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Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s S18 Demo Day 2
- boxcardavin 8y agoClick link, ctrl-f "robot" or "autonomy" :(
- statictype 8y agoIn depth analysis here: https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1031952446795522048 https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1031952446795522048
- fsloth 8y agoIt's funny because it's true. However, I think YCombinator has more often than not stated that they invest in the team and not the specific product they are making at the time. The invested product is generally just a learning vehicle for the team. The selected team is expected to plausibly have the insight and technical capability to pivot and retarget as new data is gathered. Nigeria is the most interesting country in Africa at the moment and Lagos is projected to be the largest city on the planet in 2100. It's totally credible to try sounding the local market at this point. Funding a couple of small startups with a talented team sounds like a great way to do that.
- roadbeats 8y agoI wouldn't call that tweetstorm "deep analysis". It's just pinboard arguing about other people's startups, meanwhile its own search doesn't function properly.
- statictype 8y agoMore like Pinboard making fun of YC. Obviously, I didn't really mean it was deep analysis.
- maxerickson 8y agoPinboard isn't a startup, it's one snarky guy.
- gfaure 8y agoLooks like a typo in the very third word of the post.
- thisisit 8y agoI have been reading YC lists for so many years. And this list has set a record for number of facepalms. Companies like Papa are stuff of nightmares. While others like AnchorUSD, SparkSwap etc seem like an attempt to ride a wave which was been gone for long.
- patkai 8y agoRead yesterday's list as well! I have always been following YC batches and to me it seemed this Day-1 was excellent.
- Alex3917 8y agoTo me this seems like the best list in years. More stuff that’s early stage and somewhat whimsical again, albeit run by ex-FAANG employees instead of college kids. The last couple years have seemed heavier on more prosaic dtc stuff.
- gtbcb 8y agoI think Papa solves a legit need. By the time we (ie millennials) are old, we'll be so damn connected, hopefully loneliness will be low. But between now and 30 years from now, there are millions of seniors suffering from loneliness, and I think Papa could help with the problem. I've definitely thought about this exact idea before.
- 88 8y agoSome would say millennials are the loneliest of all; overwhelmed by superficial interactions but lacking in meaningful relationships.
- beaconstudios 8y agoit's attempting to use technology to solve a social problem - that we don't value family or community any more. The root problem is that people just shove their parents in a home as soon as they get old, and don't bother to visit them.
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- duncanawoods 8y agoI can barely read a list of 60 new start-ups without melting my mind. The names and value props turn into soup after about 20. I can't imagine being there, making decisions about all 60 and then coming back repeating for a second day! Does demo day work for the audience?
- mkagenius 8y agoSome end up perhaps getting too much investor interest, while others not even 1.
- codegladiator 8y agoDemo day is i guess spread across a couple of weeks ? > making decisions about all 60 Numbers game for them now ?
- ngokevin 8y agoIt's back to back days...back to back to back if you count Alumni Demo Day where all startups go in one day.
- muhneesh 8y agoAnima seems really cool and ambitious; modernizing design <-> code seems like an obvious necessity and next step to modernize workflows in the front-end. My prediction would be that, if successful, this would empower designers and commoditize front end developers (or optimistically, let them focus on more complex logic) Good luck to the team.
- vevoe 8y agoAnima does seem really great. As a front-end dev seeing this stuff makes me happy and slightly anxious for the future. On one hand, styling basic marketing sites manually is boring and I would happily use this if it fits easily into my work flow. On the other, I hope it doesn't start making complex React apps soon or I'm in trouble :)
- bsaul 8y agoNot sure if you're just starting your career or not, but every time i meet a freshly graduated junior that tell me he's a "x developer" where X is a technology, i make a point telling him "no you're not, you're a developper, period. Don't think of yourself as being stuck to a given tech or you'll be in trouble pretty soon".
