3 Tips to Nail the Y Combinator Interview
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2019
- These were the 3 things I looked for when I was a Y Combinator partner. It's only 10 minutes, so make them count. The YC Interview is just a conversation. Take a deep breath, prepare, and practice.
I’m Garry Tan, venture capitalist and cofounder at Initialized Capital. We were earliest investors in billion dollar startups like Coinbase and Instacart, and we’re spending time with some of our best founders to learn the secrets of their success and see the future they’re building. I’m doing my own run-and-gun one man TH-cam channel with no staff or crew - we're going for raw and unfiltered, not perfect.
Please like this video and subscribe to my channel if you want to see more videos like this!
Find Garry on Twitter at / garrytan
Learn more about the companies we fund, and how we work with them at initialized.com
Garry coached me through the YC interview process. It was the most exhilarating 10 min of my professional life and it felt like 30 seconds. Garry helped me nail the most important points with a consistent drum beat. Without his guidance it would have gone by too quickly and I would have missed those important points. Thank you Garry!
It was an honor and pleasure. You’ve built something people want!
@Saket Toshniwal did you make it?
@@abhinav8859 No :(
Hey Cameron, I've seen a few of your videos and also listened to some podcasts about Torch - great venture! Have you by any chance written about how you managed to get into YC? I've seen a video of an interview of how you fundraised but keen to understand how you built Torch from scratch. Cheers
@myratgeldiannageldiyev5012your profit margins will be too low to compensate for overhead costs
“It’s just a conversation” brilliant, Gary.
There's something really calming about you Gary. Great substance in your videos too. I love them.
Thanks for the encouraging words Gary! Love the way you alternative between those that got interviews and those that didn’t.
A lot more people didn’t get an interview than did!
Glad TH-cam’s algo finally suggested great content!
Wonderful! Wonderful! Thanks for sharing Sir. Rock on !
I just got YC interview invite! This video is very helpful. Thank you, Garry.
Congrats Sophie happy for you.😁Did you get an Invite for S22 or W23?
Thank you so much Garry. This is golden.
Garry is the coolest of breezes. What a heart!
You are an absolute legend Garry! Big fan of yours and hope I'm gonna meet you someday..
I am currently a bar examinee in the Philippines and I learned how to code. My dream is to create apps that will solve people’s problems. I aim to be part of YC. Watch out for me, Garry! ❤
This pyramid approach to answering questions is a genius idea!
Thanks Garry this is super useful. We are at MVP stage for a healthcare company in South Africa. This is gold!
Hi Suneej. Still around? How is it going with the health care company? What the name? Website?
@@artfuldoc. I see you're watching your TH-cam feeds... even 11 months after commenting here. 😁🤪
I'll check out that website.
Just watch out for more regulatory concerns. You know how they are... every time they open their mouths there at the Union Buildings, it spells trouble for the country, and perhaps soon you'll be pivoting better than a professional ballerina! 😬
you are such an authentic soul, love your videos man been binge watching. I'm not trying to get into YC (I have a CRM with few paid customers) but def. love all your gems. thanks so much for making these videos!!!
I appreciate that - thanks for watching!
@@GarryTan thanks for taking time out to make these videos!!! 🙏🏻
Thank you Garry for the nice feedback.
Thanks for the advice you gave on my application weeks ago, this was cool. ( free-visit).
thank you for the motivation and insights. need to focus now.
Very informative and an eye opener 👍🏻
Thanks Garry.
This is great , thank you. Do you have any tips on how a solo non-coder founder could succeed in one of those interviews for the “team” aspect?
Very clear !
I'm using these questions as an employee interviewing at a startup.
- I'm potentially investing my time
- I will likely receive equity as compensation
Garry great videos!!!
Great stuff 👏
Hey Garry, a couple of questions
How do you evaluate the responses? By the clarity of thought? Perfectly planned answers? Answers with business sense relative to partner’s experience?
What aspects do you look for on the team to judge if they are the right one?
How much weight would you say impacts the decision having strong traction and what is strong traction?
