Y Combinator Failed Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#71

Post by 7twelve » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

I have this question on my mind and if someone could explain this sincerely I would be very grateful.

Time after time, YC startups seem to engage in practices which are unethical or dark or downright scammy. Be it Homejoy, uBiome, or many others. They seem to employ aggresive marketing tactics. They work under assumption that "law does not apply to us". Although this is true for ultra rich people, why regular seed funded do it? Is growth focus this much necessary to the to do outright fraud or in engage in shady tactics? They are willing to kill other people's business and livelihood for their growth. I would call this "preying tactics"

Paul is very successful person and I read about him a lot. Why companies going through YC do this? Or is this just Business-as-usual (BAU) in Americas? Kill or be killed?

Thanks for responding!

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#72

Post by Natsu » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

ozten wrote: post #44

It looks like TheMelt is down to 7 grilled cheese stores. https://www.themelt.com/locations

Why do they need 7 locations? They should downsize to one location with an army of toaster-drones.

Just make some specially-designed plates with a QR code target printed on them and the drones won't even need to land, they can just drop the food right on your plate after toasting the sandwich into a more aerodynamic shape...

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#73

Post by ericlevine » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

Quick note: you got the pronoun wrong for the founder of The Buttermilk Company when referencing her Medium post.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#74

Post by nxmnxm99 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

WoahNoun wrote: post #32

knes wrote: post #17

How can you make a list of failed yc companies and not mention homejoy? $66m raised, bad operations, bas unit economics, lawsuits and an abrupt shutdown. All of that after being the calley darling for so long.

After stealing HomeJoy's customer DB for another start-up, she is now a YC partner... Move fast and break things?

She railroaded our YC interview for having a similar model (albeit in a different vertical) simply because she failed, so naturally we would also fail. Aaron Harris, another failed entrepreneur turned YC partner, has routinely done the same I've heard.

We're now 2 years later pushing $2M ARR profitably and about to raise our Series A. YC not taking 7% of our company was the best thing that ever happened to us.

YCombinator is nothing like what it used to be. The majority of the partners are useless as venture partners.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#75

Post by tt433 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

jeromegv wrote: post #47

twmahna wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who was accused of "stealing customer data" was the other co-founder - not Adora (CEO & now YC partner). If you actually look into the details of the matter, what happened was that the co-founder acquired the failed company as it was put through a bankruptcy process. People who weren't privy to the process thought it was stealing when it really wasn't different from any other acquisition.

How can you say all that and not mention the fact that they are sibling? You make it sound like 2 separate person that have no relationship to each other. It looks like you have something to hide by just ignoring that big fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homejoy

Don't you think it's possible that the person you're responding to has a different understanding of what a sibling relationship means? I think it's a little rude to inject your feelings about what a sibling relationship must be and resort to innuendo.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#76

Post by avery42 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #57

WoahNoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After stealing HomeJoy's customer DB for another start-up, she is now a YC partner... Move fast and break things?

Ok, the situation seems to be: brother and sister cofounded startup; startup failed; brother acquired failed startup’s assets via legal proceedings. Which part of this is illegal, or — I’ll meet you halfway — unethical? It seems like a straightforward business transaction. If I’m missing something nefarious, I’d like to educate myself to avoid it. What do you see as the problem? (Apologies if my facts are incorrect;…

I'm not familiar with the story, but this is what I found: https://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-cheung-brings-homejoy-...

> The weird tale begins with an email that John Salzarulo received Tuesday afternoon. A Los Angeles based user, Salzarulo received an email from Cheung that "$20 cleaning is back!" thanks to its local partner.

> "I wanted to reach out personally today to invite you to join a private house cleaning trial with our Los Angeles partner, Fly Maids," Cheung wrote, not disclosing his connection to the company.

> When Salzarulo clicked the email link, the Fly Maids' site logged him into his Homejoy account, which still had his credit card number and notes about where to find the trash can.

I don't know if it's illegal, but I definitely think it's unethical.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#77

Post by atlasunshrugged » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

tpurves wrote: post #13

pvorb wrote: post #8

Anyone else thought that the list of failed startups starts with NerdPilots? That ad is a little misplaced.

I didn't realize it wasn't first on yhe list until I read your post! I though to myself, of course, why would YC fund a contract development shop, such a wrong model for VC no wonder they must have failed.

They did fund Gigster which is what the business model was in essence

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#78

Post by goatcode » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

I wonder who the founders were for Plurchase. It's kind of weird that they're the only one without this info listed.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#79

Post by kapitalx » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

knes wrote: post #17

How can you make a list of failed yc companies and not mention homejoy? $66m raised, bad operations, bas unit economics, lawsuits and an abrupt shutdown. All of that after being the calley darling for so long.

I used HomeJoy once, a student showed up and said "Wow your house looks pretty clean already, I'm not sure what I would even do". My apartment was tidy, but it wasn't clean (at least by my standards)

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#80

Post by nodesocket » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #74

WoahNoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After stealing HomeJoy's customer DB for another start-up, she is now a YC partner... Move fast and break things?

She railroaded our YC interview for having a similar model (albeit in a different vertical) simply because she failed, so naturally we would also fail. Aaron Harris, another failed entrepreneur turned YC partner, has routinely done the same I've heard. We're now 2 years later pushing $2M ARR profitably and about to raise our Series A. YC not taking 7% of our company was the best thing that ever happened to us. YCombi…

While seemingly harsh criticism, I think you may be right. YC of the old (PG, Jessica, etc) was much more selective and smaller inner circle. However, even when PG was at the helm he said they passed on many insanely lucrative opportunities.

Picking startups is hard, like picking stocks. You aren’t gonna pick every winner, but frankly 2M in ARR after two years is not exactly a home-run for YC. So, perhaps them passing was the right call for YC.

Congrats though, sounds like you’ve built something useful and you can be proud of that. Plus, taking VC money ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. If you can bootstrap to get to a level that pay’s yourself $200-300k a year, that’s a win.