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Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

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Re: Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

#11

Post by toufka »

the-dude wrote: post #4

"Correlia Biosystems is able to analyze microsamples of blood" This sounds familiar ...

It's a shame Theranos poisoned the well so badly. There's a lot of good work to be done in the space. But that kind of science just cannot be done by hyper-secretive overfunded outsiders. For the good of us all, try not to let Theranos drag down an entire kind of company - but in that, be critical of science, credentials, and data.

And though science is still hard, signals from the NSF, QB3, Berkeley, UCSF, MIT and Cornell all point towards a much different culture and kind of company than was to be found in Theranos.

Re: Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

#13

Post by jgh »

telesilla wrote: post #10
jgh wrote: post #3

California Dreamin' sounds pretty cool, I wonder how it tastes. I like the choice to do 10mg because it's enough for a decent buzz. It would be good if they did a 5mg version too, then you could have 2 or 3 without it getting too intense. If their target market is people drinking alcohol I imagine that being able to have more than one in a sitting will be important.

What's driving impairment like, after this amount?

I'm not sure, I guess it depends on the person. For me 10mg is enough to give me a pretty good buzz and be satisfied with watching anime for the night. 20-25mg and I'm time traveling. I wouldn't drive on either amount. 5mg is probably _okay_ but still I'd rather just take a cab/lyft/uber/transit.

I think if they could do three things (other than be in my jurisdiction which is currently complicated by laws) I would be an avid customer:

1) Make it taste pretty good with food

2) Make it fizzy

3) Make it not terrible for you (vs soda, juice, alcohol) so you could have a couple at the end of the day / with dinner to de-stress.

Re: Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

#14

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mgkimsal wrote: post #2

Lots to look at, but one that caught my eye was evryhealth. Health insurance, and they're talking to... employers. Employer-provided health insurance is a huge barrier to personal mobility. Might it not have been better to try to tackle the personal market, and help grow that, vs just moving $ around the employer-provided insurance market?

Group health insurance is where all the good risks are, which is why it is cheaper in general than much riskier individual policies. Obama care was basically doomed when they didn’t eliminate the group market like Switzerland did.

Re: Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

#16

Post by stingrae »

> "Reverie Labs uses machine learning to scan public molecule research, modify and develop its own molecules, and license the drugs they create to big pharmaceutical companies. The startup claims it can sell molecule licenses for $100 million, and has already signed a milestone deal worth up to $87 million."

I wonder if this is really molecular innovation or does it result in derivative work from a machine learning algorithm pattern matching human successes.

Re: Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

#17

Post by hoodoof »

Voicery and Storyline are the two that connect with my interests.

I think Voicery does itself a disservice by featuring a "pick the human voice versus pick our machine voice" demo quiz on their website. I got 100%, and it led me to emotionally response "they have failed", but in fact the voice sounded great.

A more useful demo would have been to hear a range of different voices and be able to put my own text in and hear it read back.

But it is not the point that a machine voice can be determined versus a human voice. The important question is "does the machine voice sound good enough".

Instead, their marketing approach has forced me to make a comparison in which my conclusion was that they tech "lost" in some sort of contest.

Re: Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

#18

Post by milansuk »

gitgud wrote: post #7

So many startups... am looking forward to track their progress using http://yclist.com/ It would be interesting to analyse the categories of startups that succeed and fail.

This reminded me YC World(http://world.ycombinator.com), which probably needs little update.

Re: Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day

#19

Post by pjmorris »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #14
mgkimsal wrote: post #2

Lots to look at, but one that caught my eye was evryhealth. Health insurance, and they're talking to... employers. Employer-provided health insurance is a huge barrier to personal mobility. Might it not have been better to try to tackle the personal market, and help grow that, vs just moving $ around the employer-provided insurance market?

Group health insurance is where all the good risks are, which is why it is cheaper in general than much riskier individual policies. Obama care was basically doomed when they didn’t eliminate the group market like Switzerland did.

Seems like the larger the group the better the overall risk profile. Which seems to me like an argument for single payer.
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