Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 288 posts

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#231

Post by Suncho »

ig1 wrote: post #228

I didn't get a chance to read all of them but this was my reasoning on the ones I read: (note I'm excluding founder background from evaluation as almost none of the posts mention it; but it's generally considered a key factor for angels) WedWell: Large market, hacking it with initial customers, however no unique insight, no clear customer acquisition strategy in an expensive market, lots of dead startups in this spac…

Gresham Dollar: Interesting idea, lacks users validation and idea doesn’t seem to have been fully thought through. Underestimates adoption difficulty of online currencies. Pass.

If I could go back and rewrite that description, I would. The idea, at least on the economic side of things, is fairly fully fleshed out. The key thing, which I didn't even mention in my initial description, is the timer/expiration mechanism:

Rather than offer on-demand exchange between USD and GD, we will automatically exchange GD for USD after it remains in a user's account for a period of time. When an amount of GD is transferred from one account to another, that GD's lifetime resets. Consequently, the more that GD circulates, the less we will convert GD into USD and the less we tap into our USD reserves.

Here's a white paper (also linked in another comment) that describes it in more detail:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2jhCMrrxoeONVNQTVd6NG5pNz...

Other online currencies are not both pegged to USD and handed out for free, so Greshm Dollar doesn't face some of the same adoption challenges that they do. Instead of thinking about Greshm Dollar as just another online currency, try thinking of it as a payment/credit system with a basic income attached to it. Or like PayPal but with free money continuously added to your account.

You can think about it that way for user adoption purposes, but, of course, that's not the whole picture.

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#232

Post by jecoulom »

I love the WedWell concept - saying I've been a bridesmaid in five weddings and a guest at countless others, I saw firsthand the laborious process that close friends go through when planning their wedding. So many details, so many vendors to choose from. I like how this process helps to streamline the overwhelming and time consuming process of planning a wedding from the very beginning. There's also great incentive for vendors to come on board and deliver good service through the ratings system. I also appreciate that the bidding/contest is only one week long, allowing busy professionals to continue on with their lives and not spend every waking moment planning their wedding.

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#234

Post by tomplace »

ig1 wrote: post #228

I didn't get a chance to read all of them but this was my reasoning on the ones I read: (note I'm excluding founder background from evaluation as almost none of the posts mention it; but it's generally considered a key factor for angels) WedWell: Large market, hacking it with initial customers, however no unique insight, no clear customer acquisition strategy in an expensive market, lots of dead startups in this spac…

Ig1. Absolutely it is enough to build a sustainable business. Lets look at NY as an example. Over 7.2MM households and at our low end price point and a 0.5% penetration (36K customers) that’s over $1MM annual recurring revenue for electric alone. That's a drop in the bucket when you look at how we scale. 1) 15 deregulated states + DC: well over 50MM households with the ability to switch suppliers 2) commercial - over 3MM businesses 3) natural gas - upsell on gas to a subset of the above market (gas has fewer deregulated states) 4) deeper penetration into our markets through marketing and education.

Traditionally this market is underserved due to the customer acquisition cost (CAC) but our differentiator is to use social media / referral based rewards in addition to more traditional physical marketing and partnerships to drive sales at a low CAC

Finally this will be an incredibly sticky service, we are expecting hyper low attrition once acquired

We believe there is a $100MM opportunity here.

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#235

Post by vishalkgupta »

buckshot wrote: post #157

If there was one line to write what you thought: Brightwork: A bit toyey Gresham Dollar: Mad Author Investments: Fairly dull WedWell: Boring Cadwolf: Could be used in VR TruSert: Ok Eat My Dust: TF Tiz.com: Interesting Brodlist: Fantasy Wanderlust: Really. Probably the unicorn so far. Pikii: Ok Jury Board: No idea Pinboard: Why? Utiliz: Ok Feynman Nano: Best AutoMicroFarm: Cute Krewe: Doesn't fit in Hacksplaining: Wh…

Vishal from WedWell here. Lol.. Zenefits was boring.. so thank you?

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#236

Post by Suncho »

zb wrote: post #222
Suncho wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a normal "bank run", the people are afraid that if they don't exchange the bad currency now at a discount, they will get a worse exchange later. But in this case there is a guaranty that waiting only 30 days they will be converted to dollars. Hmm. Not exactly. Initially, this is true, but that's just an early part of the bootstrapping process. Further down the road, the total amount of GD will be greater than the…

If people don't trust their GD to convert to USD in 30 days, the only way for them to get rid of it is to spend it. Who would accept it (at par value) under such circumstances?

Who would accept it (at par value) under such circumstances?

