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YC: Requests for Startups

ycombinator.com

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Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#141

Post by eschneider »

candiddevmike wrote: post #96
fakedang wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I would argue that YC might be the best place for Open Source and Dev Tools, because you start along with a large cohort of former and current YC startups who will be willing to try out your product. Plus the YC partners actually have experience in working with successful companies in this space, so that's actually equity that they would deserve. That being said, dev tools is one of the sectors they hav…

For good reason: most of the dev tools companies have been commercial duds. Lots of traction/GitHub stars maybe, but none of those amounted to real sales.

There's often good money to be made in dev tools, but it's not always VC-level money.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#142

Post by samsolomon »

ibash wrote: post #57
brettv2 wrote: post #51

> NEW ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SOFTWARE Very curious if anyone knows how to pull this off. There's so much value to be unlocked but it's just impossible to break through. I've personally met three very talented founders that tried and failed (one was accepted to YC as a mid-market ERP and successfully pivoted into an application tracking system) and failed very quickly. I'm guessing an important feature would be…

I’ve met a few people who’ve been on the buyer side of an erp migration. It’s a multi million dollar affair that takes years. Two approaches I can think of: 1. Target mid market or smaller and grow with customers (will be slow) 2. Take a front-door-wrapper approach

Or 3. Target a small slice of ERP/CRM tooling and gradually evolve into something more fully-featured.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#143

Post by pjmorris »

nonethewiser wrote: post #119
itsdavesanders wrote: post #87

I find it strange that they would write "The hollowing out of US manufacturing has led to social and political division and left us in a precarious place geopolitically." And then suggest the answer to that is robotics and ML, which does nothing but exacerbate the social and political divisions - unless government and enterprise make the hard choices to provide a real safety net. And then, if we do that, it doesn't m…

> And then suggest the answer to that is robotics and ML, which does nothing but exacerbate the social and political divisions Maybe it does those things. But clearly it doesnt do “nothing but” those things. It brings manufacturing back which is the entire point. I really think you’re ignoring the whole point to go off on a highly partisan political tangent.

> It brings manufacturing back which is the entire point.

If the point is to bring back manufacturing salaries in the quantity and amount previously available, it's not the entire point.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#145

Post by n2d4 »

gavinhoward wrote: post #77

I am building a company that falls under two categories (commercial Open Source and developer tools based on internal tools), but I would never take YC money for it. Because of that stake, they want an "exit" in some form, and the drive to that exit will pave the road to user-hostile software and make it the path of least resistance.

I'll just put my two cents as a YC alum here — I never felt pressured to "do an exit", and YC is probably one of the least pushing investors in that field by a margin.

Though, a lot of advice given to YC companies is on how to build big companies that scale (unicorn+), so if you don't plan on doing that, you may not get very much out of the program.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#146

Post by mandmandam »

nonethewiser wrote: post #127
eltondegeneres wrote: post #122

Jared Friedman and Gustaf Alströmer want to make it easier to kill other human beings, and turn a profit while doing it. Shame on them and anyone else who works on "defense technology." > I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which…

In your opinion, should we not have any defense technology?

There's probably some middle ground between no defense tech whatsoever, and trillion dollar illegal wars and genocides.

Every American - and the rest of the world too - is paying that very real debt. We're all paying the opportunity cost too, and the societal cost. It will be paid for generations, and many of the true costs are incalculable.

Some very few people are making a tonne of money, and here, YC is saying they want a piece of that. I feel like they're not getting dragged enough for it tbh.

Right this moment the US is being investigated by the world's highest court for complicity in genocide. And YC is openly asking to invest in companies that directly enable and support such action.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#147

Post by pastacacioepepe »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #107

"Eliminating middlemen in healthcare" Unless YC is looking for a startup that lobbies against for-profit health insurance this is more like "eliminating middlemen and replacing them with our own in healthcare" "Uber for healthcare" now pivoting to "OpenAI for healthcare"

Healthcare has been "solved" already in many countries, it's just the USA that can't deal with it.

You don't need "disruption" or a technological revolution to fix healthcare, you just need socialism. Just look at what Cuba is doing for once and learn something.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#148

Post by SteveNuts »

samsolomon wrote: post #142
ibash wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve met a few people who’ve been on the buyer side of an erp migration. It’s a multi million dollar affair that takes years. Two approaches I can think of: 1. Target mid market or smaller and grow with customers (will be slow) 2. Take a front-door-wrapper approach

Or 3. Target a small slice of ERP/CRM tooling and gradually evolve into something more fully-featured.

The problem is ERP needs to be incredibly tightly integrated into the whole business from end-to-end.

You can't only offer raw materials tracking, but not accounting and shipping. There's just not a lot of value to the business unless you have everything coupled.

The MVP for an ERP is essentially, a fully featured and battle-tested system which is very expensive and time consuming to build before it's profitable.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#149

Post by namdnay »

jbverschoor wrote: post #63

Small comment about the "Stable Coins": > $136b worth of stablecoins have been issued to date but the opportunity seems much more immense still. Only about seven million people have transacted with stablecoins to date, while more than half a billion live in countries with 30%+ inflation. U.S. banks hold $17b in customer deposits which are all up for grabs as well. And yet the major stablecoin issuers can be counted o…

I can’t help wonder what advantage a blockchain brings to this. At the end of the day if you’re takings deposits and issuing claims on those deposits you’re a bank. You can wave your hands all you want, regulators are going to catch up with you

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#150

Post by mjhay »

hef19898 wrote: post #29
duxup wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the AI line in there is interesting, it feels more than a little tacked on. I can't help but imagine some startup with limited manufacturing knowledge ultimately offering what is at best some incremental improvement in some process that isn't enough to support the start up. Or at least that's what I've seen from start ups entering areas that I've had experience in.

They really talked about ML-automated robotics in that blog... I swear, I dodn't read it before commenting. This line >> Companies like SpaceX and Tesla have trained an entire generation of engineers in how to build an American company that makes physical products but operates like a startup. is sending chills down my back so. After all, Tesla was almost bankcrupted by their drive to automate everything. And Tesla's…

Whatever you say about the rest of that, dethroning SAP would be a noble goal.
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