This is a _profoundly_ bad idea. Cofounders should have a strong personal relationship before they start a company. They need to actually _know_ and _trust_ each other. I'd rather start a company without a co-founder than bring in someone I don't know as an even remotely equal partner.
You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
51–60 of 125 posts
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I haven’t been looking in the right places but I’ve downloaded most of the AR apps and games that have come out for iOS thus far and they’re almost all gimmicky. Simply plopping a 3D model into the room isn’t particularly compelling or useful. But that seems to be the bar for “AR apps” today.
Most AR apps today are based on the same toolboxes, either opencv, arkit or arcore. The latter 2 are actually pretty good (in terms of tracking and plane detection) for more simple use cases. So by gimmicky I assume you’re talking specifically about the use case? If so it’s probably true that majority of ar apps are games that don’t work too well or ar just demos/prototypes. However there are a few that are pretty fu…
The magic comes when combining AR with an app that understands what it’s looking at and how to contextually interact with it.
The AR toolkits tell you about the 3D environment but they don’t do anything to tell you about the context.
When your app understands what it’s looking at it can add relevant functionality (eg solve a paper Sudoku puzzle, give hints, check your work, scan into a playable app, etc).
Happy to talk about it more! Shoot me a DM.
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#53This is a _profoundly_ bad idea. Cofounders should have a strong personal relationship before they start a company. They need to actually _know_ and _trust_ each other. I'd rather start a company without a co-founder than bring in someone I don't know as an even remotely equal partner.
Most people are in Startup School haven't even started or have no idea. SUS is a perfect place to start on a small project with other people. From our experience at YC, getting a cofounder is the single best thing to improve the odds of your startup.
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#54Screw that... I'm going to find a co-founder right here! :)
I need someone really awesome in product + growth OR an amazing React + frontend developer.
We've made GREAT progress so far..
Here's the rough elevator pitch.
Polar is a tool for managing knowledge which is kind of a hybrid of Kindle, Github, and Slack. Polar allows you to keep all your knowledge and reading material in one place. You can easily suspend and resume reading complex technical material and annotate and take notes directly without ever having to leave your reading platform.
More specifically, Polar implements spaced repetition, is a technique from cognitive science to prevent the user from forgetting the material they've read. This same technology is used in other platforms like Duolingo but we apply it to other areas outside of just language learning.
... and here's what I'm struggling with at the moment.
1. The long term vision is large but I have to do a better job of explaining the short term vision.
2. I need to do a much better job of conveying the 'aha' moment to our users who visit the site.
3. Marketing right now can definitely be improved. Huge opportunity there.
I've nailed a LOT but of course everyone has limited talents and time. The areas where Polar shines:
- our users that 'get it' LOVE Polar.
- we have a lot of users that STILL love Polar but are waiting to come on board due to one or two smaller missing but critical features. Like Firefox support or mobile or something along these lines. They users LOVE the app once they get the aha moment.
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dating sounds like a great idea, but I find it difficult to imagine getting to know someone in a small amount of time. I know people who have married after 3 months of knowing each other and it works, and I imagine the same can happen for founders -- but -- who wants to take that chance? The ideal "marriage" whether in relationships or business settings (IMHO) is one where you observe the person before you are tied t…
Sure, so it means you should be "dating" for a longer time before you start a company with someone. I'm just not sure I understand the point that's being made here, because it sounds like it's impossible to meet your future cofounder unless you've already done something with them, which is a pretty obvious catch 22.
Of course it's catch-22. There's a reason that being the right person (or people) at the right time/place is hugely beneficial. We can mitigate somewhat but at the end of the day, luck is a big part.
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#56"Cofounder dating" is a bad idea. Cofounders should be friends before starting the company. - pg https://twitter.com/paulg/status/852493839176785921
PG is right but the next worse bad idea is not having a co-founder. It's definitely possible to do without a co-founder but a LOT harder.
I'm doing this right now as a solo co-founder and wish I had someone amazing to have my back.
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most AR apps today are based on the same toolboxes, either opencv, arkit or arcore. The latter 2 are actually pretty good (in terms of tracking and plane detection) for more simple use cases. So by gimmicky I assume you’re talking specifically about the use case? If so it’s probably true that majority of ar apps are games that don’t work too well or ar just demos/prototypes. However there are a few that are pretty fu…
The magic comes when combining AR with an app that understands what it’s looking at and how to contextually interact with it. The AR toolkits tell you about the 3D environment but they don’t do anything to tell you about the context. When your app understands what it’s looking at it can add relevant functionality (eg solve a paper Sudoku puzzle, give hints, check your work, scan into a playable app, etc). Happy to ta…
Generalized scene understanding is still a hard problem in both academia and industry. The big companies are working on such things with access to tons of data.
Assuming you do know what’s in the scene semantically most ar applications that aren’t games do intend to use that information. I’d say the primary hurdle there is still general scene understanding.
It’s easy to identify a sudoku puzzle but not so easy to identify and classify all 3D objects with any sense of precision yet. Seems like a large scale data play to me..
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most AR apps today are based on the same toolboxes, either opencv, arkit or arcore. The latter 2 are actually pretty good (in terms of tracking and plane detection) for more simple use cases. So by gimmicky I assume you’re talking specifically about the use case? If so it’s probably true that majority of ar apps are games that don’t work too well or ar just demos/prototypes. However there are a few that are pretty fu…
The magic comes when combining AR with an app that understands what it’s looking at and how to contextually interact with it. The AR toolkits tell you about the 3D environment but they don’t do anything to tell you about the context. When your app understands what it’s looking at it can add relevant functionality (eg solve a paper Sudoku puzzle, give hints, check your work, scan into a playable app, etc). Happy to ta…
You’re idea is to build that context layer? It seems the apps you’re talking about will become reality when we have useful AR glasses. But they will be manually built for each usecase.
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#59Just like “Who is hiring” thread, a “Looking for co-founder” thread every quarter or 6 months might be helpful to the community? That can help start the conversation which is the first step towards finding the right co-founder. You can also get a good idea about a person by looking at their submission/comment history on HN.
Re: You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
#60PG both highly recommends having a cofounder and also identifies cofounder conflict as a leading reason for company failure.
So what's the "right" thing to do?
Have a cofounder to greatly increase your chances or success, or endanger your company by getting a cofounder?