This is a great story, but perhaps not for the reasons intended by the author. I applied once to YC. As I recall, my solo founder video included a puppet, so f

This is a great story, but perhaps not for the reasons intended by the author. I applied once to YC. As I recall, my solo founder video included a puppet, so fair warning: I'm an idiot when it comes to startups. I only repeat what I've heard and read. When they asked you guys all those questions, the proper answer wasn't to reply technically, it was to reply with something akin to "social proof" So, for instance, when they asked "Why are you spending so much time developing this application?" One good answer might be something like "Because we've talked to 50 people, and 10 of them tell us that if we can finish in the next six months, they want to use it. In fact, here's the money they deposited so they would be first in line" The takeaway that YC is only interested in money may be at the same time true and misleading. As I understand those guys, they simply want proof from other humans that you are capable of doing something folks will like. Either you already have those humans and proof -- or they believe that you're the kind of guys that can go get them and then they'll take a flier on your ability. In either case, to say it's money is missing the point. A lot of technical folks confuse the kinds of questions they are getting. When the question is along the lines of "Why don't I do X?", they're not asking you to argue that X is better than all other choices. Hell, X may be worse. They're asking you to explain to them how by talking to other people, you've learned that a significant percentage of them like X better, even if it sounds stupid. (In fact, if it sounds stupid and looks like something other people would not do, yet real people want it? That's a plus!) I liked this. Thank you for posting. Sorry about the negative feedback. ADD: There's nothing wrong with building something complex with a grand vision that might take months to put together. The trick is to do it in smaller chunks that get customer validation each step of the way. [Insert long discussion here about how it's easy to get emotionally attached to a codebase and solution that nobody else in the world would ever want]