Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
11–20 of 326 posts
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#12My conclusion also, judging from a few latest Launch HN's that are prone to be featurized by the competition instead of building an ecosystem. Or being a good idea, but without a unicorn potential even if you strech your imagination. But I guess they only care about successful exits at a valuation that will make return on their investment. Or they may see what we mere mortals can't see.
> But I guess they only care about successful exits at a valuation that will make return on their investment
Modern innovation at its finest
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#13Literally every time you see a startup release a product that seems trivial it's because that's not the full story. You're judging without complete information. For example, the public face might be a simple Mac calendar widget, but that could be the gateway to calendar sharing, native office apps, meeting booking, event management, ticket sales, corporate flight sales etc.
Building an audience with a cheap tool that solves a tiny pain point for a lot of people is a great way to build a direct relationship with a market that you can then sell other services to.
I'm not saying that's the case here. Maybe their business is actually a widget. I'm saying that most businesses do far more than you can see from the outside.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#14“No more looking for the Google calendar tab in Chrome.”
Gustaf Alströmer
Said nobody ever!
It is literally three clicks away...
1. New Tab 2. Click dotted square 3. Click cal button
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#15In ~2016:
Something was going to get sherlocked by a big fruit company or reinvented by a Chrome Extension for free or integrated into their own taskbar by a trillion dollar software company.
Am I right f.lux? I don't think we'll get an answer from this company if the 'competition' decides to go the way on what they did to f.lux.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#16Realizing a meeting is starting right now and then struggling to extract the Zoom link because the invite writer put it in some non-standard field or there's a surprise and it's some other meeting software happens often enough it's close to $10/month worth of pain.
I guess what I would worry about is can they handle strange link placement, different meeting software, and times when I'm double or triple booked with different meetings?
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#17Although I had similar thoughts, one always needs to keep an open mind about what it can grow into. In the thread, it was obvious that for some people it would alleviate a pain : keeping track of synchronous events across multiple platforms.
> one always needs to keep an open mind about what it can grow into. Why? There's no shortage of more serious and productive problems to solve.
Those are for you.
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#18Literally every time you see a startup release a product that seems trivial it's because that's not the full story. You're judging without complete information. For example, the public face might be a simple Mac calendar widget, but that could be the gateway to calendar sharing, native office apps, meeting booking, event management, ticket sales, corporate flight sales etc. Building an audience with a cheap tool that…
When they started YC they were "a video lecture platform for professors"
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#19did y combinator ever find its way to begin with? besides making money, have any really useful things been funded by them? airbnb is the only one i can think of that is something im actually glad exists
Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?
#20Literally every time you see a startup release a product that seems trivial it's because that's not the full story. You're judging without complete information. For example, the public face might be a simple Mac calendar widget, but that could be the gateway to calendar sharing, native office apps, meeting booking, event management, ticket sales, corporate flight sales etc. Building an audience with a cheap tool that…
When they started YC they were "a video lecture platform for professors"
They pivoted. It happens. That doesn't tell you anything about what their plans are now.