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Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

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Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#161

Post by nailer »

pg wrote: post #116
nailer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example: "Our goal is to do what Gmail did to Outlook: replace a popular desktop application with a better online version." is badly begging the question. I'd be surprised if gmail + Google calendar had more active users than Outlook.

Not really. (a) Gmail has a lot of users, even if it doesn't have more yet, and (b) I bet Gmail's growth is faster.

Yes, but the company is saying that GMail replaced Outlook. Clearly it has not - I'm sure most new GMail users are not ex-Outlook PIM users. This is because GMail is in a different product category

- what percentage of GMail users regularly schedule more than one event a week?

- what percentage of Gmail users use reminders?

- How much of their day is spent with GMail open?

- How often do they search Google contacts for phone numbers and other data?

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#162

Post by nailer »

jonknee wrote: post #52
nhebb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the popularity of Gmail is overestimated by a lot of techies. Campaign Monitor posted user stats for over 300 million people last summer: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/2839/email-client-p... Gmail came in at only 5.5%.

That's clients, not providers. I use Gmail and have for years, but I don't have an @gmail.com address that I use or access my mail from the web interface. My mail client is typically Mail.app or the Mail iPhone app. They are tracking these based on loaded images, which means Gmail users by default aren't counted. Some versions of Outlook (at least 2000) autoload images. Lots of mobile devices don't load images, which…

You probably don't use a lot of MS products.

Outlook 2000 is 4 (maybe 5) versions old. At least 2010, 2007 and 2003 don't load images by default, I wouldn't be surprised if Outlook XP didn't either.

More to the point: no large organization is using Outlook 2000 anymore. It's unsupported and you can get 2010, 2007, 2003 or even XP on your current license agreement.

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#163

Post by HaltingState »

jlangenauer wrote: post #48

I have to say I'm not that impressed with the list either - but I offer the following anecdote as to why my opinion shouldn't count that much. A VC was being told about a new web startup in the 1990's. The startup involved people putting their goods up for sale, where people would bid for them, then exchange the goods and money. The VC said "People who've never seen each other, sending goods and money to one another,…

Ebay created the market for online auction services. They created a new category of products and services which satisfied needs not fulfilled elsewhere. These startups are not directed at market creation activity and are not disruptive.

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#164

Post by HaltingState »

csomar wrote: post #49

I should see the site and try out the service and watch the result to judge. Nevertheless, I'll stay disappointed from Startups that are Twitter Apps or Twitter Related. Twitter is a new phenomena, it's hot because it got lot of TV, media coverage: 30% or even less are inactive and also consider the non-real users (Spam bot, feeds, apps...). It's too early to consider Twitter a success to build your startup upon it.

Farmville has more users than twitter. Why twitter? Why not facebook?

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#165

Post by ErrantX »

pg wrote: post #135
zhyder wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. If fnid2 is mistaken isn't it more likely because he has much less information about these startups and their founders than you or the attendees of demo day?

It's certainly true that he knows nothing about most of these companies beyond a brief text description. But that is precisely the situation where someone who understood early stage startups would know to reserve judgment.

I think the "problem" is compared to some of the quality ideas in the past (dropbox, reddit etc.) a lot of this round seems a bit trivial.

I'm pretty sure a couple of them, too, will bottom out quite quickly because they either don't appear to fit their market or understand it.

fnid2 is being silly in latter posts though; interestingly he trivialized/picked holes in the ones I think might do ok and sort of passed over the ones I think have major flaws.

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#166

Post by jonknee »

nailer wrote: post #162
jonknee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's clients, not providers. I use Gmail and have for years, but I don't have an @gmail.com address that I use or access my mail from the web interface. My mail client is typically Mail.app or the Mail iPhone app. They are tracking these based on loaded images, which means Gmail users by default aren't counted. Some versions of Outlook (at least 2000) autoload images. Lots of mobile devices don't load images, which…

You probably don't use a lot of MS products. Outlook 2000 is 4 (maybe 5) versions old. At least 2010, 2007 and 2003 don't load images by default, I wouldn't be surprised if Outlook XP didn't either. More to the point: no large organization is using Outlook 2000 anymore. It's unsupported and you can get 2010, 2007, 2003 or even XP on your current license agreement.

... And yet "Outlook 2000, 2003, Express" make up 32% of all email clients found in their study. My point isn't that these are in high use, but that they are vastly over counted (and even then meaningless to try and find providers as there are plenty of people using Gmail inside of Outlook).

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#167

Post by brlewis »

ErrantX wrote: post #165
pg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly true that he knows nothing about most of these companies beyond a brief text description. But that is precisely the situation where someone who understood early stage startups would know to reserve judgment.

I think the "problem" is compared to some of the quality ideas in the past (dropbox, reddit etc.) a lot of this round seems a bit trivial. I'm pretty sure a couple of them, too, will bottom out quite quickly because they either don't appear to fit their market or understand it. fnid2 is being silly in latter posts though; interestingly he trivialized/picked holes in the ones I think might do ok and sort of passed ove…

People forget that reddit was widely viewed as a trivial digg clone in its early days. Dropbox also seemed trivial to some early on: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#169

Post by and13 »

pg wrote: post #115
idlewords wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 2010 - there should be things in this list that are more awesome, even at first reading, than 'embedly' and 'embedster'.

Surely HN hasn't descended to making fun of startups' names?

That reminds me of you making fun of Wufoo's name in this video (1:07):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6392191576577272336...

Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups

#170

Post by thaumaturgy »

pg wrote: post #119
axod wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think these are safe business model companies. Call me a cynic, but it may be more of a case of "built for investors/acquirers in SV".

It's not so much that you're cynical as that you haven't thought about where the descriptions of these startups came from. They came from an event where startups presented to investors in SV. So of course the descriptions sound like they'd be appealing to that audience; that's what they were trying to do.

Honest question: would tech-savvy investors' opinions of a short blurb really be that different from other technical businesspeople? Or, to put it another way: would it really require two completely different statements to appear attractive to both groups?

And more critically: I realize that this is your baby, and you have had a large amount of involvement and personal investment in these projects over the last several months. However, you're coming off as both very defensive, and very dismissive of the criticism so far.

It's surprising to me that YC would unveil its next batch of startups, and get such a "meh" reaction from the audience. That indicates a problem worth investigating, either in the community here, or in the specific projects that were funded this time 'round, or in YC's goals (specifically whether those goals might be diverging from those of the HN community).

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