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Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#41

Post by millisecond »

minimaxir wrote: post #2

Ranking by upvotes/comments seems highly problematic, even with HN's antibrigade features. A) There are many external factors that can implicitly cap the number of upvotes/comments. (time submitted, amount of competition, etc.) HN has repost rules to alleviate this problem: would Apply HN posts be able to repost too? B) Not to mention that it encourages sockpuppet voting/commenting, especially since there is a high r…

B is tough. Would be interesting to see the sum of the karma of all users who upvote a single one.

Another thing to watch would be the mean user karma of all votes. A bunch of low-karma vote stuffing would actually bring a post down.

If you can get a ton of massive karma users to upvote and game this, maybe you should just get in by default?

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#42

Post by dang »

nlh wrote: post #37

Well I for one think this is also a super cool idea. Agree with what many have said re: gaming -- just be particularly aware that people will try to figure out how to game this. But I'd emphasize the qualitative side of the evaluation process -- it should be based on a somewhat opaque mix of upvotes, thoroughness of discussion, and thoughtfulness of answers. I'd almost treat the various 'Apply HN' threads as open sou…

> mix of upvotes, thoroughness of discussion, and thoughtfulness of answers

Yes! I'm glad to see someone arriving at the same basic vector that we did.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#44

Post by kevin »

6thSigma wrote: post #3

I think a mini application with a few questions from the normal YC app as a comment would be helpful. I see a ton of Show HNs in which I have no idea what the product does (either because the website copy is vague/confusing or because I don't know the market). Having a comment template or something reviewers can look at without have to ask the same questions in every thread would be great.

One of the reasons we're trying this is to question a lot of our own assumptions about the best way to find a great startup. Best practices will probably arise over time on how to best apply through HN, but I'd rather we let ourselves be open to surprising ways to present a startup.

I think we'll actually learn more during this experiment with less rules on format up front.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#45

Post by dang »

davidw wrote: post #23

Thought: in the original Wisdom of Crowds book, an important point was that people's selections need to be independent of one another, otherwise you get bandwagon/cascade effects. I don't know how that could be made to factor in to things.

I'd say this is not that model. The way HN works now is clearly by bandwagon effect, and we want this to be pretty close to the way HN works now.

If you think of HN users as 'investing' their time and energy into which stories they read and discuss here, then arguably this is kind of already happening. One way of looking at this experiment is to ask what happens if we take the existing system and permute its feedback loop, i.e. take one of the outputs (startups gets funded -> HN discusses them) and make it an input (HN discussion -> startups get funded). It's impossible to predict how a complex system will react and it's a fun kind of problem to think about. Of course, such permutations often just produce an unstable mess. That could happen here, i.e. the whole thing could turn into a trainwreck that produces no clear signal.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#46

Post by 6thSigma »

minimaxir wrote: post #29
kevin wrote: post #21

Hey everyone! I manage and run the Fellowship program at YC. I just want to build on top of what Dan wrote about being nice. We’re not asking you to do this because we think it’s good manners. We actually believe it’s the right way to think and act like the best investors. It’s easy to form some really bad habits when you sit in a position of power to judge the potential of a person, a team, an idea and their executi…

For the sake of discussion, I'll offer a counterargument. Be Nice is a good goal for Apply HN since it promotes civil discussion and stops the threads from devolving into semantic "lol no https u suck" that some Show HN threads tend to devolve into. Users are not nice . They don't comment on HN or Twitter, they just stop using it without fanfare. And what determine a startup's success in the real world is if people w…

Phrasing matters. If someone applies with a project management app you can say "Seriously? Another project management app? How is this different than X, Y, or Z?" or you can say "How is this different than X, Y, or Z?"

The former puts the applicant on the defensive whereas the latter encourages discussion.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#48

Post by kevin »

GFischer wrote: post #31

I think that for this experiment to be valid, only accounts created before today should be allowed to vote (or make a karma threshold for new accounts).

Nah. A lot of teams don't know about HN before they apply to YC. Many make it into the batch and are good.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#49

Post by lowglow »

GBond wrote: post #43

Great idea. Can you also consider an equity arrangement for HNers who would like to invest in the selected startups?

You should check out Baqqer. We basically built it for equity crowdfunding and perpetual crowdfunding projects from HNers. It works to help build community, resources (knowledge, capital, feedback), and shows some social proof.
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