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Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

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Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#51
post #47

I'd be interested to see how much traction Science Exchange[1] is going to get. As someone who grew up in a family of scientists and who has been involved in the scientific community for a long time, I've got to say, my gut reaction is revulsion at the whole concept. Outsourcing experiments to the cheapest bidder? 99designs for science? I feel a really powerful revulsion. I can't see any of the many scientists I know…

Academic researchers already outsource about 2% of their experiments. It's not driven by laziness, but by one institution having facilities or expertise that another doesn't. Often it's simply a way for universities to share machines so expensive that they can't all afford one of their own.

When I've encountered that sort of outsourcing in the past it was called "collaboration" and it was between two individual researchers at the respective institutions. There was no exchange of money and they would both have their names on any resulting papers.

This strikes me as much more "outsource the labor to where it's cheap" sort of thing. The programming team in India if you will.

All of that said, I'm not a researcher, so I suppose I'm not really the target audience. My experience of research is all second hand, though there's a lot of that. Maybe times have changed. I'll bring up the idea with my researcher friends and see what they think.

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#52

Vidyards pricing list is pretty shady/lame. They compare themselves along side Vimeo Pro and Youtube, under their pricing they list "free" (Vimeo being $199, Youtube also free) and then under a bunch of options for Vidyard that are ONLY available if you pay >cost of Vimeo pro they add a tick, which would imply that they're available for free . It's misleading, it implies it's cheaper to use Vidyard (which it isn't)

Thanks for the feedback - the last thing we wanted was for the line to be confusing, it was just supposed to indicate that a free plan was available, customers are then prompted to review the plans. That said, we've realized it might be misleading and have removed the pricing comparisons.

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#53
post #15

Saw demo day yesterday and it was pretty awesome. Lots of interesting startups, and the way Paul & co. coach teams to present is fun to watch. They really make what they're doing seem exciting. It's also kinda like bingo to figure out what the the common phrases they're coached to use are. This batch it seemed common to have some really awesome accomplishment such as "8 bajillion users within 3 seconds of launch," be…

I think I'm most excited by Codeacademy and Parse. I'm hoping to try out Parse with my next project. Parse: Beta invites please!

i made a beta code for you with up to 10 uses. 'hacker' no quotes

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I don't get it then -- is the plan to force me to enter one before visiting a site? Or are they just display ads with text fields?

You can't see whatever content it is that you are trying to access until you enter the code. The examples on their web site make it pretty clear: http://doublerecall.com/

Am I the only person who already hates that company?

I mean it is a very profitable idea, but ads are annoying enough already.

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those companies are meant to be off the record.

once posted, it's kind of late to remove already

this was also pg's argument when i asked him to remove some postings made with another account that accidentally revealed confidential info about a friend's company, so i considered this would be fair game.

EDIT: post deleted -> put the info on twitter for those interested.

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#56
Congrats to all!

Among the revealed ones I am most excited about (and would invest in) Parse -- solves a real problem, it is easy to see how it can be commercially viable, and there is very little technology risk. Kind of wish I had thought of it. An obvious target to be acqhired by one of the PaaS vendors.

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#57
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm most excited by Codeacademy and Parse. I'm hoping to try out Parse with my next project. Parse: Beta invites please!

i made a beta code for you with up to 10 uses. 'hacker' no quotes

Thanks for the code from this indie developer!

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#58
post #15

Saw demo day yesterday and it was pretty awesome. Lots of interesting startups, and the way Paul & co. coach teams to present is fun to watch. They really make what they're doing seem exciting. It's also kinda like bingo to figure out what the the common phrases they're coached to use are. This batch it seemed common to have some really awesome accomplishment such as "8 bajillion users within 3 seconds of launch," be…

I think I'm most excited by Codeacademy and Parse. I'm hoping to try out Parse with my next project. Parse: Beta invites please!

Thanks for the compliment! (we're codecademy)

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#59

Vidyards pricing list is pretty shady/lame. They compare themselves along side Vimeo Pro and Youtube, under their pricing they list "free" (Vimeo being $199, Youtube also free) and then under a bunch of options for Vidyard that are ONLY available if you pay >cost of Vimeo pro they add a tick, which would imply that they're available for free . It's misleading, it implies it's cheaper to use Vidyard (which it isn't)

Vidyard looked good at first glance, as I'm looking into adding video to a site right now, but the free video, with branding, is really no better than YouTube. They really should be offering half a dozen free videos with all the bells and whistles (i.e. no Vidyard branding) if they want to entice new users.

Re: Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

#60
post #3

Curious, only 32 of 63 are on the record. Seems like ratio was higher in previous classes. Any ideas why?

We used to have 3 variants of on the record: yes, no, and ok to list as part of roundups (but not to describe in detail). The third category was prone to misunderstanding and abuse so we got rid of it.
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