Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#111

Post by diafygi » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

sidcool wrote: post #47

pgt wrote: post #40

MyPetrolPump is genius. It's last-mile delivery for gas (or Uber for gas), but solving a security and logistics problem for a high-value market. Only qualified truck drivers can move trucks, and you pay them per hour. So now you refuel the trucks behind closed doors while the truck is parked overnight and you only have to secure access for the petrol driver.

I feel there is also a room for mobile superchargers. They can come to your house and fully charge your car in half an hour, rather than waiting for hours on home voltage.

I believe that's what Freewire (https://freewiretech.com/) is trying to do.

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#112

Post by psychrometer » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

pontifier wrote: post #10

Here are the ideas that I think have the most potential... talar: Huge potential here. Cars are on their way out, and scheduled grocery delivery can replace it. spotless materials: Coatings can make a huge difference in the way we interact with materials... in fact, for the most part, that's all we interact with. better coatings make things better. encellin: I believe that interacting with our bodies on a more finely…

Walmart does grocery delivery at zero markup. They have announced but not begun to fridge deliveries. What does Talar have that distinguishes it?

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#113

Post by mrbombastic » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #41

firtoz wrote: post #12

I am currently participating in another accelerator in London called Antler; and I have been exposed to ideas from 70 entrepreneurs. We are presenting to investors this week. Also I am in YC Startup School too, which allows you to see what's coming up in the world, and that's awesome too. It's amazing to see that a significant percentage (~30%) of ideas they have come up with have been also thought of by others e.g.…

It's because ideas are the easy part. How many people thought of Uber before it existed? Probably everyone that has ever had to book a taxi.

Would guess schlep blindness caused a lot of people to dismiss the idea, a whole lot of groundwork and legal headaches besides just making an app to request a car. http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#114

Post by mdorazio » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

fra wrote: post #104

pier25 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda agree. I just don't see the value in 90% of those ideas even if they are well executed. Maybe I'm getting old too but it seems most of these propositions are based on the premise of making something attractive and getting funding from VCs wanting to diversify their investments and play the lottery. The lowest hanging fruit in tech has already been taken years ago and the human needs haven't changed that much.…

I vehemently disagree with you. There are million dollar checks laying on the pavement, you just have to spend a bit of time outside of software engineering to see it. So much time is waiting executing rote processes by hand across industries, and billions of dollars are spent with the likes of Accenture to build custom applications.

That's rarely because of a lack of technology, though. Entrenched business processes, human bias, "old boy networks", fear of losing jobs, etc. are far bigger factors in things outside of SV often sucking. You can build the perfect solution for a problem at an amazing price and Accenture would still win because the people making the decisions want Accenture, not the actual best solution.

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#115

Post by pier25 » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

fra wrote: post #104

pier25 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda agree. I just don't see the value in 90% of those ideas even if they are well executed. Maybe I'm getting old too but it seems most of these propositions are based on the premise of making something attractive and getting funding from VCs wanting to diversify their investments and play the lottery. The lowest hanging fruit in tech has already been taken years ago and the human needs haven't changed that much.…

I vehemently disagree with you. There are million dollar checks laying on the pavement, you just have to spend a bit of time outside of software engineering to see it. So much time is waiting executing rote processes by hand across industries, and billions of dollars are spent with the likes of Accenture to build custom applications.

> So much time is waiting executing rote processes by hand across industries

I've personally seen many times how companies prefer doing those hand processes, even after having paid me for developing a solution to solves that. Humans are strange creatures.

The big problems that most people want solved and can indeed be solved have already been solved. For the most part we're now in the phase of solving small problems, refining current solutions, and maybe creating new problems with its own set of solutions.

Of course there are many big problems that haven't been solved because those are extremely difficult and expensive to solve which falls outside of the realm of startups. For example an HIV vaccine, super efficient solar cells, cold fusion, efficient energy storage, brain computer interface, dark energy, dark matter, etc.

