Inside the Y Combinator office

http://areallybadidea.com/inside-the-y-combinator-office

by niico • 15 years ago

123 34 15 years ago

areallybadidea.com

reason• 15 years ago

You've got a few grammatical mistakes in there. Anyway, very cool video!

justin5• 15 years ago

Thanks, I fixed them. We've been working late :)

oldstrangers2• 15 years ago

This would make for some good mental preparation and visualization. Sit back and stare at PG asking you questions over and over again and perhaps it'll help reduce your nervousness come time to interview.

rhizome• 15 years ago

His face I can handle, it's making sure I've covered my bases that worries me.

rokhayakebe• 15 years ago

Get the invitation first, then worry about the rest.

oldstrangers2• 15 years ago

I assumed my advice would be heeded by those with invitations. Didn't think I needed to spell that part out.

forensic• 15 years ago

premature optimization alert

acangiano• 15 years ago

I think part of PG's success in working with entrepreneurs is due to the fact that he comes across as extremely approachable.

zachcb• 15 years ago

I always remember a tweet that he sent out:

http://twitter.com/#!/paulg/status/29256073985

So true.

jayzee• 15 years ago

It is a very good question that pg asked while just joking around something that I guess all entrepreneurs should have an immediate answer to, 'Why doesn't this already exist?'

ffumarola• 15 years ago

Definitely. And it will make you think about possible barriers to entry if you were to create the idea.

prpon2• 15 years ago

It is a great question. However, I look at some of the YC funded companies(including justin.tv) and I wonder what the answer would be?

Off the top of my mind, I can think of hipmunk,1000memories etc and would like to know how the founders would answer.

It is a much more piercing question than What are users forced to do today when your product does not exist.

justin5• 15 years ago

Justin.tv (neither an online streaming live show of some guy's life, nor a streaming platform for live video) didn't exist before we were funded, fyibtw.

jmtame• 15 years ago

socialcam holds the record for fastest interview ;)

DanielN2• 15 years ago

This is pretty off topic but it interested me so I thought I would share:

This video more than anything got me interested in socialcam (of which I had never heard of before), so I did a little reading and decided to sign up for updates to the product. After I signed up the page refreshed and informed me I was ranked last (4000 and something) on their list because I hadn't gotten anyone else to sign up yet. Instantly my competitive juices started flowing and I wanted to get higher up on the list.

It just struck me as a really original interesting way to encourage sign ups (presumably for eventual beta testers).

(also you can help my ranking if you click here: http://socialcam.com/?referred_by=BEA3CDhw )

tomjen32• 15 years ago

I don't know why you can't see it, but frankly they are playing you for a fool. What they do is a classic pyramid scam, albeit with signups instead of money.

emmett• 15 years ago

Except instead of fooling people into thinking they're going to get rich and stealing from them, it's a free game where everyone involved wins an invite!

DanielN2• 15 years ago

I think you may be confusing viral marketing for a pyramid scheme. Given, pyramid schemes are a form of viral marketing, but exponential growth through sharing is necessary without being sufficient.

In this case it works out fine for both parties. I signed up because I was interested in beta testing and socialcam gets to choose their potential beta testers by how social they are.

For what it's worth the system may not be very effective yet. I have one referral and I've moved from #4000 to #600

huhtenberg• 15 years ago

And it's not exactly original. Streakly used it few months ago and I remember its author saying that he in turn borrowed it from some other webapp.

jessedhillon2• 15 years ago

He's not losing anything, except a few minutes' time to sign up, so how is he being made a fool? For being excited enough about their product to want to be invited to use it? There's nothing foolish in that, especially if they have an interesting product.

jl• 15 years ago

Boy, it surprised me how much like a real interview that seemed!

lfx• 15 years ago

Maybe some guys who already had interviews with PG, could tell more questions?

Johngibb2• 15 years ago

Really, I'd say this is really accurate. Any further questions grew organically from answers to the questions in this video.

For us, they made a big point of knowing that our market really existed, even though no company was targeting it yet. In fact, our lack of solid evidence of the market is the main reason for our rejection (W11). However, maybe this was only such a large focus because it was our biggest weakness, and other interviews focus on other things.

Keep in mind that the interview is only 15 minutes, so there don't need to be many questions...

endlessvoid94• 15 years ago

I can't remember if it was asked or not, but I've had several investors ask the question 'What keeps others from copying you quickly?'

tjmc• 15 years ago

Just a heads up - the Blue Coat web filtering service has classified socialcam.com as "pornography"

stevefarnworth• 15 years ago

I know it's a short, light-hearted video, but that's what I imagine the YC interview to be like for some reason. Probing questions, asked politely and framed in a way to see what your response is, not just ticking questions and answers off of your mental tick sheet.

I'm based in the UK and am a single-founder, but this sort of thing just makes YC look like an even more compelling experience - all for an under 2 minute, friendly video. Good job!

Inside the Y Combinator office

Related Stories