How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle • Hacker News Board

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#101

Post by wpietri » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #27

Murkin wrote: post #23

tl;dr; 1. Spent lots of time and money(thousands of pounds) trying to meet with CEO of hedge fund just to get one of the domains in their portfolio. 2. Failed. 3. Explained that he is co-founder of twillio europe. 4. Used above story as some kind of self proof of ability 5. Decided that he failed YC interview because of a silly mistake 6. Drew lots of lessons and conclusions. yawn

I'm kind-of amazed at how much this person was willing to spend at the drop of a hat. I see someone carelessly jumping on planes, spending thousands of dollars without blinking, and I start to wonder if the person may be bipolar and experiencing a manic episode.

It's an entirely reasonable question, and I'm sad that people are downvoting you. That somebody is a respected X doesn't mean they are in perfect health or couldn't use help.

There is a relationship between bipolar disorder and creativity; Jameson's Touched with Fire is a good exploration of that. Steve Blank of Lean Startup fame suggests that many founders come from dysfunctional families, because a chaotic home environment makes people comfortable operating in chaos later on:

http://steveblank.com/2009/05/18/founders-and-dysfunctional-...

Living in San Francisco and having just spent the weekend mentoring 100 would-be founders at Lean Startup Machine, it's my firm opinion that entrepreneurs are universally odd ducks. They are my people and I love them, but if they were particularly normal they would have found a lower-risk way of making a living. I think it's especially useful for entrepreneurial types to pay attention to mental health; some kinds of crazy are useful and to be honored, but some are just slowing you down.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#102

Post by wilfra » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #96

wilfra wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people would agree you with you. But that doesn't make you, or them, correct. You should learn to embrace failure as a completely normal and natural part of success, instead of fearing it. This story, and the fact that he is proud of it, is evidence that he gets that. I have no idea who this guy is but if I could buy stock in his future right now, I would. I can't say the same for anybody who reads this and thin…

Successful people have certainly failed, but spectacular failure isn't a particularly good sign of future success. You should only embrace failure if you are learning things . Successful people treat failures as the price of learning. I admire this guy's persistence, but not his incredible arrogance ("swaggadocio", "sound my huge balls made as I sauntered"), his poor risk/reward assessment, or his lack of lateral thi…

Failure as part of the hustle is not a learning process in the same way as a failed startup is. Sure, you can learn something, but if you aren't getting rejected often in sales, you're simply not trying hard enough.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#103

Post by tlrobinson » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #85

paulsutter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good domains are valuable, so a few thousand pounds is a small amount to risk. Zap.com is a really good domain. His approach was smart. A billionaire is too busy to discuss the sale of a domain, but if you do manage to catch his interest, he may well give it to you free/cheap because it isn't an asset he spends time worrying about. I love the conservative objections here. Stunts like this only work if most people are…

> A billionaire is too busy to discuss the sale of a domain, but if you do manage to catch his interest, he may well give it to you free/cheap because it isn't an asset he spends time worrying about. From what I read, it was the hedge fund not the billionaire that had the domain. if that's the case, then the problem is that the fund is carrying the domain on their books for some value, say $100,000. If they give it a…

I wonder if he could give them some equity in return for the domain, or just the right to use the domain as long as the company is in business.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#104

Post by wpietri » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #61

stephengillie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind-of amazed at how much this person was willing to spend at the drop of a hat. I see someone carelessly jumping on planes, spending thousands of dollars without blinking, and I start to wonder if the person may be bipolar and experiencing a manic episode.

> "I start to wonder if the person may be bipolar and experiencing a manic episode. " ...I would think that depends on how many thousands of dollars you have in the bank. It would be nuts to do this if you had no money to your name and were struggling to make ends meet, sure. But if you're got a high disposable income, or you know you can make it up with work, why not? I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Stevie, an…

To me it wasn't just the cost, it was jumping on a plane instantly when there was no particular advantage to it.

Salespeople who are too aggressive frighten prospects, and his target is a billionaire who hears from all sorts of people who want something from him. If he were sincerely after the Zap name, I think he would have been much better off pursuing it consistently over 6 months, rather than in a dramatic, unprepared rush. Especially since this particular name is a nice-to-have.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#105

Post by Peroni » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:29 PM UTC

spitx wrote: post #55

Peroni wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...you're comfortable blowing several thousand dollars on what, lets be honest, is a very, very unlikely chance at securing a domain name. Considering the context I have to vehemently disagree. Steve's really well known in the UK tech scene. He's a regular attendee & speaker at the Hacker News London meet-ups. Acceptance into the YC program would have vindicated his ambitions. YC is seen as almost mythical in this pa…

...when there are an insane number of VC's & angel investors in the UK. The constant gripe of U.K. based talent is that nothing ever gets funded there. At least not at the rate or the fluidity with which it does in the valley. Besides this maverick ex-con of an angel, Xavier Niel, who claims to have invested in some 700 startups to the tune of almost $150,000 a pop, who are these angels and VCs you talk about?

