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Y Combinator Failed Startups

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Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#61

Post by nicocerdeira »

gkoberger wrote: post #41

I don't get the last section, where you just name 4-5 small "failed" startups. For most of them, you don't even have any real insights! Why pick on them, for no reason? They didn't do anything unethical, and most didn't seem to even raise a Series A. You have no clue why they failed; you just speculate... and you don't just name the companies, you call out random founders by name. These people put themselves out ther…

We aimed to cover different sizes of business, industries, raising funds, etc. as our audience is quite broad.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#62

Post by Mascobot »

This list seems to be a biased list. I thought the list was first in descending order (funding), but it's not. Some super early stage startups were picked for some reason in the bottom section?

To clarify: by numbers, the vast majority of startups fail, and that's part of trying new things until one of them works great. I know multiple founder friends that had 1-3 *big failures before they built a great company after that.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#63

Post by tikwon34 »

knes wrote: post #17

How can you make a list of failed yc companies and not mention homejoy? $66m raised, bad operations, bas unit economics, lawsuits and an abrupt shutdown. All of that after being the calley darling for so long.

Regardless of who stole the data, does it have to do fact that they are chinese? Ever wonder if something cultural going on here?

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#64

Post by phendrenad2 »

ozten wrote: post #44

It looks like TheMelt is down to 7 grilled cheese stores. https://www.themelt.com/locations

Ah yes The Melt Index. You can track silicon valley startup activity by how many tech workers are grabbing a quick grilled cheese sandwich while their code compiles.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#65

Post by tikwon34 »

mattkrisiloff wrote: post #58
WoahNoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After stealing HomeJoy's customer DB for another start-up, she is now a YC partner... Move fast and break things?

I used to work alongside Adora at YC and she works super hard for the startups she is working with and is very helpful — totally justified for her to be there.

so you said it and we should buy it? Why? Because you had successful experience? What about people whose data is stolen?

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#66

Post by bsder »

ozten wrote: post #44

It looks like TheMelt is down to 7 grilled cheese stores. https://www.themelt.com/locations

To be fair, Covid is a nuclear bomb dropped on the entire restaurant sector.

However:

1) Putting a grilled cheese sandwich restaurant in ferociously expensive real estate known for upscale, health-conscious consumers can't be smart (Irvine Spectrum Center?--LOL)

2) The food just wasn't that good. Sorry. They deserve to go out of business.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#67

Post by [deleted] »

Judgmentality wrote: post #38
WoahNoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After stealing HomeJoy's customer DB for another start-up, she is now a YC partner... Move fast and break things?

I guess people can brand themselves as "successful" after what is by all objective standards a spectacular failure. I have no idea how impressive Adora is and I cannot speak to her qualifications, but HomeJoy should be a textbook example of an SV failure.

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#68

Post by tikwon34 »

I have this question on my mind and if someone could explain this sincerely I would be very grateful.

Time after time, YC startups seem to engage in practices which are unethical or dark or downright scammy. Be it Homejoy, uBiome, AirBnB (updating consent without asking). They seem to employ aggresive marketing tactics. They work under assumption that "law does not apply to us". Although this is true for ultra rich people, why regular seed funded do it? Is growth focus this much necessary to the to do outright fraud or in engage in shady tactics? They are willing to kill other people's business and livelihood for their growth. I would call this "preying tactics"

Paul is very successful person and I read about him a lot. Why companies going through YC do this? Or is this just Business-as-usual (BAU) in Americas? Kill or be killed?

Thanks for responding!

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#70

Post by gkoberger »

nicocerdeira wrote: post #61
gkoberger wrote: post #41

I don't get the last section, where you just name 4-5 small "failed" startups. For most of them, you don't even have any real insights! Why pick on them, for no reason? They didn't do anything unethical, and most didn't seem to even raise a Series A. You have no clue why they failed; you just speculate... and you don't just name the companies, you call out random founders by name. These people put themselves out ther…

We aimed to cover different sizes of business, industries, raising funds, etc. as our audience is quite broad.

Why call it "Biggest Y Combinator Failed Startups," and just randomly pick on some very small companies that weren't even contacted for their side of the story?

Like, what could anyone learn about from what you wrote about, for example, the vegan milk startup? You just picked on a random small company, and then said generic stuff about "economies of scale".

I love hearing about failures (and am happy to talk about my own!), but there's a difference between exploring what went wrong, and "punching down". Now when you Google their names, "Biggest Y Combinator Failed Startups" will be the result. Unfair.

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