Right. So, during the initial phase, all GD will be guaranteed to convert to USD when it expires because we'll literally have enough USD in our reserves. During this first phase, we will sign merchants to contracts that require them to accept GD at par with USD (i.e. one price) so a dollar is a dollar.

If there are people who happen to be paranoid about Greshm Dollar during that time, they will be able to spend their money to get rid of it. If they're not paranoid about it, they'll still probably spend it before they spend their USD because a dollar is worth more to them than something that will become a dollar in x number of days.

Then, later on, once we've established that GD is continually circulating and that our USD reserves are stable, we start increasing the supply of GD to be greater than our USD reserves. This process will be very transparent. Nobody will get screwed over. We won't make any promises to pay and then go back on them. For example, if we decide to only back GD at 90%, merchants can decline to renew their contracts.

It's all outlined in my white paper:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2jhCMrrxoeONVNQTVd6NG5pNz...

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#237

Post by vishalkgupta »

ig1 wrote: post #228

I didn't get a chance to read all of them but this was my reasoning on the ones I read: (note I'm excluding founder background from evaluation as almost none of the posts mention it; but it's generally considered a key factor for angels) WedWell: Large market, hacking it with initial customers, however no unique insight, no clear customer acquisition strategy in an expensive market, lots of dead startups in this spac…

RE WedWell: I think it's less about unique insight, and more about timing/positioning. Couples expect to communicate with vendors over the phone/text, they don't want to write paper checks, they want vendors to find them. We're doing a lot of things that do not scale right now, but doing our best to keep clients happy.

I will say that initial customer acquisition in NYC is our hyper focus right now. The great thing about opening this discussion up on HN is that there are so many minds out there looking at your problems. I'd be happy to hear any ideas on how to best acquire these clients initially. We're doing a bit of FB ads, and think this will be a heavy marketing lift. But as we monetize our first couple clients, we are getting a clearer picture of customer value.

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#238

Post by vishalkgupta »

shanacarp wrote: post #177

I knew very quickly that Feynman Nano was an in for me. I read through the comments, and when they mentioned they could coat grout, it became a definite in. While it is really obvious to coat medical implants, iv leads, ect - I know that pending material review, I'd be happy to buy a cutting board coated with the stuff for chicken and meat. I even think they would be smart to figure out how to coat woods, granite/sto…

RE WedWell: Thanks for the comment. Funny enough we're moving slightly from "WedWell: Vendors bid for your wedding" more towards "WedWell: A more efficient way to plan your wedding". (Dang- Depending on how long the voting is going, we'd love to change our title!)

It's really less about cost savings (which may happen anyway with scale/competition among vendors), but more about efficiencies in the process. Less face to face meetings, less paper checks, more collaboration among vendors before the day of the event. So, as a potential client, I think you're hitting it on the head. It is more like vendor dating than anything else. Love for you to give the platform a go, and give us some feedback.

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#239

Post by vishalkgupta »

argonaut wrote: post #79

A lot of people are evaluating too much based on the ideas, rather than the background of the founders and whether that background gives them the experience to execute the idea. For example, I liked the Cadwolf idea because the founder has worked as an engineer in the kinds of organizations he wants to sell to. Many of these applications had no info about the founders that I could find. All in all, the vast majority…

Vishal from WedWell here. This competition was a bit unstructured in general. So not surprised that many teams didn't talk too much about their teams, and spoke more about their ideas.

We're a small team lead by myself. I am technical (computer engineer by education), but have a more technical partner (full stack engineer) onboard, and my sister is helping as well. My sister has had to plan her own wedding from start to finish without a wedding planner. She's helping a lot with on boarding.

I have a background in building electronic trading businesses with a specialization in market structures. Marketplaces like Airbnb, and how they start are something that I love to study.

There are more details about me on my profile here. I think in the future, it may make sense to put a bit of structure to how people describe their idea/team.

Re: Poll: Apply HN Runoff – Which two startups should YCF fund?

#240

Post by ismiseted »

argonaut wrote: post #79

A lot of people are evaluating too much based on the ideas, rather than the background of the founders and whether that background gives them the experience to execute the idea. For example, I liked the Cadwolf idea because the founder has worked as an engineer in the kinds of organizations he wants to sell to. Many of these applications had no info about the founders that I could find. All in all, the vast majority…

Natural disasters are terrible. Voting for Pinboard is not terrible. I am certain that Pinboard sincerely wants to make full use of YC's resources, possibly in ways that will amaze and astound them. And I don't think that an unthinking cheerleader attitude to YC is a requisite here. If you like Cadwolf, vote for Cadwolf but - please - spare me the lecture on how I should vote.
Post reply on HN