Listle’s Journey through Y Combinator
Hi there, I’m Cristina and I’m one of the four co-founders of Listle. I’ve been thinking about writing this forever now, as I know how useful it would’ve been to find something similar when my team and I were preparing for our interview. I hope I can be of some help to you if you’re planning to apply to YC, have applied to YC or are just curious to see what the hype is about.
Listle (http://listle.io/) is an app that allows you to listen to articles. You can think of it as an Audible for articles. Every morning we post the most interesting stories from that day, usually curated from places such as Hackernews and Reddit. Whether you listen to audiobooks, podcasts or you commute a lot, we’re aiming to curate content that will make our users smarter and more aware of what is going on around the world. We’re creating a huge library of narrations including a wide range of topics, from politics to history, science, tech and self-development.
You can also read this article over on our blog: http://blog.listle.io/.
The Listle team is made up of myself, Maria, Alex and Radu. We’ve known each other for a long time and all of us went to university back in London where we studied Computer Science (KCL & UCL). Became really close during those years, travelled together and worked on a lot of small side projects.
I’ve known about Y Combinator for a long time — read some of PG’s essays while in high-school, but the idea of getting in always seemed almost impossible. Didn’t put much thought into it during the first year of school, but really started wondering what it would be like the second year, when my now co-founders and I started working on various ideas. We’d get very excited about a certain one but somehow end up realising it’s not something people actually want or there would be no way of it turning into a real business.
March 2019 came around, we were all working on our final year dissertations when we realised the YC application deadline was approaching. I had read the questions lots of times before but we never actually sat down and discussed applying — we didn’t even have an idea. Radu kept talking about this idea of listening to stuff that’s written on the Internet, and I’ll be honest, I was hesitant for the longest time, but as we started discussing it, I became more and more intrigued. After all, I used to have an entire folder in my bookmarks with posts I wanted to read but never actually had the time to do so. I was (and still am) listening to podcasts, so why shouldn’t we listen to articles as well?
We filled in the application form and applied on the last day of applications. I’m not sure what expectations I had. I knew we had written a decent application but as you might know, YC acceptance rate is so low that it could just be that we’d get rejected because of how competitive it was and how many other great applicants are out there. We kept working on our school work but I would quietly count down the days until April 16th. In fact, funny story. It was April 1st and I’m generally someone who jokes around a lot, so naturally, I took the opportunity to play an innocent prank on my co-founders. I sent them a pretend-email (pretending to be YC admissions, that is), saying that we’ve been invited to have a call so that they can find out more about what we’re building. Funnily enough, I had no idea YC ACTUALLY did this with some international founders. They freaked out and thought it was legit, so telling them it was a prank was truly heartbreaking. When the actual email asking us to have a video interview from THE REAL YC came in the mail, I genuinely thought “oh yes, so funny”. But it was real. And now I was the one freaking out.
Now, for some actual advice, the video interview. It’s something they’ve been doing for the past few batches whenever they need more clarification or just want to find out more before inviting you to the actual interview. However, keep in mind that getting a video interview does not necessarily mean you’ll get an interview invite too. I think the biggest piece of advice regarding pre-YC is not to overthink the entire process. I know how much I’ve tried researching their practices in choosing companies to interview, and trust me, there’s no real pattern. They’re really good at what they’re doing and you have to trust this.
Depending on what stage your company is at, you’ll have to prepare differently for the video interview. However, one thing should be very clear: you need to know (almost) everything there is to know about what you’re building, which you most likely do if you’ve been working on it for a while. But that’s the thing, we had only been working on Listle for a few weeks. We did a few practice interviews with some of our friends, but tried to focus a lot on knowing as much as possible about the market, competitors, how we would monetise Listle and who our target customers would be. At this point, we had a very rough web prototype, and I’d say it’s much more important to know the ins-and-outs of your idea before building a very refined version of the actual software. YC’s philosophy is very much focused on “MVP, talk to your users, iterate and then talk to your users some more”. I also can’t stress enough how important it is to get your product to some users as early as possible. Don’t get caught in the whirlwind of having a perfect product. As long as it does the bare minimum and it represents the idea well, you’re good to go and should launch as soon as possible. You need to validate your idea first and foremost.
If you have a great team — which is most likely one of the most important aspects when applying to YC — bring that forward. Emphasise how long you’ve known each other, what other projects you’ve worked on together and what makes you work well together. This could also include that you’re all technical (YC LOVES that!) or even that some of you are technical and some are not, which means that you’d have very defined roles and would complement each other.
In terms of questions that they might ask, it’s very much a case-by-case basis. We weren’t asked any of the questions we were expecting, it was more of a conversation. Yes, that could be more difficult to prepare for, but be sure to know as much as possible about the idea, product, market size, competitors and team.
Our video call lasted around 15 minutes, but I think the average is usually 10, just like the final one. Answer as concisely as possible. Always have a short answer and a longer one that can follow if they want to find out more. Polish your one-liner so that ANYONE can understand it. As much as this might seem evident and intuitive, do not use any jargon, marketing talk, fluff or stuff you wouldn’t be able to easily explain. Lead with the short, concise answer and if they want more detail, follow up with the longer, more in-depth answer. Don’t repeat yourself and don’t try to seem smart. Be humble and honest, they don’t expect you to know everything, they expect you to be willing to learn it.
