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YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

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11–20 of 36 posts

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#11
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used it?

I have. Polish is polish, the utility it provides feels pretty minor.

Utility is number of users times how much it helps each one. This is the sort of app that helps a very large number of people, but only briefly each time. It's sort of like Google in that respect. I'm not sure how many users Bump has, because this is one of those companies like Dropbox that grows so fast that the last number I heard is always way off, but many millions. They may have more users than anyone else we've funded.

They're also like Google in that most of the hard work is behind the scenes, which tends to affect users' perception of how much the app is doing. To an inexperienced programmer it might seem like it wouldn't be hard to build a search engine-- and in fact it isn't hard to write a crawler and build an index. What makes it hard to build the actual Google is (a) the scale on which they operate and (b) the refinements they employ beyond merely searching an index. It's basically the same with Bump. They have to operate on a large scale, and to work reliably they have to deal with all sorts of weird edge cases.

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#12
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. Polish is polish, the utility it provides feels pretty minor.

Utility is number of users times how much it helps each one. This is the sort of app that helps a very large number of people, but only briefly each time. It's sort of like Google in that respect. I'm not sure how many users Bump has, because this is one of those companies like Dropbox that grows so fast that the last number I heard is always way off, but many millions. They may have more users than anyone else we've…

I don't think this really answers the question of what Bump brings to the table, though. There's no doubt in my mind that Bump is growing like crazy, or that they're doing really hard work to make that happen and provide a good product, but... none of this matters to me as a user. What I care about is what Bump gives me that other products/services don't. What is that?

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#14
YC is pretty remarkable and it starts at the top with PG. I also feel YC wouldn't be what it is today without HN as it extends the YC community just enough to make a huge difference... setting itself apart from the other accelerators. Congrats to all involved.

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#15
post #12
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utility is number of users times how much it helps each one. This is the sort of app that helps a very large number of people, but only briefly each time. It's sort of like Google in that respect. I'm not sure how many users Bump has, because this is one of those companies like Dropbox that grows so fast that the last number I heard is always way off, but many millions. They may have more users than anyone else we've…

I don't think this really answers the question of what Bump brings to the table, though. There's no doubt in my mind that Bump is growing like crazy, or that they're doing really hard work to make that happen and provide a good product, but... none of this matters to me as a user. What I care about is what Bump gives me that other products/services don't. What is that?

Oy. The reason I didn't explain what Bump does is precisely the question you thought it was improper to ask him: since he's a Bump user, he already knows.

What Bump does is mutually authenticate two smartphone users by having them bump their phones together, and correlating the accelerometer readings. On top of authentication you can build all sorts of things, starting with exchanging contact info. The hard/critical part is reliability.

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#16
post #12
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utility is number of users times how much it helps each one. This is the sort of app that helps a very large number of people, but only briefly each time. It's sort of like Google in that respect. I'm not sure how many users Bump has, because this is one of those companies like Dropbox that grows so fast that the last number I heard is always way off, but many millions. They may have more users than anyone else we've…

I don't think this really answers the question of what Bump brings to the table, though. There's no doubt in my mind that Bump is growing like crazy, or that they're doing really hard work to make that happen and provide a good product, but... none of this matters to me as a user. What I care about is what Bump gives me that other products/services don't. What is that?

it is a clean interface to transfer data to a nearby device.

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#17
post #12
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utility is number of users times how much it helps each one. This is the sort of app that helps a very large number of people, but only briefly each time. It's sort of like Google in that respect. I'm not sure how many users Bump has, because this is one of those companies like Dropbox that grows so fast that the last number I heard is always way off, but many millions. They may have more users than anyone else we've…

I don't think this really answers the question of what Bump brings to the table, though. There's no doubt in my mind that Bump is growing like crazy, or that they're doing really hard work to make that happen and provide a good product, but... none of this matters to me as a user. What I care about is what Bump gives me that other products/services don't. What is that?

The bump makes transactions physical, solves the I-think-I-voted problem (which gets worse with 2 people, and much worse with money).

Just a guess. I haven't used it.

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#18
post #15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this really answers the question of what Bump brings to the table, though. There's no doubt in my mind that Bump is growing like crazy, or that they're doing really hard work to make that happen and provide a good product, but... none of this matters to me as a user. What I care about is what Bump gives me that other products/services don't. What is that?

Oy. The reason I didn't explain what Bump does is precisely the question you thought it was improper to ask him: since he's a Bump user, he already knows. What Bump does is mutually authenticate two smartphone users by having them bump their phones together, and correlating the accelerometer readings. On top of authentication you can build all sorts of things, starting with exchanging contact info. The hard/critical…

Sorry, I think we're talking past each other here. I understand what Bump does/is, but what I (and I believe the original asker) are missing is where the value is. While I can come up with a million use cases for this, e.g. bumping for payments, bumping to share photos, etc, I believe you're in a fairly unique position to be able to express what the core value proposition of the company -- now and moving forward -- is and why it matters to the users. I don't think focusing on the how or what does that.

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#19

This list seems like an odd mix of pandering, genuinely exciting companies, and companies that did something interesting years ago and rank for still existing.

Companies that have existed for years can still do innovative things. We've highlighted those new efforts in the entries. Jawbone, for example, has been around for ages but last year had a huge hit with the Jambox. In that entry Farhad Manjoo also writes about the Up, which was flying off shelves until they found a defect and pulled it.

Re: YC is One of Fast Company's 50 Most Innovative Companies

#20
post #3

The Occupy Movement is ranked #7. This article seems very linkbait-y.

Since when is the Occupy Movement a company? To quote the article: Occupy’s initial public offering, if you will, puts it in very good company. If I will? No, actually, I think I will not.

Occupy has lots of things in common with startups, which we talk specifically about in the story. "Disruptive. Small-d democratic. Transparent. Tech savvy. Design savvy. Local and global."

The IPO part is a joke, sorry the humor was lost on you.

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