I tried to comment as a fellow YC S11 alumnus but got a message saying "You are not a participant in this round table." It seems like an invite only thing. Anyways, so I'll put in my comments here.
Before we interviewed we had been pitching to a lot of people including other incubators etc. This was the only preparation we made. The questions that YC partners asked were similar albeit more pointed and direct. We showed them a demo that we had created and basically told them what we do. There were a lot of questions about the business. A lot of them we've heard and answered before. Some were new and we were honest with our answers (more or less). I think what we did well was the convey the passion we had for the business we were building and I distinctly remember our interview ending with my co-founder's 30 second monologue about how we really aspire to help people.
I think 10 mins is just enough for people to understand what you are doing and a little bit of how you are doing it. No one should waste time in actually trying to convince the partners that you bigger than you actually are. You might be able to pull it off but it requires a whole lot of BS-ing skills.
Before we interviewed we had been pitching to a lot of people including other incubators etc. This was the only preparation we made. The questions that YC partners asked were similar albeit more pointed and direct. We showed them a demo that we had created and basically told them what we do. There were a lot of questions about the business. A lot of them we've heard and answered before. Some were new and we were honest with our answers (more or less). I think what we did well was the convey the passion we had for the business we were building and I distinctly remember our interview ending with my co-founder's 30 second monologue about how we really aspire to help people.
I think 10 mins is just enough for people to understand what you are doing and a little bit of how you are doing it. No one should waste time in actually trying to convince the partners that you bigger than you actually are. You might be able to pull it off but it requires a whole lot of BS-ing skills.