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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?

#71

Post by giu »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #24

YC and other seed investors are betting more on people than on the specific business plan. If a founding team seems really smart, skilled, and driven, but is working on an idea that doesn’t seem to make immediate business sense, then it can still be worth betting on that team, because one of two things is reasonably likely to happen: 1. The team realizes that the business plan isn’t viable, and they pivot to somethin…

There's even a third option when you bet on people: The company can get acqui-hired by a bigger fish who's already a big presence within the almost same problem space.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#73

Post by donkeyd »

whichdan wrote: post #60
ehnto wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This statement is kinda contradictory, since having everything in one could be a major benefit to user experience. Hence, this thread.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#74

Post by randallsquared »

beaconstudios wrote: post #52
mbreese wrote: post #25

Doesn’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.

Their product is the company they're building, not any of the software or services, so "pivot" seems applicable after all. :)

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#75

Post by westmeal »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #55
MattGaiser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sin…

Can you ask your friends how to unlock the bootloader on my key2? Pretty please?

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#76

Post by dhagz »

eitland wrote: post #30

2 observations: - I happily paid for a very similar product about 10 years ago (it was full screen width and had a brilliant timeline feature but otherwise very similar. It was broken when Snow Lion or something was released. I still look for an equivalent.) - Monthly payments forever for standalone apps is a big no no in my book. I get annoyed even just writing about it. Monthly payments for feature upgrades, perpet…

I'll tack on: I've happily paid for Fantastical (which is a monthly subscription, granted), and it has the nice menubar interface, a button to join video calls (works with Teams, BlueJeans, Zoom, probably more), integration with ANY calendar system, and it's only $4.99 a month. And I get a full desktop app and iOS app with it, and regular significant updates. I'm not as put out by the subscription model here because this is an application I'd be renewing my license for every new release anyways.

I don't see why I'd pay more for less here.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#77

Post by beaconstudios »

randallsquared wrote: post #74
beaconstudios wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Their product is the company they're building, not any of the software or services, so "pivot" seems applicable after all. :)

I think if you change both the product and the market then it's just giving up and doing something else!

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#78

Post by blackrock »

uptown wrote: post #26

I'm more interested in their privacy policy: "SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION: We share your Personal Information with third parties (analytics tools) to help us use your Personal Information, as described above. We use analytics tools to track our users to improve our product and provide a better experience." Calendars, like contact lists, like emails, like all of the other personal content people produce everyday…

Does Google’s Calendar app share your personal information like this?

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#79

Post by kylecordes »

pietrovismara wrote: post #32
obayesshelton wrote: post #14

“No more looking for the Google calendar tab in Chrome.” Gustaf Alströmer Said nobody ever! It is literally three clicks away... 1. New Tab 2. Click dotted square 3. Click cal button

Or CTRL/CMD + T and type cal...autocomplete will do the rest

Or "pin" a handful of tabs to keep them always available at the left edge of the list, one click or keypress away.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#80

Post by fortran77 »

ghiculescu wrote: post #72

I agree this product seems a bit uninspiring, but it is ironic that this complaint was posted on Reddit, which you could probably have made similar complaints about back in the day.

How is Reddit different from "hacker news?" It seems to be about the same thing.
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