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Show HN: Practice for the YC interview (mock-yc.vercel.app)

20 points by rolstenhouse ↗ HN
I've been blown away by speech-to-speech LLMs lately and was looking for a fun little website to build. Enter mock YC interviews.

When I first applied to YC, I used iPG (https://jamescun.github.io/iPG/) to practice and get comfortable with the YC-style interview. Spoiler: I ended up getting in.

This took me a few hours to go from scratch to production. Would highly suggest playing around with some of the latest products (this uses Vapi.ai/elevenlabs.io)

7 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 27.8 ms ] thread
rahimnathwani
This looks cool. A couple of thoughts:

1. A new visitor to the page may not know what to expect. Is it just going to ask a set of predetermined questions, and record+transcribe the answers? Or will the questions themselves be customized?

2. What will the final output be? What, if anything, will be saved and retained by you?

3. The text boxes 'shake' a little when I'm typing. Probably some layout shift. I didn't look into it, but it happens to me on Chrome/Linux.

Your post reminded me a bit of this, which uses different (but similar) tech: https://x.com/StonkyOli/status/1762551140829515964

rahimnathwani
Also - when I click start, I don't hear anything. The timer on the right starts ticking and, even if I say something, the 'interview' ends after a few seconds. Perhaps it's broken due to rate limits or something?
rolstenhouse
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback!

1. Yeah definitely not clear what's going to happen when you click "start interview". I'll edit the description to be clear what you're getting. 2. Definitely need to be clear on what's saved/retained. 3. Totally missed that and now I can't unsee it. Something wonky going on w/ text area. Taking a look

CircuitMaestro
This is a fascinating project, thank you for sharing! I agree with the previous comment that providing more context for new visitors about what to expect would be beneficial. I also share the same concerns about data retention, as it's crucial for user privacy.

Additionally, I noticed that you've used Vapi.ai and elevenlabs.io, both of which seem like powerful tools. I'm curious, how did you decide on using these two? Did they meet all your needs, or did you encounter any challenges during their use?

Lastly, I think the idea of a mock interview is excellent, as it can help applicants better prepare for YC interviews. I look forward to seeing further developments on this project!

cheptsov
Always wondered why not spend the same amount of effort on talking to users, and improving the product, finding early users?

Are there any reads on whether it’s worth at all to get in to YC these days?

isuleman
How long you are planning to keep it up on vercel? Or will you open source it?
carlual
Great one , thanks for sharing!