Theoryville's YC Interview

Occasionally, I share that there's a whole collection of links to blog entries by YC interviewees (now up to 14). Almost every time, I get down-voted as if I'm trying to sell something. Whatever. Here's the link for anybody interested: <a href="http://ycuniverse.com/interviewees.php" rel="nofollow">http://ycuniverse.com/interviewees.php</a>

I find I learn more from those that didn't get in than those that do. There are many lessons to be learned from this post, even taking the whole YC-interview idea out of the equation. Team dynamics, different incentives for the founders, communicating a product strategy etc.<p>Great post Trevor.

I have a question. You say that PG was right in rejecting you because your team quarelled and broke up. Do you think the interviewers may have picked up on the tension within the team? Is there anything that may have made PG suspect you are not a good team?<p>It is possible that you are wrong about all the things you say were a problem with your presentation. It is possible that your presentation was fine, it just that your team was not fine and YC somehow picked up on that.

Great write-up, Trevor.<p>It was actually an eerie read for me because I'm the co-founder of BuzzData.com, and we're building something that could be fairly described as a superset of the app you demoed right now in Toronto.<p>So I guess the real question is whether you believe in the idea enough that you'd come and work with us on it? The primary difference between between BuzzData and TheoryVille appears to be that we're a funded, happy team of seven and we're getting a lot of traction from our soon-to-be launch partners.<p>Perhaps your vision doesn't die here.

Thanks for sharing. Have you thought about applying to Project Skyway? <a href="http://www.projectskyway.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.projectskyway.com</a>

This reminds me of an old essay called "What We Look for in Founders"[1]:<p><i>Startups do to the relationship between the founders what a dog does to a sock: if it can be pulled apart, it will be.</i><p>Hope that in your next enterprise you will have more luck.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html</a>

I kind of think "how hard it is to sell YC to your cofounders" is a good test of both your own communications ability and their startup-mindedness. My two cofounders hadn't really heard of the details of YC before (although they knew of the general organization); it was pretty easy to convince them, although they did ask insightful questions about the value proposition.

Are teams allowed to audio (or video?) record their own interviews, to evaluate after?

I took the liberty of emailing you; hope you don't mind. It's quite tough to explain what the School of Info actually does, and in fact one of the first lectures I heard there was about this problem.