You got a YC interview?! Congrats!
Don’t screw it up!
(LOL but not).
The internet has a bevy of tips on how not to do so. Let’s review the best ones to bring out the bro in you and ace your chances of dominating the world.
Overall:
- Introduce yourselves in the beginning — say who does what and make sure to emphasize who is a technical founder.
- Have your BEST PITCH founder lead your answers. This is the person who leads your fundraising conversations and is skilled at selling your story. Hopefully this is your CEO. If the person with the clearly best English on the team is not your CEO — and you haven’t yet done many pitches to investors yet — go with the person who will be most comfortable and confident on the fly in English. Have a clear section or two for the other co-founders to shine on something that falls within his or her wheelhouse.
- Develop crisp, clear 10-second answers to all of these questions and know WHO ON YOUR TEAM WILL ANSWER EACH ONE.
- The first question is: What do you do? For the love of god, don’t use jargon. Do have a crisp, clear, 30-second answer.
- If you have red flags in your business, have a clear 15-second answer to explain them.
- Do not start with a Demo. If they ask for it, it should be in second half of interview.
- Don’t talk over or contradict your co-founders.
- DO NOT USE JARGON.
- Smile and talk confidently like the bro you are deep inside your heart.
Good links?
See some prep interview blogs here.
See a full list of questions from this great site here:
So what are you working on?
Are you open to changing your idea?
Have you raised funding?
How are you meeting customers?
How are you understanding customer needs?
How did your team meet?
How do we know your team will stick together?
Why do you need YC then?
How do you know customers need what you’re making?
How does this become a billion-dollar company?
How big an opportunity is there?
How does your product work in more detail?
How is your product different?
How long can you go before funding?
How many users are paying?
How many users do you have?
How much does customer acquisition cost?
How much money could you make per year?
How will customers and/or users find out about you?
How will you make money?
If your startup succeeds, what additional areas might you be able to expand into?
In what ways are you resourceful?
Six months from now, what’s going to be your biggest problem?
So what would be an example use case?
Someone just showed us an idea like this right before you guys. I don’t like it. What else do you have?
Tell us about a tough problem you solved?
Tell us something surprising you have done?
What are the key things about your field that outsiders don’t understand? / What do you know about this space/product others don’t know? / What do you understand that others don’t?
What are the top things users want?
What are you going to do next?
What competition do you fear most?
What domain expertise do you have?
What else have you created together?
What has surprised you about user behaviour?
What is the next step with the product evolution?
What is your burn rate?
What is your distribution strategy?
What is your growth like?
What is your user growth rate?
What keeps you up at night?
What makes new users try you?
What obstacles will you face and how will you overcome them?
What part of your project are you going to build first?
What problems/hurdles are you anticipating?
What resistance will they have to trying you and how will you overcome it?
What systems have you hacked?
What will you do if we don’t fund you?
What, exactly, makes you different from existing options?
What’s an impressive thing you have done?
What’s new about what you make?
What’s the biggest mistake you have made?
What’s the conversion rate?
What’s the funniest thing that has happened to you?
What’s the worst thing that has happened?
Where do new users come from?
Where is the rocket science here?
Who are your competitors?
Who in your team does what?
Who is going to be your first paying customer?
Who is “the boss”?
Who might become competitors?
Who needs what you’re making?
Who would be your next hire?
Who would you hire or how would you add to your team?
Who would use your product?
Why did you pick this idea to work on?
Why did your team get together?
Why do the reluctant users hold back?
Why isn’t someone already doing this?
Will you reincorporate as a US company?
Will your team stick at this?
Would you relocate to Silicon Valley?
What are some trends in your target market, and related markets?
How much time and money do users in your target market waste before switching to your product/service?
How much are your competitors making?
How many users do your competitors have?
How fast is the market growing?
Total costs, fixed and marginal
How many currently active users
Why should I believe its you and not some other people or software?
What are the immediate next steps on sales?
What are the next items on the product roadmap?
Other challenges? What YC help you will need in the next 3-4 months?
Milestones and revenue targets for 3/5/7 years?
How do you plan scale sales?
What are your immediate next steps?
Anything surprising you’ve learned?
What is the user’s biggest value?
How will customers and/or users find out about you?
How do you think YC will help you in your startup?
Why will you succeed?
What is new about what you are building?
