Ask HN: We Already Pivoted

24 points by throwpivoted ↗ HN
Hi everyone.

My cofounder and I had been working on a startup for a little while and thought, you know, let's apply to YC. Since then we've killed that idea (for various reasons) but on Friday we got an invite to a YC interview. What should we do?

The current plan is just to say at the start of the interview "Hey we pivoted to this new business, lets talk about that instead". It's quite a large pivot - basically we realised what we were working on was going to be too small and ultimately our traction dried up, so we looked at problems we'd had along the way and found something we were more passionate about and probably better suited to build. We have good (imo) traction on this new business, considering we've only been working on it for like 3 weeks.

Would love some advice here! Surely we can't be the first this has happened to!

7 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 26.1 ms ] thread
You and your cofounder were invited more because of you than your idea. Definitely go to that interview.
Give them heads-up. Do the interview anyway.

Seconded the other comment. You are invited because of you as well, not just your idea.

Additionally, to the other comments: Prepare the story why you dropped your previous idea.
This is more common than you would expect. If you login there is a spot on the website to update your application.

Good luck!

(comment deleted)
I have seen many times that the YC people say that so much of their decision to invest is based on the founders and not the idea. Always worth doing the interview if you still want to get in even with the new idea.

I remember a talk on YouTube where Ed Catmull (one of the founders of Pixar) said that if he was given a choice between a great idea and great people, he’d always choose great people because they would turn a not great idea into a great one.

To put this in perspective, the fact that the OP is the type of person who can and will pivot is why YC values people over ideas.