It's certainly harder to get funding but by no means impossible. The likes of Stefan Glaeznar in London is a good example of someone with the capital, experience and willingness to invest in early stage start-ups.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#106

Post by wpietri » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

CaveTech wrote: post #9

Honestly I don't get it. While the story is cool, it really just seems like you're comfortable blowing several thousand dollars on what, lets be honest, is a very, very unlikely chance at securing a domain name. I know this story speaks of SV culture in some way; huge risk, huge rewards and the idea that no one can stop you. If the venture pays off, it makes you a hero. If it doesn't, well you get a cool story. But y…

I'm with you on this. Marc Andreessen was the closing speaker at the Lean Startup conference yesterday. One of his key points was that the pendulum of SV culture has swung too far in favor of failure for failure's sake.

His quote, via Gigaom: "We joke around the office that the worst is the fetish for failure. You want to preserve the good of the idea when it comes to pivoting, but you don’t want people to be intentionally encouraged to fail. Maybe it’s time to add a bit more stigma."

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#107

Post by wpietri » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

tetomb wrote: post #57

paulsutter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good domains are valuable, so a few thousand pounds is a small amount to risk. Zap.com is a really good domain. His approach was smart. A billionaire is too busy to discuss the sale of a domain, but if you do manage to catch his interest, he may well give it to you free/cheap because it isn't an asset he spends time worrying about. I love the conservative objections here. Stunts like this only work if most people are…

But the more valuable it is the more unlikely it is that it will be given away. Is spending time and money on the extremely small chance of getting hold of zap.com smarter than using those efforts to get hold of zap.co or zap.me? How much more is zap.com worth to your business over other alternatives? If a few days and a few thousand pounds isn't worth much to him then I understand but if resources are scarce, using…

For a startup, time and energy are always scarce. Payments are a hard space to break into. Putting even 1 second into a particular name is a mistake if that isn't the highest priority.

And given that Paul Graham turned Stevie Graham down for not having thought things through, rather than for lack of a good domain name, then I'd say the time and money was wasted. With those resources he could have conducted 20 user tests against prototypes. If PG was wrong about his concern about the business model, Stevie Graham would have had real evidence from real users. And, if as is more likely, PG was right, then Stevie Graham would have discovered the problem before he was pitching somebody so important to the future of his company.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#108

Post by bconway » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 6:54 PM UTC

If there's one thing that administering, taking part in, or hearing about interviews over the past few decades has taught me, it's that you never did as adjective as you think you did. In fact, you're usually pretty far off the mark.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#109

Post by hornbaker » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 7:06 PM UTC

From Reuters: Zap.Com Corporation, incorporated in 1999, is a shell company. The Company was established for the purpose of creating and operating a global network of independently owned Web sites. Harbinger Group Inc., the Company's principal stockholder owns approximately 98% of its outstanding common stock. As of December 31, 2011, the Company has no business operations. During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company had no revenue.

"So you're telling me there's a chance." - Lloyd

Zap is a great name. But there's no harm in starting with PayWithZap.com, like you're currently doing, then acquiring zap.com down the road when you have real capital or revenue. Owning zap.com now is a premature optimization, a nice-to-have.

Re: How I got a YC interview as a single founder and blew it at the final hurdle

#110

Post by MrMan » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 7:09 PM UTC

jackgavigan wrote: post #70

sjtgraham wrote: post #66

Further to the money fixation. Has no one considered that I might have actually tried to raise money from Falcone? When I get him in a room, you can bet that I'll be trying to get the domain and some capital from him before I'll try to buy it off of him with my own cash. What do you think is more likely to be successful, a billionaire throwing down a relatively small amount of coin to invest or him hearing out an off…

Wait. Isn't Falcone one of the bad guys in 'Batman Begins'?

Falcone is a punch line in Real Life. This whole story is ridiculous on many levels. If Robert Altman were alive he would remake "The Player" set in HackerNews, err, Silicon Valley.