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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

#171

Post by ksou32 »

dang wrote: post #84
arihant wrote: post #79

I am not very sure about this for a few reasons: 1. There is possibly several ways to game the upvote system. HN community is not anonymous, and there are people who have more friends here than others. A lot of very good founders would probably not have enough friends here. That might create bias once an Apply HN post reaches first page vs. another. 2. Participating startups risk facing public bashing while hoping to…

We've put a ton of work into HN's anti-gaming software. There's no piece of code we've worked harder on. We also have a ton of experience looking at voting data. That's one advantage of keeping this process close to how HN normally works: that software and experience will apply here. That's definitely not to say that there won't be new forms of gaming that we haven't seen before and don't know how to combat. It's a r…

He's not talking about someone automating voting, rather imagine if founder A is a very popular guy in Twitter and YouTube.

He makes a post saying 'Hey support my awesome startup '. Founder B might have a better idea, but not the followers.

However, Founders A existing popularity may provide a nice userbase for startup, which would be a key element of success.

Theirs no real way to make this 'fair'

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#172

Post by lotharbot »

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?

IMO, "grit" is about working the problem and not giving up but potentially changing tactics, while "stubbornness" is about keeping the same tactics even if the problem changes.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#174

Post by Mz »

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…

I kind of feel like neither dang nor Kevin really explained it very well, but they are both correct. In order to tackle meaty issues in a constructive manner, there has to be a certain amount of trust and that requires a higher degree of civility than what "be civil" suggests to most people.

And, unfortunately, I have work to do and a headache, so I am not likely to be able to improve on either of their explanations. But you simply can't get there from here in terms of building something if all people do is tear it down.

But I welcome this experiment if only in hopes that it sets a social precedent and teaches more people here how to communicate better. Because if you think being nice involves not pointing out legitimate flaws, you really have a lot to learn. It actually isn't nice at all to let people keep shooting themselves in the foot, but it is possible to point out the connection between aiming the gun down while cleaning it while loaded and the holes that keep showing up in their feet without saying "God, what a fucking idiot! Do I even need to TELL you how stupid that is???" Yeah, when it comes to ideas, you often do need to tell people that because metaphorically shooting yourself in the foot isn't anywhere near as obvious to most people as literally shooting yourself in the foot.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#175

Post by findjashua »

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?

stubbornness seems to imply rigidity; you can exhibit grit while still being flexible and adapting to changes

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#176

Post by dang »

ksou32 wrote: post #171
dang wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've put a ton of work into HN's anti-gaming software. There's no piece of code we've worked harder on. We also have a ton of experience looking at voting data. That's one advantage of keeping this process close to how HN normally works: that software and experience will apply here. That's definitely not to say that there won't be new forms of gaming that we haven't seen before and don't know how to combat. It's a r…

He's not talking about someone automating voting, rather imagine if founder A is a very popular guy in Twitter and YouTube. He makes a post saying 'Hey support my awesome startup '. Founder B might have a better idea, but not the followers. However, Founders A existing popularity may provide a nice userbase for startup, which would be a key element of success. Theirs no real way to make this 'fair'

Ah, perhaps I misread the GP. But I agree that there's no way to control for all these factors. It would drive one mad to try and probably make consensus harder to arrive at.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#177

Post by dang »

vmorgulis wrote: post #128
dang wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Is it possible to suggest existing projects (in which I do not participate) ? I have few in mind like Unicorn engine ( http://www.unicorn-engine.org/ ).

You mean post them as Apply HNs? No, but you could convince them to apply for themselves.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#178

Post by dang »

mlapeter wrote: post #169
dang wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're on the same page to some extent. What I meant by 'ranking by comments' is that we want the ranking to depend on the quality of the discussion. That's the one thing that can't be faked. That's how the ranking of HN stories works now. It's a combination of upvotes and human curation by users (e.g. flagging) and moderators. So there's going to be some combination of technical and non-technical factors. How…

Would it be appropriate to ask our users of our startup to and vote for us on here? If they are invested enough in our service and community to do so, it seems like that would be a very positive and useful signal in it's own right. Or would that be considered gaming the votes?

No, that would be gaming the votes, just as asking them to upvote for a blog post would be.

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#179

Post by findjashua »

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…

i think the meaning of "nice" here is to be constructive in your criticism:

1. stick to "just the facts", eg, "lack of https support will expose your users to security vulnerabilities"

2. list potential solutions if possible

Re: Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund

#180

Post by lowglow »

dang wrote: post #112
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.

Why not just invest in someone inside the community trying to do just that? This entire experiment is exactly what we're trying to do at Baqqer. Crowdfunding (+equity) / social proof from the community to help build products people want from the start.
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