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Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

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Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#61

Post by dumbfoundded »

IceDane wrote: post #40
karinaderbez wrote: post #4

Hi HN, we're Karina and Andres of Monto ( https://www.monto.mx/ ). We give employees of our affiliated companies access to their earned wages 24/7. We're currently operating in Mexico. With Monto users can pay for basic services (like water, electricity) on time, avoiding penalties. They can stop paying overdraft fees and avoid having to resort to abusive credit alternatives like shark loans, employer loans, payday l…

People who are not making enough money to make ends meet -- and thus end up with overdraft fees or having to make use of things like instant loans or credit cards -- don't need to get paid faster . They need to get paid more . Whether they can afford to live or not is a matter of simple arithmetic: money left = money made - expenses. Being able to tap into their underwhelming income faster to cover a mid-month bill d…

I think this is a pretty extreme take and probably not fully warranted. I do agree that the bigger problem is enough money not the same money sooner.

It is kind of messed up though that you put in work and then your employer decides to pay you 1 or 2 weeks later. As an employee, you're essentially giving a short term loan to your employer. You also carry the risk for whatever reason they wouldn't be able to cover payroll. Floating a week or two of personal expenses may not sound like a lot but if you're living pay check to pay check it can be a ton.

Is this idea going to significantly change workers' rights and standing? Absolutely not. Is it poverty profiteering? Probably not.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#62

Post by eldaisfish »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #60
eldaisfish wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The NA English accent is considered the most clear and easy to understand. Do you have any evidence of this? I would believe that it depends strongly on the language(s) you already know. Perhaps you are confusing prevalence with clarity. North America has tremendous soft power - more so than any other part of the world and their accents are ubiquitous. Clarity is not necessarily function of the accent.

American media (movies, news, etc.) is universal. People all around the world watch American shows and movies and are accustomed to the accent. This output dwarfs any other versions of English. So, to begin with, people are just more familiar with American English. Adding to that, I’m not confusing prevalence with clarity. The standard American accent is clearer and easier to understand than most other variants, incl…

So you have no evidence of your claim.

>, I’m not confusing prevalence with clarity

...but you do that right here:

>American media (movies, news, etc.) is universal. People all around the world watch American shows and movies and are accustomed to the accent.

So it is prevalence and not clarity.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#63

Post by Zababa »

eldaisfish wrote: post #59
ceilingcorner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NA English accent is considered the most clear and easy to understand. This is not a controversial opinion and is held by virtually all non-native English speakers around the world. Frankly there are billions of people who would kill to speak English like a native American. It’s about economics, not identity politics.

>The NA English accent is considered the most clear and easy to understand. Do you have any evidence of this? I would believe that it depends strongly on the language(s) you already know. Perhaps you are confusing prevalence with clarity. North America has tremendous soft power - more so than any other part of the world and their accents are ubiquitous. Clarity is not necessarily function of the accent.

As a French, the Amerian accent is usually the easiest to understand. That's also what most people around me think, though they also think of the British accent as more "fancy". This is for the "American you hear on TV" accent. which is also the one that I hear the most on Youtube or sites like that.

You're right about clarity not being a function of accent, at least not totally. There are some people that speak terrible English with a French accent, and others that speak clear and easy to understand English with a French accent. The same applies to pretty much every accent. I also agree with you on the soft power, however part of the soft power will mean that people are more used to the NA accent.

As a final point, I've heard multiple times that sometimes people that speak English as a second language can understand each other really well while Americans have a really hard time understanding them. If that's a real phenomenon, then having a non-American accent could be detrimental if you want to work in the USA.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#64

Post by dumbfoundded »

IceDane wrote: post #55
IMTDb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who are not making enough money to make ends meet [...] don't need to get paid faster. They need to get paid more. Or they need to pay less . If the cost of being poor represents a significant fraction of the total spending for these people, lowering that through arbitrage is still a benefit. I mistakenly went negative once on one of my bank accounts (purely due to sheer laziness/inattention), I was amazed b…

You're neglecting the fact that they will also have expenses the month after, and the month after that. Tapping into their income faster just means that this month's bill gets covered by their salary, but next month's bill goes on credit. If anything, this product is bad like credit cards and overdrafts, in that it will enable people to make financially unsound decisions while feeling like they can actually afford it…

For ease of numbers, let's say you make $100/week and have to spend $90/week on personal expenses.

If you get paid once every 2 weeks, you have: Week 1: -$90 Week 2: +$20 Week 3: -$70 Week 4: +$40 Week 5: -$50 Week 6: +$60 Week 7: -$30 Week 8: +$80 Week 9: -$10 Week 10: +$100

So it takes you 9 weeks before you never go negative and to be able to afford to take the job, you need $90.

