> In March, we submitted our application, and kinda forgot about it.
> Two months later we got an email saying that a partner would like to speak to us.
This is a tangent, but I want to share something about my YC interview experience for anybody ever in this position.
I filled out my application in February for the NYC interviews. They passed on me for the early NYC interviews, but ~2 months later I got an email for Mountain View interview.
During my interview, I was asked what my revenue was two months ago, and what it was last month. When I gave my answers it created immediate disarray between the three interviewers.
I walked through my numbers and could tell something was visibly wrong, but time was ticking and I had to steer back to the product, vision and growth.
When I got my rejection email, the lead-in reason was that the revenue wasn't clear (and to clarify, we are doing VERY well with revenue growth).
A bit perplexed, I went back to my application and realized what had happened. The YC application asks for "what was your revenue last month, two months ago, three months ago, etc)"
The partner was trying to get me to talk about what caused a 100% revenue spike (and again, we're not talking about small revenue here) between February and March. But when filling the answers out in February, those questions are anchored to December and January. That spike was just onboarding customers.
As I personally had to live through the hell of onboarding these customers from December to January, it never occurred to me that he was asking about that spike while looking at my "last month" and "two months ago" revenue.
I read my application a lot the week leading up to my interview. It never occurred to me change my answers to realign with the two month gap between when I filled it out and when it was accepted. I'm not sure I would even do that now, knowing what happened.
So the upshot is this: if you fill out your YC application well in advance, be prepared to speak to your financials (and company as a whole) both as are they are today, but also as they appear in your application, because the answer to "what was your revenue last month" is different depending on whether the partner is referring to your application, or the last calendar month.
