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Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
231–240 of 326 posts
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#232I'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
To just get the menu bar widget there is https://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/
It's free. No paid upgrade or subscription. Just installed it.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#233People misunderstand YC's business model. They invest 125K for a 7% stake in the company. That's a <$2 million valuation. If this company sells a couple thousand (at $120/y), YC breaks even. If they sell a couple million, YC gets back 1000x on their money. It's a great investment.
And if they sell four? Wish I still had a copy but there was a brilliant story printed years ago called something like "there are numbers smaller than 1%." It illustrated the fallacy in the thinking behind saying things like, "even if we only sell 1%, we'll be rich." Just because you pick some arbitrarily small number as your minimum sales doesn't mean it's actually the minimum, or even the most likely minimum. You c…
This is probably the story you are thinking of: https://sive.rs/1pct
It was discussed on HN at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=847334
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#234People misunderstand YC's business model. They invest 125K for a 7% stake in the company. That's a <$2 million valuation. If this company sells a couple thousand (at $120/y), YC breaks even. If they sell a couple million, YC gets back 1000x on their money. It's a great investment.
And if they sell four? Wish I still had a copy but there was a brilliant story printed years ago called something like "there are numbers smaller than 1%." It illustrated the fallacy in the thinking behind saying things like, "even if we only sell 1%, we'll be rich." Just because you pick some arbitrarily small number as your minimum sales doesn't mean it's actually the minimum, or even the most likely minimum. You c…
I remember this as well but can't find it via searching.
Was a fallacy along the lines of 'we only have to sell to one percent of China to make billions, anyone can sell anything to one percent of a country', but in reality it never works out due to factors like shipping and getting a foothold among the many established companies.
If someone could cite the name of the economic theory it would be super appreciated.
Edit: so I was thinking of this one[1], which I believe speaks to where this theory originated, and was known as 'Chinese Math' which is apparently re-invented every year by someone, but glad you found the one you were thinking of GP.
[1] https://www.businesspundit.com/please-stop-with-your-chinese...
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if they sell four? Wish I still had a copy but there was a brilliant story printed years ago called something like "there are numbers smaller than 1%." It illustrated the fallacy in the thinking behind saying things like, "even if we only sell 1%, we'll be rich." Just because you pick some arbitrarily small number as your minimum sales doesn't mean it's actually the minimum, or even the most likely minimum. You c…
This is probably the story you are thinking of: https://sive.rs/1pct It was discussed on HN at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=847334
Yes, that's the one. Thank you!
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#236Offtopic: 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 examp…
Engineering salaries have increased quite a bit. Pay once doesn't seem very sustainable, unless the volume is extremely high.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
If every comment has to be suffixed with “for me” or “IMO”, it would be quite tedious to read. In most cases it’s clear. In cases like this, it could also be that the writer isn’t earning a six figure USD income or is in a country where even a $10 here and a $10 there add up relative to one’s income. It’s also very easy to say that X is most valuable and Y is nothing when you have very limited X and have a lot of Y.
on the contrary, it's very important for people to distinguish clearly between statements of objective fact and personal opinions. they ought to do it more often. imo. more on topic, time is inherently more valuable than money due to its fundamental scarcity. there are only 24 hours in a day, and only so many days in a person's life. if you have time, you can always trade it for money. but if you have money, you can'…
I think it’s very clear that different people have different amounts of money and thus different ability and willingness to pay certain amounts for certain things.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#238I went through YC S20 and it's been amazing. It opened up a whole new world to me that I previously didn't have access to. I come from a poor, immigrant family with no fancy college background. I'm located in a non-tech hub city. This was my first startup and getting to partake in YC essentially put me and my company on the map. The internal network itself is also fantastic and the value of having group partners (min…
Unpopular opinion: Bootstrapping a profitable software company has never been easier, you don't usually need venture capital for it. It can even hurt you, because VCs tend to fund growth at all cost, so you can end up acquiring users at a loss without a chance for a sustainable business model.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
To put it into perspective, for someone making $200k+/yr (a lot of the HN audience), $10 is about 6min of their time/month (assuming a 40hr work week). Over a year it adds up to 72min of time. On the other hand, researching and trying out alternative free/cheaper tools might take hours. For a busy person making good money, $10/mo to make them more productive isn't a crazy ask IMO.
I think very few people buy things according to such a calculation.
Plenty of successful products appeal to very few people.
I was just offering the way I would approach considering to buy something like this
Personally, I don’t think this tool would make me significantly more productive, but if it could truly save me a few hours a year maybe 120/yr isn’t that bad.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get when people say $X/month is too much. Too much for you maybe. But for me, if I can save 1 hour per month, that's worth $500. That's the top of what I've charged per hour for some consulting gigs. So $10/m is literally nothing for me if I can save time. Time is your most valuable asset. Money is nothing. Focus on time.
Great, I'm hoping you'll sign up for my upcoming weather widget which tells you the weather in a single location. It's only $30 a month, and it will save you time as you will no longer have to use any other weather widget. At some point in the future I plan on offering additional locations (at a compellingly low per location monthly service fee TBD).
I pay for this its called Forecast bar (https://forecastbar.com) and I love it. Basically Dark Sky for your Mac. Not $30 a month, but there's different tiers of service depending on your needs.
Would I pay for this startups calendar? Probably not, but it seems nice, and I can definitely see people paying 2 cups of coffee a month for it.