If you get paid everyday, it's: Week 1: +$10 Week 2: +$20 Week 3: +$30 Week 4: +$40 Week 5: +$50 Week 6: +$60 Week 7: +$70 Week 8: +$80 Week 9: +$90 Week 10: +$100

It's clearly nicer to get paid everyday all else being equal.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#65

Post by ceilingcorner »

eldaisfish wrote: post #62
ceilingcorner wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American media (movies, news, etc.) is universal. People all around the world watch American shows and movies and are accustomed to the accent. This output dwarfs any other versions of English. So, to begin with, people are just more familiar with American English. Adding to that, I’m not confusing prevalence with clarity. The standard American accent is clearer and easier to understand than most other variants, incl…

So you have no evidence of your claim. >, I’m not confusing prevalence with clarity ...but you do that right here: >American media (movies, news, etc.) is universal. People all around the world watch American shows and movies and are accustomed to the accent. So it is prevalence and not clarity.

No, it is both, as I just said.

It is widespread common knowledge that the American accent is the easiest to understand. If you don’t agree with this, I’m sorry but you are not speaking from experience.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#66

Post by Zababa »

anadalakra wrote: post #3

We’re Anada and Ilya, the co-founders of BoldVoice ( https://www.boldvoice.com/ ). BoldVoice is an accent coaching app that helps non-native speakers learn and practice the standard American accent. As immigrants to the US, we’ve personally experienced that having a foreign accent can affect your confidence and job opportunities (by as much as 20%, according to studies). So we built this app to help non-native Englis…

That sounds like a very nice idea! I'm French and not confident at all in my oral English because of my pronunciation. I did a bit of job hunting recently, and I was afraid that the topic of English would come up precisely because of that.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#67

Post by bl557 »

eldaisfish wrote: post #33
anadalakra wrote: post #3

We’re Anada and Ilya, the co-founders of BoldVoice ( https://www.boldvoice.com/ ). BoldVoice is an accent coaching app that helps non-native speakers learn and practice the standard American accent. As immigrants to the US, we’ve personally experienced that having a foreign accent can affect your confidence and job opportunities (by as much as 20%, according to studies). So we built this app to help non-native Englis…

I disagree fundamentally with the premise here. An accent is simply someone applying the rules of pronunciation from one language to another. No accent is right or wrong but your product seems to imply that North American accents are desirable or correct while accents rooted in non-english languages are less desirable. Instead of trying to "acquire an accent" why not focus on clarity of speech and pronunciation? If s…

Unfortunately some people do think differently of you based on your accent, subconsciously or consciously

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#68

Post by codegeek »

eldaisfish wrote: post #33
anadalakra wrote: post #3

We’re Anada and Ilya, the co-founders of BoldVoice ( https://www.boldvoice.com/ ). BoldVoice is an accent coaching app that helps non-native speakers learn and practice the standard American accent. As immigrants to the US, we’ve personally experienced that having a foreign accent can affect your confidence and job opportunities (by as much as 20%, according to studies). So we built this app to help non-native Englis…

I disagree fundamentally with the premise here. An accent is simply someone applying the rules of pronunciation from one language to another. No accent is right or wrong but your product seems to imply that North American accents are desirable or correct while accents rooted in non-english languages are less desirable. Instead of trying to "acquire an accent" why not focus on clarity of speech and pronunciation? If s…

"The goal should be clear communication, not a north american accent"

Yes but how do you teach clear communication without focussing on accent ? You ultimately have to pick a way to speak and accents define that way.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#69

Post by quitethelogic »

eldaisfish wrote: post #33
anadalakra wrote: post #3

We’re Anada and Ilya, the co-founders of BoldVoice ( https://www.boldvoice.com/ ). BoldVoice is an accent coaching app that helps non-native speakers learn and practice the standard American accent. As immigrants to the US, we’ve personally experienced that having a foreign accent can affect your confidence and job opportunities (by as much as 20%, according to studies). So we built this app to help non-native Englis…

I disagree fundamentally with the premise here. An accent is simply someone applying the rules of pronunciation from one language to another. No accent is right or wrong but your product seems to imply that North American accents are desirable or correct while accents rooted in non-english languages are less desirable. Instead of trying to "acquire an accent" why not focus on clarity of speech and pronunciation? If s…

This hasn't been my experience. I worked with a man years ago that was relatively fluent in English, but whose thick accent made understanding him somewhat difficult. Listening intently was required to understand him and he would often need to repeat himself, even though he was using the correct words and grammar. It's something he ran into pretty often at the time and he worked to improve it. Something like this app may have helped him. Slight accents may be "just top dressing," but this is most definitely not always the case.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #7

#70

Post by nirali35 »

brunovcosta wrote: post #6

I'm Bruno, founder of Abstra ( https://abstra.app/ ). Abstra is a no-code tool that allows designers to build web apps. Imagine Figma, but we export a functional web application. Here's a timelapsed demo showing it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fObVcHcd_w . As opposed to most famous no-code tools, we don't do any nested-based editing (e.g. tree structure like Webflow - which is an amazing tool, but is b…

This looks amazing! Curious to know what stack you are using to build the frontend. I am starting to build a video editor, so just curious if any framework (React, Vue) or library were especially useful?
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