I'll take the contrarian stance and say I'm not really impressed with the list. There are some that may be good, but there's not much new. Mostly me too products.
Hey this is Alex from LaunchHear. We just finished our presentation fifteen minutes ago and we're hanging around outside the YC building now. I just wanted to say that a lot of these startups are actually really impressive, it's probably just not obvious from the three sentence descriptions.
Also, a bunch of these startups are still under embargo so they aren't even being written about. Give it a year or so and then start complaining.
You flatter yourself by saying your expectations are high. Actually you're just not a good judge of very early stage startups. If you saw Google when they were Backrub, or Microsoft when they were making Basic for the Altair, you would have said the same thing. Minor, derivative products.
Yeah, me-too products are never really interesting. I mean, does the world really need another search engine? There's already Lycos and Altavista.
Calling an internet startup's idea "me-too" is a pretty lame criticism. Most of the most successful startups had "me-too" ideas on paper. The proof is in the eating.
NewsLabs sounds cool. There may be a lot of journalists out there frustrated with the constraints of working with a big media organization and want to do their own thing. NewsLabs could create the next Arianna Huffingtons.
Data Marketplace is promising: market research firms charge ridiculous fees for their reports which are usually overkill for what you are looking for. Data Marketplace could solve this problem.
Greplin sounds cool. 500Friends sounds like it'll generate revenue straight off the bat.
There's nothing contrarian about what you're saying, and your expectations aren't too high. You're just doing what most people (outside of HN at least) do: calling the game way too early and without enough information.
These companies need time to develop/morph/mature before anyone will have any real clue as to their prospects for innovation or success.
"Google.com: A search engine that looks at link popularity to find the best search results. It's going to revolutionize search."
Talk to investors from the starting days of Google, and they'll cite you a dozen examples of similar sounding pitches. It's hard to tell from few liners about the future of a company.
Well this post certainly needs a counterpoint. I don't think your generalization should be the dominant stamp on the latest batch. A percentage are really interesting, and unless you compare this to past groups how can you say this is a weak showing? Yes, some are twitter widgets but they're not bad for twitter apps. I can already think of a number of customers for 500 friends. Broad-brushed pessimism is the wrong frame when a number have obvious potential and we have no idea what pivots lie ahead for the others based on an elevator pitch. Let's judge Ycom by it's long-term record.
I initially had a similar reaction, but now I'm not sure that's quite fair. I think the innovations aren't so much technological, they're more like business model innovations. They have the potential to generate value for customers regardless.
I suspect that in times of crisis people tend to play it safe and start more 'simple' companies, with safer business models, instead of swinging for the fences with experimental ideas that have no clear future or business model.
Still, there are some very interesting companies in this batch that are not particularly sexy but might have great potential.
I think Card Pool could make some money, but it also got me thinking about the retailers. Don't many of them operate on thin margins? If they offered card holders 90% cash back on the card amount, they might actually make more money from partial reimbursements than they would from the merchandise sales.
if it helps, farmville was a near duplicate rip-off of farm town, and it's now one of the most successful facebook apps. you don't always need to have 100% unique ideas. zynga spent more money advertising, and is now profitable with something like 100+ million players.
There are a few gems in there that I'd like to see more of (etacts for instance), but overall I'm dismayed by the sheer volume of SV navel-gazing produced twitter junk.
I'd love to see more ideas around PG's list of things he'd like to fund being presented instead of yet another "social collaboration because what else is there?" startup.
Does Zenedy sound exactly like Demand Media to anyone else?
"..first determining algorithmically what content people are searching for, then identifying what portion of that content could effectively be monetized through targeted advertising, and finally contracting out the creation of that content to qualified freelance writers."
I had the same feeling. It's interesting that YC is funding a company in this space, because Demand Media churns out low-quality content--essentially monetizable crap--and has no qualms about admitting this. PG has always been proud about the quality of the software YC companies produce, so it's surprising that there's suddenly an intersect between YC and Demand Media. I wonder if Zenedy has figured out a way to make better quality content at a similar price.
I have to say I'm not that impressed with the list either - but I offer the following anecdote as to why my opinion shouldn't count that much.
A VC was being told about a new web startup in the 1990's. The startup involved people putting their goods up for sale, where people would bid for them, then exchange the goods and money.
The VC said "People who've never seen each other, sending goods and money to one another, sight unseen? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard!".
The startup was obviously eBay, and I keep that story in mind every time I hear someone's business idea that I think is less than brilliant. After all, what do I know?
(I read that anecdote somewhere, but have lost the URL - if anyone knows it, I'd love to have a reference)
Ebay created the market for online auction services. They created a new category of products and services which satisfied needs not fulfilled elsewhere. These startups are not directed at market creation activity and are not disruptive.
eBay has a pretty good business model on its face. It's hard to look back in time, but you could tell that eBay COULD be big, if it surmounted enough obstacles. On the other hand, a startup to tell bloggers about your startup has limited room to grow.
Maybe it's time for those interested in privacy to exit stage left.
I'd like to see a start-up find a way to monetize my lack of desire to have my digital information monetized, maybe by obfuscating or deleting my information, and then I buy from their partners to say thanks.
