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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?

#301

Post by sjg007 »

jrumbut wrote: post #16

Realizing a meeting is starting right now and then struggling to extract the Zoom link because the invite writer put it in some non-standard field or there's a surprise and it's some other meeting software happens often enough it's close to $10/month worth of pain. I guess what I would worry about is can they handle strange link placement, different meeting software, and times when I'm double or triple booked with di…

I agree... so many times I click on a zoom link in the location field and it opens apple maps..

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

#303

Post by s__s »

llaolleh wrote: post #220
andreilys wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing in a calendar widget is not a “crazy idea nobody will bet on” This is something that’s easily bootstrapped and which can be run as a lifestyle business at best.

I don't understand why people hate on calendar apps so much. They are also not there yet. My definition of an ideal calendar app is it would set the meetings I need for the right amount of time with the right people. It will obtain theoretical correct schedule S that maximizes my happiness and satisfaction on earth. The design space is huge. Maybe cutting edge tech can help us get closer to the scheduler that we all…

This isn’t a calendar app. It’s a toolbar menu that shows your daily schedule for $10/ month. Anyone could build this in a day. Apple could easily add it as a native feature.

It’s comical that it even exists, and absurd that it’s received funding.

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

#304

Post by jokethrowaway »

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.

TBH I never understood the appeal of dropbox, drive, mega, etc

Is it the UI? Is it keeping your data safe? Is it the sync?

I never used their native applications because I hate constant syncing for no reason and running proprietary apps (especially if they're always on), but I use some of their free tiers to store stuff.

If I had to pay I'd just buy some space on some server at the cheapest price per gb there is.

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

#305

Post by haltingproblem »

hellomyguys wrote: post #240
monkey_monkey wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, I'm hoping you'll sign up for my upcoming weather widget which tells you the weather in a single location. It's only $30 a month, and it will save you time as you will no longer have to use any other weather widget. At some point in the future I plan on offering additional locations (at a compellingly low per location monthly service fee TBD).

I pay for this its called Forecast bar ( https://forecastbar.com ) and I love it. Basically Dark Sky for your Mac. Not $30 a month, but there's different tiers of service depending on your needs. Would I pay for this startups calendar? Probably not, but it seems nice, and I can definitely see people paying 2 cups of coffee a month for it.

I have been looking for a dark sky replacement for a while! Thank you, I just installed forecastbar. If it is even marginally approximate to the original dark sky, I am subscribing!

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

#306

Post by ryanSrich »

monkey_monkey wrote: post #189
ryanSrich wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get when people say $X/month is too much. Too much for you maybe. But for me, if I can save 1 hour per month, that's worth $500. That's the top of what I've charged per hour for some consulting gigs. So $10/m is literally nothing for me if I can save time. Time is your most valuable asset. Money is nothing. Focus on time.

Great, I'm hoping you'll sign up for my upcoming weather widget which tells you the weather in a single location. It's only $30 a month, and it will save you time as you will no longer have to use any other weather widget. At some point in the future I plan on offering additional locations (at a compellingly low per location monthly service fee TBD).

Luckily, I live in a place where the weather is the same for 6 months, before it changes and is the same again for 6 months. The ultimate time saver ;)

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

#307

Post by ryanSrich »

evanlivingston wrote: post #170
ryanSrich wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get when people say $X/month is too much. Too much for you maybe. But for me, if I can save 1 hour per month, that's worth $500. That's the top of what I've charged per hour for some consulting gigs. So $10/m is literally nothing for me if I can save time. Time is your most valuable asset. Money is nothing. Focus on time.

erm, isn't that assuming an income of $1,040,000 after tax based on a 40 hour work week?

I don't do consulting anymore, but I know plenty of consultants that gross over a million per year. Of course, business expenses, taxes, etc. bring their net income down considerably.

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

#308

Post by akhilcacharya »

908B64B197 wrote: post #267
phsource wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. From my YC experience, I know that starting with a niche is good advice and advice they likely would have gotten. Looking at the Launch HN [1], I think the question should instead be "has YC lost it's way when its latest company is founded by 4 University of Waterloo students?". When phrased that way, the answer seems obvious, given that YC started out funding current college students in Boston. Having gone thr…

> "has YC lost it's way when its latest company is founded by 4 University of Waterloo students?" It's interesting to see they are branching out to smaller, lesser known more regional schools. Pretty far from their debut in Harvard/Kendall Square.

I can’t tell if this is a joke but Waterloo is the Stanford of Canada and is on par with the top American CS undergrads

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

#309

Post by akhilcacharya »

conradev wrote: post #138
tim333 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed the founder says: >We’ve only solved a small part of a bigger problem. The SaaS platforms we use for work don't work well together. It shouldn’t take cycling through ten different apps and Chrome tabs to stay on top of everything. >We’re now looking to bring Slack and GitHub into a unified notification inbox in the menu bar. We want to better organize everything you use as we’ve done with Google Calendar.

I’ve spent almost a decade in the productivity space (founded Shortcuts at Apple, fka Workflow) and everything is always confusing. Everyone is seeking the holy grail of computing (“the computer does exactly what I want and it’s a seamless experience”) and there are a billion and a half ways to attack the problem. Starting with a “hair on fire” problem and expanding to other hair on fire problems is not a wholly unre…

Does BlueJeans/Zoom/meet not auto dial?

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

#310

Post by yunohn »

csomar wrote: post #281
ipaddr wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coffee does not cost 1 us dollar. The poorest countries survive on $500.00 to 2000 us a year. $90.00 isn't even affordable to everyone in the west.

I'm really talking about home-made coffee (with some milk). Even in the cheapest countries, a cup of coffee (in a cafe) costs more than $1: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310492 People who are surviving on a $500-$2000/year budget, are not on the market for a full-fledged IDE.

This study is definitely flawed. It costs approx. 10-15 INR (0.2 USD) for a milk coffee, not 1.51 USD. Even at Starbucks, it would cost at most 1 USD.
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