customer-development, idea, pitch, ycombinatorPer the, “How to Apply to Y Combinator” application:
One test of whether you’re explaining your idea effectively is to ask how close the reader is to reproducing it.
Is this true, and if so, what is the best way to use this technique and evaluate the results it produces?
Updates:
One test of whether you’re explaining your idea effectively is to ask how close the reader is to reproducing it.
It means that the more effective you’ve been in describing your idea, the closer the person to whom you’re describing it comes to being able to reproduce that idea.
Is this true,
Pretty much. Matter of opinion to some extent I suppose.
and if so, what is the best way to use this technique and evaluate the results it produces?
It’s not really a ‘technique’ IIUC. You’re not meant to actually get the other person to really go away and try to implement your idea for themselves. The point is just that if you haven’t described it in enough detail that they would be able to reproduce it themselves then (in the opinion of YC, apparently) you’re not describing it well enough.
I think they mean that your description should allow the reader (a YC partner) to go and build the same product. They go on and give examples:
A good answer would be something like:
A database with a wiki-like interface, combined with a graphical UI for controlling who can see and edit what.
It’s like Wikipedia, but within an organization. It’s like an answering service, but for email. It’s eBay for jobs.
Whereas the bad examples are very hand-wavy. Not only are they full of bold claims, they also are void of the specifics of what the product is.
This is an assertion made by YC about how a YC partner judges YC applicants, so you can hold it true.
Edit:
Is true in general? Most likely. Rephrasing someone else’s words is a widely used way to ensure you understand them, you probably know that.
I guess this can be of use when communicating with your team, if you say what your doing in a way that’s straightforward, everyone paddles in the same direction.
For customers and users, you’d use a description that’s less focused on how it works and more what it can do for them. But the user’s ability to describe your product is certainly key for word of mouth.
What does the ability to reproduce the expression of an idea mean?
It means it’s reproducible, and infers that that it’s originally expression was meaningful enough to provide the information required without further information.
Is this true that one test of whether you’re explaining your idea effectively is to ask how close the reader is to reproducing it?
Not really, since being able to reproduce something only means it is reproducible, but is not measure the effectiveness of that expression.
What is the best way to use this technique and evaluate the results it produces?
Theoretically, this would be the best technique and way to evaluate the results it produces.
Imagine that you have two different ideas each of equal complexity and both topics that are equally familiar to the reader. Then imagine the reader and startup are able to forget that they have read the pitch before, and for that matter, every time in the future they read another version of it. Assuming the above, if the reader and startup, read the pitch, then transcribe it based on their on bias, there at first would likely be differences, but at some point the difference would reach an equilibrium. The idea to reach an equilibrium first in my opinion would be the most naturally reproducible - and more importantly, not lose or add any meaningful information required to reproduce the idea as it was first intended.
(Key issue with this approach is that it is not possible to have the reader or the startup iteratively review the expression of an idea in the way described above.)
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