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Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

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Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#101

Post by aestetix »

binaryorganic wrote: post #97
aestetix wrote: post #84

Did they actually do anything besides donate money to the ACLU? I didn't see anything on the ACLU's website about it, which is strange given the arrangement YC usually has with companies they "fund." Did anyone from the ACLU go to YC and participate? Is there a "demo day" presenation from the ACLU? I'm very confused.

The ACLU will be part of the winter batch of companies in YC, where it will receive mentorship, a network of powerful connections in tech and a chance to present itself to investors on Demo Day. Y Combinator will also provide some funding, though it won’t take an equity stake in ACLU because it’s a nonprofit. ACLU will not pay to participate." SOURCE: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/31/ycaclu/

I've read as much, but it is dangerously vague to me. Here is why.

The ACLU has at least publicly stood for decades for a lot of positions that seem to fundamentally go against what some YC companies do.

For example, the ACLU is a clear proponent of the Civil Rights Act, which among other things guarantees that hotels must not discriminate when providing lodging to guests. Meanwhile, in recent years there have been several documented cases where AirBNB renters have suddenly run out of vacancies for one rentee, only to be suddenly free again a day later.

Given situations like this, I'm not sure what ACLU seems to think they can get out of a YC "mentorship." If this creates a chance for a larger public discussion on issues like this, it could be a good thing, but at the moment I am extremely skeptical.

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#102

Post by GFischer »

Rainymood wrote: post #70

First off, I absolutely LOVE these write-ups. That being said I chuckled at this one: >Tetra – Automatic notes for business meetings >A lot of meeting notes are taken in Evernote but Tetra takes call notes for you by automatically dialing you to merge into the call and then sending you a fully searchable record of the entire conversation. It comes in auto speech only or human edited using a fast transcription feature…

My wife has some hearing problems and pays for an automatic speech to text in her voice messages.

There are some hilarious errors but it's surprisingly readable. So it's necessary for some people.

I definitely wouldn't mind such a service in our meetings provider, but the company currently uses either Skype or Go2Meeting (EDIT: I see it can dial in. I might try it :) ). I worry about confidentiality as well (the CSO would have my hide if some of the future projects are leaked due to such a service).

It's an extra I could provide in my very own startup though :) (we're still struggling with core features so not for version 1).

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#103

Post by nostrademons »

sah2ed wrote: post #98
neilk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20/month? That wouldn't be enough even for most white women. Black women's hair appointments are more expensive; many hair salons charge a premium. Plus they use a lot of products and elixirs to change the nature of their hair. Plus, many of them wear a wig-like accessory, often of real human hair, every single day. The process of 'weaving' that into their natural hair can cost hundreds or even thousands, at the hig…

> There are some interesting cultural questions about how in North American society, natural black hair is deemed unacceptable, and this has generally been internalized by black women. If you choose to just be natural (as my friend did) you get a lot of flak from other black women. You've basically identified the source of a "problem" that shouldn't even exist to begin with: an inferiority complex.

Isn't this basically the driving force behind every consumer product made since food & shelter became abundant?

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#105

Post by agibsonccc »

agibsonccc wrote: post #26
_m8fo wrote: post #20

I wish you could bet on the odds of some of these succeeding in 3 years or so. Someone should start a startup that does this and get into Y Combinator to be super meta. random commentary below: * FloydHub – Heroku for deep learning * It's unlikely in my eyes that a company with enough data worth doing deep learning for is going to outsource the actual model building. I'd be interested to hear counter examples. * Tetr…

We (skymind w16) build dl models on prem for customers after licensing our deployment software. We sell to fintech,telco, retail, car makers, plane makers and device makers. On prem and connectors to sap turned out to work. Flynn will be great for education and proof of concepts.

Just realized misspelled. Floyd* Anyways - it's a great model that can work, but the "cloud api" has been tried to death. See: most recent acquisitions. Maybe things will change, it'll take time though.

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#106

Post by reckoner2 »

nandemo wrote: post #78
vuyani wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And whats so unbelievable about this stat?