Ideas mean absolutely nothing. For every idea that someone comes up with I can find you 5 other guys that had thought about the same idea a while back. Its the people who can execute the idea that YC chooses to invest. Most of the YC startup founders have done some work in the past and they have show that they are resourceful and that they can execute. So don't read too much into the idea thing.
I'm really interested to see what happens to Crocodoc. Back in high school a programmer friend and I built a rough website to do joint collaboration that we called Collaborate. In our minds it was mainly a solution for all the peer reviewing we had to do for English class, but it follows the same track as Crocodoc. We ended up shutting it down because Google released Google Docs and a number of other real-time collaboration services sprang up. We didn't really have time for marketing/didn't know what we were doing, so it was kind of ridiculous to compete. I'm not really sad about it (we wrote it in PHP, yech), but I'm wondering how Crocodoc will deal with the same problems.
These seem pretty good overall. Although I am rather unconvinced with the twitter ones, but then again I always thought twitter was a waste of time. But the others seem good.
There a couple of surprises: (i) there are two single founders, and (ii) there are a couple of pairs that seem to be in the same space. Obviously embedster and embedly seem to be doing something similar, but there was also a couple of search engines that do something similar as well. I wonder what Paul thinks about that. Won't the competition cause bad vibes in the meetings, etc.
Of course it is possible that I was mislead by the short descriptions and the companies do not really compete.
There is no competition between embedly and embedster. One is a delivery network the other helps you generate revenue from the videos on your site. If anything we complement each other. (founder of embedly)
jfb from nowmov here. There was never really any friction, the meetings always tended to be pretty matter-of-fact and collaborative. We didn't have any direct competition, so I don't want to speak for the embed* guys, but everything was always really collegial.
There's a half-dozen or more of these guys that I'd put my own money into if I were an accredited investor (some that are still embargoed). The three sentences are really insufficient, I think.
I wonder if quality or customer satisfaction will be an issue. I imagine there could be some datasets that don't quite meet up to the expectation of the buyer. But there isn't a real good way to refund money since there's nothing to return.
For example, how do you verify that the dataset really contains 'Every Target Store' in the US?
Perhaps they have an ebay-like seller rating feature planned?
Zenedy is taking the opposite approach by first determining algorithmically what content people are searching for, then identifying what portion of that content could effectively be monetized through targeted advertising
Sounds like MFA spam. So much for make something that people want.
From my experience YC is sort of like the state of Missouri. Show me don't tell me.
The ideas on this list might not be pie in the sky, but they are most likely something people can get their head around, and are fairly polished.
This makes sense as the next step for many of these teams is going to be to try to raise capital. The more pie in the sky, the harder it is to get buy in from an investor, unless you have the goods. In three months I'd bet these groups have something pretty nice to show for their time spent in YC and inching toward an even larger goal that might not be evident from their 3 line description.
It's tempting to play armchair investor and criticize YC's choices, but they've been doing this for a few years now and if at first you don't understand the choices, dig deeper.
For me, it seems at first glance to be a good mix. A few pretty obvious starting business models for some, really good synergy between the groups with their ideas, and in general it seems to reflect the scope intended for seed stage start ups.
Sure not all of them are at first glance overly ambitious in trying to change the world, but I'm also not convinced that a good majority of them can't end up doing just that.
Many of them fit perfectly with YC's philosophy of "intuitive hacks" that a group could bang out and try to build traction for in a three/four month incubator time frame.
Kind of sad to see so many products that are derivative, either directly (we scrape twitter!) or indirectly (We're going to do what X did, only for Y!)
Of course it probably all makes good business sense and I wish them all luck and to be happily bought out.
I just wish there was something original - X because it's a good idea and will bring great good, rather than X because Y...
[+] [-] fnid2|16 years ago|reply
Perhaps my expectations are too high.
[+] [-] Alex3917|16 years ago|reply
Also, a bunch of these startups are still under embargo so they aren't even being written about. Give it a year or so and then start complaining.
[+] [-] pg|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emmett|16 years ago|reply
Calling an internet startup's idea "me-too" is a pretty lame criticism. Most of the most successful startups had "me-too" ideas on paper. The proof is in the eating.
[+] [-] dskhatri|16 years ago|reply
Data Marketplace is promising: market research firms charge ridiculous fees for their reports which are usually overkill for what you are looking for. Data Marketplace could solve this problem.
Greplin sounds cool. 500Friends sounds like it'll generate revenue straight off the bat.
[+] [-] nailer|16 years ago|reply
"Our goal is to do what Gmail did to Outlook: replace a popular desktop application with a better online version."
is badly begging the question. I'd be surprised if gmail + Google calendar had more active users than Outlook.
[+] [-] matasar|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staunch|16 years ago|reply
These companies need time to develop/morph/mature before anyone will have any real clue as to their prospects for innovation or success.
[+] [-] zaidf|16 years ago|reply
like...
"Google.com: A search engine that looks at link popularity to find the best search results. It's going to revolutionize search."