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#116

Post by gonehome » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

sidcool wrote: post #109

pgt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I considered this, but nothing beats hydrocarbon energy density. It seems more practical to swap out pre-charged cells like some electric scooter companies do, which would require an interchangeable format that might be obsoleted by newer tech every 5 years. Once we have supercapacitors and room temperature superconductors, a lot of these problems go away, though. Exciting times!

Swapping would be faster. I recollect that Tesla had such a system. Not sure where it went

They did a demo for the Model S and there was an Israeli EV company that had a similar model, but died.

There are a few problems with the swapping idea:

- People like to have ownership over their batteries (and the battery capacity)

- Logistics around swapping availability and costs

But the biggest one is:

- Charging continues to get faster and capacity continues to increase.

Whatever small amount of time is currently saved by swapping will be irrelevant by the time anyone could overcome the current obstacles to get something off the ground - it's a bad strategic bet.

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#117

Post by postscapes1 » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

After a quick browse through lists on both days:

- Where have all the IoT companies gone?

- Cool seeing machine learning being used inside applications (The audio analyzer to separate and boost voices for conference calls comes to mind)

- Surprised at how many "meh" reactions I had. Too many grocery/fashion and not enough bio/energy game changers and I left feeling mostly uninspired by overall visions.

More power to everyone hustling out there though.

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#118

Post by bch » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #90

whoisjuan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most ridiculous thing is not even the gift, but the fact that it is a Tandem bike (just because of the name). What's the rationale there? "Ohh their name is Tandem. Let's buy them a Tandem bike to convince them to accept our term sheet. It's our fiduciary responsibility to do this stupid thing". For me, that's just a red flag. How little can you add to a company besides money, that you have to resort to t…

Why not? Personal relationships are a part of why deals are made. Showing some whimsy and personal attention isn't going to hurt, and costs what? ~500?

Not really your point, but if somebody gifted a $500 tandem/boat anchor for a $30MM co, that might indeed be a red flag. A $500 tandem is probably a boat anchor no matter what the circumstances are...

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#119

Post by mdszy » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

okmokmz wrote: post #110

pontifier wrote: post #10

Here are the ideas that I think have the most potential... talar: Huge potential here. Cars are on their way out, and scheduled grocery delivery can replace it. spotless materials: Coatings can make a huge difference in the way we interact with materials... in fact, for the most part, that's all we interact with. better coatings make things better. encellin: I believe that interacting with our bodies on a more finely…

>talar: Huge potential here. Cars are on their way out, and scheduled grocery delivery can replace it. A ton of these already exist. Blue apron, Home Chef, Hello Fresh, Amazon (although I believe amazon is currently pickup only). Does talar do anything different than the already established companies? >spotless materials: Coatings can make a huge difference in the way we interact with materials... in fact, for the mo…

It seems like with Talar, their delivery people are literally coming into your home and stocking your pantry/fridge.

So now somehow these random delivery people all have to have keys to my apartment (including the main entrance)?

Why would I want some rando coming into my home and placing things? I have my food/ingredients spread across a few different cupboards in my apartment, how am I supposed to specify where I want things to go?

EDIT: Oh apparently it's

"Upon on signing up, your assigned House Manager will contact you to understand your buying and stocking preferences."

Yeah that really doesn't sound like something that will scale well.

And still wouldn't want some rando coming into my house and into my cupboards/fridge/etc. Really weird.

Re: Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

#120

Post by austenallred » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

elmar wrote: post #83

whoisjuan wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope not to sound like a jerk or get downvoted for this, but what's the point of quoting the article without adding at least an opinion or thought?

:) well I posted on a FYI - For Your Information only angle. My thoughts: seed valuations for YC Demo Day are probably on a all time high, VC's giving gifts to be able to get in rounds looks like something out of Silicon Valley HBO, ok I remembered everything on SV HBO is based on real life events.

> VC's giving gifts to be able to get in rounds looks like something out of Silicon Valley HBO

It's actually super common. I've probably received 20+ random gifts. Everything from shoes to jackets to bitcoin miners and bottles of wine (I don't drink).

If there's a $7.5m deal that will eventually be worth 10x that (say it returns $75m to the investor), a $200 tandem bike doesn't really move the needle.