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10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

blog.rapportive.com

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Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#81

Post by SkyMarshal »

pg wrote: post #38
nickpp wrote: post #12

That's not a startup, it's a Gmail feature. Amazes me what gets financing nowadays...

What gets financing is founders. And what smart founders do is launch as soon as they have anything usable. It's not the last thing they'll build. See part 8, and in particular the third paragraph: http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html It makes me wince for HN to see so many people upvoting the parent. It's not just the meanness of it; it's that it's both mean and wrong. Surely at this point everyone is at least fami…

WTB a PG essay on how our angry and competitive culture results in people being mean and wrong about things they don't really know about, why it's a mindset to be assiduously avoided in favor of a pensive and open-minded one, and some prescriptions for doing that.

This problem seems to permeate our culture these days, from the Internet to politics to road rage. It seems to result from a combination of a highly competitive society that has adopted the trash talking mental games of sports and anger at the traffic/opposite sex/government/corporations/world/whatever people are angry about. Trash talking is fashionable and being mad is the new black.

The consequence is a crowding out of thoughtful, rational thinking about things, to the detriment of all of society. If anyone could give such a topic the treatment it deserves, it would be PG.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#82

Post by axod »

petervandijck wrote: post #67
rfolstad wrote: post #41

How do you justify removing gmail ads and replacing them with your social addon? Isn't google going to be slightly pissed?

Nah, anything that makes Gmail more useful is good for Google. The ads don't mean much.

If they "didn't mean much" Google would have removed them. They make Google millions.

Obscuring other peoples advertising is a douchebag move.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#83

Post by messel »

bootload wrote: post #79
kvs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pg, if you don't mind me asking, how are they planning to make money?

"... how are they planning to make money? ..." What kind of money Ramen? ~ http://paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html a steady stream of income & control offered by PRCM ~ http://www.paulgraham.com/prcmc.html or by making the technology and product so good, Google has no option but to buy the company?

Hadn't read Paul's essay on pooled risk company management (sales to public companies) before. Thanks a bootload!

I highly suggest any other HN'ers that haven't done so check out the post.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#84

Post by messel »

ericd wrote: post #73
messel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we immediately see how wrong the feature comment is, it's still likely many of us won't come up with anything as useful as Rapportive's "gmail feature". That's the real kicker. I fell in love with Rapportive the moment I installed it, but probably because I'm a regular blogger and glutton for info about people. I had no idea it had 10k users in 24 hours, that's Facebook like numbers. What I'm most surprised a…

The question is whether the connections to investors and the advice is worth it, not whether the investment itself is worth it. In most cases, it's probably a resounding yes.

This is the second or third time I've something like that. First time was from Mark Suster who said the best way to raise an angel round is to get a few key angels on board with a great deal 2% for 10k, then have a larger angel round afterwards using social proof to get introductions to more potential investors.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#85

Post by dasil003 »

nickpp wrote: post #22
rahulvohra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may look like that today, but when you pitch investors you sell them on the team, the market and the vision. You paint a compelling picture of how you get from where you are today to somewhere incredibly exciting.

Just to clarify: I have nothing against you and your team. Good luck to you and kudos! It's just that I remember a time when starting a business meant creating a product, finding a market and people in that market willing to pay for your product. I completely fail to see any of that in your case. But maybe building a feature for an existing product of a company in the idea of selling to that company IS a viable busin…

There was also a time when "product" meant something mass-produced in a factory so expensive that the number of products on the market was tiny, and all it took to get consumers to buy anything was a bit of TV advertising.

These days just getting people to even try out your product is a major accomplishment. Sure, they haven't built a successful company yet, but for the capital expenditure they've made so far they are way ahead of the curve. What's the point of having a clear plan about how you will make money if it ultimately fails like most startups? You are going to need to pivot anyway, so the focus on users over revenue is totally a reasonable strategy. Even beyond the getting bought exit, the value of an audience is tremendous. Look at how 37signals transitioned from a dime-a-dozen agency to a very profitable company based largely on it's blog reach within the target market.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#86

Post by webwright »

messel wrote: post #60
pg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets financing is founders. And what smart founders do is launch as soon as they have anything usable. It's not the last thing they'll build. See part 8, and in particular the third paragraph: http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html It makes me wince for HN to see so many people upvoting the parent. It's not just the meanness of it; it's that it's both mean and wrong. Surely at this point everyone is at least fami…

Even if we immediately see how wrong the feature comment is, it's still likely many of us won't come up with anything as useful as Rapportive's "gmail feature". That's the real kicker. I fell in love with Rapportive the moment I installed it, but probably because I'm a regular blogger and glutton for info about people. I had no idea it had 10k users in 24 hours, that's Facebook like numbers. What I'm most surprised a…

Do you think the YC brand increases your valuation for subsequent funding and/or exit price by 6% or more? I do. That alone makes it a wash. The investor intros, mentorship, cash, free PR, free legal stuff, etc., is all gravy.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#87

Post by AmberShah »

rahulvohra wrote: post #30
AmberShah wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys seem really positive. How do you stay positive in the face of so much negativity that must come your way? This post is one example, but I assume there's a lot more where that came from.

Positivity is something I consciously work on. 1. If at every point you're taking what you believe to be approximately right decisions, given all the information you have at that time, then you can ban regrets from your mind. This is a good frame of mind to be in: you can focus on the future. The corollary is to arm yourself with information. For more on this, and more besides, see: http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/30/ho…

Thanks, those are great points.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#88

Post by eitally »

rahulvohra wrote: post #59
StavrosK wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate how well-designed your site is! Congratulations and good luck!

Thanks! We are very fortunate to be working with a truly awesome designer (@limedaring on twitter). We simply did not stop working on the site until we felt it was awesome (I think I spent almost a week fulltime on it, and I wasn't doing the design).

Isn't she the one who recently posted looking for a cofounder to disrupt the wedding invitation racket?

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#89

Post by dschobel »

j-g-faustus wrote: post #71
dschobel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the difficulty is convincing a strongly technical crowd that companies and products live or die for reasons other than technology. Unless they're solving crazy hard problems, a lot of engineering types are just going to be underwhelmed. Add in a lot of early success and that quickly turns to cynicism and frustration.

Speaking as one of the technical crowd, it is hard to adjust to the fact that all of your skills put together contributes only a few percent to the success of a product. It is obviously true, but it still takes a while getting used to :)

Oh I agree and it's my reaction too, "yeah but what problem are they solving? how are they doing it?"

That's the extent of my evaluation. And that's also why I'm not an entrepreneur. :)

There's a definite mismatch between the valuation function I (and a lot of us, I think) use and what the market uses which is addressed by the YC's of the world.

But the bottom line is I don't think pg should misconstrue the confusion (and sometimes frustration) as malice.

Re: 10,000+ users in 24 hours & YC funding a few days later: lessons learnt

#90

Post by StavrosK »

eitally wrote: post #88
rahulvohra wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! We are very fortunate to be working with a truly awesome designer (@limedaring on twitter). We simply did not stop working on the site until we felt it was awesome (I think I spent almost a week fulltime on it, and I wasn't doing the design).

Isn't she the one who recently posted looking for a cofounder to disrupt the wedding invitation racket?

Yep, it's on her site.
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