You guys need to diversify and try to solve hard problems that have slow paybacks. Sure making the next twitter is cool, but how about funding a startup that makes does cheap inpatient monitoring,ordering,labs,diagnosis, drug interaction, of patients at hospitals? There are huge players in that space:Epic,Cerner, etc but if you look the sheer amount of $ a hospital is willing to spend on EMR systems...
Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
91–100 of 300 posts
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Hey, this looks really cool, but I notice you guys don't support TLS (i.e., if I change the 'http' to 'https', I can't connect). I know you have a million things on your todo list, but this one is extraordinarily important; your target users will simply close their browser windows once they see 'http'. Also, fixing this is easy! Just check out this tutorial [link] .. or let me know if you have any questions and I'll…
That's fine, and for those who don't feel so gushy, there's a different thing you can do: simply re-read your comments and edit out anything that isn't nice. You can always set 'delay' in your profile to between 1 and 10 minutes to give yourself some editing time. Mine is 3.
I mentioned this from the early days of HN, and it's in the guidelines: "don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation." is a great rule for most people. Imagine yourself saying your comment to someone you don't know. Does it sound ok?
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#93Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#94Thought: 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…
I'm a bit skeptical, since "commenting on HN" is so asymmetrical compared to sinking money into a startup in terms of how much you're invested, but I think it's an interesting experiment. I think if it goes right, with some iteration, it could help to pick out some interesting things.
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#95we're already seeing quite a few Apply HNs, so we'll add a link for those a la /ask and /show
Quick poll for the community here: I run Hacker News Daily (http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/) which many people know about; but also Ask HN Weekly (http://www.daemonology.net/hn-weekly-ask/) and Show HN Weekly (http://www.daemonology.net/hn-weekly-show/). In each case the methodology is the same: The 10 highest-scoring items which (a) appeared on relevant "front page" in the day/week in question, (b) and haven't appeared on a previous Daily/Weekly.
Would people be interested in having an "Apply HN Weekly" set up along similar lines? It's straightforward for me to copy the scripts and edit a few paths (once the HN link appears) but there's no point if nobody would want to read it.
EDIT: I'm seeing lots of upvotes to this comment, which I'm going to assume is an indication that people would like to see me implement this. If you were upvoting simply because you wanted to make more people aware that I had a really lousy idea, please add a comment to disambiguate.
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#96Some sort of support for people working on building "lifestyle businesses" as side projects would be fantastic. Not all of us have megalomaniac dreams of running the next AirBnb. Question: would YC Fellowship be a good fit for that?
YC is in the business of making money (along with promoting substantial positive change in the world). Unfortunately lifestyle businesses don't really work towards either of these ends, and it doesn't make sense for YC to fund them.
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Hey, this looks really cool, but I notice you guys don't support TLS (i.e., if I change the 'http' to 'https', I can't connect). I know you have a million things on your todo list, but this one is extraordinarily important; your target users will simply close their browser windows once they see 'http'. Also, fixing this is easy! Just check out this tutorial [link] .. or let me know if you have any questions and I'll…
That's fine, and for those who don't feel so gushy, there's a different thing you can do: simply re-read your comments and edit out anything that isn't nice. You can always set 'delay' in your profile to between 1 and 10 minutes to give yourself some editing time. Mine is 3.
>You can always set 'delay' in your profile to between 1 and 10 minutes to give yourself some editing time.
I had always seen this, but never actually looked into what it did. For someone like me who typically makes a litany of edits immediately after posting, this is revelatory. Thanks!
For whatever reason, the textbox just isn't as good of a preview when compared to viewing the actual post.
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's fine, and for those who don't feel so gushy, there's a different thing you can do: simply re-read your comments and edit out anything that isn't nice. You can always set 'delay' in your profile to between 1 and 10 minutes to give yourself some editing time. Mine is 3.
> You can always set 'delay' in your profile to between 1 and 10 minutes to give yourself some editing time. I had always seen this, but never actually looked into what it did. For someone like me who typically makes a litany of edits immediately after posting, this is revelatory. Thanks! For whatever reason, the textbox just isn't as good of a preview when compared to viewing the actual post.
> For whatever reason, the textbox just isn't as good of a preview when compared to viewing the actual post.
I know. Good lord do I know.
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#99One concern I could see is around disclosing the idea. I know, I know, idea.pre_exectution_worth = 0, idea.post_execution_worth = $, but I have to think that some of the most interesting applications to YC or any other accelerator are at least partially executed hence giving out their intent, or some of the sexy secret sauce which might help them gain a favorable ranking is pitted against a desire to remain secretive. Obviously you have other submission processes but seems like perhaps something to consider, my 2 cents.
Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm a bit skeptical, since "commenting on HN" is so asymmetrical compared to sinking money into a startup in terms of how much you're invested, but I think it's an interesting experiment. I think if it goes right, with some iteration, it could help to pick out some interesting things.
Sure, but HN users aren't actually sinking any money here. They're just telling other people to. Which is maybe not so different from regular HN comments? Who knows. We shall see!