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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

#111

Post by davidw »

dang wrote: post #100
davidw wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> Sure, but HN users aren't actually sinking any money here. They're just telling other people to.

That's what I meant by 'asymmetry' - it's kind of the opposite of putting one's money where one's mouth is.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#112

Post by dang »

GBond wrote: post #43

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

That's the sort of thing that might make sense if this eventually becomes a thing. Which would be great. But it's way too early to tell. For now, it's just about curiosity and trying something new.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#116

Post by DanFeldman »

personjerry wrote: post #102
kevin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You look for grit. What evidence can you find that shows they don't just give up when things get hard? Thing is we don't find out usually until after we invest what the real problems are...so we optimize for people we want to spend a lot of time with and work on these problems/issues whatever they may be. Most founders feel imposter syndrome after they're accepted. The great thing about being part of a batch is you r…

> You look for grit. It always seems to me that "grit" and "stubbornness" are similar, and being stubborn to the degree of being unable to give up a hopeless dream seems to be a problem for startup founders. How do you distinguish between these very similar traits when you interview someone?

That's the crux of what makes this stuff hard. Where do you draw the line between being flexible in decision making AND unyielding in your vision?

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#117

Post by dzink »

josephpmay wrote: post #96
andreis_ wrote: post #65

Some 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.

The basic income experiment may end up encouraging more lifestyle business pursuits if successful.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#118

Post by dang »

fweespee_ch wrote: post #32

> Questions or suggestions? Let's discuss and refine this together. The upvote/commentary is likely going to be highly problematic: A) I'm pretty sure Dang can't list all 9 accounts I've used on HN over the past few years. I'm also pretty sure 9 accounts in good standing [1500+ karma] would be enough to seed an initial vote if handled carefully. The ones he'd be able to name are the 3 most recent. This being the case…

People who focus on gaming accounts and sockpuppets and whatnot are almost never contributing much to the quality of discussion, and that's what we're going to focus on.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#119

Post by zaguios »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #24
dsugarman wrote: post #15

I see a lot of 'entrepreneurs' who spend their time getting their fb friends to vote for them in local startup pitch competitions, they don't actually spend any time making a company, but are very effective at getting votes. The HN community might just be a better barometer, hope to see this experiment work out and bring attention to worthy and unnoticed startups.

I agree. Some kind of app that requires users to log in then randomizes what they can vote on.

Yea, expanding on this the best way to get the best results is to actually give each post an elo score. Then when a user goes to look at two applications they can vote on which application they think is better and award / subtract elo like you would in any other case. This very quickly will let the quality applications rise to the top and cause the bad ones to fall by the wayside. Note that it's also important to constantly compare applications with similar elo scores.

I've seen this done before and it's incredibly efficient.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#120

Post by dang »

jlas wrote: post #18

What's the incentive for helping you pick the next big startup? What if you gave users a trivial amount of equity for their input?

Gratifying curiosity. That's the guiding value of HN and the reason we're doing this in the first place.
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