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Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

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71–78 of 78 posts

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#71

Piggy (piggy.co.in), the "Vanguard for India"! Just wow. Now there is a concept that sells itself. It's easy to see the Total Addressable Market potential. Savings institutions such as Vanguard and BlackRock are completely embedded in our lives. Every high school student who graduating this summer was probably given the same advice to start saving early and I'm guessing for those who did, many selected a Vanguard fun…

They did a launch thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14857978 if you're interested.

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe that 100+ a batch is the same YC as what started a decade ago. YC is now a factor, not a family. You are not wrong. The batches are of noticeably lower quality. I wont name names out of respect for the founders obviously, but you certainly have to wonder if some have been chosen solely based on their touting the latest cool tech buzzword in their application. My opinion also is that YC has moved fro…

> The batches are of noticeably lower quality. As a company (YC), as you grow and set aside more $ (or have access to deeper pockets thank to your past success rate), you are willing to take more risk than before. I actually think its a positive thing, especially for those who apply!

Nope. I dare say you got the logic wrong. YC is taking less risk and what risk it is taking is the 'wrong' type.

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#73
post #54

Looks like pretty impressive monthly revenues for some of them eg. Leon & George. If YC is the first investor (which is what I expect) they have done very well being bootstrapped so far.

I don't understand Leon & George though (plant delivery). The TC bio talked about finding the right plant for your space. Seems like they just sell a few plants. I can walk into any florist, garden store or even IKEA and get the same or better selection. So the value prop is delivery I guess? But does delivery large plants across the country scale?

Seems like it's just exploiting the Instagram/"aesthetics" crowd who are too lazy/dumb/rich to go to a nursery. LA has a ton of nurseries, and fiddle leaf fig trees can be found for $60 (4 ft) and $150 (6ft). Actually the planters (pots) are actually more expensive than the plants. Real Case Study planters go for $150-300. You might as well get a fake off of Etsy for half price.

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#74
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder how many of these companies are actually offered the "standard deal" of 120k for 7%. Would love for YC to release some stats on this.

I'd be shocked if there are more than one or two (if any) that aren't offered the standard deal

Maybe, but I'd sort of have expected the "nonstandard" deals to become more common as they've gotten more into non-software startups. How far could you really go with $120k if you're building autonomous passenger aircraft?

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#75
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it's supposed to look like this: http://imgur.com/QIQiy9W Doesn't exactly give me confidence in their tooling.

Sure isn’t! I just loaded it on my computer and everything is fine. Can you open up dev tools and see what’s failing? We’re on cloudflare — maybe something weird happened there?

Looks good now, don't know what happened.

I was viewing it through the corporate proxy at work. But I don't typically have issues like these.

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be shocked if there are more than one or two (if any) that aren't offered the standard deal

Maybe, but I'd sort of have expected the "nonstandard" deals to become more common as they've gotten more into non-software startups. How far could you really go with $120k if you're building autonomous passenger aircraft?

It's still helpful for allowing founders to support themselves and focus full time for a significant period, which may be what it takes create a prototype or IP that's good enough to attract more investment.

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#77

Lots of startups are basically existing ideas, just for India. Looks like YC is doubling down on that particular economy.

Copying an existing idea into a new market is incredibly lucrative. It's also a lot easier than coming up with something new.

Re: Companies from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day (Day 2)

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the fundamentals behind investing. Basically, you make no money gambling $10 ten times on 10% chance of success with $100 returns, but you make money if the returns are $10,000. So, for investing in companies, there is no point funding companies aiming for millions as you can't get a good return because of the failure rates. They're basically taking up one of the slots of a potential billion $$$ company. The poi…

As much as I appreciate that's the VC model, perhaps less would fail if VCs didn't push for billions in revenue? The failure rate might be less than 9/10 if it wasn't "all or nothing"? Guessing it still wouldn't make enough home runs as an investment vehicle though?

The problem is the fund size. when you have make a good return on 100m you need something that will eventually get there.
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