- vevoe 8y agoThat's good advice. I've worked up and down the stack but recently have had great success in marketing myself as a front-end dev. You're right though, I shouldn't get stuck in that mindset. Thanks for the reminder :)
- ReverseCold 8y agoI never understood why that isn't the way it's always worked. Some design software lets you define things in a similar way to how you would program it, but there is no easy pathway between them. Even a code generator that's wrong 50% of the time would be pretty useful.
- LeonM 8y agoThere are some cringe worthy ones, but also a couple which I think are suprisingly good. I think ShopWith is brilliant (although I expect HN is not the audience to discuss this with).
- thisisit 8y agoApps like Shopwith are built with limited social media engagement in mind. In this case the engagement seems to be - sell stuff to people. There is another called Stardust which has videos "but only "reaction videos" and reviews". While it seems like specialized social media apps like these are a natural progression from more generic tools like Facebook, Twitter etc, I am not too sure. Most of social media has been taken over by bots. But twitter, fb etc do have some incentive to try and root the bots. In comparison these apps are made specifically for bot based engagement.
- no1youknowz 8y agoApps like ShopWith are a good idea. However, what's going to break it is the network effect. For them to be found, the influencers on whatever medium they are on, be it YouTube, Steemit, D-Tube, BitChute, YouNow, etc, etc then need to tell their audience to install another app and find them on there to purchase "stuff". It's this extra few steps that limit engagement and incur huge drop-offs. Besides, with YouTube now adding in built in stores and Patreon like services. It makes it easier for influencers on there to stick with YouTube. For the other platforms that I mention, once they start doing the same. Well, the days of ShopWith would be numbered. Finally, will ShopWith fall fowl of the same problems as Busker.co as they were forced to pay a Google/Apple Tax on purchases through the app and this lead them to close. Having not used the app, I don't know if any purchases then redirect to a webpage to do the purchase rather than on the app. Again, an issue which may cause drop-off points. As genZ may just wish to push their thumb rather than having to fill in a form, which may be a drag. Disclaimer: I'm in the Ecommerce space and I think of this stuff down to a minute detail. I know all the different verticals and competitors in the space and what they are doing. I don't think I would have accepted them as the next 3 years are going to be very interesting and I don't think they will survive.
- Rainymood 8y agoThere are so many startups that are getting funded by YC of which "I had the idea (first)". Of course I could think of the idea but this truly shows that the nitty gritty part is actually building the dream instead of coming up with an idea. On the bright side, if you ever find one of your own ideas or a derivative thereof being funded try to see it as market validation and get to work!
- dnautics 8y agoThere's one startup on the list where I've had the idea, done some non-trivial work towards it in very garage-ey conditions, and applied to yc for it, and failed to get in. Still looking for funding. Oh well.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoI'm not in SV, and very much outside the startup community in the rest of the world these days, especially since I no longer work in a coworking space. I have to say, some of these legitimately look like parodies, like something out of the Silicon Valley TV show. Emojer cannot be a legitimate company with real funding. It just can't.
- onion2k 8y agoEmojer cannot be a legitimate company with real funding. There's a very clear exit route to selling to a phone manufacturer that wants to add more "fun" functionality to its camera app..
- roadbeats 8y agoI honestly wish to have the skills of people who pitched and found investment for Emojer.
- Quarrelsome 8y ago> There's a very clear exit route to selling to a phone manufacturer I'm not sure if that counts as "very clear". If you have no means of keeping the dream alive through revenue then you're just treading water in the hope that someone will buy you. That sounds horrible. Its bearable in the window of something "game changing" or where you have a strong position in the market (e.g. YouTube) but this is neither.
- bobmarley1 8y agoMust be fun spending years in academia getting your Phd in Machine Learning and Computer Vision only to create an Emoji app. How much talent is being wasted on worthless trash like this??
- apabepa 8y agoThese kind of apps seemed popular a few years ago in China and mig still be. Saw this type of gifs in wechat frequently back then. Maybe animated gifs and stuffs in chats are more popular there but it might work to make some money from this.
