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YC Demo Day, the Morning After

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Re: YC Demo Day, the Morning After

#41

Post by tylerhwillis »

t0 wrote: post #35
colmvp wrote: post #4

From the WSJ article: Don Dodge, a startup investor and well-known “developer advocate” for Google, said today’s startups are more focused than ever on revenue—as evidenced by the large revenue-growth charts most of them showed off during the presentations to investors. In prior years, founders focused more on the number of people using their service, he said. Refreshingly, he said, there are no longer social-network…

That's exactly it. Revenue. I've heard PG say in numerous interviews that he doesn't want to incubate small companies. He said he wants "the next big thing". Has he changed his mind?

PG has always been in favor of "ramen profitability." I've never heard him disparage revenue or think having it is indicative of being a small company.

Re: YC Demo Day, the Morning After

#42

Post by sharkweek »

xauronx wrote: post #19
baddox wrote: post #17

> Founders risk everything, move across the country or further, endure endless stress, damage relationships, sacrifice their health and pour their every waking moment into creating something people want — and they’re rewarded with a yawn. Risk and effort are admirable and impressive, but at the end of the day it's the product that is being demonstrated. No one is entitled to the awe of the crowd just because they too…

But I sold my house to buy these crayons and broke up with my girlfriend over the construction paper, how DARE you say my drawing isn't good!

It's like on Shark Tank when the people break into a sob story about why they deserve an investment despite no revenue and a terrible business plan.

Re: YC Demo Day, the Morning After

#44

Post by robryan »

bradhe wrote: post #16
timjahn wrote: post #14

Who cares? Are you in this for the flash-in-the-pan press? Or are you in it to make money and/or change the world? Every day, I'm focused on growing matchist ( http://matchist.com/talent ) so it can make more money and become a better business. If that produces yawns, so be it.

Here here. Don't tie yourself to press--one write-up in TechCrunch won't make a measurable difference in the long rung.

Yeah, I have seen businesses that rely too much on press as a growth strategy, which is dangerous when you turn from hot startup of the week to yesterday's news.

Re: YC Demo Day, the Morning After

#46

Post by dm8 »

I agree with OP on overall premise. Majority of startups look boring at the start. Just doing software for computers was considered boring in 70s. So was yet another search engine. Peer-to-peer money transfer using Internet, who would've thought that would be interesting. Or online bookstore. Twitter, all of my non-techie friends thought it was stupid. Even YC itself was considered crazy in their early years.

Re: YC Demo Day, the Morning After

#47

Post by mlinsey »

t0 wrote: post #35
colmvp wrote: post #4

From the WSJ article: Don Dodge, a startup investor and well-known “developer advocate” for Google, said today’s startups are more focused than ever on revenue—as evidenced by the large revenue-growth charts most of them showed off during the presentations to investors. In prior years, founders focused more on the number of people using their service, he said. Refreshingly, he said, there are no longer social-network…

That's exactly it. Revenue. I've heard PG say in numerous interviews that he doesn't want to incubate small companies. He said he wants "the next big thing". Has he changed his mind?

Revenue growth is better than active user growth, but growth is the high order bit.

In other words, growing revenue 10% a week is better than growing active users 10% per week. But for a startup (in the startup=growth sense), 10% growth in active users per week and no revenue is much better than being ramen profitable and growing revenues at 2% per week.

Re: YC Demo Day, the Morning After

#48

Post by 2pasc »

johnrob wrote: post #8
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #3

I like FlightCar a lot and I have said so previously, if I could invest in only one single company that launched yesterday, it would be this. It is instantly useful. That said, I can 'understand' the non excitement of the press. Except WeVorce which is arguably a service business, nothing seems to be pioneering. Magical. Crazy. They all seem to be X of this or Y of that. The 'this' and 'that' are what the press might…

I don't think any of your examples would have looked impressive just based on the idea. In all of those cases, the wild growth is what made the company a big story. Tell the world that your startup will deliver burgers, and nobody will care. Then mention 1 million burgers served per day and you'll be a legend.

Agree with your comment. I think it's more a matter of startup fatigue. Few startups seem that great without testing the product or seeing their growth. Dropbox? The idea is not so great, but the execution was just awesome. Google? (yet another search engine), eBay? (a place to buy and sell beanie babies), Facebook? etc...

Re: YC Demo Day, the Morning After

#50

Post by antoko »

baddox wrote: post #17

> Founders risk everything, move across the country or further, endure endless stress, damage relationships, sacrifice their health and pour their every waking moment into creating something people want — and they’re rewarded with a yawn. Risk and effort are admirable and impressive, but at the end of the day it's the product that is being demonstrated. No one is entitled to the awe of the crowd just because they too…

I read the main thrust of her post to be to fellow entrepreneurs - and to remind them to not worry about that commentary and keep going with the hard work of what they are doing.

Rather than the whole woe is me portion you quoted (and I agree it was laid on a little thick) I think money quote was fuck that noise and for the target audience I think that is pretty good advice.

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