In fact you start out life with neither of them! I'm a university drop out who works non-technical jobs that earn less than most first year programmers would be on and whenever I'm employed full time I work 40-45 hour weeks and save over half my income without really trying. Dependents come with enormous opportunity cost. So does a high standard of living.
rolltiide 7y ago
No, this is not the reality for everyone. You do not have to get married to an idea to make money or require capital to make a return for shareholders. Many people have the luxury of trying multiple ideas without needing to top up their personal balance sheet by exchanging time for money. This allows them to rapidly iterate towards a market hit, and solidify the survivorship bias. Many other founders do only get one chance to blow all their savings and then go back to work for the next decade, increasing the likelihood that they encumber themselves with more life circumstances that prevent them from ever having the flexibility to not exchange time for food and shelter.
codesushi42 7y ago
that for some people start ups are a fashion or a "thing to do" This is true, and I was expecting the same sentiment from the post but it was not there. And as far as startups being a "thing to do". As opposed to doing what else? Working for a big company? What pray tell would be better and more meaningful? It probably wouldn't be in tech.
- scarface74 7y ago
  What’s “meaningful” working for a VC backed startup? Once you take enough VC funds, you are working for multiple “big companies” who decide your fate. It’s an illusion that you are working for a small company.
  - codesushi42 7y ago
    No one said working for startups is meaningful.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      From the post I replied to. “What pray tell would be better and more meaningful? ”
      - codesushi42 7y ago
        That doesn't mean startups are meaningful.
cmdshiftf4 7y ago
>that for some people start ups are a fashion or a "thing to do" There could be a vast array of underlying reasons for them simply wanting to try doing a startup. Maybe working for someone else 40 hours a week isn't giving them sufficient purpose, and they want to try something that will? How many of us feel this but never act on it? Maybe they believe that their skills and work ethic can gain them significantly more income than what they can get grinding 40 hours in other people's businesses, and grinding interviews every couple of years to get meaningful salary increases, and are willing to take on the risk to see if they can make that happen for themselves? Maybe they see life as being short and want to try something different for themselves to escape the expected timeline of school -> university -> job(s) at compan(y)(ies) -> retirement -> death? Some people seem to simply want to do it for the sake of it, but there could be many underlying motivators than making some sort of vacuous fashion statement which you're implying. >some people have money and time to burn without the stresses of daily life of things like a demanding job or children. Some people inherit money. Some people save like savants. Others may have got a payout from a previous company going public or being acquired. Some are money orientated and have built careers around it, and have a partner with similar traits who'll carry the income if they believe in the other's idea. The main thing is that it's not your money, so why would you care? >To me a startup makes amazing sense when you have an original disruptive idea and the passion to unload all your time and energy into the spirit of that idea knowing you will probably fail. To you, maybe, and thankfully you're part of a tiny minority with such opinions. Stay-in-line, continue grinding at other's businesses and therefore lining other's pockets unless you've something "disruptive" to produce? Businesses should only emerge if they've a niche offering? Really? The free market, and well-being of the consumer, relies on competition. Competition does not happen in a market comprised only of companies "disrupting" one thing or another. Starting a company on the basis of having identified something a product, or service, does already but you believe can be done better, is as legitimate as bringing something "disruptive" to the market. The chains you've bound yourself in with in regards to the life choices you've made and the tolerance to risk produced by them shouldn't be the basis on which you judge the activities or choices of others.

methodover 7y ago

I’m sure other commenters here will comment on the substance of what you wrote. I’ll, however, just toss a complement: You’re a fantastic writer. Pithy, funny, informative. Nice work here.

tnolet 7y ago
Thanks. I try. Some come out better than others.

ronilan 7y ago

> I was interviewed by three partners Who? They are people, right? I have a name, you have a name, the three partners must also have names. Who were they?

sushid 7y ago
He probably doesn’t want to share that level of detail. Why is this important?
- ronilan 7y ago
  Thanks for asking. The specific names of the three judging partners aren’t important (obviously) what is important though is that there is a tendency to provide those in position of power (generally, or in a given situation) with a layer of protection (by anonymity) that is not afforded to those whom they have power upon. The omission caught my eye. It reminded me that YC has this glaring asymmetry in other parts of the application process, specifically with the personal video they require people submit, but do not disclose who watched it. I thought that if I say something, someone might ask a followup question, and I can bring that point above in a followup comment. So again, thanks for asking ;) P.S - the downvotes on the comment are worth it, obviously.
  - com2kid 7y ago
    > The specific names of the three judging partners aren’t important (obviously) what is important though is that there is a tendency to provide those in position of power (generally, or in a given situation) with a layer of protection (by anonymity) that is not afforded to those whom they have power upon. If the author hadn't posted about this experience, no one at YC would've made a public post saying they interviewed him. Indeed, that would be a bit on the weird side if YC made a post saying "we spoke to someone from Checkly, his sense of humor was kinda funny."
    - ronilan 7y ago
      > Indeed, that would be a bit on the weird side if YC made a post saying "we spoke to someone from Checkly, his sense of humor was kinda funny." Weird is in the eye of the beholder. I personally would love to see publicly something like “Me and Paul (and/or Paul) reviewed Ron’s application in 2010 and decided not to invite him to an interview because of XYZ”. It’ll be entertaining. Edit: actually maybe it was in 2011. Damn, that was a long time ago.

