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Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

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Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#221

Post by snowwrestler »

dehrmann wrote: post #198
dagmx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best example is when Dropbox was announced and how many people scoffed at the triviality of cloning data around.

Dropbox is in a weird place right now because its free tier is too small, the pair tier is too big and expensive, a $5 tier doesn't work financially, and Google, Microsoft, and Apple offer 80% as good solutions with 2.5x as much space for free. For corporate customers, again, they're probably Exchange or GSuite shops, so they can use one of those storage providers. Dropbox addresses a real problem, it's just that the…

Dropbox’s killer app is: simply working. I have access to and use both Google Drive and O365 One Drive at work and it is shocking how often I have problems with them.

To be clear, my expected rate of problems for this functionality is “never.” The only service I have that experience with is Dropbox. With GDrive and One Drive I have seen folders lose sync, files get stuck syncing, and inexplicable conflicts.

In addition, sharing outside my org is way easier and more reliable with Dropbox.

I agree that copying files around seems like it should be trivial. Somehow it’s not, though. I don’t have an explanation, just observations from trying to get real work done on a Mac.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#222

Post by rchaud »

fallingknife wrote: post #108

People misunderstand YC's business model. They invest 125K for a 7% stake in the company. That's a <$2 million valuation. If this company sells a couple thousand (at $120/y), YC breaks even. If they sell a couple million, YC gets back 1000x on their money. It's a great investment.

Does 7% of ownership equity entitle them to 7% of revenue? Or even profits? Equity agreements can be set up to pay generous dividends, but I thought the point of an equity stake for a VC was to cash in when there's a new funding round or when the company IPOs.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#223

Post by dillondoyle »

Wow this is relevant to me right now and I would love any (probably a bit blind to you) opinions:

We are thinking of applying for a political accelerator. Probably a long shot but who knows and IDK even know if I want to spent near 100% of my time on something like this.

But this is exactly my concern - that maybe we don't have enough of an 'app'?

Right now the functionality sits inside a plugin on a 3rd party service. It's pretty full featured though replicating features of another standalone organizing app but within a different context.

This is also building tools on top of cross-platform messaging so that's also relying on more 3rd parties - FB particularly i think probably could get rid of Messenger API they keep restricting it gradually. But the others are more stable and email/sms/chat will always be open. Read hear all the time don't base 100% of your business on FB... Which this isn't but still it's a big value of it.

I also built other organizing tools that work together with this that might expand features to be more of a multi-product, but again probably 50% of that is built to work with another 3rd party SaaS!

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#224

Post by chaostheory »

dagmx wrote: post #93
onion2k wrote: post #13

Literally every time you see a startup release a product that seems trivial it's because that's not the full story. You're judging without complete information. For example, the public face might be a simple Mac calendar widget, but that could be the gateway to calendar sharing, native office apps, meeting booking, event management, ticket sales, corporate flight sales etc. Building an audience with a cheap tool that…

I think the best example is when Dropbox was announced and how many people scoffed at the triviality of cloning data around.

Everyone said it was a dead startup based on a feature. They were wrong.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#225

Post by onion2k »

vbezhenar wrote: post #146
onion2k wrote: post #13

Literally every time you see a startup release a product that seems trivial it's because that's not the full story. You're judging without complete information. For example, the public face might be a simple Mac calendar widget, but that could be the gateway to calendar sharing, native office apps, meeting booking, event management, ticket sales, corporate flight sales etc. Building an audience with a cheap tool that…

$10/month is not a cheap tool. I'm paying $90/year for Intellij Idea which is my main development tool. IMO that cost is extremely prohibitive for most users and it's definitely not a way to get plenty of people on board to monetize it later.

If you're someone whose main work tool is your calendar (C-level execs, PAs, salespeople, project managers, etc) then that puts it in exactly the same ballpark as you and Intellij Idea.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#226

Post by frenchy »

leetcrew wrote: post #202
wtmt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every comment has to be suffixed with “for me” or “IMO”, it would be quite tedious to read. In most cases it’s clear. In cases like this, it could also be that the writer isn’t earning a six figure USD income or is in a country where even a $10 here and a $10 there add up relative to one’s income. It’s also very easy to say that X is most valuable and Y is nothing when you have very limited X and have a lot of Y.

on the contrary, it's very important for people to distinguish clearly between statements of objective fact and personal opinions. they ought to do it more often. imo. more on topic, time is inherently more valuable than money due to its fundamental scarcity. there are only 24 hours in a day, and only so many days in a person's life. if you have time, you can always trade it for money. but if you have money, you can'…

That's overly reductive. In many cases, it's easier to make more money from existing money than it is to make money from just time.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#228

Post by rchaud »

snarkypixel wrote: post #199

Why invest in Microsoft back then? It was just a Basic compiler. Need to start somewhere before leaping to the next step, and momemtum creates momemtum. Amazon started with books. Paypal started with Ebay sellers or something. Airbnb started with couch sharing. Etc.

> Amazon started with books.

Bezos would not have needed YC's measly $125K when the bank of Mom and Dad were offering double that.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#229

Post by brhsagain »

Did nobody bother to read the original post and OP’s responses? They are clearly aiming to be more than just a calendar, but rather a centralized place and improved UX for all of your notifications, including apps that don’t currently support easy notifications (e.g. Github).

You may not think that’s valuable, they may not succeed at realizing that vision, but it is clearly not a case of “Mac only calendar menu bar app gets YC funding.”

The lack of intellectual humility here is alarming. I don’t see the value in this thing selected by a 16-year investor, who actually has skin in the game to pick successful startups? Maybe there is something I’m not seeing. No, that can’t be it, YC must just be stupid.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#230

Post by rchaud »

krm01 wrote: post #174

According to OP, YC would have lost its ways had it invested in TheFacebook. Why would anyone invest in a harvard exclusive social network.

Exclusivity sells. A social network of thousands of engaged Harvard students and alumni can be monetized in all sorts of ways, even today.
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