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YC offers early interviews for AI companies

ycombinator.com

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Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#71

Post by rcme »

ethbr0 wrote: post #69
asterix_pano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the second one a better proposition?

Because the TAM of people who want books is a lot larger than people who want pet supplies, and there are compelling reasons why people would rather buy books from centralized warehouses than local inventories (namely, that books have a long tail and pet supplies do not).

This makes 0 sense. What makes you think the market wasn’t already adequately serving people who wanted books? New technology is the only reason this sales pitch worked. It’s not enough to provide books. You need to provide more books at cheaper prices than existing incumbents. Without knowing the competitive landscape, you can’t say whether or not selling books is better than selling pet supplies.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#72

Post by fakedang »

ethbr0 wrote: post #69
asterix_pano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the second one a better proposition?

Because the TAM of people who want books is a lot larger than people who want pet supplies, and there are compelling reasons why people would rather buy books from centralized warehouses than local inventories (namely, that books have a long tail and pet supplies do not).

Rationalize all you want but Amazon's retail arm still turns a loss, minus platform ads. Bezos realized early on that the bread and butter of Amazon is AWS (and Amazon software in general), and that's what's keeping the retail arm stable.

From a revenue perspective though, your argument is prudent. Maybe targeting books rather than pets helped it lessen its relative burn rate.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#73

Post by ethbr0 »

rcme wrote: post #71
ethbr0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the TAM of people who want books is a lot larger than people who want pet supplies, and there are compelling reasons why people would rather buy books from centralized warehouses than local inventories (namely, that books have a long tail and pet supplies do not).

This makes 0 sense. What makes you think the market wasn’t already adequately serving people who wanted books? New technology is the only reason this sales pitch worked. It’s not enough to provide books. You need to provide more books at cheaper prices than existing incumbents. Without knowing the competitive landscape, you can’t say whether or not selling books is better than selling pet supplies.

Types of dog and cat foods are more substitutable than book titles, which decreases the value proposition of warehousing a larger variety.

And on the profit side, books don't spoil and are small and light.

Bezos is on record in an interview somewhere as saying that he didn't care what they sold on the internet -- they picked books (and later music and movies) because they were good fits to store and ship.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#74

Post by yellow_lead »

dang wrote: post #21
yellow_lead wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of these links in the original submissions are broken. Would be nice if they could be fixed or archived. I.e: https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs5.html

Ok, I've pinned archive links to the top of those threads.

Thanks!

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#75

Post by rcme »

ethbr0 wrote: post #73
rcme wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes 0 sense. What makes you think the market wasn’t already adequately serving people who wanted books? New technology is the only reason this sales pitch worked. It’s not enough to provide books. You need to provide more books at cheaper prices than existing incumbents. Without knowing the competitive landscape, you can’t say whether or not selling books is better than selling pet supplies.

Types of dog and cat foods are more substitutable than book titles, which decreases the value proposition of warehousing a larger variety. And on the profit side, books don't spoil and are small and light. Bezos is on record in an interview somewhere as saying that he didn't care what they sold on the internet -- they picked books (and later music and movies) because they were good fits to store and ship.

This was your original statement:

> Total addressable market and value proposition are key.

> A specific technology doesn't really change either of these.

Bezos chose books because they ship well. This is because he was going to use a new technology (the web) to sell goods and needed items that would work with this model well. So the decision to sell books had little to do with TAM and everything to do with technology. Basically the opposite of what you originally asserted.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#76

Post by ethbr0 »

rcme wrote: post #75
ethbr0 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Types of dog and cat foods are more substitutable than book titles, which decreases the value proposition of warehousing a larger variety. And on the profit side, books don't spoil and are small and light. Bezos is on record in an interview somewhere as saying that he didn't care what they sold on the internet -- they picked books (and later music and movies) because they were good fits to store and ship.

This was your original statement: > Total addressable market and value proposition are key. > A specific technology doesn't really change either of these. Bezos chose books because they ship well. This is because he was going to use a new technology (the web) to sell goods and needed items that would work with this model well. So the decision to sell books had little to do with TAM and everything to do with technolog…

Technology can't create a value proposition where none possibly exists.

There was no Pets.com business model that would have worked, with any technology shy of a free energy transporter.

In contrast, Amazon proceeded thusly.

1. There are a lot of people who buy books.

2. People who buy books would value a wider selection. (than current local options make available to them)

... therefore, what combination of technologies exist that allow Amazon to deliver on the above? (web storefront + centralized warehousing + efficient shipping)

The point of bubble businesses is that the first two components, neither of which have much to do with technology, are often absolutely missing.

Fundamentally sound business plan + new technology >> ?? + new technology

Too many bubble businesses are the latter, and people invest in them despite the ??.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#77

Post by rcme »

ethbr0 wrote: post #76
rcme wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was your original statement: > Total addressable market and value proposition are key. > A specific technology doesn't really change either of these. Bezos chose books because they ship well. This is because he was going to use a new technology (the web) to sell goods and needed items that would work with this model well. So the decision to sell books had little to do with TAM and everything to do with technolog…

Technology can't create a value proposition where none possibly exists. There was no Pets.com business model that would have worked, with any technology shy of a free energy transporter. In contrast, Amazon proceeded thusly. 1. There are a lot of people who buy books. 2. People who buy books would value a wider selection. (than current local options make available to them) ... therefore, what combination of technolog…

> There was no Pets.com business model that would have worked, with any technology shy of a free energy transporter.

The Pets.com business model is essentially the same as Chewy, which does work. As far as I know, Chewy has not discovered a free energy transporter.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#78

Post by ethbr0 »

rcme wrote: post #77
ethbr0 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology can't create a value proposition where none possibly exists. There was no Pets.com business model that would have worked, with any technology shy of a free energy transporter. In contrast, Amazon proceeded thusly. 1. There are a lot of people who buy books. 2. People who buy books would value a wider selection. (than current local options make available to them) ... therefore, what combination of technolog…

> There was no Pets.com business model that would have worked, with any technology shy of a free energy transporter. The Pets.com business model is essentially the same as Chewy, which does work. As far as I know, Chewy has not discovered a free energy transporter.

Chewy is Pets.com + being owned by one of two major pet related brick-and-mortars + diversification into vet and pharmacy services.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#79

Post by rcme »

ethbr0 wrote: post #78
rcme wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no Pets.com business model that would have worked, with any technology shy of a free energy transporter. The Pets.com business model is essentially the same as Chewy, which does work. As far as I know, Chewy has not discovered a free energy transporter.

Chewy is Pets.com + being owned by one of two major pet related brick-and-mortars + diversification into vet and pharmacy services.

Chewy was already a multi-billion dollar company by the time it was purchased by PetSmart. Chewy is now publicly traded at a value of over 16B.

Not sure what your point is regarding vet and pharmacy services. Businesses expand. Pets.com, had they been successful, would have likely done the same thing. To use your Amazon example: obviously most of Amazon's revenue is no longer generated by selling books.

Re: YC offers early interviews for AI companies

#80

Post by weird-eye-issue »

mostthingsweb wrote: post #70
marcopicentini wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making $900k in the first 3 week it means monetize on the wow-effects. Is it https://prompthero.com/ ?

Don't know why they're pretending it's not, it's literally in their Twitter profile: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36197024

I've got some crazy news for you: you can actually post other people's tweets on HN! Crazy, right?

By the way the OP of the Twitter thread commented in that thread you linked. He has the same HN username as Twitter.

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