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

Post by nihilocrat » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 1:42 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #20

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…

Post by dhimes » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 2:15 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #18

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.)

Post by fiaz » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 2:38 PM UTC

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…

Post by tptacek » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 2:48 PM UTC

dhimes wrote: post #23

drusenko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ouch. Then the question this hypothesis brings to mind is, why didn't they have Immad and Jude build a different product?

Post by jaxn » Thu, Feb 05, 2009, 3:04 PM UTC

nihilocrat wrote: post #22

Alex3917 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Makes me think of game design: http://lostgarden.com/2005/08/why-you-should-share-your-game... Anyone can design a fun game, but there is a huge gap between an idea and a finished product.