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

Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 86 posts

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#61

Post by xiphias2 »

longerthoughts wrote: post #17

>Basement: A social network for your close friends Seems like this would impose some serious limits on ad revenue generation (assuming that's how they plan to monetize). With only close friends the volume of friend-generated content would presumably be much lower than that of Facebook or Instagram (even if those individuals are generating more content), meaning you have a much lower threshold beyond which you start p…

Google tried exactly this with Google+, and it failed. Facebook is optimized for network effects, and every feature / acquisition is decided upon that 1 criteria whether it increases network effects or not.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#62

Post by rfrey »

The most exciting company here to me is Prometheus, who is mentioned in several threads here.

It bugs me though, that the TC blurb, and the comments here, and the Prometheus website, all say the company is turning CO2 into gasoline. That strikes me as alchemy. I think the company is more likely using CO2 in a separation process that is an alternative to the traditional distillation tower used in oil refineries.

There's a difference between "turning CO2 into gasoline" and "using CO2 to refine gasoline from crude oil".

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#64

Post by leowoo91 »

sharkweek wrote: post #2

First, congrats to everyone launching. Second, existential crisis time. I clicked the link and saw "Here are the 85+ startups that launched at YC’s W19 Demo Day 1" and closed the tab. These used to be some of my favorite articles every six months, kind of a view into what's coming next. But they felt digestible, with a few dozen startups featured each time. Now it feels like a fire hose. I'm not convinced there's goi…

It might be true that productivity is not booming these days, but it may also mean fulltime jobs are declining.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#65

Post by shafyy »

2arrs2ells wrote: post #58
shafyy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason they had 12k applications this time was because they incentivized every Startup School company to apply in order to potentially get $10k. I would be pretty shocked if there won't be significantly less applications for S19. Not sure why they did that to be honest, giving someone $10k to apply is probably the best way to decrease application quality and have more work to sort through. Maybe for more dat…

What did folks have to do to get the $10k?

I didn't participate at Startup School this time, so not sure. But I think they said they give out $10k each to the top 10 participants IF they applied to YC.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#66

Post by kevinlou »

longerthoughts wrote: post #21

>Unicorn: Scooter companies that rent by the minute lose 2 percent of their fleet per day to damage and theft, and that means customers don’t have a safe scooter available when they want one. Is this really offering an attractive alternative to Bird, Lime, etc. from a customer perspective? It seems like they're solving more of a scooter company problem than a customer problem. As a customer I can't imagine a case whe…

There are a lot of exciting YC companies this batch, but wouldn't a product like Omni be better positioned for tackling a slightly longer-term scooter rental?

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#67

Post by throwaway93832 »

> VanGo: ... “moms trust other moms,” ... all of them are women.

Straight sexism. Cause a Dad driving his kids to school has gotta be a creep or terrible driver or something?

>Bento Club:

Cheaper than what is already there? Food is a losing business and these guys are going to race harder to the bottom.

> Slapdash:

Is just https://www.appdirect.com/products/appwise/features

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#68

Post by 3into10power5 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #61
longerthoughts wrote: post #17

>Basement: A social network for your close friends Seems like this would impose some serious limits on ad revenue generation (assuming that's how they plan to monetize). With only close friends the volume of friend-generated content would presumably be much lower than that of Facebook or Instagram (even if those individuals are generating more content), meaning you have a much lower threshold beyond which you start p…

Google tried exactly this with Google+, and it failed. Facebook is optimized for network effects, and every feature / acquisition is decided upon that 1 criteria whether it increases network effects or not.

World has changed in last five years.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#69

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway93832 wrote: post #67

> VanGo: ... “moms trust other moms,” ... all of them are women. Straight sexism. Cause a Dad driving his kids to school has gotta be a creep or terrible driver or something? >Bento Club: Cheaper than what is already there? Food is a losing business and these guys are going to race harder to the bottom. > Slapdash: Is just https://www.appdirect.com/products/appwise/features

> > VanGo: ... “moms trust other moms,” ... all of them are women.

> Straight sexism.

Oddly, while the TC page has the “85% are moms” and the “all of them are women”, VanGo itself has the same “85% are moms” but “all of them are...prescreened with 3+ years childcare experience, reference checked, fingerprinted & clean background check”.

Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1

#70

Post by mikeyouse »

GraffitiTim wrote: post #16
OisinMoran wrote: post #10

Really impressed with this batch! These companies seem to be targeting a lot of really cool hard tech problems which is great to see. In particular, a lot of super cool next-gen transportation: electric planes (Heart Aerospace), jetpacks/bikes (Jetpack Aviation), hydrofoil cargo ships (Boundary Layer Technologies). Also seems to be a big focus on India, China and Africa, and a big increase in the proportion of bio/me…

I want to put a plug in for Boundary Layer Technologies. Their crazy Demo Day goal was to build a freaking hydrofoil ship during YC. The founders I know who worked with them before said "They may actually be able to pull this off." And there it was, right out front on Demo Day.

Would it actually foil? Or was it just a representation of what one would look like?
Post reply on HN