Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would it actually foil? Or was it just a representation of what one would look like?
Yes, it worked!
That's amazing!
Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1
81–86 of 86 posts
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1
#82>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…
It's an angle into the scooter craze.
If scooters really do become a thing, then this is basically a kind of financing plan for them. They might tweak and pivot to the point wherein the price makes sense.
It's also an option on the 'right' financing model for scooters, as maybe the 'daily/hourly' thing actually doesn't make sense at all, i.e. scooters left all around.
It's possible the daily/hourly scooter businesses may be losing money and so will fall flat.
It's risky but it's a finger in the pie of a big craze, and new trends tend to be where the money is.
So it's not entirely irrational. If scooters become a thing, it will be a big market, room for all sorts of players.
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1
#83Is anybody from Prometheus here? Very curious about the tech and the unit economics. Is $3 a goal, or the price today?
This seemed like the most interesting startup in the batch to me. For those who didn't want to comb through 85 startup descriptions, Prometheus claims that they can "remove CO2 from the air and turn it into gasoline" for about $3.00/gallon. If that's a number they can eventually get closer to the current cost of manufacturing gasoline, well then this is gonna be a $500 billion company.
"If that's a number they can eventually get closer to the current cost of manufacturing gasoline, well then this is gonna be a $500 billion company."
It's a $5 Trillion dollar company.
This, and the 'male contraceptive with no side-effects' are 'magic claims' style companies, where if their claims are true, they immediately massive companies.
Usually, the devil is in the details. A few little things here and there contextualize the claims.
Think of how many smart people we have working on big problems and how few real breakthroughs we have.
These things will mostly be evolutionary. Like 'male contraceptive' but it actually does have the side effect of long-term problems. Or takes a year to wear off. Or is $20 a pop and last for 1 hour. Or is only 95% effective. Etc. etc..
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1
#84> 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 will succeed DUE to the sexism involved. Think about the moms weighing up their options when sending their kids to school: 1) Uber - random dude (most likely) 2) Another mom or at least a pre-screened woman Not many moms will choose the uber for fear of appearing sexist.
In addition to your presented options:
3) Bus
4) Kid Walks/cycles themself
5) Mom drives them herself
With these already being available options, I don't understand why anyone would be trying to solve what appears to me to be a solved problem, getting kids to school.
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, there shouldn't be any less signal in these batches than earlier ones. The acceptance rate this batch was the lowest ever. It's just that startups are now global and in every industry. This is more like your favorite author writing books on a lot more subjects, than just putting out a longer more rambling book.
I don’t think the issue here is “signal”, so much as it is that the arbitrage is gone. For a brief, golden period, startups were new and innovative. You could stand out from the crowd by taking some risk and working hard. Early YC reflected this ethos. Now, “startups” are so common as to trigger cynicism, and merely starting a company no longer offers differentiation. Every angle that can be explored is being explore…
>Every angle that can be explored is being explored, usually by multiple scrappy, identically hustling teams
a) I'm not sure that's true - things like "Keynua you record a short video to verbally agree" for Latin America for example - are there lots of people doing that?
b) AirBnb say wasn't that novel - holiday lettings site existed. They just did it better. There's probably other stuff like that.
Re: Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s W19 Demo Day 1
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
People like to claim that arguments like mine are cynical, but what’s actually cynical is reaching far into the past for a quote, snipping it out of context, and then extrapolating to pretend that the quote is just as relevant today. Or said more simply: past results do not imply future performance. Is it possible that we’re about to turn a technological corner and it’ll be like the rise of the web - a revolutionary…
perhaps you may look into cryptocurrencies and virtual reality as two places where simple refinement will open up new industries.
And AI.