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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

#131

Post by hoodoof »

Truth is, I'd start writing code to copy any idea that I was totally blown away by, and I don't need any funding to start doing that.

Putting your idea right there in front of some pretty fast moving programmers has to be something people would think twice about.

Having said that, it's hard to imagine an idea being sufficiently compelling to start writing code to implement it immediately. The only ideas that really blow me away are my own and they usually turn out to be silly anyway, after I've spent six months building them to crickets.

I don't think ideas are worth nothing by the way. Just ask the Facebook twins.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#132

Post by kevin »

pkfrank wrote: post #129
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…

Hi Kevin, we applied through the conventional application process for S2016 - would there be any merit to starting an "Apply HN" thread as a supplement and opportunity for public discussion?

No rule against it. If you're up for it, I don't see why not.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#133

Post by kevin »

newjersey wrote: post #107
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…

As much as I'd love to hold power over other mortals, I'll have to recuse myself here. I publicly made fun of Drew Houston and gang when they started and again when they reportedly rejected Apple's advances. Without a crystal ball, it just feels like we're just betting here. Are we betting on the viability of a product or idea? Are we betting on the founders? Are we betting on the team's ability to deliver? So many q…

Always betting on the founders. Ideas sometimes change. Markets sometimes change.

What gets people tripped up is that you sometimes judge a founder indirectly by seeing how they communicate an idea, looking at their ability to deliver, and hearing about how they think about the market.

The answers to those questions are important, but we put it in the context of what does it say about the founder.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#135

Post by JonFish85 »

raldi wrote: post #64
dang wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Be Nice" may dissuade commenters/potential customers from pointing out legitimate, immediate flaws. I don't think HN users are going to have trouble doing that, but there are different ways to do it, and the nicer ways have the critical property of opening the discussion further instead of shutting it down. We HN users are used to thinking of ourselves as the scrappy underdog, calling out incorrectness and badness…

"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…

I'd be curious how you'd approach it with something far more accusatory? Take Airbnb for example: I am very bothered by airbnb's approach to laws. I think they deliberately ignore laws in the name of making a profit. It's probably not "nice" to question why they look the other way in major markets where they know their listings are breaking the law, but it certainly isn't nice that they choose what laws apply to them and which ones they choose to fight a marketing campaign over.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#136

Post by lettergram »

About a year ago I ran a series of tests where I continuously posted the same 15-20 articles tracking the number of up votes within the first 10-15 minutes.

It turns out it was essentially random, and although every one of the posts were decent enough to make it to the front page 2 or 3 times sometimes it received zero votes, sometimes 10.

It seems somewhat unfair to use the standard ranking system with this being the case, since it's essentially random. I think there would need to be a way to randomly show them to users and have users vote. Similar to /r/starups[1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/

BTW I eventually received an email from the YC staff, thank you for not banning me :) No one should do this.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#137

Post by gizmo »

hoodoof wrote: post #131

Truth is, I'd start writing code to copy any idea that I was totally blown away by, and I don't need any funding to start doing that. Putting your idea right there in front of some pretty fast moving programmers has to be something people would think twice about. Having said that, it's hard to imagine an idea being sufficiently compelling to start writing code to implement it immediately. The only ideas that really b…

There just aren't that many people out there who are willing and capable of doing the hard work it takes to bring something --anything-- to the point where it usable. Those who are have their own projects already, which they won't abandon based on a forum post. And if they do, they're going to abandon this new project the moment they read about an even cooler idea.

Besides, ideas grow and take on a life of their own as you work on them. By the time your interpretation of the idea takes shape it's going to be distinctly different from the original idea that inspired you.

The only way to keep people from stealing your ideas is by never talking to anybody about them. That's surely the worst of all options.

You can literally try to clone any YC company after demo day. All the startups get covered on techcrunch making their ideas public. Just pick the one you like best and open your favorite editor. They only got a 6 months head start, so what's stopping you?

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#138

Post by danieltillett »

Dan I think this is great idea (I am all for trying new things). One suggestion I do have is to score a startup not by up votes, but by the quality of the discussion that results.

The commentship of HN is not exactly a representative cross-section of the unwashed masses, but it is filled with amazingly knowledgeable and intelligent people. A startup that generates thoughtful and helpful discussion may well be a stronger signal of success than crude up votes.

Edit. arg! I see Dan already had this idea.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#139

Post by danieltillett »

lettergram wrote: post #136

About a year ago I ran a series of tests where I continuously posted the same 15-20 articles tracking the number of up votes within the first 10-15 minutes. It turns out it was essentially random, and although every one of the posts were decent enough to make it to the front page 2 or 3 times sometimes it received zero votes, sometimes 10. It seems somewhat unfair to use the standard ranking system with this being th…

Did you write up this testing? I would love to see some hard number on this effect?

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#140

Post by Kapow »

zaguios wrote: post #121

I actually already wrote this as a reply to another comment, but I think it merits a comment of its own. The best way to do the scoring for the applications is to actually make it into somewhat of a game. Each application should be given a starting elo of 1200. Every time a user wants to go and review applications they will be presented with two separate applications with a similar elo and then will be asked to vote…

Would this be implemented as only showing pairs within a certain threshold of difference, or would it choose an application purely at random and then the application with the closest score (or even 50/50 the next highest or next lowest)? The former seems like it could lead to cases where applications end up in a void between clusters and stop appearing in votes, preventing late voters from giving an opinion on them.

Is there a name for this kind of voting process?

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