[tadmilbourn]

Thanks bbcbasic! You nailed it. I debated using the term "awesomer" prior to posting. Mainly because it's not a real word :-). But, the whole point of the post is to knock people out of their current mindset. "Awesomer" makes you pause for a second and take notice. "Be even more awesome" didn't have the same effect. From the comments, it rubbed some people the wrong way. But, the fact it's even being debated means it accomplished much of what I intended to accomplish with it (cause you to take notice).

[bbcbasic]

I did a stint of selling stuff online. When I wrote the sales copy I thought it was awesome until I got someone else to review it. They pointed out lots of things that were weak or didn't make sense. This was bad for the ego but good for the copy because I improved it.

I think the same approach would be useful for a YC application. Get other people to critique it, and iterate and improve. The trick is picking good reviewers. Probably more people can review copy than a YC application but I hear YC founders are generally friendly and like to help.

I recently made the mistake of doing a rush application for my local TedX and didn't get picked for the audience. I should have applied the "awesomer" philosophy to that.

Now I am going off to work on that robot...