How to nail your YC interview
Open-sourcing Anima’s prep-questions app
YC batch is coming, and many companies are preparing for the famous 10-minutes blitz interview.
TL;DR — Back in 2018, when our YC interview was scheduled, we built an app to help us prepare for it. Having many companies ask us for a simulated interviews, we decided to rebuild the app using Anima and open-source it ❤️ — live link.
I’m the co-founder & CEO of Anima, YC S18 👋
We convert design into code, i.e. Figma/Adobe XD/Sketch to React.
In this article, I’ll be sharing my tips on how to get into YCombinator.
So how do you get into YC?
It all starts with a strong team and a compelling story on how you build what people want.
What’s important for a team:
- Founders who believe in the cause and are willing to fight for it.
- Ideally, the team should have all the needed skills to execute with zero dependencies.
- Bonus — unique knowledge, skills, or connections to help market penetration.
What makes a compelling story:
- A real problem — Preferably one you’re living and experiencing, or at least very close to that.
- A unique solution — Your secret sauce, what makes you different from other players.
- Market size — If your potential market is smaller than $2B/year, it’s too small. If your potential market is larger than $50B/year, it might sound off.
- Timing — If something has changed in the market, and an opportunity has been unveiled, that’s great.
- Impressive signals — Traction, community, successful pilots, or any other success.
YC process
YC has 2 batches a year — Summer & Winter, and it all starts with filling out an application. If you’ve passed — you’ll have a 10 minutes interview or two.
10 minutes interview
I recommend preparing a shortlist of strong messages you wish to pass on.
After you have your key messages (3–5 that must be passed on, plus bonus items), try to pass them with any given set of questions.
You can only answer questions, so practice how to convey your key messages through answers.
Another tip: Make sure your answers are shorter than 30 seconds. Let the interviewer ask follow-up questions if they want to dive in more. Don’t burn your 10 minutes.
If you have a compelling story and you’ve practiced well, 10 minutes are all you need.
Our secret weapon
We’re big believers in automation. Of everything. Including automating the preparation for interviews.
In order to prepare for the YCombinator interview, we’ve built a basic iPhone app. It runs a bank of questions to simulate the interview.
Today we’ve open-sourced it! 👉 Try it here 👈
The original app was built in swift, for iOS, and we’ve rebuilt it in React, using Anima.
It doesn’t have to be only for the YC interview; you can use it to prepare to answer questions from investors without even thinking.
We’re a SaaS company, so our basic set of questions is aimed at SaaS. You can branch the code, add your questions and easily deploy it to Netlify. Until the interview, make the app your best friend.
What happens during the batch
Every batch is 3 months long.
During COVID, everything happens online, including the activities, office hours, and Demo Day.
There’s an activity every week during the batch, mingling and lectures, with interesting lecturers from the industry. I.e. founders and leaders from huge companies like Airbnb come and talk off-the-record so you can ask anything.
Every company is part of a small group of startups and gets 2 partners as their mentors. All mentors are either successful in their field or ex-founders.
Group meetings and 1:1 meetings with the mentors take place weekly or on-demand. You will get guidance on strategy, product, growth, connections, and preparations for Demo-day.
Find more details on the official site.
Demo day (DDay)
By the end of the batch, companies get 2 minutes to pitch. Yes, 2 minutes.
You will practice for over a week to perfect your pitch, because more than a thousand investors will get an exclusive invite to participate DDay and watch you live, looking for the next Stripe or Dropbox.
YC alumni network
One of the top assets you’ll get at YC is access to the inner circle of YC alumni.
In addition to your batch mates, there’s a platform for the alumni to connect directly to every founder at YC. You want in.
YC quality stamp
On top of the exposure, the network, and the guidance, YC is the #1 accelerator in the world. If you’re a part of it, it signals that your idea, team, and strategy are legit. It will give you more credibility when talking to investors, clients, employees, or potential partnerships.
Anima’s story
Our vision is to automate Front-end.
We help developers focus on building rather than pushing pixels.
How? We convert design into code, automatically.
Over the past 5 years, we’ve helped tens of thousands of teams to get 10x faster to production, building an MVP, POCs, Client demos, High-end websites, and anything Front-end.
Building a new product? Start it with Anima — AnimaApp.com
Next, we will bring the design world into the software development lifecycle.
If your organization suffers from having two sources of truth, design and code, help is on the way — sign up for our Storybook <> Figma beta.
How did we build this app?
- Code is available on Github (star please 🌟🙏)
- YouTube walkthrough