Clarity of thought, understandability, and do we believe? Great pitches are actually very straightforward statements that when taken together, zoom out to be something that could be big and powerful and affect a lot of people. It helps a lot when I learn something that I didn't know about people, their needs, and how to meet those needs.
Team is the hardest to judge in some ways because there are inherent biases around resume that I think YC tries hard to overcome. Having a fancy resume is certainly helpful (credentials are directionally valuable) but the beauty of the interview / application process is that it is open to all. It's important to have people who can do the tasks at hand for pre-product market fit though - often engineering, marketing, sales, sometimes design.
Strong traction is helpful but not necessary. PG would often talk about trying to avoid being "fooled by traction" - YC tries to black swan farm, meaning it's looking for true outliers that could be significant startups and so traction is helpful and de-risking but also early small-scale traction is not indicative of large markets.
Garry Tan Great, Garry. Thank you so much. Maybe a last one. Can you give us specific advice for a young (but talented) team lacking pedrigree?
@@rogerrea6563 Don't worry about pedigree, if you don't have it it shouldn't hurt you. Focus on what you've built: the product, and how it plays in the hands of customers. How big is the problem? How well do you solve it? People should NEED this. They love it. They will pay for it, and already are.
Hi Gary! I just wanted to know how much impact does it have not having your cofounders along?
Hey Garry, 2 questions and TIA! (1) What questions should we expect if a company in the same space has recently gone through YC? and (2) is it imperative that we have a validated number for CAC? Since we are early stage and so much of our acquisition is via organic methods, calculating a hard CAC for either side of our marketplace at this stage is challenging
1/ YC routinely funds competitive companies, but in my experience they still want to know that the new co they are funding has some special sauce or new take on the market or product that nobody else understands. Be prepared to talk about your differentiation.
2/ No, early stage CAC is all made up anyway - better that you have some early tests and you can speak cogently about what you think the true CAC will be. The specific number is probably less important than your techniques and showing you have a process and lots of ideas for how to acquire customers.
Garry Tan thanks for the quick response, very much appreciated!
Hi Garry, I always enjoy your videos, they are very focused and to the point. My team and I got a YC interview coming up this Friday and was wondering if we can close our practice sessions with you being the final boss. We'd love to tell you what we are building and trying to accomplish at Retroware.
Hey, can you help me to know your experience about interview and how can someone prepare for interview
As you have experienced it
Some tips & something which we don't know in your perspective
It would be a great help
did u get into YC??
super useful
Thanks for the suggestions. I have two questions.
1. If the partners ask questions on entirely different topics simultaneously, without pausing for even a second, who do we answer? Whats the right strategy there? Focus on the partner we want most to work with?
2. Must all co-founders answer some questions? or is it okay if one founder talks 100% of the time? We are all non-native English speakers, and only one of us is fluent enough to do rapid fire.
Good question.
Remember what they asked and be sure to return to each. Talk to everyone, most everyone in that room has the ability to pound the table for you.
Yes, one person talking is fine. Don't talk over one another.
Thanks for this video! Quick question: Do you have a recommendation for a resource to find sample questions that we can practice answering? T-8 days till our interview!!
Did you get in?
Good tips
I haven't landed an interview but I'm preparing for it 😂
Thank you for the video. How can you explain your problem, solution, how good it is? are you the right one to implement it? how are you going to scale up? in the one min video required for the application? thank you for your help.
You are awesome
Hey Garry! Thanks so much for this video. What would be your advice to a team pitching in the idea stage? Is there numbers, metrics, anything like that you'd recommend having - since we don't have growth/revenue/customers?
Talk about your customers and what it costs them to have the problem you are addressing. Talk about how you solve it. If there is software/hardware or special interesting observations about how that software/hardware works with it then talk about that. Know how much people are willing to pay and what they pay for alternatives.
@@GarryTan This is super helpful, thank you!
Can we apply to YC if we are in idea stage ?
Sir you mentioned at 4:30 public competitor, couldn't understand it. Can you kindly help me out, what does it mean and signified. Thanks.
Thanks Garry! May I know what would attract you from cold emails, and why you want to talk to the guy in person?
Remember to build you’re business
Love you brother
Well be back in Rwanda at Mt.sinai church I'm sinior pastor whish you back again
Gary, great tips. We have interview coming up. Do you help out with mock interviews?
