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Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

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Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#21

Post by longerthoughts »

>Unicorn: Scooter companies that rent by the minute lose 2 percent of their fleet per day to damage and theft, and that means customers don’t have a safe scooter available when they want one.

Is this really offering an attractive alternative to Bird, Lime, etc. from a customer perspective? It seems like they're solving more of a scooter company problem than a customer problem. As a customer I can't imagine a case where I'd prefer to rent for weeks at a time vs. single-use or buying my own scooter.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#22

Post by longerthoughts »

_uhtu wrote: post #20
longerthoughts wrote: post #17

>Basement: A social network for your close friends Seems like this would impose some serious limits on ad revenue generation (assuming that's how they plan to monetize). With only close friends the volume of friend-generated content would presumably be much lower than that of Facebook or Instagram (even if those individuals are generating more content), meaning you have a much lower threshold beyond which you start p…

But also, possibly, you'd have a lot more and a lot deeper interaction. This could be the kind of app Facebook was originally, where you added your friend and shared basically anything random without a focus on getting likes. Dumb inside jokes, unfiltered photos, etc. Kinda like the texting groups friends often have these days. That's market that could potentially use some optimizaiton as texting isn't a great format…

I completely get the appeal from a user perspective. From a revenue perspective, are you saying deeper interactions could be used to justify more expensive ad buys to counter lower volume?

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#23

Post by Cenk »

longerthoughts wrote: post #21

>Unicorn: Scooter companies that rent by the minute lose 2 percent of their fleet per day to damage and theft, and that means customers don’t have a safe scooter available when they want one. Is this really offering an attractive alternative to Bird, Lime, etc. from a customer perspective? It seems like they're solving more of a scooter company problem than a customer problem. As a customer I can't imagine a case whe…

This one stood out to me (next to the Bento box thing that’s a catering company dressed up as a startup) as the strangest. If you’re renting a $350 scooter for $50 a month does that really make sense?

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#24

Post by Cenk »

giarc wrote: post #3

> Bento Club: Customers pre-order food from a select set of restaurants, and Bento picks it up and brings all orders to a shared pickup spot within one block of the customer’s office. Unless it's 10x cheaper, I don't see how this is any better than Uber eats, Doordash etc (that actually bring food to your door).

I thought we’d been through this?

https://sf.eater.com/2017/1/10/14231188/bento-closed-san-fra...

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#25

Post by elliekelly »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #15
draz wrote: post #12

Had the same idea as Keynua. I quickly (foolishly?) dismissed it because of Deep Fake. How would they ensure trust in the video?

I don't think it was foolish. Its definitely going to be a challenge to identify fake videos in the near future

Perhaps 2FA through facial recognition + voice authentication?

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#27

Post by chadash »

Mizza wrote: post #19

Is anybody from Prometheus here? Very curious about the tech and the unit economics. Is $3 a goal, or the price today?

This seemed like the most interesting startup in the batch to me. For those who didn't want to comb through 85 startup descriptions, Prometheus claims that they can "remove CO2 from the air and turn it into gasoline" for about $3.00/gallon. If that's a number they can eventually get closer to the current cost of manufacturing gasoline, well then this is gonna be a $500 billion company.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#28

Post by phowat »

longerthoughts wrote: post #21

>Unicorn: Scooter companies that rent by the minute lose 2 percent of their fleet per day to damage and theft, and that means customers don’t have a safe scooter available when they want one. Is this really offering an attractive alternative to Bird, Lime, etc. from a customer perspective? It seems like they're solving more of a scooter company problem than a customer problem. As a customer I can't imagine a case whe…

The only use case I can think of is if I'm traveling and staying some time in the same city.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#29

Post by jdreyfuss »

longerthoughts wrote: post #11
giarc wrote: post #3

> Bento Club: Customers pre-order food from a select set of restaurants, and Bento picks it up and brings all orders to a shared pickup spot within one block of the customer’s office. Unless it's 10x cheaper, I don't see how this is any better than Uber eats, Doordash etc (that actually bring food to your door).

Seems like they're trying to squeeze somewhere between pickup services (e.g. MealPal) and delivery services (e.g. Uber Eats). Cheaper than delivery thanks to reduced labor and logistics costs, more expensive than pickup services because those costs still exist. I guess they're banking on people being willing to pay a little more than pickup service rates in exchange for more options.

Yeah that was my read too. Taking the MealPal offering (cheaper lunches in exchange for pre-ordering and limiting your selection) and adding group delivery to it (adding a bit of cost in exchange for convenience).

If they essentially do "MealPal, but delivered," then I could see it working. Noticeable price point difference from other delivery options, but maintaining a range of restaurant meal options for people to choose from.

But yeah, they look like sink or swim based largely on what price they can offer consumers

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#30

Post by longerthoughts »

phowat wrote: post #28
longerthoughts wrote: post #21

>Unicorn: Scooter companies that rent by the minute lose 2 percent of their fleet per day to damage and theft, and that means customers don’t have a safe scooter available when they want one. Is this really offering an attractive alternative to Bird, Lime, etc. from a customer perspective? It seems like they're solving more of a scooter company problem than a customer problem. As a customer I can't imagine a case whe…

The only use case I can think of is if I'm traveling and staying some time in the same city.

Yeah, that settles the Unicorn vs. buy comparison but is Unicorn better than Bird/Lime in that case?
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