Y Combinator Failed Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#131

Post by scollet » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

TimSchumann wrote: post #89

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I understand there's probably a desire to stay at least pseudo-anonymous, given that your account was created 42 minutes ago as of this posting, but I'd like to hear more of this story. Feel free to post here or contact me directly via the info in my profile.

Jumping on this because I love underdog stories.

What did the co. look like a year before YC application and a year after?

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#132

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

o_class_star wrote: post #111

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

YC existed to monetize the reputation Paul Graham earned by writing two very good Lisp books. YC today: no Paul Graham, and too many right-wingers.

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#133

Post by duxup » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

twmahna wrote: post #28

Worth noting that the proximate cause of death is often times largely uninformative as to why the startup actually failed. Most failed startups fit into the following timeline: was burning more money than it was making => failed at raising more money => did a round of layoffs / cost cuts to get economics under control => couldn't right the ship and shut down / did a fire sale or acquihire But, the above timeline does…

Also...it's possible nobody knows.

You might have some obvious situations that were big issues, but I'm not sure reason for a business failure (sometimes even success) is always obvious.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#134

Post by scollet » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

TwoBit wrote: post #14

moron4hire wrote: post #10

That's not why Meta failed. Meta failed because their product was garbage.

Has any AR product not been garbage?

I can say Pokemon Go was a great success. I never played it because I'm not into AR, but I like this vertical of positive social/gaming experiences.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#135

Post by duxup » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #125

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.

Don't forget this legendary post from the CEO https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956

Man that seems kinda sad.

If someone is in a situation where they really don't have anything else to do on Christmas, ok. But hard to imagine they don't have some friends or family missing them...

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#136

Post by snowmaker » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:45 AM 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…

Seems like we made a mistake, and congratulations on your success!

If you're open to it, I'd love if you could email me the name of your company (jared@ycombinator.com). We are extremely interested in learning from mistakes like this.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#137

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:47 AM 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…

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#138

Post by duxup » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

nassycheezy wrote: post #109

How is Docker a success from YC? Pretty much the opposite no?

Has it officialy failed yet?

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#139

Post by bshanks » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 3:13 AM UTC

nicocerdeira wrote: post #61

gkoberger wrote: post #41

I don't get the last section, where you just name 4-5 small "failed" startups. For most of them, you don't even have any real insights! Why pick on them, for no reason? They didn't do anything unethical, and most didn't seem to even raise a Series A. You have no clue why they failed; you just speculate... and you don't just name the companies, you call out random founders by name. These people put themselves out ther…

We aimed to cover different sizes of business, industries, raising funds, etc. as our audience is quite broad.

I agree with gkoberger, you're not considering the impact on individuals for whom a Google search of their name may in the future come up with "Biggest Y Combinator Failed Startups". At least take the founder names out of the section at the end dealing with the random smaller failures.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#140

Post by irjustin » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #92

twmahna wrote: post #28

Worth noting that the proximate cause of death is often times largely uninformative as to why the startup actually failed. Most failed startups fit into the following timeline: was burning more money than it was making => failed at raising more money => did a round of layoffs / cost cuts to get economics under control => couldn't right the ship and shut down / did a fire sale or acquihire But, the above timeline does…

> But, the above timeline doesn't teach you much about why the company really failed. I for one would like to see this table with the founders' average email response times. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19375483

That's actually pretty awesome.

Of course, it's more of a symptom that is an emergent property than a root cause. Like saying every top tennis player uses $$$ rackets - so if I use $$$ rackets, I'll be a top tennis player.

If people knew Sam Altman judged companies more positively by their response times which resulted in more funding, that's a metric just begging to be gamed without actually making the business better.