ericand 7y ago

3 interviewers in a single 10 minute interview, correct? Surprised they don't have 2 for 15 or 1 for 30 min.

random42 7y ago
They want to avoid the unconscious bias of a single mind, and non decision due to conflicting opinions of even number of interviewers.
- richmarr 7y ago
  Presumably there's more to this than comes across in your comment. After all, you don't avoid the unconscious bias of a single mind by adding more minds. That just gives you three sets of unconscious bias and adds biases caused by group dynamics. Do you have a link? I may be googling the wrong terms.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    You can still avoid most of the effects of a worst-case bias by adding two additional measurements. Rather than 1 person, 30 minutes (one measurement), given 3 who all had the same experience, you are less likely to have all three have an impression unconnected with the substance of the conversation.
    - richmarr 7y ago
      > You can still avoid most of the effects of a worst-case bias by adding two additional measurements... given 3 who all had the same experience You're right that it's an advantage, but it reduces noise, not bias. Bias by definition skews systemically in the same direction so the positive effect of taking multiple measurements is minimal.
      - random42 7y ago
        A huge part of it is resulting discussion that happens between different observers which puts the onus to check for biases and map the signals on objective parameters.

mettamage 7y ago

> Order your thoughts. Keep it short. Communicate one idea in one sentence. etc. etc. etc. This is true in general. I remember when I did consulting interviews you needed to talk like that and the feedback I got was that I didn't do enough of it. Funnily enough, I could clearly tell that whenever I had a programmer job interview, everyone was always really impressed with how 'structured my thinking' was. Other than being impressed the biggest benefit that you also describe in your blog post is that it is simply very clear what you are about! And people seem a lot happier when listening to you feels like a simple thing to do. Here's an example of how I do it. The following that I wrote down was typed as quickly as possible. --- Interviewer: So tell me about yourself Me: Alright, there are three perspectives I'd quickly like to touch: 1. Personal 2. Educational 3. Professional With 1. personal, I'm all about fantasy and curiosity. Understand that and you understand me. Educational: I studied to become the bridge between the business world and the computer world while also trying to become an expert in both. Therefore, I started of with business informatics. Upon graduation I immediately started studying psychology - people, and computer science - computers. And I studied game studies to merge them back into one topic again. Professional it's rather interesting: the past 8 years I saw my university as a playground and I just applied to any job that didn't feel like work. This resulted in me becoming a teaching assistant, a coach for teaching assistants, a bootcamp instructor and a programmer/web developer. In total I have about 2.5 years of work experience, 1.5 on teaching development and 1 on development. --- It was a huge improvement compared to my standard 15 minute answer. This answer above is just told under 1 minute.

Yajirobe 7y ago
> Interviewer: So tell me about yourself > Me: Alright, there are three perspectives I'd quickly like to touch: > 1. Personal > 2. Educational > 3. Professional That seems so forced and unnatural that it makes me cringe. 'Tell me about yourself' should be a natural conversation starter, not an exam that you did your homework for.
- short_sells_poo 7y ago
  Same here. If I heard this in an interview I'd feel like I'm being fed a presentation deck instead of an honest answer. Now, I do think that one should do a little bit of homework to give a somewhat structured answer to "Tell me about yourself", but there is such a thing as too perfect, at which point it becomes jarring.

mmmuhd 7y ago

Haha, I thought I am the only one who joined the startup school this year mostly for the AWS credit, honestly the credits helps, being from African developing country, AWS charges are a bit expensive for us to expirament with and build a startup. I am glad we are not alone in the AWS credits wagon.

dysoncdn 7y ago

>I have no idea if Checkly is "in" yet — I'll find out within a week or so Is this delay only for interviews outside the Bay Area?

tnolet 7y ago
Honestly, I don’t know. I thought 5 days to a week was pretty good already.