Apologies, I can’t at this time.
often hear about traction/revenue as markers; what are your thoughts about teams growing users through development in the product? have consumer prod, and our metric has been time kids spent in the prod as opposed to how many kids in total; want to know if we're off-base and should focus on growing total user count after a year in dev
User retention is more important than top line growth.
Garry, how important is it to show the progress from the application date to the interview date?
If you have any definitely talk about it but I also don’t remember disqualifying people because they didn’t have it. In general it would be good to have constant progress but that isn’t always possible.
Michael S good question.
Founders at Work: stories from Y Combinator
10+ stories in ukrainian - foundersatwork.io/ua
50+ stories in russian - foundersatwork.io/ru
200+ stories in english - foundersatwork.io/en
Hey there! Loved your video. I'm planning to apply for the summer class, but I'm in a unique situation as a single founder with just a prototype of the app. I don't have a CTO to build it, and I don't have any numbers like sales or revenue yet. It's still a new idea I'm bringing to life. Do you think this will affect my interview? Appreciate any insights!
2:28 Part 2 Solution. Is it good? Are you the one solving it? Competitions. What are ppl doing right now? User stories. ppl are using it, or on the platform? Numbers: net/gross rev, gross margin (market startups: your take rates). Growth rate (wow/mom). Burn, spending, rev in. Price point and how you arrived at it. Segments of customers willing to pay more/less. What do competitors do? How do they segment the market? Where do you fit in the spectrum? Finally, NPS. Consumer product: know your retention.
4:23 Part 3 Impact. How big? Is there a public competitor that has no software, mention that. It is ok it solve a smaller problem for a smaller group of users. thin edge of the wedge. It is ok to be small. Ways to expand to large markets.
Practice. Ask them to interrupt you. Inversed pyramid. Answer in the first sentence.
Hey Garry, I am Saikiran founder of LetsUpgrade, we got selected for YC Interview, can. you help us with a mock interview ? we are India and building for the world :)
Hey, any tips for people applying to YC from India?
How to go through interview & how to prepare for it?
What if you are pre launch??? What kind of questions can I expect???
More about your progress pre launch. Show wireframes. Show what you’ve done to prove the problem exists and that your solution is needed and better/faster/cheaper. Show why your launch will be incredible.
I know this is three years ago, but is their opportunity’s for African founders building products for the African market?
Cause it’s really hard getting into anything at all, also will YC accept African founders??
Hi Garry, I'm going to apply W21. I know it's a late application. But the best usually comes later. I've sent you the google doc of my application. We're building a combination of Uber for generosity matching and a Linkedin for each community
bro this line doesnt explain anything to me.
did you got through yc?
If itis just an idea than what to do???
Hi Garry, couple of questions:
a) Y Combinator has an open application, however I don't see anything like that or even a public contact method for Initialized. What's behind this decision? Are you only looking for founders in the firm's network, and if not, how can a founder without a connection get in touch?
b) How do hard tech startups differ from others in YC's approach? Especially when it comes to high capital cost industries like aerospace and energy, what would you say YC is looking for in an application and team? (We didn't get an interview this batch)
Initialized is a bit later stage and cannot fund the volume of companies YC is built to fund... and we want to do more with open applications but remain inundated with inbound and existing network opportunities at the moment.
For hardtech things don’t progress usually for a few reasons I’ve seen: don’t know what it is or how it is valuable, or don’t believe there is a credible staged rollout to progressively de-risk and prove go to market.
@@GarryTan Thank you! By the way, is Initialized wholly focused on software or are you open to investing in other industries?
@@johnmorrison9509 Put yourself in Garry and Alexis' shoes. Would you reject a good deal if it came your way?
@@johnmorrison9509 An official YC on hardware: www.ycombinator.com/library/4r-yc-and-hard-tech-startups
Hey garry, can we practice with you?
👍⬆
What about tell a story. I like a good story...
Sometimes not enough time - 10 minutes goes too fast.
Just realized that he literally interrupted us, and himself, while explaining the importance of preparing to be interrupted...