Shameless plug: I research exactly this, but from a different perspective - namely the personality traits behind productive/unproductive decisions that ultimately lead to failure or success. If anyone interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w31inj3xf4aiu66/Successful%20Start...
Y Combinator Failed Startups
171–180 of 197 posts
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#172> suspicions uBiome was billing its client’s medical insurance providers multiple times without the prior knowledge or consent of their clients > Growth-hacking on the wild-west which is the internet is one thing, but when you try to use similar tactics in traditional, heavily regulated industries in developed, heavily regulated markets - that’s a recipe for disaster. Was this growth-hacking or outright fraud? Are th…
Outright insurance fraud.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/06/ubiome-suspends-clinical-ope...
>In the months before the FBI search, the company would often bill insurance multiple times for its tests without patient consent, insiders told CNBC. In an interview, one customer, Marc Harris, told CNBC that he sent in two samples, but the $2,970 test was billed to his insurance five times.
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#173Earlier 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…
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.
Wouldn't you expect nxmnxm99 to find that tone insulting?
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#174Worth 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…
Probably be much more informative to talk to non-c-level employees who do not have an incentive to modify the story.
Perhaps. There is the danger that those employees aren't party to all the relevant information, so their version of the story might be inaccurate too.
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
My comment doesn't use the word CEO so I'm not sure what point you are making.
Ok sure but what was the implication you were trying to make?
Is it true that you worked with your brother behind-the-scenes so he could buy your failing startup?
For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homejoy#Controversies
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 bett…
As someone who is generally a "slow responder", I'll guess at the root cause. My guess is that being a slow email responder is correlated with (a) higher propensity to procrastinate, (b) general indecisiveness and (c) lower self-esteem, all of which are not hard to see why they would negatively impact business success. Of course, I could just be projecting, but when I am slow to respond to an email, it's usually beca…
Sometimes jumping right into every single thing is not the best, ideal decisions do not all come the same way, and self-esteem has its ups and downs.
Independently, opportunity can be a real wild card.
Regardless, I think an investor can expect a prospect to be putting full time effort into building a relationship that can lead to a growth partnership, and not wanting to miss a day.
Once you get into ongoing communication you may not want to miss an hour.
If there is good allowance for urgency you're still going to need to go full professional and be able to pick up the phone.
Sometimes around-the-clock with backup.
When you can start out that way there's no need for email at all.
Might also be best at a high point of self-esteem, decisiveness, and undelayed action.
Other times when those are not all completely within reach, related actions should be in progress to more than compensate, in preparation for less inhibited times.
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure I agree with that. Most astute founders can tell you pretty accurately why they didn't achieve enough sales to offset costs, they're just unlikely to do so for strangers because it usually means admitting at least some amount of self-fault. I know I can give a shortlist for my own failed businesses that's a lot more detailed than "not enough sales".
Yes, but is the list really true (in an objective sense). I mean why didnt you act on it, or why was it only know afterwards. (Of course the list might contain a lot of unchangable items, but this would mean the startup was impossible)
One of the real bad ones is _more sales wouldn't have helped anyway_.
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget this legendary post from the CEO https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956
Good news, since then I've found my caps locks key.
I hope you have also found some perspective as to why the post I linked to is an absurd thing for a CEO to write.
Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#179Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ha!! This makes my day - I thought they were on the list of failed startups too, thought the way fact same thing as you and didn’t even realize they weren’t a YC company until I got here. :) Thanks friend - I needed that chuckle today!
"Sponsored by" didn't do it for you
Obviously not - otherwise I wouldn’t have posted. The ‘sponsored by’ font isn’t terribly visible.