According to this [0] the sum of black population, plus australoid (for the sake of the argument, let's say they will be part of the target audience regardless of how they self-identify ethnically) and mixed caucasian+black, caucasian+australoid etc is about 27% of world population. Let's round that up to 30%. Also, let's round up the world population estimate to 7 billion, and assume men are part of the target audie…

Some anecdotal data that might surprise you then: A good friend of mine gets her hair cut once a month and says with tip it's about $100. Then coloring a few times a year at $200 a pop, then lots on shampoo, conditioner, hair products, new hairdryer and brushes every few years. She's spent over $1000 for a weave multiple times in her life.

She's of course at one end of the spectrum, but $240 on average a year doesn't surprise me that much.

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#107

Post by reckoner2 »

adamnemecek wrote: post #100
neilk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20/month? That wouldn't be enough even for most white women. Black women's hair appointments are more expensive; many hair salons charge a premium. Plus they use a lot of products and elixirs to change the nature of their hair. Plus, many of them wear a wig-like accessory, often of real human hair, every single day. The process of 'weaving' that into their natural hair can cost hundreds or even thousands, at the hig…

You know how half of the population lives in less than a dollar a day or so? It's impossible that 2.7b can afford $20/month.

Of course. It's an average. Also included in that average are girls who get a $1000 weave twice a year plus monthly cuts, coloring and styling. And I'm guessing the product is catered more towards the second group.

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#108

Post by 40acres »

neilk wrote: post #94
nandemo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this [0] the sum of black population, plus australoid (for the sake of the argument, let's say they will be part of the target audience regardless of how they self-identify ethnically) and mixed caucasian+black, caucasian+australoid etc is about 27% of world population. Let's round that up to 30%. Also, let's round up the world population estimate to 7 billion, and assume men are part of the target audie…

$20/month? That wouldn't be enough even for most white women. Black women's hair appointments are more expensive; many hair salons charge a premium. Plus they use a lot of products and elixirs to change the nature of their hair. Plus, many of them wear a wig-like accessory, often of real human hair, every single day. The process of 'weaving' that into their natural hair can cost hundreds or even thousands, at the hig…

> Source: black friend in college wrote an essay about this for a journal I was editing at the time, plus, common knowledge. There are some interesting cultural questions about how in North American society, natural black hair is deemed unacceptable, and this has generally been internalized by black women. If you choose to just be natural (as my friend did) you get a lot of flak from other black women.

I have to disagree here. There has been a 'natural hair' movement circulating through the black female community for some time now[1]. I'm not sure if it's because the dangers of chemically manipulating hair have become more prominent or other factors, but black women in my circle (which includes high school, college aged, middle aged, and 'professional age') have all been transitioning to a more natural style and it's a very well embraced trend.

My girlfriend has been natural for a few years now and while it is harder to maintain she's told me that she will never go back.

Source (anecdata of course): A black man.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_hair_movement

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#109

Post by chaostheory »

Rainymood wrote: post #70

First off, I absolutely LOVE these write-ups. That being said I chuckled at this one: >Tetra – Automatic notes for business meetings >A lot of meeting notes are taken in Evernote but Tetra takes call notes for you by automatically dialing you to merge into the call and then sending you a fully searchable record of the entire conversation. It comes in auto speech only or human edited using a fast transcription feature…

I'm probably wrong but imo YC funding startups like Tetra fits more in the spirit of YC's original mission of seeding startups, compared to funding more 'mature' startups that seem to be either raising or really close to raising series A.

Re: Startups that debuted at Y Combinator W17 Demo Day 2

#110

Post by nojvek »

martalist wrote: post #87
jgoldsmith wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks! try us out https://asktetra.com and maybe we'll get to 3 :)

Your answer made me chuckle in a good way - great way to turn a potential negative into something funny and positive! I'm sure I'm not the only one checking out your site because of this.

When Dropbox first came out, I remember a similar Comment. "Why would anyone use this when you have rsync". They don't have any paying customer.

Speech -> annotated searchable text is a humongous market. I really hope you guys and gals kill it.

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