Ask HN: Advice after a decade trying to get into YC
11 by bluelightning2k | 16 comments on Hacker News.
My first YC interview was a decade ago. I'd love some advice. Background for those interested: Act 1. A kid with no product. My first YC interview was 10 years ago. I had a laughable excuse of a product. I only got the interview because I had an unusually fast career growth (CMO of a $180m company by age 23). This remains my only visit to the US. They rightly sent me packing. Act 2: build skills then build something In the interim I did consulting for a few years. Then I founded my own small company. I taught myself to code properly. And bootstrapped a small SaaS to $20k MRR and applied again. At interview they said the total market isn't enough. (They were right.) Act 3: Build something people want. I wrote a list of criteria for my next product and evaluated literally 1000 ideas. The resulting idea is excellent but it's technically hard. I've put all the resources of my company and myself into getting it made. Hard to quantify with it being bootstrapped but I've put the resources of my small company into this. Probably 500k of monetary value. Talking to customers it's very clear there's demand. My small team is excellent. Any advice for this 3rd time around? There's clear demand but it's hard to simply launch as the product is complex and I want it to work consistently first. I know YC dislikes solo founders, not sure if having a team already in place helps. I am the solo founder but at this point I've background in multiple areas; sold half a mill personally, CMO of a big company, built a team, spent the past few years as an engineer. How best to frame this to YC at this stage? Should I put my team in the video? Should I create a new account to hide that I first interviewed a decade ago? Any advice appreciated. I didn't link to my company as I didn't want to come across as promoting but will if asked.
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