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Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

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Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#51

Post by kkt262 »

faceyspacey wrote: post #36
w1ntermute wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, per…

Not sure your logic is correct here. Real geniuses go to Harvard all the time and they like stamps of approval just like anyone else. Why would a genius not want a stamp of approval? Why would a good company not want a stamp of approval? Leonardo Dicaprio doesn't NEED an academy award but he wants one. Albert Einstein doesn't need to publicize his theorems for the world to gush over how smart he is, but he does it anyway. Genius chess players don't NEED to win competitions, but they want to for the recognition.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#52

Post by kkt262 »

confiscate wrote: post #37
w1ntermute wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rea…

What can you do with 7% that you would be better than getting into YC? The better valuation terms alone would be worth the 7%. Alumni network is priceless. Hiring becomes easier. Talent becomes greater.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#53

Post by confiscate »

kkt262 wrote: post #52
confiscate wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rea…

What can you do with 7% that you would be better than getting into YC? The better valuation terms alone would be worth the 7%. Alumni network is priceless. Hiring becomes easier. Talent becomes greater.

Ya you're right I didn't do the exact math so I don't know what the numbers are.

For 7% of a 800k MRR fast-growing rocket, you can probably get multiple really veteran execs from your industry (healthy snacks in this case), each bringing on their own industry connections (e.g. to wholefoods etc).

800k MRR is 9.6million ARR, so even if you don't grow monthly, that's a lot of money. With that ARR you can probably raise much more than 120k with 7%. Every dollar counts in a startup

Maybe they did the math and it looks to be worth it. Or maybe when they joined YC they had $0 MRR and YC helped them get to 800k by graduation day. I can only guess with limited info from Techcrunch so my guess may not be accurate!

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#54

Post by throwawayReply »

> Oleg Rogynskyy and his team at People.ai want to help companies understand what sales teams are doing on a daily basis. People.ai integrates with calendars, phones, and emails and logs sales activity that leads to closing deals. The idea is that sales teams can track best practices from top performers and close more deals.

I'm all for taking human bias out of learning, but isn't there a great danger of cargo-culting a sales team based on this? Perhaps diversity is important to generate both long and short term growth, as well as the fact that there's a danger that if everyone is operating in a more similar manner that activity shifts from growth to a zero-sum game.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#55

Post by kchoudhu »

somenomadicguy wrote: post #46

Legalist just makes me sad, but I guess there's nothing more American than suing for absolutely anything. It's like the founders were looking for a business model that was even more parasitic than patent squatting. As a nomad, airfordable is the best of the bunch to me. It almost balances out the karma of Legalist.

"We're definitely not Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan."

You are. Why not own it? Not all businesses need to smell like a bed of roses.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#56

Post by BinaryIdiot »

mhowland wrote: post #49
ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

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 defense is very interesting....but I find the concept of jamming/electronic spoofing/RF commandeering somewhat comical in this arena. (what ApolloShield seems to be doing) This is a physical threat (in the terrorist scenario) that needs to be dealt with kinetically. RF spoofing doesn't work for planed flights, GPS spoofing can work but reply attacks are wonky at best and most just will trigger a "go home" which…

> This is a physical threat (in the terrorist scenario) that needs to be dealt with kinetically.

While I completely agree with you I'm curious if the pricing has come down on powerful lasers as I could see it being more economical to simply burn the rogue drones out of the sky. It would make re-targeting much faster and less of a need to keep kinetic...material on hand.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#59

Post by danieltillett »

rajeck wrote: post #34

Meesho 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

This is wrong - it is Whatsapp. This is just more of the quality proofreading we have come to love from Techcrunch.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2

#60

Post by koolba »

kchoudhu wrote: post #55
somenomadicguy wrote: post #46

Legalist just makes me sad, but I guess there's nothing more American than suing for absolutely anything. It's like the founders were looking for a business model that was even more parasitic than patent squatting. As a nomad, airfordable is the best of the bunch to me. It almost balances out the karma of Legalist.

"We're definitely not Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan." You are. Why not own it? Not all businesses need to smell like a bed of roses.

> You are. Why not own it? Not all businesses need to smell like a bed of roses.

Exactly. I know a guy that literally runs a business that smells like shit. They pump septic tanks and he's doing great. There's a natural apprehension for competitors to enter a market like that, must be similar for things that figuratively smell like shit too (like this).

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