This is an awesome list, I find the drone defense an interesting one too. There have been reports of drones near Moffet being commandeered and then sent into the Bay. Seemed like it would invoke a lawsuit, but if law enforcement was doing that, I could see it working out.
Drone deense/hijacking is a funny subject. Wonder how many weeks it'll take for people to write an autopilot-on-loss-of-signal for drones. In fact that's sort of the endgame for drones. People don't control the drones, they tell them what to do/where to go. The autopilot figures out how to complete that task.
Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
31–40 of 101 posts
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Large population, favorable demographics (entering its 'demographic surplus' phase), lots of untapped potential? Also: English-speaking, personal and professional ties to SV? Solid educational system, history of in-sourcing US-based IT and tech development? Or maybe it's just a big love-fest for Narendra Modi. I have no idea.
> Solid educational system My impression is the opposite, but maybe I'm misinformed ?
The system is heterogeneous, tracking wealth distribution inequality, but can be very good.
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#33The TechCrunch writers seem to have gotten the wrong chat platform under Meesho's description. Empirically I don't know of any friends in India using WeChat. Let alone selling products through it. WhatsApp, however, is omnipresent. Just checked Meesho's website ( http://meesho.com ) It only lists WhatsApp as its supported platform.
In their pitch they said WhatsApp
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#34Meesho caught my eye- but surely there is a typo in its description:
"Over 50 million small businesses sell over WeChat in [India]"
There are only 50-70 million WeChat users outside of China in total - according to WeChat themselves. http://bit.ly/2bUmiBE
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#35The TechCrunch writers seem to have gotten the wrong chat platform under Meesho's description. Empirically I don't know of any friends in India using WeChat. Let alone selling products through it. WhatsApp, however, is omnipresent. Just checked Meesho's website ( http://meesho.com ) It only lists WhatsApp as its supported platform.
Well spotted.
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I have the same question too. The $120k for 7% is meant for seed stage startups where $120k is a Big Deal. If you already have $800k revenue each month, what is the math behind giving up 7% of your company, permanently, for $120k?
You get the YC stamp of approval, which makes selling, recruiting, fundraising (everything, really) much easier. It's like asking why a genius would go to Harvard, when he can just teach himself everything.
exactly. a real genius wouldn't go to harvard. real geniuses don't need "stamps" of approval. fake geniuses do, and not to shit on Y Combinator startups, but these days they aren't that ground breaking. Though now there are more hardware startups, in terms of "app startups," every batch looks the same. The tech isn't that different from what was being done 3-4 years ago. Web app with a panel for a given industry, perhaps a marketplace. Rinse and repeat. That said, it is totally refreshing to see every industry appified, but coding-wise the vast majority aren't pushing the envelope. Let's just not pretend Y Combinator is at the cusp of application innovation like it was several years ago. Another way of putting it is: Y Combinator is more about "businesses" these day than technology.
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I have the same question too. The $120k for 7% is meant for seed stage startups where $120k is a Big Deal. If you already have $800k revenue each month, what is the math behind giving up 7% of your company, permanently, for $120k?
You get the YC stamp of approval, which makes selling, recruiting, fundraising (everything, really) much easier. It's like asking why a genius would go to Harvard, when he can just teach himself everything.
hey thanks for the answer. I get what you mean, but the math still does not make sense.
For example, if you made $100 million MRR, then a "stamp of approval" for 7% is probably too much right.
I guess what I mean is, yes stamp of approval, alumni network etc. is great value, but at some point you kind of have to look at the math and say "well where do you draw the line". With 800k MRR already and growing, does it really make sense to give up 7% for stamp of approval
7% is a ton of equity, especially for a company that's already doing 800k MRR. You can do a lot with 7% equity of a company that has 800k MRR
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#38>Quero Education is an ed-tech startup out of Brazil that is promising to help solve under-enrollment issues at Brazilian universities. Contrary to what most of us would think, coming from schools challenged daily by a lack of professors and dormitories, enrollment at Brazilian schools would need to double to just match the number of available seats.
This is perplexing to me at first glance so hopefully someone from the country can shed some light on this issue. In the states, if anything, we've oversold the college education (and advanced degrees like law degrees) to the point where a great number of students are unable to attain the careers (implicitly) promised by these degrees. They are often crushed by a mountain of debt and struggle to pay it back over a lifetime. Prospective students have finally caught onto this (hooray Internet!), and many lower tier law schools are shutting down.
Brazil, according to this blurb, does not have this problem. In fact it has the opposite problem of not enough students? If this were the States I'd be quick to dismiss it as "the schools don't provide value to students, thus they are underenrolled, and they should shut down." But this is probably not the case -- are prospective students genuinely missing a great opportunity to educate themselves and set themselves up to greatly improve their lifetime earning potential? Would love to get a local perspective here.
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I have the same question too. The $120k for 7% is meant for seed stage startups where $120k is a Big Deal. If you already have $800k revenue each month, what is the math behind giving up 7% of your company, permanently, for $120k?
You get the YC stamp of approval, which makes selling, recruiting, fundraising (everything, really) much easier. It's like asking why a genius would go to Harvard, when he can just teach himself everything.
To extend your Harvard example, yes the genius needs a stamp of approval from Harvard totally agree it's the best there is
But if the genius already founded and is running a growing business at $800k MRR, then maybe she shouldn't pay the 7% entrance fee to get Harvard stamp of approval right
Stamp of approval is great. All I'm asking is, where is the line when cost/benefit makes sense. Can't be infinity right
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
#40Interesting, when did Yahoo sell off the Jumpcut.com domain name?