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YC: Requests for Startups
71–80 of 582 posts
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That explains the admin on this forum throwing a "you're a nationalist!" at me recently Are you referring to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39315543 If so, it seems wildly unrelated to "BRING MANUFACTURING BACK TO AMERICA".
Yes, and yes, economic autarky (which is what this “let’s bring industry back to America” thing actually is) is usually associated with nationalism and other such stuff (I personally call it Mussolinian, but someone may come and mention List, who was a 19th century German, so to each his own)
> I personally call it Mussolinian
Named after somebody better known for other ideas?
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#73Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#74For the AR/VR space, I'm curious about YCs thinking about the addressable market and the possibility to have a unicorn-scale company developing solely for VR/AR in the foreseeable future (that isn't a device manufacturer).
The devices seem to be getting better and better, but the software seems rather lacking (currently typing this from a gorgeous giant display on my Vision Pro, which I use mostly exactly like how I would use my computer). Even in gaming, where the use-case is a lot more mature, we haven't seen the kinds of investment in AAA content that you'd expect, even though clearly the platforms could benefit from it.
I'm curious what YCs thinking is, and if perhaps they just feel no one has earnestly taken it on yet?
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#75> Occasionally we gather up all of these ideas and share them in what we call a Request for Startups, or RFS — a Y Combinator tradition that goes back over a decade.
I wonder how many YC startups joined due to a past RFS and went on to be successful.
My impression is that YC emphasizes the quality of the startup founders over the quality of the startup idea, so I find it interesting that this RFS tradition persists.
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#76New defense technology
Bring manufacturing back to America
New space companies
Careful not shooting yourself in the foot there …
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#77I am building a company that falls under two categories (commercial Open Source and developer tools based on internal tools), but I would never take YC money for it.
Because of that stake, they want an "exit" in some form, and the drive to that exit will pave the road to user-hostile software and make it the path of least resistance.
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#78> Occasionally we gather up all of these ideas and share them in what we call a Request for Startups, or RFS — a Y Combinator tradition that goes back over a decade. I wonder how many YC startups joined due to a past RFS and went on to be successful. My impression is that YC emphasizes the quality of the startup founders over the quality of the startup idea, so I find it interesting that this RFS tradition persists.
Seems perfectly fitting. These ideas give a good team "permission" to believe in themselves. People who think they need "the right idea" might be stuck in the Alignment Trap, from which any execution engine is the exit.
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#79I am building a company that falls under two categories (commercial Open Source and developer tools based on internal tools), but I would never take YC money for it. Because of that stake, they want an "exit" in some form, and the drive to that exit will pave the road to user-hostile software and make it the path of least resistance.
I'll bite, I'm interested in the OSS dev tools field and I agree with your stance on investment money tending to corrupt good products. It's a big trade off. What are you working on? Do you have a website to share? Is it just you right now or do you have partners or employees?
Re: YC: Requests for Startups
#80One interesting thing about this is that this what investors want you to make for them to invest in, not necessarily what you want to make. Investors are very happy with moonshots (1% chance of you succeeding, but 10,000x return if you do). But I don't think any rational founder should be.
Not all of these are moonshots, but some of them are (e.g. securing defense contracts seems lower risk). Also I imagine getting that defense contract may be a very different value proposition depending on what connections that investor has.