During interview season, there are three common mistakes that founders make. The first mistake is not being able to clearly explain what they are building. The second mistake is not being able to identify their target customers. The third mistake is giving rehearsed and robotic answers. Interviewers prefer to have a casual conversation and connect with the founders.

It's interview season for Y Combinator. Diana shares three common mistakes founders should avoid!
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So I'm going to talk about what are the top 3 mistakes that we're seeing right now during interview season.

Mistake number 1, when founders can't precisely and concisely tell us what they're building.

They spent minutes and it's like minute 345, and we still don't understand what this is, and there's a lot of rambling, that's not good.

Mistake number 2, when founders can't articulate who are they solving this problem for, basically who are their customers?

Mistake number 3 is when founders give these super sleek marketing answers that are memorized and prepared, and it makes them sound very robotic.

And what we're looking to do in this 10 minutes is connect with you and really have like a casual conversation.

Really trying to understand what it's like working together.

And when founders come in with this kind of armor, it's just not fun either way.


Speaker 0: So I'm going to talk about what are the top 3 mistakes that we're seeing right now during interview season. Mistake number 1, when founders can't precisely and concisely tell us what they're building. They spent minutes and it's like minute 345, and we still don't understand what this is, and there's a lot of rambling, that's not good. Mistake number 2, when founders can't articulate who are they solving this problem for, basically who are their customers? Mistake number 3 is when founders give these super sleek marketing answers that are memorized and prepared, and it makes them sound very robotic.

And what we're looking to do in this 10 minutes is connect with you and really have like a casual conversation. Really trying to understand what it's like working together. And when founders come in with this kind of armor, it's just not fun either way.

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3 common YC interview mistakes