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Always keep a backup of your database! :-) In this case, I think it is pretty clear the execution is worth a heck of a lot more than the idea.
I bet the guys behind CouchSurfing are kicking themselves about now. http://techcrunch.com/2006/06/29/couchsurfing-deletes-itself... Always keep a backup of your database! :-) In this case, I think it is pretty clear the execution is worth a heck of a lot more than the idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's something to be said about knowing when to fold, and not to view these nobody-believed-in-us-but-we-overcame edge cases as motivation to play a losing hand. There will always be false negatives, ideas that are rejected by angels but which later become enormously successful. However, if the industry's finest angels are all passing, and you can literally find nobody to invest, it is probably a wise deci…
I can think of cases where startups have found no one to invest, and have ended up doing well. This is where something like YC can help, actually; we can tell people candidly whether we think it's the investors who are wrong, or the startup.
I bet the guys behind CouchSurfing are kicking themselves about now. http://techcrunch.com/2006/06/29/couchsurfing-deletes-itself... Always keep a backup of your database! :-) In this case, I think it is pretty clear the execution is worth a heck of a lot more than the idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's something to be said about knowing when to fold, and not to view these nobody-believed-in-us-but-we-overcame edge cases as motivation to play a losing hand. There will always be false negatives, ideas that are rejected by angels but which later become enormously successful. However, if the industry's finest angels are all passing, and you can literally find nobody to invest, it is probably a wise deci…
I can think of cases where startups have found no one to invest, and have ended up doing well. This is where something like YC can help, actually; we can tell people candidly whether we think it's the investors who are wrong, or the startup.
If YC chooses to invest in an applicant, it probably offers great advice to the start-up. If it chooses not to, would you consider that rejection candid advice that the start-up is wrong?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can think of cases where startups have found no one to invest, and have ended up doing well. This is where something like YC can help, actually; we can tell people candidly whether we think it's the investors who are wrong, or the startup.
> we can tell people candidly whether we think it's the investors who are wrong, or the startup. If YC chooses to invest in an applicant, it probably offers great advice to the start-up. If it chooses not to, would you consider that rejection candid advice that the start-up is wrong?
This might be a stupid question but what do you do after you secure such a large series of funding? Go on mass expansion? Would anyone mind telling me how startups typically use this kind of money (closing Series with 100+mil)?
"They're probably going to need the money for customer acquisition. AirBnB is in the highly competitive travel space, where it's very expensive to acquire customers. From Paris, AirBnB has the top Google ad for "vacation rental", which has to be a pretty expensive click. "
via http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-billion-funding-dst-an...
This might be a stupid question but what do you do after you secure such a large series of funding? Go on mass expansion? Would anyone mind telling me how startups typically use this kind of money (closing Series with 100+mil)?
* Mainstream promotional marketing
* Direct sales efforts (identifying target markets, staffing sales teams to pursue them)
* Business model changes to ramp up customer acquisition at the expense of profitability
* Rollups of related companies and acquisition of complementary companies.
* International expansion
* Lobbying
And there's just always something to be said for having a war chest; in today's climate, if you can lock in a very long runway at favorable terms because it's obvious you have a great shot at financial success, why not? The saying goes, "when you're hitting your numbers, you're in charge; when you're not, your investors are in charge". Even with more outside investors, Airbnb probably isn't giving up control over their destiny.