Y Combinator Failed Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#161

Post by Judgmentality » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 7:43 AM UTC

adora wrote: post #149

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…

It's true if you have a capital-intensive business, I will ask some of the toughest questions. I do this to figure out where you are in your journey of learning, not to find reasons to not accept you. In fact, we all take super-extra precaution to not over-learn from our own failures. And to be clear, I've invested in plenty of startups with similar models. But I understand your perception of how things went.

> In fact, we all take super-extra precaution to not over-learn from our own failures.

I'm curious to hear more. How do you go about this?

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#162

Post by Angostura » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 9:01 AM UTC

I really don’t think Nerdpilots wants that sponsorship spot. Thought they were the first example of a failure

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#163

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

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #97

sjtindell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a relative outsider, I would hope being labeled as one of the biggest failures would be a mark of experience among a set that claims or claimed to uphold the “fail fast” mentality and treats failure like the learning experience it is.

"fail fast" refers to experiments, not the whole damn company.

Especially when peoples’ lives depend on it.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#164

Post by pedro1976 » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

Imagine every failed startup would open-source their stuff so others could stand on their shoulders if they want to give that idea another shot.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#165

Post by hnracer » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 11:55 AM UTC

xenihn wrote: post #156

hnracer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the hedge fund world there is a mindset that if you're going to fail, you must fail BIG (without breaking the law). Then you get a sort of undeserved glamor associated with the failure that can actually lead to new opportunities. For example, the case of Brian Hunter, if he failed small he would've been long forgotten.

Sounds like WSB.

I think it's a pretty universal phenomenon. You want to be either outstandingly good (best outcome) or extremely offensive (second best outcome). Just don't be another drone that is indistinguishable from the million of other drones, that only leads to being forgotten.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#166

Post by lawtalkinghuman » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

bshanks wrote: post #139

nicocerdeira wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the companies on the list took consumer crowdfunding money from IndieGoGo and failed to deliver, and said IndieGoGo buyers "eventually stopped receiving communication" from the company.

But one shouldn't mention the names of the founders because future crowdfunders being able to look them up for the purpose of due diligence and deciding whether to invest their hard-earned dollars in their next venture would be unethical.

(I'd imagine both the law on, and attitudes to, online privacy would be in a much different place if people in Silicon Valley exercised the same level of empathy for all those pesky end users as they always find in droves for the saintly and well-intentioned startup founders.)

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#167

Post by alex_young » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 12:49 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #158

alex_young wrote: post #146

Current title is misleading: Y Combinator Failed Startups. Why did it change? This is a discussion of the biggest failures out of thousands of startups, not that YC is horrible or something.

It's not misleading, though I can see why It's not YC "failed" startups, it's (a list of) YC "failed startups".

Something like “Failed YC startups” or “YC startup failures” would be a less ambiguous title.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#168

Post by thewarrior » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 1:03 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #148

ChuckMcM wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best talks I had was a two hour discussion of this very topic with John Walecka. John had invested in Freegate and we were discussing risks and why things failed. He helped me understand both the concept of 'stacking risk' (where the startup is taking on more unknowns than it should) and 'over burning' where a startup attempts to hire itself into shortening its schedule which not only fails but exhausts ne…

> Whenever I've watched over hiring from inside or outside it tends to end badly. I can relate with this. I first saw this phenomenon play out twice within a large FAANG company where the leadership wanted to ship an immensely complex product fast by throwing people and so over hired. Both products failed miserably. And the I saw a repeat of this at the entire company level. The extent of over hire was immense, fuele…

The two are connected. Over hiring is done on purpose to game promotions. In startups for funding. Depending on the timing and where you are in the hierarchy it can go either way. People switch every 2 years now so it’d doesn’t matter how the team does in the long term.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#169

Post by ykevinator » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

I've often wondered if yc is duplicitous, old people tricking young people and playing the averages

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#170

Post by gravypod » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

break_the_bank wrote: post #159

gravypod wrote: post #130

It's very unfortunate The Buttermilk Company closed down. I was looking for them recently and found the founder's posts about how stressful it was to run. Does anyone know any similar products out there?

Just buy MTR or Haldirams ready to eat if you want instant Indian food. More authentic and tastes nice. I haven't tried them as I'm not from the states. I'm Indian though and found the buttermilk company products to be highly priced and didn't find anything novel when compared to Haldirams or MTR. At their price you could probably get food from a takeaway.

The main thing I was looking for was something that tasted pretty good and was shelf stable and easy to transport. Haldirams and MTR look great! Thanks for the pointers.