The Ultimate Y Cominator Interview Prep List: 50+ Questions

Preparing for your Y Combinator interview? You’re in the right place.

The YC interview is notoriously intense, just 10 minutes to convince some of the world’s sharpest investors that your startup deserves funding. With an acceptance rate hovering around 1-2%, every answer counts.

This comprehensive guide features 50+ actual YC interview questions organized into seven critical categories, from company vision and market fit to team dynamics and those curveball questions designed to test your thinking.

Whether you’re a first-time founder or a repeat entrepreneur, these questions, drawn from successful YC applicants and partners’ insights, will help you practice, refine your pitch, and walk into your interview with confidence.

Real questions YC partners ask, organized by topic, so you can prepare thoughtful, concise answers that showcase your startup’s potential.

Let’s get you ready to make those 10 minutes count.

Category 1: The Company & Vision (The “What”)

1. So, what are you working on?
2. Explain what you do in one clear, jargon-free sentence.
3. What’s the long-term vision for the company?
4. If you succeed, what does this look like in 10 years?
5. Why is now the right time for this idea?
6. What are you going to build first?
7. What is new or innovative about what you’re doing?
8. If your company had a headline in a major newspaper in 5 years, what would it say?

Category 2: The Problem & Solution (The “Why”)

9. What problem are you solving?
10. Who has this problem? Be specific.
11. How do you know it’s a real problem? What’s your evidence?
12. How are people solving this problem now (without your product)?
13. What is your unique insight into this problem? What do you understand that others don’t?
14. Why is this a must-have solution, not just a nice-to-have?
15. What have you learned from your early users about the problem?

Category 3: Traction & Metrics (The “Proof”)

16. What is your progress so far?
17. How many users do you have?
18. What is your revenue?
19. What are your key metrics? (e.g., MRR, DAU, WAU)
20. What is your week-over-week growth rate?
21. What is your user retention? (Show me a cohort analysis).
22. What’s your CAC and LTV? What is your payback period?
23. How do you know people actually love your product?
24. Tell me about your best users. What makes them the best?
25. If you have no users, what have you done to validate the idea?
26. What is the top thing users are asking for?
27. What have you learned from your metrics so far?

Category 4: Go-to-Market & Growth (The “How”)

28. How will you get your first 1,000 users?
29. What is the one, specific, repeatable channel that is working for you right now?
30. How will you scale your user acquisition?
31. What’s the biggest challenge to your growth?
32. What’s your plan for the 3 months of YC? What’s your goal?
33. How could you make $100K in MRR? What would that take?
34. Why haven’t you grown faster?

Category 5: Market & Competition (The “Where”)

35. Who are your top competitors?
36. How are you different from them?
37. What would you do if Google/Apple/Amazon launched a competing feature tomorrow?
38. What is your moat? How will you defend against competitors in the long run?
39. What is the total addressable market size? How did you calculate that?
40. Why will you win in this market?

Category 6: The Team (The “Who”)

41. Who is on the team and what are your roles?
42. How did the founders meet? How long have you known each other?
43. Why are you the right team to build this? What is your unfair advantage?
44. Who does what? What is the equity split and why?
45. Have you worked on projects together before?
46. What’s the biggest disagreement you’ve had as a team?
47. Who in the team have you known the longest? Who is the most recent addition?
48. Are you all working on this full-time?
49. What is your biggest weakness as a team?

Category 7: The Tough Questions & Curveballs

50. What are the biggest risks to your business?
51. What’s the worst-case scenario here?
52. What part of your plan are you least confident about?
53. Tell me something that is true that nobody agrees with you on.
54. What are you going to do if we don’t fund you?
55. If you could start over, what would you do differently?
56. What questions do you have for us?

Your Next Steps: From Prep to Interview Day

You’ve now seen the questions, here’s how to use them effectively:

Practice out loud. The YC interview moves fast. Practice answering each question in 30-60 seconds until your responses feel natural, not rehearsed. Record yourself or practice with co-founders to identify unclear explanations or nervous habits.

Know your numbers cold. YC partners will drill into your metrics. Memorize your growth rates, retention cohorts, CAC, LTV, and burn rate. If you stumble on basic numbers, it signals you’re not on top of your business.

Prepare for follow-ups. Every answer can spawn three more questions. Think two layers deep, if you say “we’re growing 15% week-over-week,” be ready to explain which channels drive that growth and whether it’s sustainable.

Stay honest and humble. YC values self-awareness over bravado. If you don’t know something, say so. If you’ve made mistakes, own them and explain what you learned.

Ready to take your startup to the next level? Whether or not you get into YC, having your business fundamentals in order is crucial. doola’s AI Business-in-a-Box™ helps founders handle formation, compliance, bookkeeping, and taxes, so you can focus on building and growing.

Good luck with your YC interview. You’ve got this.