Before we even knew it, April 16th came and so did the email inviting us for the Mountain View interview. We were in full-speed-final-year-exam-cramming mode. I woke up around 6am London time on the day, logged into the Y Combinator portal and saw “Schedule your interview here”. Not sure if I squeaked or actually let out a scream, but I’m pretty sure I woke my roommate up. I called up the rest and told them the news. We were so excited. Until we realised the interview was in a week. There was NO WAY we could make it. We didn’t have a visa and most importantly, we had final year exams days before and after the interview. I remember writing about this when it happened. I was so upset and genuinely believed we wouldn’t be able to attend the interview. My family was having none of it either. I had a graduate job offer for when I finished university, we all did, so how could we throw that away for an invite some people from the US sent us? My parents would keep asking me “Are you sure they’re legit? What if you get there and there’s no interview”. “You don’t get it, mom! It’s Y Combinator! WE HAVE TO GO”.
This is something I wrote on the day:
“The hours that followed were insane. I don’t think I’ve been this stressed out for a while. Radu can’t make it to the interview, he has an exam on the 1st and it’s physically impossible to be back from Mountain View in time. I obviously want to go, but we won’t go unless we can all attend. We’re trying to find some loophole that can make YC reschedule the interview. I have no idea what will happen but I’m pretty sure we won’t make it. We’ll probably be the first in history to turn down YC. At least there’s that. Who knows, maybe we’ll go to W19. “
Reading this now makes me realise how absurd we were. They’re nice people, they agreed to reschedule our interview for after when we all finish our exams.
Fast-forward a month, we did around 13 mock interviews with YC alumni. We met some amazing people through this, one of who actually became our first angel investor and more importantly, friend. We got so much crucial advice from him. We realised how big of a deal getting into YC would be — everyone is so willing to help.
After rescheduling our interview a couple of times, we finally had a date set. Nonetheless, that date was 48 hours after the very final exam we would take in our Bachelor’s Degree. We went to the exam hall with all of our luggage, took the exam and then went straight to the airport. Had a layover in Paris, stayed in a very shady Airbnb near the airport and woke up early in the morning to catch the flight. It was our first time leaving Europe and our first time on a 12-hour flight. We got to the US and checked-in into our Airbnb.
We had booked a place for 5 days as we didn’t want to get our hopes up about the interview outcome. The plan was to get through it and fly to Los Angeles for a few days in case we don’t get it. That obviously never happened. The place we stayed then is the place we live in now. It’s what some people call a “hacker house”. Bunk beds and a garage (which we still work out of, so cliche, I know!). We were really lucky to have an awesome host who agreed to let us stay for the entire summer. We were even luckier to meet great people along the way. The house was full of interns for the whole summer, from Tesla to Google and NASA. I think being surrounded by ambitious and smart people is a good way of keeping momentum.
Now, back to the story. We arrived at the YC office in Mountain View. We were literally the very last ones to interview. There were 2 solo founders before us, they looked very disappointed coming out of the room so that made me even more anxious. Then, we went in. We had Michael, Stephanie and Geoff. Michael remembered us from the video interview (what???). I’d honestly say I thought it would be much rougher than it actually was. They’re very nice people and yes, they had their worries about Listle, more specifically about how we planned to scale it. Nonetheless, it was an interesting conversation — no rapid fire questions for us, they mostly went deep into a few specific questions. I don’t think we actually seemed that nervous — but trust me, we were. They told us to wait outside for a few minutes. Less than 10 minutes later we were invited back into the room and were told we got in. A lot of goosebumps. We were thrown directly into the kick-off event and that was that. We got home that night, jet lag was kicking in but we were over the Moon.
In case you’re preparing to go in for the final interview, here’s a few pieces of advice I’ve collected along the way. I’ve mentioned some of them for the video interview, but I can’t stress enough how important these are:
— have two types of answers prepared: a very short one that you say immediately after being asked the questions. This should be concise and refer directly to the question. Do not deviate. Do not go on a tangent. Stick to exactly what’s being asked of you. Have a longer answer that goes into more detail in case they want to hear more.
— they will most likely interrupt you. Don’t panic. Don’t memorise your answers, otherwise, you will panic.
— whenever they ask you questions that have a quantitative answer (like market size), say the number first and then carry on explaining how you got to that.
— be enthusiastic! Don’t wait for them to drag answers out of you. I know it is a very stressful time, but it shouldn’t be. Be excited about your idea and make them sense that!
— think about your strongest points and what makes you more likely to succeed than others. Try to incorporate those as much as possible into your answers. Don’t force it though. Mention them if they’re relevant to the argument you’re trying to get across.
Lastly and most importantly, don’t get discouraged if you don’t get in. I know it’s difficult getting over something you’ve put so much effort into. But, not getting into YC does not mean your business will not succeed. Most big companies did not go through YC. Yes, YC literally helps you “accelerate” and accomplish a lot of things in a short timeframe, but you still have to work your ass off to get somewhere. Not getting into YC does not mean you can’t work on your idea anymore. It means you have to work even harder. Try again, there’s so many extremely successful companies that got in on their second, third or even fourth try.
So, five months, an Android and an iOS app, over 2500 audio articles, a growing user-base and a lot of good and bad moments later, we’re more excited than ever to grow Listle and continue working together. I’ve learned so much these past few months and I’ve become so close to my co-founders (we literally go everywhere together) that it’s very hard and sad to imagine it being any other way. If you’ve found the right people and you all have a common interest, pursue it — it might turn out to be something really, really great.
Finally, if you still have some time before your interview, I’d recommend trying to get into the YC-mindset. Read (or rather, LISTEN!) to PG’s essays. They’re the essence of what YC is and they really help you understand how YC Partners think and what they expect to see from a team. You can find all of them narrated on Listle, which you can download from both iOS (https://apple.co/2G7BF7q) and Android (https://bit.ly/32p9zhc).
Also, more than happy to answer any questions you might have — I’ll try to help as much as possible.
Email: cristina@listle.io
P.S.: Huge thanks to one of our lovely narrators, Liz Porter, for narrating this.
