"The other distinction is that Y Combinator didn’t let investors snag any participants early, as it previously has."
We don't have any power to stop companies from taking investment. Nor would we want to, especially in these uncertain times. We usually encourage companies to take money before DDay if a legit investor makes them an offer that doesn't require a lot of negotiation.
What we did differently this time was that we didn't hold an event we have in the past called Angel Day, at which we introduced startups early to a select group of angels. We found this was turning into a de facto early Demo Day, and that was bad because it was causing the startups to be pushed into fundraising mode early.
They compare themselves along side Vimeo Pro and Youtube, under their pricing they list "free" (Vimeo being $199, Youtube also free) and then under a bunch of options for Vidyard that are ONLY available if you pay >cost of Vimeo pro they add a tick, which would imply that they're available for free. It's misleading, it implies it's cheaper to use Vidyard (which it isn't)
Thanks for the feedback - the last thing we wanted was for the line to be confusing, it was just supposed to indicate that a free plan was available, customers are then prompted to review the plans. That said, we've realized it might be misleading and have removed the pricing comparisons.
Vidyard looked good at first glance, as I'm looking into adding video to a site right now, but the free video, with branding, is really no better than YouTube. They really should be offering half a dozen free videos with all the bells and whistles (i.e. no Vidyard branding) if they want to entice new users.
The free plan is intended to add player customization, no advertisements, no out-bound link and analytics over YouTube, along with pretty minimal branding (only on mouse-over).
Saw demo day yesterday and it was pretty awesome. Lots of interesting startups, and the way Paul & co. coach teams to present is fun to watch. They really make what they're doing seem exciting. It's also kinda like bingo to figure out what the the common phrases they're coached to use are. This batch it seemed common to have some really awesome accomplishment such as "8 bajillion users within 3 seconds of launch," be followed by, "But this is just the beginning ..." or "This is just a trojan horse." We were coached similarly last year, but it definitely stuck out.
Anyway, a lot of them were really cool, some of the presentations were hilarious, and it just amplified the feeling that there a ton of enormous opportunities in software (which is pretty obvi.com, I suppose).
The most interesting trend I saw was a surprising number of cos focused on "the future of banner/display ads".
It’s just a larger percentage of the total pool of start-ups is coming through Y Combinator.
Angel List has helped over 500 companies get funded in the last year. Angel pad launched 24 companies, IO Ventures launced 14, 500 Startups launched 24 in the last few months.
I'd argue that more and more people are doing startups, and that the market for early capital is more efficient than it's ever been.
codecademy really needs to buy codeacademy.com...every time I type their name I end up there. Do it fast(by offering to buy the forum), before the guy figures out there is an actual company vying for the name and jacks up the price to 6 figures.
I think they need to change names completely, not only do they not own codeacademy.com, but the name "Code Academy" appears to be trademark of codeacademy.org (which appears to be run by HN user "nealsales")
Or they want to expand into other niches, and the code-academy name was just a way of getting eyeballs from people wanting to program (their initial niche).
I guess I am late to the party, but I feel I must voice this opinion since Quartzy is listed. Also, comments on the original Quartzy submission are closed (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2744408).
Must've escaped my notice, being busy defending my doctoral thesis and all.
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Working in an exceptionally well-organized lab (in terms of ordering etc.) and still having iLab shoved down our collective throats (http://www.ilabsolutions.com/) here's what in my experience is the biggest barrier to adoption amongst all fancy-shmancy lab organizing/ordering e-solutions:
NONE of the systems allow for direct ordering from the vendor.
What I mean by that is the lab manager (or the person with appropriate authority) cannot just click "Place order" and have the item automatically ordered from the vendor's website. This makes all such solutions the most brain-dead, needlessly repetitive method of ordering lab goods. This completely defeats the very purpose of having such a system in place. How is this really any better than an excel spreadsheet? In my experience, this is the single biggest hurdle to adoption of such systems by many (better-organized) academic labs.
I will be way more than happy to talk with anyone from Quartzy to explain the above in more detail (I am ranting and may not be clear in articulating these things here). Therefore, please do feel free to contact me, a real-world user.
So what is needed?
Anyone who comes up with a method/system to connect direct ordering from within your e-solution software/portal to the outside vendor will win this competition. Now this may well be the proverbial can of worms. Each vendor website will have their own idiosyncrasies and will require serious effort to make things work, but if you can make it work, I guarantee you will be the chosen solution amongst the many out there.
Of course, having all vendors agree to a unified ordering API would be the ideal solution. You could come up with such a solution that may be licensed to multiple vendors (and supported by you), hopefully the vendors will also see value in using/supporting such an API (orders placed via your portal) and the entire system will be of mutual benefit to you, the vendor and most importantly, end users like me.
hey Shiven,
This is Jayant, a Quartzy founder. We know 100% where you are coming from. We are scientists ourselves and know the pain exactly as you are describing it. Send me an email and I would love to chat with you and tell you about our vision for Quartzy!
