Y Combinator Question 36: How Easy/Medium/Hard Are the Brainstormed Ideas to Do?
This Y Combinator question aims to assess how your startup evaluates the feasibility and complexity of new ideas generated during brainstorming sessions.
Part of the series:
Y Combinator: 40 Questions and 40 Answers
Y Combinator: 40 Questions and 40 Answers
Understanding the difficulty level associated with each idea can help prioritize development efforts and allocate resources effectively. Startups must be realistic about what can be achieved given their current capabilities and constraints.
1. Why Y Combinator Asks This Question
Y Combinator is interested in whether your startup has a systematic approach to assessing and categorizing the difficulty of implementing new ideas.This evaluation is vital for effective planning and risk management. It helps ensure that your team is not only innovative but also practical and grounded in its approach to product development.
2. How to Answer the Question
Explain the criteria or framework your team uses to determine the difficulty level of each brainstormed idea. Describe how you assess the technical, resource, and time requirements for each idea and how these factors influence their categorization as easy, medium, or hard.Discuss how this categorization impacts your decision-making process in terms of prioritization and scheduling.
For example, you might categorize ideas based on the estimated hours of development work, the need for new technology or skills, and the potential impact on the current product timeline.
3. How NOT to Answer the Question
Avoid responses that suggest you do not have a clear methodology for assessing the feasibility of new ideas or that all ideas are treated equally regardless of their complexity.Do not indicate that you frequently pursue projects without a realistic assessment of their difficulty, as this can suggest poor planning and management.
4. An Example, Based on a Tech Startup
Let’s consider a tech startup, SmartHome Solutions, that develops IoT devices for home automation. Here’s how they might respond:- Assessment Framework: “We evaluate each brainstormed idea using a three-tier difficulty assessment framework. We consider the required man-hours, the current technical expertise of our team, and the integration complexity with existing systems.”
- Impact on Decision-Making: “The following categorization helps us strategically allocate resources and schedule projects based on our product roadmap and priority. Hard projects may be scheduled for later phases or require preliminary research phases, while easy tasks are often fast-tracked to deliver quick wins and maintain momentum.”
Difficulty Categorization
- Easy: “Ideas that can be implemented with existing tools and skills within a few weeks without disrupting ongoing projects, such as minor UI enhancements to increase user-friendliness.”
- Medium: “Ideas that require moderate development effort, involving integration with other systems or minor usage of new technologies, such as adding voice command features to our app.”
- Hard: “Ideas that involve significant research and development, possibly requiring new skill sets or substantial changes to existing architecture, like developing a new predictive maintenance feature for our devices.”
Y Combinator evaluates how startups assess the feasibility and complexity of new ideas to ensure they prioritize development efforts realistically based on their capabilities and constraints.