- yread 8y agoMonetizing game modding?! Nooo
- fsloth 8y agoThat's what Roblox is basically already doing. Except it's more like "create your own game from these blocks" kind of thing, the content there seems to be of remixing lot of existing ideas and concepts. The monetization apparently works there: https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/21/the-deanbeat-robloxs-kid-developers-make-enough-robucks-to-pay-for-college/ https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/21/the-deanbeat-robloxs-kid-...
- Kagerjay 8y agoI must be getting old because I didnt even know this market segment was so large First thing I thought of was Skyrim modding, modding through steam workshops(e.g. rocket league), and garrys mod
- ReverseCold 8y agoSame with Minecraft-except instead of kids making money, the random companies that got there first a few years ago are making money.
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- gls2ro 8y agoI am curious what it is exactly the process of this Demo Day? Is the normal flow: pitching for a couple of minutes, then Q&A and then at the final day a decision? If someone who participated could share, that will be great!
- glennon 8y agoThere is a FAQ at: https://www.ycombinator.com/demoday/faq/ https://www.ycombinator.com/demoday/faq/ Each startup gives a two to three minute pitch with slides, one pitch after another. No questions. They have 15 to 30 minute breaks every 20 pitches or so. Investors can express interest via a web app, and meetings are set for later. It is also possible to talk to founders during the breaks and in the hallway.
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- ttoinou 8y agoAccording to Ixora, major film studios produce 100 blockbuster films each year that feature than 1,000 CGI shots — each costing them roughly $10,000 a pop English is not my mother tongue, does "a pop" mean each second ? Anyway USD/(second of VFX) is a bad metric. Curious about the startup though, looks like they are putting the idea out there to see if people are interested because there's no information online about this
- sokoloff 8y ago“A pop” means “each” in this case.
- snood 8y agoIn this context 'a pop' would mean 'for each' So each shot is $10k
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- igravious 8y agoa pop = apiece
- ReverseCold 8y agoIt is repetitive information because earlier in the sentence it already says "each costing them..." Probably poor writing on their part.
- eaenki 8y agoI can't help but wonder what would happen if YC and all its influence was to be focused on only a bunch of startups per year doing truly far fetched things - namely space, biotech, finance, robotics, computing and VR. Is focusing on social networks for grandkids, instant food, the 50th sticker app and countless B2B products truly worth it when it could be directed towards the former? Who could possibly, genuinely want to work at such places by the way (I mean, for anything else but money)? As for this year, I'm extremely pleased to see so many startup trying to replace meat and dairy. Ditto for aerospace.
- Amygaz 8y agoI work at a top tier University and I have been wondering the same thing, about some of the government funded research going on in Academia...
- jimmy1 8y ago> Who could possibly, genuinely want to work at such places by the way (I mean, for anything else but money)? People who find their meaning outside of their work rather than through their work -- ergo most people. I am thankful for my employer that provides a salary for me to allow me to do fun things with my family and take vacations and all the fun stuff that actually create memories that I will cherish when I am older and no longer working.
- eaenki 8y agoSomehow, even though you quoted it, you missed the content inside the parenthesis. Also, flash news! You'll be working roughly 1/4 of your entire life. Unless there's nothing that excites you, it makes much more sense to get a salary + the excitement.
- jimmy1 8y agoYou also sleep roughly 1/3rd of your life. Sleep doesn't particularly excite me, either. I don't live my life thinking everything needs to excite me.
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- chatmasta 8y agoThere are maybe, maybe 10 promising companies in the mix these past two days. YC has really lost its prestige by diluting its batches so much, IMO. There are better pathways to funding nowadays for promising startups that don’t require surrendering 7% equity.
- quakenul 8y agoBe specific
- marmadukester39 8y agoI'm curious as to your opinion on the better ways right now.
