B&C Plan

The B&C Plan

So recently, I was able to get a first hand look at the questions that are generally asked while selecting applicants at Ycombinator. And together with that, the recent post about the process here, made me think, as to "how can the questionnaire be made better? ". 

So I was talking about it to a friend, and we were practically bouncing ideas from each other, and then I came up with this observation which I would like to suggest in this post. 

The questionnaire did ask us about our idea, but while I was going over and over again about it, it struck me as a question :

" Why does Ycombinator does not ask you for more of your 'great' ideas, and instead only asks you for your best idea only?"

Now this was not hard to explain, indeed, with so many applications, even adding one more question is a huge stress on the 4 people who judge them. But when you think about it with a view of a direct 'contradiction' of its own ways, i.e Ycombinator stresses on the fact that your 'current' best idea might not be the best you can come up with, hence the need or possibility of pivoting as in the case of Reddit. 

Meaning, that "What you think your best ideas is, might not be 'actually' your best Idea! "

Suggestion: Thus the applicants should be asked about their 2nd and 3rd best ideas, this would undoubtedly increase the quality of applicants coming through each year even if by a small margin.

So let me sum it down to some pros and cons.

Advantages 

• When people explain 3 of their best ideas,  they would tend to exhibit more personal traits, then they do while explaining one idea, because sometimes, an idea is less descriptive, and a person would tend to exhibit less of his entrepreneurial skills, while explaining it.  
  
  
•  It will also, similarly, reduce the no of those people you like to 'hack' their way into ycombinator. 
  
  
• It will reduce the probability of missing out on the next Reddits.
• Diversity is exhibited as well, those applicants that have only 3 good ideas, over those who have only one. 

Disadvantages 

• It would increase the load on the team that goes through these applications while selecting applicants.