Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#21

Post by tx »

My favorite is TipJoy. The problem was in the air, PG himself teased everybody with it, but yet nobody took the trouble of actually tackling it. Neat approach, nice execution. Bravo!

Another big one, I think, is SnapTalent. The existing system of finding people to work is pretty much an "offline approach" ported over the net. SnapTalent actually uses the technology to improve the effectiveness of the process. I only hope that their users (companies) will be smart enough to recognize the potential. If I were monster.com (are they still around?) I'd grabbed these guys immediately.

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#22

Post by pg »

startingup wrote: post #8

280Slides caught my attention - sounds like Zenter - The Sequel? In fact, RescueTime & 8AWeek also sound awfully similar, don't they? This raises an interesting question. As number of YC companies increases, the chances of "collision" increases too. How is that handled?

280 North comes at the problem from a different direction. They're building infrastructure for making a new class of web-based apps that really feel like desktop ones. They just happened to pick Powerpoint to build first. But of the 60k LOC they've written so far, I believe 280 Slides is only 20k.

RescueTime and 8aweek are also quite different: RT is for people and groups who want to track their productivity, and 8aweek is an alternative to blacklist-based web filtering.

Our answer to the problem of collisions is that in any large market, which we encourage startups to be in, there is going to be room for several different approaches.

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#23

Post by pg »

antiismist wrote: post #19
webwright wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what percentage of breakout success storieson the Internet did NOT start as hacker projects? Facebook, google, yahoo, etc. All started that way.

As counterpoints, myspace, flickr, and digg were not hacker projects. edit: removed google from the above list.

Flickr was sort of a hacker project, in that like Blogger it was a side project of a group who thought they were working on something else.

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#24

Post by nextmoveone »

My votes go to:

-RescueTime (So freaking valuable!)

-Kirkland North (definitely going to grow their userbase quickly! (once they launch))

-Chatterous (Because I had a very similar idea)

-------------------------------------------------

My notes are to:

-insoshi (you have an indirect competitor, lovdbyless, it's a rails based opensource social network maker thing)

-deluux (my first interpretation of what you guys do was a single login for every site (like openID or w/e) but then my second interpretation was that I can show my facebook page or elements from it, on my own site? Like a widget(s)? That would be awesome!)

-joberator(i think we simply need more developers, not referrals, because, at least in S. Florida, finding a developer through craigslist, career builder or monster is NOT easy, and my CS major friends dont have any referrals, period and they are in their last year of college, so I have to wait for them to graduate which is not sufficient)

-wundrbar(dont know if this is possible, but if you could simply be an option in the dropdown that accompanies that search box in top right of FireFox and IE7, that would ROCK MY FREAKING WORLD!)

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#25

Post by cperciva »

tx wrote: post #21

My favorite is TipJoy. The problem was in the air, PG himself teased everybody with it, but yet nobody took the trouble of actually tackling it. Neat approach, nice execution. Bravo! Another big one, I think, is SnapTalent. The existing system of finding people to work is pretty much an "offline approach" ported over the net. SnapTalent actually uses the technology to improve the effectiveness of the process. I only…

My favorite is TipJoy

I like the basic principle of aggregating micropayments, but I think TipJoy going to be very limited until people can actually get money out (which of course means that TipJoy has to deal with the regulatory issues). So far they've accumulated $1531.54 in tips (assuming their website is up to date), which means that their 3% cut adds up to a grand total of $45.95... which isn't going to make anyone rich in a hurry.

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#26

Post by garbowza »

nextmoveone wrote: post #24

My votes go to: -RescueTime (So freaking valuable!) -Kirkland North (definitely going to grow their userbase quickly! (once they launch)) -Chatterous (Because I had a very similar idea) ------------------------------------------------- My notes are to: -insoshi (you have an indirect competitor, lovdbyless, it's a rails based opensource social network maker thing) -deluux (my first interpretation of what you guys do w…

They do have a search box plugin, along with a full fledged toolbar version (which has more functionality). http://www.wundrbar.com/static/extras

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#27

Post by pg »

cperciva wrote: post #25
tx wrote: post #21

My favorite is TipJoy. The problem was in the air, PG himself teased everybody with it, but yet nobody took the trouble of actually tackling it. Neat approach, nice execution. Bravo! Another big one, I think, is SnapTalent. The existing system of finding people to work is pretty much an "offline approach" ported over the net. SnapTalent actually uses the technology to improve the effectiveness of the process. I only…

My favorite is TipJoy I like the basic principle of aggregating micropayments, but I think TipJoy going to be very limited until people can actually get money out (which of course means that TipJoy has to deal with the regulatory issues). So far they've accumulated $1531.54 in tips (assuming their website is up to date), which means that their 3% cut adds up to a grand total of $45.95... which isn't going to make any…

You can't tell much from the numbers of a startup this young. They've generated more revenue than Google had at the same age.

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#28

Post by cperciva »

pg wrote: post #27
cperciva wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite is TipJoy I like the basic principle of aggregating micropayments, but I think TipJoy going to be very limited until people can actually get money out (which of course means that TipJoy has to deal with the regulatory issues). So far they've accumulated $1531.54 in tips (assuming their website is up to date), which means that their 3% cut adds up to a grand total of $45.95... which isn't going to make any…

You can't tell much from the numbers of a startup this young. They've generated more revenue than Google had at the same age.

Sure -- my point was just that taking a 3% cut of $0.10 payments means that TipJoy needs to get very very big before it will be making much money.

Can TipJoy get big enough fast enough?

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#29

Post by pg »

cperciva wrote: post #28
pg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't tell much from the numbers of a startup this young. They've generated more revenue than Google had at the same age.

Sure -- my point was just that taking a 3% cut of $0.10 payments means that TipJoy needs to get very very big before it will be making much money. Can TipJoy get big enough fast enough?

Tipping is just the initial form of micropayment they've implemented. Eventually they plan to support all forms. Could being able to charge people small amounts for digital content be big? Yes.

Re: Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup

#30

Post by SwellJoe »

If I were a betting man, SnapTalent would be the first I'd put coin on. I didn't actually think much of it (and, in fact, I think when I first talked to them early in Winter08 they didn't even have any useful code written yet...but maybe I'm misremembering), until they'd actually launched. It really looks great, though--a perfect way to handle the tech jobs market, which is a HUGE industry in and of itself. Monster and Dice have been fighting it out for years, and spending millions just marketing themselves. SnapTalent allows the world of bloggers and tech sites to market for them. Recipe for win if ever I saw one.
Post reply on HN