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Quora in the next YC batch

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#101

Post by mbesto »

ProAm wrote: post #77
meritt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direction probably. Quora has floundered for nearly 5 years, burned millions of dollars and still has a questionable product. Meanwhile Stack Exchange has been around only a year longer, a fraction of the funding, and pretty well owns the entire question-answer niche.

Ive not used Quora, what is their struture like? SE is fairly fragemented now, is Quora similiar?

I'm not sure if you were insinuating that SE's fragmentation was a bad thing. If you are, SE actively fragment's itself for a reason. Watch Spolsky talk about it here: http://vimeo.com/37309773

Quora's non-fragmentation is it's ultimate downfall.

I'm all bull on SE and bear on Quora.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#102

Post by dmoney »

sama wrote: post #5
gkoberger wrote: post #2

I'd love to hear more about why. It makes sense for YC (and is probably being treated as a normal investment rather than "Adam filled out a YC application and did a 10 minute interview"), however I feel like it makes Quora seem weak.

Clearly makes a lot of sense for us :) I think the other companies in the batch will get a ton out of this. I'm hopeful Quora will too--as the YC community grows larger, we can help companies in lots of ways, including with things like hiring that are particularly important for later stage companies.

I'm guessing 5k + 5k per founder for ~6% of the company wouldn't work for a later stage company. Would this be more like a Series A investment?

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#103

Post by [deleted] »

seanalltogether wrote: post #48
joshdance wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most normal people won't know how to do this.

And the rest of us will forget 10 minutes from now. I really don't understand why people give quora a free pass on this when expertsexchange was nuked by the rest of the online community for inventing these tactics.

[deleted]

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#104

Post by brackin »

outside1234 wrote: post #36
dude_abides wrote: post #11

Hard to imagine what's in it for Quora. - Network connections? Their CEO is the former CTO of Facebook. - Help with fundraising? They raised $80mm at $900mm valuation not more than a month ago. I strongly suspect Quora is planning a huge pivot which they feel is ambitious but doable in 3 months, and YC believes in the value of this pivot; that is the only plausible explanation I can think of.

Or perhaps YC is the one making the pivot? :)

They've been morphing into a seed stage VC firm for a long time, the new deal and increase in partners reflects this.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#105

Post by cmpns8 »

A well established company with a nice product but no revenue generating business model partners with a bunch of hotshot entrepreneurs looking for a startup idea (or pivot) - I wonder if Quora is going to provide a kind of Q&A based platform which creative startups can leverage, almost like a Quora branded YC mini-batch.

The startups would have immediate access to Quora's user base and a space to focus on (Q&A value added services). Quora gets an infusion of fresh ideas without have to take the risk themselves. Quora could develop some fee based structure for its platform and look at acquiring the most promising startups.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#107

Post by price »

lettergram wrote: post #43
dude_abides wrote: post #11

Hard to imagine what's in it for Quora. - Network connections? Their CEO is the former CTO of Facebook. - Help with fundraising? They raised $80mm at $900mm valuation not more than a month ago. I strongly suspect Quora is planning a huge pivot which they feel is ambitious but doable in 3 months, and YC believes in the value of this pivot; that is the only plausible explanation I can think of.

I wonder if YC is not taking any stake (or a very small stake) in Quora. They do not really need it, perhaps it's just beneficial for both parties. Quora gains a large number of connections, possible companies to fund/buyout, a network of founders to answer questions, complimentary services, and some prestige. YC gains a larger network, another large(ish) player in the tech industry, and potentially some money from a…

The post says they're "participating in Quora's most recent investment round". The normal meaning of that would be that they're buying at the same price/valuation as that Series C round, so if it's anything like YC's usual size of investment it would be a very small stake.

(Ex-Quora employee, but I have no inside information.)

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#109

Post by rokhayakebe »

meritt wrote: post #70
dude_abides wrote: post #11

Hard to imagine what's in it for Quora. - Network connections? Their CEO is the former CTO of Facebook. - Help with fundraising? They raised $80mm at $900mm valuation not more than a month ago. I strongly suspect Quora is planning a huge pivot which they feel is ambitious but doable in 3 months, and YC believes in the value of this pivot; that is the only plausible explanation I can think of.

Direction probably. Quora has floundered for nearly 5 years, burned millions of dollars and still has a questionable product. Meanwhile Stack Exchange has been around only a year longer, a fraction of the funding, and pretty well owns the entire question-answer niche.

There are 20 million programmers in the world, that is the maximum S.O. can get. There are billions of people looking for just the type of answers you find on Quora.

Also you go to S.O. to find a specific answer than move on, on Q you stick around and read other stuff, go back for discovery.

I am not saying which one is more valuable, perhaps S.O. is more monetizable.

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