Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9 • Hacker News Board

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#21

Post by zurfer » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

tapeless_tunic wrote: post #18

zurfer wrote: post #5

Hi everyone, my name is Rick and with my co-founders Sven and Théo we are building Snowboard ( https://www.snowboard.software/ ). Snowboard is a fast and automated data catalog for the Snowflake data cloud. It helps teams find, understand and trust their data assets. In past jobs, I (Rick) rolled out Snowflake at a manufacturer with 11000 employees and $2B in revenue, and Théo built the data team and infrastructure a…

Working as a data engineer, I can see how big of a problem this is. At my company, we waste loads of time cleaning up garbage tables, finding the right data, and duplicating work. Does snowflake have any plans of building a similar cataloging infrastructure?

Thank you for the data point. :)

To answer your question: there is multiple parts to it, I am certain they will tackle some parts like search in the future. I don't see them solving lineage or data monitoring anytime soon. Also cross-system overview (e.g. with Tableau) won't be coming.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#22

Post by ecf » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

As with most YC acceptees, most here have “for x country/demographic/race/gender”

Is the best path to forming a startup these days to take an already existing product and market it to a very specific niche while taking investment capital that rivals the revenue of pre-existing software?

I don’t get it. Really.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#23

Post by danpalmer » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

g_p wrote: post #16

betamaxthetape wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting idea. I agree with you that going to get a Covid test from a local pharmacy has made me wish that other similar diagnosis were available from pharmacies, rather than requiring a trip to a hospital. I'm curious as to how you will integrate into the existing UK healthcare system. Will you have access to my NHS records? Will the results of these tests appear on my NHS records? Will these tests be…

> Will these tests be covered by the NHS? The marketing copy on the website seems to suggest this is for private healthcare ("All your private healthcare needs in one app") I will be interested to see how this goes, because the sentiment outlined in the OP can be quite controversial in the UK healthcare market ("while we appreciate the NHS, we also wished for a world where...") - for international context, the NHS em…

Over the last ~3 years I've noticed a lot more private healthcare being advertised direct to consumers, particularly in London and particularly targeting busy, high earning professionals.

I'd have expected this to go down pretty poorly because while high earning busy people tend to be more open to spending to fix problems, the idea of paying for healthcare here is nuts – you either use NHS services, or your employer gives you private healthcare.

I wonder if, as London becomes increasingly diverse with more workers from overseas, the acceptance will increase as there are more people who don't have that cultural blocker to paying directly for healthcare (rather than via taxes).

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#24

Post by kami8845 » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

ecf wrote: post #22

As with most YC acceptees, most here have “for x country/demographic/race/gender” Is the best path to forming a startup these days to take an already existing product and market it to a very specific niche while taking investment capital that rivals the revenue of pre-existing software? I don’t get it. Really.

Something I've noticed as well. Might be related to geographic diversification, or that "[App] for [Emerging Market]" better answers the "Why now?" question.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#25

Post by arunnanda » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

vijaykiran wrote: post #9

ismaelbelk wrote: post #2

Hey, we are Ismael and Sophia, co-founders of Chari ( https://www.chari.co/ ). Chari is an ecommerce and fintech app for proximity stores in North Africa. It allows them to order anything they resell in their store, get delivered in less than 24h and benefit from payment facilities. 80% of the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) consumption in North Africa, and in developing countries in general, goes through small mom…

FYI - For some reason clicking on England flag still redirects to French version.

Some people might interpret that as taking a stand in the politics of language.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#26

Post by aakashns » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

tapeless_tunic wrote: post #20

aakashns wrote: post #3

Hi HN, we're Aakash and Siddhant of Jovian ( https://www.jovian.ai/ ). We run a 6-month program that helps working professionals with a background in programming, statistics or analytics land their first data science job. Four years ago, we quit our jobs and spent several months learning data science and deep learning. We completed several online courses, read some books, and participated in some Kaggle competitions.…

Love it! Almost every professional could benefit from improved data literacy. Have you thought about selling courses into large organizations? e.g. "SQL + Statistics for marketers", I would love to see something like this.

Thanks, we agree! Our program is currently targeted towards individuals, but we definitely think similar programs for companies are a great idea too.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#27

Post by aakashns » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

ecf wrote: post #22

As with most YC acceptees, most here have “for x country/demographic/race/gender” Is the best path to forming a startup these days to take an already existing product and market it to a very specific niche while taking investment capital that rivals the revenue of pre-existing software? I don’t get it. Really.

In many cases, the existing product is not designed to serve the needs of all countries/demographies/races/genders etc., so there's value in provided a better user experience for a specific niche, especially one that's growing.

I like using products that were created keeping me in mind as the primary customer. Wouldn't you too?

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#28

Post by aakashns » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

ismaelbelk wrote: post #2

Hey, we are Ismael and Sophia, co-founders of Chari ( https://www.chari.co/ ). Chari is an ecommerce and fintech app for proximity stores in North Africa. It allows them to order anything they resell in their store, get delivered in less than 24h and benefit from payment facilities. 80% of the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) consumption in North Africa, and in developing countries in general, goes through small mom…

Congrats on the launch and great progress you've made so far! Setting up a warehouse must be a lot of work, how do you plan to scale this to multiple cities and countries?

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#29

Post by coderintherye » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

ismaelbelk wrote: post #2

Hey, we are Ismael and Sophia, co-founders of Chari ( https://www.chari.co/ ). Chari is an ecommerce and fintech app for proximity stores in North Africa. It allows them to order anything they resell in their store, get delivered in less than 24h and benefit from payment facilities. 80% of the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) consumption in North Africa, and in developing countries in general, goes through small mom…

When you say "free delivery" do you mean the distributor is delivering the products to the merchant for free? Is there a minimum order size?

You note the idea of them ordering every day, are the goods moving that fast that it makes financial sense for daily orders? Normally these shops are ordering weekly or biweekly.

Do you work with the Principals at all (e.g. Coca Cola) or just directly with the Distributors?

Did the merchants already have smart phones and digital literacy to be able to easily download and leverage your app or was it a process of teaching them how to use it?

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9

#30

Post by dang » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

ecf wrote: post #22

As with most YC acceptees, most here have “for x country/demographic/race/gender” Is the best path to forming a startup these days to take an already existing product and market it to a very specific niche while taking investment capital that rivals the revenue of pre-existing software? I don’t get it. Really.

That's not true of most YC acceptees. It's more true of these "meet the batch" threads but that's a sample bias.

I suppose it's mostly an artifact of YC's growing so more internationally in recent years. There are others (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28257352 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309) but these are a small minority.