The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12 • Hacker News Board

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#11

Post by rwissmann » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:39 PM UTC

untilHellbanned wrote: post #7

samfisher83 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want smart people and those smart people tend to go to good schools and get hired by Google, McK, Bain, etc.

they should want risk-takers, not people seeking the shelter of Google, McK, Bain, etc.

Those companies can be fantastic environments to grow and learn. Not everyone knows at 21 that they want to be an entrepreneur, much less has a great idea that they want to pursue.

Muse uses technology to tackle very traditional industry-type problems - career planning and recruiting. A team with a combined 5-10 years at McKinsey and the exposure to an international network of thousands of very smart and career-driven people (plus lots of client companies) is exactly who you would want for this kind of company.

Yahoo and Google were started by PhD students. AirBnB by designers. Marissa Mayer planed to start with McKinsey, Sheryl Sandberg actually worked there (and in politics). Peter Thiel was a lawyer and derivatives trader. Marc Benioff spent 13 years at Oracle.

Why all the hate for people who have not dropped out of college / have worked in another industry? Clearly great entrepreneurs come from all sorts of backgrounds.

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#12

Post by hootener » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

untilHellbanned wrote: post #7

samfisher83 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want smart people and those smart people tend to go to good schools and get hired by Google, McK, Bain, etc.

they should want risk-takers, not people seeking the shelter of Google, McK, Bain, etc.

"not people seeking the shelter of Google, McK, Bain, etc."

It seems that by leaving such companies to form startups, such individuals would represent the very definition of 'risk-taker'...

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#13

Post by loganu » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

untilHellbanned wrote: post #7

samfisher83 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want smart people and those smart people tend to go to good schools and get hired by Google, McK, Bain, etc.

they should want risk-takers, not people seeking the shelter of Google, McK, Bain, etc.

I wouldn't say they're risk averse. This is the second company they've started and they're 25. Bonus: Educated at top-level schools and companies.

This is one of the best YC applications I've seen. Smart people working on a huge opportunity that they understand and have some traction in. Numbers and initial strategy suggest they've done their homework and can succeed.

This is exactly who YC should want.

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#14

Post by Iftheshoefits » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:41 PM UTC

samfisher83 wrote: post #6

untilHellbanned wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, i'm very surprised and disappointed how much YC has allowed itself to be gamed just like any other industry they seek to disrupt.

They want smart people and those smart people tend to go to good schools and get hired by Google, McK, Bain, etc.

The number of people who are smart and also go to those schools and get hired by those companies is a small number compared to the population of "smart people" at large.

A bias toward people coming from those places indicates that the same old fashioned "good ol' boys" style network is a much bigger factor in "success" than intelligence or any other measure of capability.

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#15

Post by OoTheNigerian » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

Take it easy people. If what people get after publishing their applications is divertory criticism, it would discourage others from doing same.

Today is the deadline for YC. The idea is to give applicants final ideas to help in their application. That's what this thread should be about.

Ladies, thanks for publishing.

If there are international applicants that have been successful, please share. If you are ok sharing privately, I'd really appreciate it. My email is on my profile.

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#16

Post by canistr » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

beambot wrote: post #9

canistr wrote: post #2

Don't want to sound like a downer, but I'd also love to see applications where the founders weren't your typical white MIT, Harvard, Yale graduates/PhDs who worked at McKinsey GoogleBookSoft.

We (Lollipuff) released our application. We were undergrads at Nebraska, Iowa State, and Idaho: https://www.lollipuff.com/blog/102/lollipuffs-ycombinator-ex... (Though I did a PhD at GT, and David worked at Google post-ITA acquisition. :-/ However, our CEO did neither.)

Thanks for sharing!

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#17

Post by canistr » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC

untilHellbanned wrote: post #7

samfisher83 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want smart people and those smart people tend to go to good schools and get hired by Google, McK, Bain, etc.

they should want risk-takers, not people seeking the shelter of Google, McK, Bain, etc.

I suppose you could substitute "risk-takers" for "scrappy" since risk-taking is inherent in starting a company. I would say that scrappy is more indicative of someone who is entrepreneurial without necessarily relying on a strong background or network already available to them (since the use of risk-takers has received some backlash from some commenters).

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#18

Post by mattgreenrocks » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 4:59 PM UTC

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #14

samfisher83 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want smart people and those smart people tend to go to good schools and get hired by Google, McK, Bain, etc.

The number of people who are smart and also go to those schools and get hired by those companies is a small number compared to the population of "smart people" at large. A bias toward people coming from those places indicates that the same old fashioned "good ol' boys" style network is a much bigger factor in "success" than intelligence or any other measure of capability.

The frequent defense is that "schooling doesn't matter much," but the halo effect of the Ivies always seems to magically help differentiate. It's a damn shame; tech becomes incredibly less interesting the more it slides into the realm of who you are (as opposed to what you can do).

But, hey, there's lots of money flowing, so that's cool, right? We can all sit around and grasp at success for the rest of our days!

(This is not an indictment of Muse; they sound like they know what they're doing.)

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#19

Post by untog » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

rwissmann wrote: post #11

untilHellbanned wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they should want risk-takers, not people seeking the shelter of Google, McK, Bain, etc.

Those companies can be fantastic environments to grow and learn. Not everyone knows at 21 that they want to be an entrepreneur, much less has a great idea that they want to pursue. Muse uses technology to tackle very traditional industry-type problems - career planning and recruiting. A team with a combined 5-10 years at McKinsey and the exposure to an international network of thousands of very smart and career-drive…

Clearly great entrepreneurs come from all sorts of backgrounds.

But YC only funds one sort.

Re: The Muse's Successful Application to YC W12

#20

Post by KMinshew » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 5:05 PM UTC

Asparagirl wrote: post #5

Huh, their careers page has several "jobs" available for people to write articles for them... unpaid . You know, the old "it's good exposure" bait for people who don't know any better.

Hi Asparagirl, there are 4-5x the number of people who ask to write for us compared to the number who ultimately get to, so clearly there's some value there :)

The reality is that most of our writers are also mentors to other people, and they really enjoy it. Writing for The Muse is their way of scaling that mentorship to a broader audience.