- sampl 8y agoMe too. One possible option: no accelerator at all. YC doesn’t fund you that much, and you don’t need a demo day to pitch investors. The network and advice can come others ways too: from working for startups, and increasingly online (see YCs own startup school).
- chatmasta 8y agoSkip the accelerator and go straight to seed funding via convertible debt. No need to give up any space on your cap table until series A, and you can probably raise more than $150k or whatever YC is giving these days. Of course this discounts other benefits of YC, but those are arguably becoming less useful as the batches have been diluted with so many lackluster startups. At this point YC almost seems like something people do not for their startups, but for themselves. It attracts prestige collectors that are more concerned with how they look on paper than how they perform in reality.
- _sentient 8y agoI was at Demo Day, and couldn't disagree more. If you actually believe that, go ahead and pick the ten companies you think are worth something, and I'll take the "unpromising" part of the batch. We can put a five year bet into longbets that the top ten companies of my group will outperform your ten companies, as scored by either exit value or value of last round raised. Picking winners is hard, and most great companies today looked dramatically different when they were first getting started.
- blackmario 8y agoGreat but no chance!
- trebligdivad 8y ago64-x jumped out at me as having George Church as one of the co-founders; I've read his 'Regenesis' book and it's a good detailed read.
- claudiulodro 8y agoWhat is up with listing the pedigree of the founders? I noticed it on the demo day 1 article, also. Does being an ex-FAANG employee correlate with successfully running a startup, or is it just the easiest signal VCs have for "This person is probably smart"? It seems like a lot of YC's current model is to throw money at ex-FAANG employees with ideas.
- eldavido 8y agoThe entire ecosystem emphasizes this. People put it on Twitter, AngelList, LinkedIn, etc. ex-FAANG is the VC equivalent of "nobody got fired for buying IBM". It's what happens when nobody has any idea how to assess anything: they use brand as a proxy for quality. This happens in every market from consumer packaged goods (is one soap better than another?), university education, pretty much anywhere there's no accepted criteria for comparing two things.
- jjeaff 8y agoI felt the same way. Some of the businesses seem so ridiculous. But then they have an ex faang, so I guess that must be the only reason they got in.
- segmondy 8y agoIt's one of the data signals for success. An ex-FAANG employee is more likely to succeed than a non ex-FAANG, not only are they most likely smarter than average, they also probably have experience in dealing with more complex systems, and also possibly a more valuable network in terms of poaching their ex coworkers. It's just one of those things in life. :-D
- jcomis 8y agobased on what evidence?
- Jhsto 8y agoAnecdotal, but a Google recruiter once approached me. He told me I have a weird work history. According to him, this was because I had not targeted FAANG after graduation, but instead worked in smaller companies. This was while I was living in Silicon Valley. I guess VCs might see it the same way as the recruiter - only weirdos would say no to dosh. Personally, I think it is much the opposite -- if you worked in corporations for your whole life, how does that relate to running a startup? I think it's a general consensus that most programmers expect a job description. These people do not usually make great startup founders, because the obscurity of direction and lack of significance for coding early on might startle them.
- haaen 8y agoGreat batch. I'm especially impressed by the hard tech companies that produce atoms. But unfortunately, on demo day 1 there was a company that makes the world uglier and is supporting the massive ongoing trend of middle class and sometimes even upper class people imitating an aspect of the underclass. On demo day 2, there was a shamelessly partisan company that makes the world worse. It wants to get more people to support a process that, contrary to entrepreneurship, brings out the worst in people who actively engage in that process. May the companies from the S18 batch flourish, except those two.
- RobLach 8y agoWhich companies are you referring to?
- bobmarley1 8y agoFrankly I've found both days completely underwhelming and the only companies that have even a hope of approaching unicorn territory are the Pharma startups and even then they don't seem terribly groundbreaking. YC has gotten stale.
- frakkingcylons 8y agoTitan sounds interesting, but I feel like the value they provide is dubious for the fee (1% of AUM!) they charge.
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