The ten questions
Q1
What are you building?
What they want: One sentence a stranger understands. No category jargon, no vision speech.
Trap: Spending 90 seconds on the problem before naming the product.
Q2
Who are your users?
What they want: A specific named person or role, ideally one you spoke to this week.
Trap: "Small businesses" or "developers". Too broad reads as no users.
Q3
How do you know they want it?
What they want: Behaviour, not opinions. Usage, retention, payment, waitlist conversion.
Trap: Quoting encouraging things people said in interviews.
Q4
What are your numbers?
What they want: Revenue, active users, growth rate — recited from memory, instantly.
Trap: Any hesitation. Not knowing your own numbers ends interviews.
Q5
Why you? Why this team?
What they want: Unfair insight or unfair speed. Something specific to your history.
Trap: Generic passion. Everyone is passionate.
Q6
How do you make money?
What they want: A concrete price and unit, even if it is provisional.
Trap: "We'll figure out monetisation later."
Q7
Who are your competitors, and why will you win?
What they want: Naming the real ones, including the incumbent everyone uses.
Trap: "No one is doing this." Partners hear: you have not looked.
Q8
What's the biggest risk?
What they want: The honest one, plus how you would find out fast.
Trap: A fake weakness dressed as a strength.
Q9
What have you shipped in the last month?
What they want: A list. Velocity is the single most legible founder signal.
Trap: Planning language instead of shipped things.
Q10
What happens if we don't fund you?
What they want: You keep going. Say it plainly.
Trap: Any answer implying YC is the plan.
How to prepare in a week
- Write one-line answers to all ten questions above. One line, not a paragraph.
- Memorise your numbers. Revenue, users, weekly growth, retention. No notes.
- Run timed mocks. Ten minutes, someone interrupting you deliberately, every day.
- Cut every answer in half. Then cut again. Partners want density, not narrative.
- Practise stopping. Answer, then be silent. Over-talking is the most common failure mode.
Interview odds in context
Overall YC acceptance sits around 1–2%, but conditional on getting an interview it jumps to roughly 20%. The full batch-by-batch numbers are on our YC acceptance rate page. If you are still at the written stage, start with the YC application questions and the accepted application examples.
FAQ
How long is the YC interview?
Ten minutes. It is deliberately short and deliberately fast. Partners interrupt, cut you off mid-sentence, and jump topics. That is the format, not a sign it is going badly.
What questions does YC ask in the interview?
Almost always: what are you building, who uses it, how do you know they want it, what are your numbers, why you, how do you make money, and who are your competitors. Everything else branches off those.
How do I prepare for the YC interview?
Do timed mock interviews with a stopwatch. Answer every question in under 20 seconds, then stop talking. Know your top-line numbers cold. Rehearse the one question you are most afraid of.
What is the YC interview acceptance rate?
Roughly 20% of interviewed companies get an offer. Getting the interview already puts you in the top few percent of applicants, so at this stage the odds are far better than the headline 1–2%.
Is the YC interview in person or on video?
Interviews are conducted over video. You will be on a call with two or three partners, and the whole thing is over in ten minutes.
When do you hear back after the YC interview?
Usually the same day, often within a few hours. Offers come by phone; rejections come by email with brief feedback.