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Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

immadsnewworld.com

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Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#11

Post by immad »

webwright wrote: post #7

Out of curiosity, how did your leaving your co-founder(s?) at Clickpass effect Clickpass's acquisition? At first blush, seems like harsh timing.

Hi Tony,

Given that I had made my decision the timing was going to be harsh whenever it was.

Acquisition from start to finish can be quite time consuming, so I could have been +/- 2 months and the timing would have been equivalently good/bad.

Hard to say effect, nothing is confirmed till the money is in the bank :). Me leaving definitely changed the outcome. Happy it still went through; all parties are happy and Clickpass found a good home.

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#12

Post by knarf »

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago.

Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same time so it was probably just choosing the better team - and this happens probably a lot of times. And of course if you believe in a thing you don't need someone like yc to approve it when you can just go out and build it on your own. Still I feel kind of bad right now. I don't want to blame anybody of misbehavour or s.th., but it would have been nice to at least get a rejection mail that says s.th. like "We already have another team for a similar product" so you don't end up like me wondering about the timing of things later.

Anyway all the best of luck with this thing - I truly believe it's a great idea.

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#13

Post by immad »

knarf wrote: post #12

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago. Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same…

Hmm. At the time we talked to PG about the idea and got funding it was a different variant in the same space. I am pretty sure we didn't tell PG about the current idea until after the other applications were decided.

I don't think you can read too much into Heyzap launching. Glad you like the idea though. Would love to hear your ideas on it if you would like to share.

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#14

Post by jgrahamc »

webwright wrote: post #7

Out of curiosity, how did your leaving your co-founder(s?) at Clickpass effect Clickpass's acquisition? At first blush, seems like harsh timing.

Going to go pedantic on you, but I believe you mean 'affect' and not 'effect'. I used to always have a have time with this until my doctoral supervisor told me to remember the mnemonic RAVEN: Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun. So 'to affect' is the verb and 'an effect' is the noun.

Of course, English being what it is there's an exception or two! Effect can be a verb when used in the form 'to effect a change'. And affect is from time to time a noun when used by psychologists.

But mostly RAVEN applies.

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#15

Post by allyt »

knarf wrote: post #12

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago. Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same…

OMG! I totally had this idea, too!

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#16

Post by mjnaus »

knarf wrote: post #12

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago. Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same…

I guess many people around here would agree that ideas are a dime-a-dozen and often times change during execution. However, I completely understand that you're feeling bummed, I would be too...

And even though others are working on it, that doesn't mean you shouldn't! What is keeping you from going ahead as planned, even if it's without YC?

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#17

Post by drusenko »

knarf wrote: post #12

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago. Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same…

a large part of what investors invest in is the team. YC tends to do quite a few second investments, because they've already decided that they believe in the team. i would peg this investment as one of those -- that the idea was much less important in the decision than immad and jude forming the team was.

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#18

Post by patio11 »

knarf wrote: post #12

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago. Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same…

Without knocking YC: if you really feel that this is a great idea, and you really feel that it is doable, then just go ahead and do it. (Sure, you now have 1 YC funded competitor. Eh, who cares. Competitors are God's way of telling you there is a market which will pay to be satisfied. If you don't see any you should be scared. You can both still be successful.)

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#19

Post by foobar2k »

knarf wrote: post #12

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago. Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same…

It's not all about the idea, it's about the team.

Re: Heyzap (YC W09) launches: The forming of Heyzap and some lessons learnt

#20

Post by Alex3917 »

knarf wrote: post #12

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago. Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same…

I had to come up with 111 business ideas for Seth's alternative-mba program this week. The idea was both to make sure we weren't choosing the business we wanted to start just because it was the first good idea we came up with, and also to prove that ideas were worthless because we could come up with a million billion-dollar ideas. There are nine of us, and so that's 999 ideas between us. We are going to take the best of these ideas and publish them all online. Of the 150 or so ideas we publish online, I suspect that 145 or so will be done by someone within the next five years. It's not that uncommon, it's just that everyone tends to think of the same stuff at the same time. That's why hit movies come in pairs.
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