Questions they asked me in my YC interview two years ago

[tootie143]

Hi everyone! Interview season is upon us. For those who are applying, I thought I'd share my experiences doing an interview 2 years ago (and not getting in) + the questions they asked me. I wrote a substack post with the full details, but here's the summarized version:

Timeline of events:

• March 24: YC application deadline (although they mention May 19 as the date you'll know by if they’ll be inviting you for an interview)
• May 15: I submitted my YC application
• May 20: I receive an email inviting me for an interview
• May 23:
  • 7pm UK time: Interview with YC partner and associate
  • Midnight: I receive an email for a “Reinterview” (as opposed to a “follow up” interview).
• May 24
  • 10pm UK time: Second interview with a different YC partner and associate
  • Midnight: I receive an email that YC have decided not to fund me this batch.

Here’s what they asked me during the first interview:

• What are you building?
• Why doesn’t slack scale? (I was building an slack alternative)
• Go to market strategy?
• Would this be a replacement for slack or work in addition to it?
• You’re a solo founder. How are you thinking about a cofounder?
• What profile are you thinking about for a cofounder?
• What will you do if this idea doesn’t work out?
  

Here’s what they asked me during my second interview:

• What are you building?
• Do you have any prototypes or designs? What progress have you made?
• Why is it different?
• How will you acquire users?
• Have you worked on a growth team before? What did you learn from that?

A big chunk of this interview was spent in digging into how I was going to acquire customers. I didn’t have a good answer to this — in fact I even said in the interview “I don’t have a good answer to this”. When I received my interview feedback it confirmed that this is their biggest concern:

> we worry that Slack is now so deeply embedded into every company, it’s incredibly hard to get users to pay attention to a new tool. We’ve no doubt it will happen eventually but we suspect it will require a product that creates a completely new paradigm and no one saw coming. Similar to how Facebook eventually became the biggest threat to Google’s ad business. So while we think you have a great set of ideas to make incremental improvements to Slack's product, we worry that won't be enough for you to get customers and scale this.

Hope this has been helpul! Good luck everyone!

 

[timiboiy23]

@tootie143 There’s always that old adage about how first time founders think about product, second time founders think about distribution.

My interview was 90% about sales too.

 

[joyandhope]

@timiboiy23 Sell $50k of your product/service . If you can’t do it start something else

 

[alexandervrc]

@tootie143 Thanks for sharing

 

[marlow7]

@tootie143 Ha .. I also pitched a slack "feature". Didn't even get to an interview despite what I thought was a good pedigree. Would you be willing to share ranking of your school, and whether you had demo/users?

 

[tootie143]

@marlow7 Former Meta software engineer who previously worked on Workplace, Meta's slack alternative. So in theory the founder-product fit was good

 

[marlow7]

@tootie143 Cool. Thx for responding. While I have a PhD, I don't work for a FANG. I think that was a negative for me. Did you have a working prototype? I mulled doing one but felt I wanted to keep no ambiguity in IP as I am still employed (not in cali).

 

[tootie143]

@marlow7 It was just an idea at that point. No prototypr!

 

[ositez]

@tootie143 What are you working on now/next?

 

[hutchdh]

@tootie143 Former Metamate as well. Thanks for all your work on Workplace! Great product. Loved using it while at Meta. Was also considering subscribing to it for my startup, but Slack won with all the integrations and the fact that all of my customers are on Slack.

 

[hwereson]

@tootie143 Brilliant. Thanks for the insights.

 

[jesmincan]

@tootie143 Wouldn’t you look at how slack initially acquired customers and copy and adjust with their plan?

 

[ranger11b2v]

@jesmincan It’s no easy bro

 

[christbearer95]

@tootie143 This is really helpful, thanks!

 

[amitruly_saved]

@tootie143 So are you going in for round 2 of YC?

 

[sunshine1973]

@tootie143 Tough break, but props for sharing! Got a reapply plan?

 

[fmeekins]

@tootie143 Curious, are you still working on this idea? If yes, how did you do?

 

[justlookinla]

@tootie143 Could you share your application?

 

[ranger11b2v]

@tootie143 Thanks for sharing this. Did you completely abandon your idea? Or is it still there with a few customers?