Talk to investors from the starting days of Google, and they'll cite you a dozen examples of similar sounding pitches. It's hard to tell from few liners about the future of a company.
[+] [-] AmericanOP|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErrantX|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmjordan|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Estragon|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shorel|16 years ago|reply
Zencoder Zenedy
The rest are very under promising.
[+] [-] unknown|16 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Janteh|16 years ago|reply
Still, there are some very interesting companies in this batch that are not particularly sexy but might have great potential.
[+] [-] nhebb|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmtame|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] run4yourlives|16 years ago|reply
I'd love to see more ideas around PG's list of things he'd like to fund being presented instead of yet another "social collaboration because what else is there?" startup.
[+] [-] qeorge|16 years ago|reply
"..first determining algorithmically what content people are searching for, then identifying what portion of that content could effectively be monetized through targeted advertising, and finally contracting out the creation of that content to qualified freelance writers."
That's pretty much Demand Media in one sentence.
[+] [-] abossy|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lenley|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlangenauer|16 years ago|reply
A VC was being told about a new web startup in the 1990's. The startup involved people putting their goods up for sale, where people would bid for them, then exchange the goods and money.
The VC said "People who've never seen each other, sending goods and money to one another, sight unseen? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard!".
The startup was obviously eBay, and I keep that story in mind every time I hear someone's business idea that I think is less than brilliant. After all, what do I know?
(I read that anecdote somewhere, but have lost the URL - if anyone knows it, I'd love to have a reference)
[+] [-] HaltingState|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacoblyles|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] euroclydon|16 years ago|reply
I'd like to see a start-up find a way to monetize my lack of desire to have my digital information monetized, maybe by obfuscating or deleting my information, and then I buy from their partners to say thanks.
[+] [-] parasctr|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Locke1689|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gridspy|16 years ago|reply
Don't give up in the face of competition. It just validates the marketplace.
For instance - Dropbox went up against many other cloud storage systems and is winning.
[+] [-] hristov|16 years ago|reply
There a couple of surprises: (i) there are two single founders, and (ii) there are a couple of pairs that seem to be in the same space. Obviously embedster and embedly seem to be doing something similar, but there was also a couple of search engines that do something similar as well. I wonder what Paul thinks about that. Won't the competition cause bad vibes in the meetings, etc.
Of course it is possible that I was mislead by the short descriptions and the companies do not really compete.
[+] [-] screeley|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfb|16 years ago|reply
There's a half-dozen or more of these guys that I'd put my own money into if I were an accredited investor (some that are still embargoed). The three sentences are really insufficient, I think.
But then again, I'm biased.
[+] [-] philwelch|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vyrotek|16 years ago|reply
I wonder if quality or customer satisfaction will be an issue. I imagine there could be some datasets that don't quite meet up to the expectation of the buyer. But there isn't a real good way to refund money since there's nothing to return.
For example, how do you verify that the dataset really contains 'Every Target Store' in the US?
Perhaps they have an ebay-like seller rating feature planned?
[+] [-] richcollins|16 years ago|reply
Sounds like MFA spam. So much for make something that people want.
[+] [-] malloreon|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamwil|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ziadbc|16 years ago|reply
The ideas on this list might not be pie in the sky, but they are most likely something people can get their head around, and are fairly polished.
This makes sense as the next step for many of these teams is going to be to try to raise capital. The more pie in the sky, the harder it is to get buy in from an investor, unless you have the goods. In three months I'd bet these groups have something pretty nice to show for their time spent in YC and inching toward an even larger goal that might not be evident from their 3 line description.
[+] [-] maxklein|16 years ago|reply
- Notifo
- Zencoder (If they drop their prices. Those prices are horrendous for the REAL market they are targeting)
- Nowmov (with name change)
- Crocodoc (will sell, but will not have too many users)
- Gamador
- Cardpool
- Chromaom
- Answerly
- Zenedy
- Data Marketplace
- 140Bets
[+] [-] smakz|16 years ago|reply
For me, it seems at first glance to be a good mix. A few pretty obvious starting business models for some, really good synergy between the groups with their ideas, and in general it seems to reflect the scope intended for seed stage start ups.
Sure not all of them are at first glance overly ambitious in trying to change the world, but I'm also not convinced that a good majority of them can't end up doing just that.
Many of them fit perfectly with YC's philosophy of "intuitive hacks" that a group could bang out and try to build traction for in a three/four month incubator time frame.
[+] [-] pistoriusp|16 years ago|reply
I'm a fan of http://colourlovers.com.
Maybe they'll make affordable... long lasting... PANTONE books.
[+] [-] patio11|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedc|16 years ago|reply
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkkhSN3vaY4jdF90b1l1...
Corrections (particularly in early years of YC) welcome!
[+] [-] jpatte|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] callmeed|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamhowell|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfornear|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukev|16 years ago|reply
Of course it probably all makes good business sense and I wish them all luck and to be happily bought out.
I just wish there was something original - X because it's a good idea and will bring great good, rather than X because Y...
[+] [-] emmett|16 years ago|reply
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XMeetsY
[+] [-] iamwil|16 years ago|reply