I went through YC as a solo founder in summer 2020 with my company Basedash.

I’ve had 2 YC interviews: one for my first startup, Scholarly, and the other for my current company, Basedash. Both were in-person at the YC office in Mountain View.

The exact questions I was asked during my second interview are included below in the Questions section.

Interview format

The interview is 10 minutes long and involves 3-4 YC partners asking rapid fire questions about your company. In my experience, there’s a sense of urgency to absorb as much information within the 10-minute period as possible, but the interviewers are respectful and will not interrupt you (assuming you give concise answers).

Generally, one or two of the partners will lead the interview with the majority of questions, while the others sit back and listen. Depending on your product, they may ask to see a demo.

You’ll hear back from one of your interviewers within the day with a decision. If you get accepted, you’ll get a phone call. If not, you’ll get an email with brief feedback.

These days most interviews are remote, but I’ll leave tips for both in-person and remote interviews in case things change in the future.

In-person tips

• When checking in at the front desk, you’ll be told which interview room you’ll be in. There will be a sign on the door of that room with a list of names of your interviewers. Look them up and know who they are.

• When you walk in, shake all of the interviewers’ hands, introduce yourself, and show that you know them (e.g. ”Hey Adora, great to meet you. Loved your latest video on KPIs.”)

• Before the end of the interview, there will be a knock on the door as a 1-minute warning. Make sure to mention any final points that you think are important.

• After the interview, you’ll be asked to stick around for a few minutes before leaving the office. In rare cases where the interviewers need more information, they may set up a second interview later in the day to ask more questions.

Remote interview tips

• Start a timer at the beginning of the interview so you know how much time you have left.

• Create a doc of all your metrics for reference.

• Have a demo open and ready to share in case you’re asked.

• Make sure your video call setup is solid. Good internet, quiet environment, decent microphone and camera, non-distracting background.

Questions

Every interview starts with the same question: What are you building?

This is the most important question because it provides a foundational understanding of your company that the interviewers will base the rest of their questions around. This is the one question where I would recommend drafting a prepared answer. In a few sentences, you need to clearly explain both the problem you’re solving, and the way you’re approaching the solution.

Each interviewer goes through hundreds of applications and interviews, so you should go into your interview assuming that they have little-to-no context about your company and space. Start from first principles and guide them through a straightforward explanation of what you’re working on.

After the first question, the interview can go anywhere from product vision, to user feedback, to growth strategy, to metrics. Instead of preparing for specific questions, the best way to prep for your interview is to think deeply about the problem you’re solving and talk to users (read The Mom Test to learn how to do this).

Here are the exact questions that I was asked when interviewing with Basedash, and roughly how I answered them:

What are you building?

How do you make money?

How many seats have you sold?

Who is your target demographic?

What’s a specific use case?

Why edit a database when you can just edit data from your CRM?

Aren’t there already a lot of tools for visualizing data?

How is this different from Airtable?

Could Airtable build this into their product?

Can we see a demo?

I gave a quick 2-3 minute demo which included a few product-specific questions from the interviewers.

Here’s an example of how to approach a demo:

You applied for early decision, what are you going to do until then?

Since you’re still in school, how much time can you spend working on this?

General advice

• Be as clear and concise as possible. The more questions you get through, the more they’ll understand your business.

• Speak slowly and clearly.

• Other than the first question (”What are you building?”), don’t memorize prepared answers.

• Have a short (1-2 minute) demo prepared in case they ask to see your product.

• Know all your relevant metrics.

• Don’t lie or exaggerate your metrics. YC cares more about founders and ideas than progress.

• Assume that the interviewers have no prior context about your company or your specific space.

• Be friendly! YC want to accept founders who can contribute to the amazing community. If you can, try to make your interviewers laugh.

• If you have cofounders, come up with a system to decide who will answer which questions.

If this post was helpful, consider following me on Twitter for more content on YC, startups, engineering, and design: https://twitter.com/MaxMusing

If you’re running a company with a SQL database, Basedash would probably make your life easier. Check it out here: https://www.basedash.com