How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#121

Post by joshvm » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 3:42 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #24

edent wrote: post #12

Am I missing something here? You can get $$$ and top quality advice for an _idea_ and then just turn around and say "bored now - let's do something else"? And then, so it seems, when that idea runs out you just say "uhhh... let's do this instead!" So, what are the YC people investing in? Two guys who seem pretty smart? I appreciate that you might need to pivot from "a social network for dogs" to "a social network for…

I had similar questions based on this: "In college I had started an ed-tech company, ClassOwl, that raised nearly a million in seed funding. My two cofounders and I attended StartX, an incubator affiliated with Stanford, but ultimately decided to finish our degrees instead of pursuing the startup dream." Am I understanding that right? Twice in two years this guy took other people's money for something and then quit?…

The app still exists, so it hasn't vanished off the face of the earth.

I'm concerned that graduates have the expectation that you an sit in a room, brainstorm and come up with a killer idea which will get millions in seed funding. That doesn't show that you're interested or knowledgeable in the field/problem area you're trying to solve. It sounds like the gold rush.

That's not to say that you shouldn't sit in a room and brainstorm, but sitting down and listing currently-hip ideas is a quick way to crash. Sit in a room and list current big problems that you have a lot of knowledge about!

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#122

Post by 31reasons » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 4:56 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #77

31reasons wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"Success" is such a vague concept Actually its not in terms of business. Success = Profit + Long term sustainability in doing so.

Actually it's not that either. Success in a business context means a positive rate of return on the resources invested. Or to refine one step further, a return that is positive and superior to the next best alternative for the deployment of said resources at a given level of risk.

So Profit.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#123

Post by ricardobeat » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 7:57 PM UTC

So what was FanHero? The website is now redirecting to imhomeapp.com (their latest pivot, I suppose), and the article doesn't explain at all.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#124

Post by mortdeus » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

I wrote a lengthy blog post in response to this post in hopes that it will help aspiring founders avoid a similar fate if their startup gets accepted into Y Combinator.

http://mortdeus.blogspot.com/2015/01/y-combinator.html

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#125

Post by kethinov » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 8:31 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #85

The "impostor syndrome" meme would have us believe that if you feel like an impostor, don't worry -- it's a positive sign that you're actually a modest, shy kind of genius. But sometimes it just means that you really are out of your depth.

Impostor syndrome is also frequently abused by successful people who want a socially acceptable way of denying that much of their success actually was due to luck and timing.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#126

Post by CPLX » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 8:40 PM UTC

31reasons wrote: post #122

CPLX wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's not that either. Success in a business context means a positive rate of return on the resources invested. Or to refine one step further, a return that is positive and superior to the next best alternative for the deployment of said resources at a given level of risk.

So Profit.

Profitability and return on investment are related concepts but are not the same thing.

Instagram, among many others, most certainly generated ample return on its initial invested resources without ever generating profits.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#127

Post by GoLocalApps » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

31reasons wrote: post #122

CPLX wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's not that either. Success in a business context means a positive rate of return on the resources invested. Or to refine one step further, a return that is positive and superior to the next best alternative for the deployment of said resources at a given level of risk.

So Profit.

ROI /= Profit.

See Amazon (or as noted below, Instagram).

However I also think that is a problem for many people who want to startup. They don't usually think about how they'll show a profit and manage to run their business within that profit. Investor money gets them started and an exit by selling an unprofitable yet growing business to a larger company is the goal.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#128

Post by wpietri » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #27

wpietri wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had similar questions based on this: "In college I had started an ed-tech company, ClassOwl, that raised nearly a million in seed funding. My two cofounders and I attended StartX, an incubator affiliated with Stanford, but ultimately decided to finish our degrees instead of pursuing the startup dream." Am I understanding that right? Twice in two years this guy took other people's money for something and then quit?…

Unless there's some kind of actual contract (leave before X years and you have to return Y% of the funding), I don't think that should be very surprising. People start on something (even a funded something) and then change to other things all the time, if their interests change or another opportunity arises. For example, a portion of the people who win $30k/year National Science Foundation graduate research fellowshi…

Contracts are to business what skeletons are to people. They explain something of the raw structure, but little more. (Also, if you find yourself looking at it, something has gone wrong.)

Every time I have taken investment, I have seen it as a commitment to see a venture through. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but I am going to give it all I have. So no, I don't think, "gosh, I found something more fun to do," is a legitimate reason for walking away from a startup. If that's how somebody thinks, then they are not cut out for starting a company, because there are always points where almost anything else will be interesting or appealing.

Fellowships are different. I'm advising a new fellowship program right now and, like all education, it's seen as an opportunity to help someone learn. We expect a certain percentage of people to go on to do the thing we want people to do, but if not they'll be taking the knowledge and doing something else, which is also fine.

My concern here is really with the system. If we are pressing money upon people who aren't suited for it, then something's pretty wrong. Nobody should be "trying a startup for a bit".

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#129

Post by GoLocalApps » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #102

> We researched Bitcoins, smart devices, 3D printing, biometrics, and a host of other industries. Is this common? As in people first decide they want to do a "startup thing". Then they fish for idea. Just curious, is this how most startup idea begin? I kind of thought it was always someone first having a burning and interesting idea that eventually they want to develop and it gets developed as a startup or patent or…

Probably more common than you'd think. Brainstorming for new ideas or looking for something that doesn't work as well as you think it should or seems to be "missing" is a valid way of trying to start a business. You may not be passionate about it, but if it can make money, you can be passionate about that.