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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?

#121

Post by 908B64B197 »

tim333 wrote: post #23
onion2k wrote: post #13

Literally 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.

> The SaaS platforms we use for work don't work well together.

Try O365. It just works. Seems like every app works well with the other ones.

>>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.

That's risky. Major OS already have notification centers/aggregators.

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

#123

Post by barbazoo »

dagmx wrote: post #93
onion2k wrote: post #13

Literally 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…

I think the best example is when Dropbox was announced and how many people scoffed at the triviality of cloning data around.

For me that's still what it's best at and what it should focus on. "Paper", Signatures, Password, to me that feels like they're desperately trying to find something to not just be a reliable external hard drive for people. Oh and of course their number one ambition, trying to convince me to upgrade to whatever more expensive plan they have.

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

#124

Post by grifball »

ekianjo wrote: post #119
dagmx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best example is when Dropbox was announced and how many people scoffed at the triviality of cloning data around.

Does not mean that the scoffing is wrong every time.

If there were an easy indicator of justified scoffing, investing would be a lot easier.

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

#125

Post by calchris42 »

tim333 wrote: post #23
onion2k wrote: post #13

Literally 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.

The Office has already solved unified notifications... WUPH! https://youtu.be/15whn40EQww

Edit: or perhaps anti-unified...

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

#126

Post by 1123581321 »

dave_aiello wrote: post #100

I'm going to repeat that Fantastical does 95% of what Superpowered claims to do. And Fantastical has features that Superpowered clearly does not have, such as a really good natural language mechanism for event and task creation. And subscription costs are less. https://flexibits.com/fantastical

Flexibits' weakness is engineering, though. They could get eaten by a competitor that works its way up to a full calendar with a stronger foundation. Fantastical 3's move upmarket in response to Calendar.app improvements hasn't been easy for them so I don't know how much further they could push themselves.

That's not to say that a new competitor will put Flexibits out of business, but if the market for calendar management expands, I wouldn't expect Fantastical's share to grow proportionally. So there's an opportunity.

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

#127

Post by notyourday »

rvz wrote: post #34
onion2k wrote: post #20

Earlier 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.

if (yolo(money)) { pivot_me(money) } else { shutdown() }

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

#128

Post by TomAnthony »

Offtopic: I despair that a calendar widget for my Mac is now a pay monthly thing. It is becoming widespread that things that were previously just a piece of software you could buy (then optionally upgrade in the future) are now a monthly cost.

It makes sense for high ticket pieces of software (Office, Photoshop), where it makes it more accessible for regular users. However, for a calendar widget or many similar examples that come up nowadays, it just turns me off immediately.

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

#129

Post by yccs27 »

ekianjo wrote: post #119
dagmx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best example is when Dropbox was announced and how many people scoffed at the triviality of cloning data around.

Does not mean that the scoffing is wrong every time.

Well, is there some _specific_ reason to scoff now?

I'm not saying that's the case here. Maybe their business is actually a widget. I'm saying that most businesses do far more than you can see from the outside.

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

#130

Post by phoobahr »

dagmx wrote: post #93
onion2k wrote: post #13

Literally 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…

I think the best example is when Dropbox was announced and how many people scoffed at the triviality of cloning data around.

"when Dropbox was announced"

This. Whenever someone quips "that's a feature not a product" the reply should be "so why were they able to ship this feature and you weren't". Technical debt, opportunity cost(s), mission focus are all opportunities for arbitrage.

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