... and Tesla started out selling small-batch sports cars to rich people. Long-term strategy often involves stepping stones.
Tesla started selling electric cars, and its still selling electric cars.
Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
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Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#52Doesn’t YC normally invest in the team rather than the idea? From their Launch HN post: > We started YC as a video lecture platform for professors but realized it was a horrible idea. We needed a new problem. Based on the how it started / how’s it going, it looks like they started in YC with one idea and realized they needed to pivot. The fact that this is what they came up with isn’t great, but at least it’s somethi…
Apologies in advance for the nitpick, but if you're just dropping your product and doing something else that's not really a pivot. Pivoting is more like changing your plan than throwing it out - targeting a different audience, changing your product plan based on feedback, that sort of thing.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#53Literally every time you see a startup release a product that seems trivial it's because that's not the full story. You're judging without complete information. For example, the public face might be a simple Mac calendar widget, but that could be the gateway to calendar sharing, native office apps, meeting booking, event management, ticket sales, corporate flight sales etc. Building an audience with a cheap tool that…
Indeed the founder says: >We’ve only solved a small part of a bigger problem. The SaaS platforms we use for work don't work well together. It shouldn’t take cycling through ten different apps and Chrome tabs to stay on top of everything. >We’re now looking to bring Slack and GitHub into a unified notification inbox in the menu bar. We want to better organize everything you use as we’ve done with Google Calendar.
> It shouldn’t take cycling through ten different apps and Chrome tabs to stay on top of everything.
Whilst I agree, that's an organizational problem as much as a technology one. Why is the business built upon so many apps?
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#54“Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a backup app you can already build such yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem”
Sure, the Dropbox comment will never stop being a meme. But in a world where, for example, a competing product like Fantastical already exists, costs less and does more, it does seem valid to be wondering what is going on.
As others have said, investments in startups are based a lot more on the potential of the team behind them than their existing products.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I worked at BB during that time when the Blackberry Hub on BB10 came out. Shit was awesome to see internally.
That was excellent and I stuck with my Z30 for a long time because of it.
I still have a special Z10 that I was allowed to keep after working there.
It's a red Z10 running an unlocked bootloader which allows you to hold down volume up-volume down and boot into Android 5.0 environment.
Sadly "Project Exodus" was considered inappropriate at the time just like the original Android Player on BB10 since it was considered inappropriate to think anything other than BB10 was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Edit: 2 years after I left, Blackberry devices became Android devices... so I guess I was ahead of the curve or something?
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
They pivoted. It happens. That doesn't tell you anything about what their plans are now.
Just ask AstroPad and f.lux who both have been targets of being 'sherlocked'. I can only see that these guys are at risk of being sherlocked by Calendar.app, Google Calendar and Calendar.exe. Wonder what their answer to YC was when they were asked about that risk.
Wonder what their answer to YC was when they were asked about that risk.
"Apple buy hundreds of companies every year. Being bought by Apple is a potentially a valid exit strategy."
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#57... and Tesla started out selling small-batch sports cars to rich people. Long-term strategy often involves stepping stones.
Tesla started selling electric cars, and its still selling electric cars.
"Microsoft started out selling software and they still sell software. They haven't changed at all!"
"Facebook started with a social network and they're still a social network! They haven't changed at all!"
You're completely missing the point. You can do the same or similar things while starting with a small audience and scaling. Target a small pool to get product/market fit and gradually expand your target audience until you're a billion dollar company.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#58Nah, I don't think they should micro-manage all companies in their portfolio whether they fit their "brand image".
This app is ridiculous, but maybe they had a good pitch or whatever, who knows.
And if you have such a giant portfolio, they cannot all be diamonds.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#59Well I guess the first order narrative around ycombinator is that they were successful by seeing opportunities that other investors missed. They think that you're like one of those investors, dismissing a company because they "are only creating a widget".
(Though certainly your assessment could be accurate, regardless)
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed the founder says: >We’ve only solved a small part of a bigger problem. The SaaS platforms we use for work don't work well together. It shouldn’t take cycling through ten different apps and Chrome tabs to stay on top of everything. >We’re now looking to bring Slack and GitHub into a unified notification inbox in the menu bar. We want to better organize everything you use as we’ve done with Google Calendar.
> It shouldn’t take cycling through ten different apps and Chrome tabs to stay on top of everything. Whilst I agree, that's an organizational problem as much as a technology one. Why is the business built upon so many apps?
What's the alternative? You could try to centralize all of your apps onto Google or Microsoft or Zoho, but frankly if you want the best user experience, you have to work with several different companies.