Cheers and congrats on defending your thesis!
Jayant (jayant@quartzy.com)
I'd be interested to see how much traction Science Exchange[1] is going to get. As someone who grew up in a family of scientists and who has been involved in the scientific community for a long time, I've got to say, my gut reaction is revulsion at the whole concept. Outsourcing experiments to the cheapest bidder? 99designs for science? I feel a really powerful revulsion.
I can't see any of the many scientists I know outsourcing their work. It beats the point! Maybe for the corporate science industry -- where they just need to perform certain tests as cheaply and quickly as possible, and with a preferred result if possible -- it could gain some traction. But I don't see this gaining anything in the universities. Or rather, perhaps I hope it doesn't.
Academic researchers already outsource about 2% of their experiments.
It's not driven by laziness, but by one institution having facilities or expertise that another doesn't. Often it's simply a way for universities to share machines so expensive that they can't all afford one of their own.
When I've encountered that sort of outsourcing in the past it was called "collaboration" and it was between two individual researchers at the respective institutions. There was no exchange of money and they would both have their names on any resulting papers.
This strikes me as much more "outsource the labor to where it's cheap" sort of thing. The programming team in India if you will.
All of that said, I'm not a researcher, so I suppose I'm not really the target audience. My experience of research is all second hand, though there's a lot of that. Maybe times have changed. I'll bring up the idea with my researcher friends and see what they think.
WTH? I just tried out DebtEye, and without warning or confirmation, they scheduled me for a call with some sort of debt consultant, which happened despite me immediately replying to their email (sent from support@debteye.com) requesting both that they not try to contact me by phone, and that they delete my account. They have failed on both counts thus far. Badly done, I say! Badly done indeed.
We don't see a call schedule for you or any calls from us in the past. The email was likely just an automated email from the system before we processed your email to support. Don't worry, we won't actually call you:)
Strange. I definitely got a call from someone claiming affiliation with y'all that referenced info about the plan DebtEye generated at 8:19PM Eastern today (8/23). The number was a chicago number that ended in 0969, and asked me to call back at (866) 771-3511. I hate talking to people on the phone, and had you not called me, I'd have considered using your service.
Ok, hold on. This page totally just got updated and some links/listings were removed. I printed it to read at lunch 45 mins ago ... I came back and refreshed and a certain listing was gone (wanted to hit the link).
Interstate are an awesome team with a well designed product and Picplum is a cool idea although in my opinion it could be even simpler. Like how Google+ is able to take photos off my Android phone for me to review, I realise some of this may not be viable but as long as they find innovative ways to simplify the process further they'll do great.
Not sure about "Google Wave done right", only read their description though so can't comment.
We used to have 3 variants of on the record: yes, no, and ok to list as part of roundups (but not to describe in detail). The third category was prone to misunderstanding and abuse so we got rid of it.
Now that companies are getting 100k from YC and other incubators (AngelPad) they have a longer runway and more time to get their product right for launch.
my guess is that people don't want to get lost in a sea of startups. Hard to cut through the noise...especially if something big launches the same day(i.e. mint etc)
It's great publicity having the YC name attached to your startup, but it's a lot of companies to look at in a single sitting. Surely, each one gets a bit less time and attention, which devalues the publicity somewhat.
Like the article says, they're accepting the same fraction of applicants, but getting many more applicants now. YC has also staffed up. It's not just 'pg.
They are just "captcha like". I believe the idea is to to make ads bidirectional. Instead of just clicking a banner ad, a user would enter, say, a coupon code for example.
You can't see whatever content it is that you are trying to access until you enter the code. The examples on their web site make it pretty clear: http://doublerecall.com/
this was also pg's argument when i asked him to remove some postings made with another account that accidentally revealed confidential info about a friend's company, so i considered this would be fair game.
EDIT: post deleted -> put the info on twitter for those interested.
Among the revealed ones I am most excited about (and would invest in) Parse -- solves a real problem, it is easy to see how it can be commercially viable, and there is very little technology risk. Kind of wish I had thought of it. An obvious target to be acqhired by one of the PaaS vendors.
We don't have any power to stop companies from taking investment. Nor would we want to, especially in these uncertain times. We usually encourage companies to take money before DDay if a legit investor makes them an offer that doesn't require a lot of negotiation.
What we did differently this time was that we didn't hold an event we have in the past called Angel Day, at which we introduced startups early to a select group of angels. We found this was turning into a de facto early Demo Day, and that was bad because it was causing the startups to be pushed into fundraising mode early.