5 ms·

YouNoodle Startup Predictor now live to try it for yourself.

20 points by babul 18y ago

sdpurtill 18y ago
I built the majority of the survey, so if you see any bugs or have feedback reply to this. Thanks!
cperciva 18y ago
Apparently my startup (tarsnap, online backups for the truly paranoid) will be worth $3.71M in September 2009. Given that I'm a sole founder and tarsnap is pre-revenue, I can only guess that YouNoodle is giving me very high marks for (a) having a doctorate from Oxford, and (b) having started university when I was 13 years old. Of course, I'd be happy if YouNoodle was correct in their assessment... but if someone offered to buy tarsnap for $3.71M right now -- or offered to buy any fraction of tarsnap for a corresponding fraction of that amount -- I'd have no hesitation in accepting the offer. EDIT: Yes, I do realize that the assessed value is effective a year from now -- but I still think $3.71M would be a generous amount to pay for tarsnap. Of course, tarsnap might take off faster than I expect...
- prakash 18y ago
  I understand where you are coming from. Some of those calculations might be based on, for a lack of a better term, VC math, meaning if you are in the process of raising a series A, the VC might value your company (pre-money) at say 4 million, give you a A round of 2 million and own 50% of the company. BTW: When are you launching?
  - cperciva 18y ago
    BTW: When are you launching? Depends how you define "launching". I haven't got the accounting code written yet, so revenue is still a month or more away -- but if you mean in the sense of "providing a service which people want", tarsnap has been up and running for three months.
    - prakash 18y ago
      nice. good luck.
- create_account 18y ago
  Yes, yes, you've stated many, many times that you think you're a genius. Hooray for you! Now try to stick to the topic in future comments.
- rw 18y ago
  "Online backups for the truly paranoid" is something I've been wanting for a while now. Good luck!
dcurtis 18y ago
Considering that about 70% of startups fail, shouldn't this actually give you a negative valuation most of the time?
- sdpurtill 18y ago
  You can always sell the laptops back on eBay, right?
hooande 18y ago
YouNoodle is busy... We're experiencing lots of activity so we can't handle your request just yet. Please click the refresh button and try again. scaling = fail
- sdpurtill 18y ago
  Appears to be a problem with our search index, we're on it ;)
- plusbryan 18y ago
  yeah, cause with twitter, scaling is a feature!
mixmax 18y ago
My unlaunched startup which I work on part-time will apparently be worth $10 million in 2011. maybe I should start working on it full time :-)
demandred 18y ago
YN wants the data -- not sure they really care about making an (accurate) prediction. Foolhardy exercise to fill in the information.
- babul 18y ago
  On a side note, and without wanting to be negative, at times I am not really sure they care about many things apart from growing really fast and getting momentum/exposure/traction (which is understandable). You can gauge how much they (or anyone for that matter) care by the response you get when you try and engage with them. In this respect, my past experience has not been good (no response to emails/queries/etc), but maybe that is because I am not significant to them as an individual. When I compare this to the engaging experiences I find with many YC start-ups (http://www.socialbrowse.com http://www.socialbrowse.com springs to mind) and others (e.g. http://www.huddle.net http://www.huddle.net and http://www.freshbooks.com http://www.freshbooks.com), the difference is night and day. Maybe this is just my experience. Still, I’d be more likely to provide sensitive information to sites I trust and that seem to ‘care’.
  - kirill 18y ago
    Babul - we aim to respond to every email and query, sorry to hear your experience. Feel free to email me: kirill@younoodle.com with more details and if you think we didn't cover any particular issue properly. Thanks.
    - babul 18y ago
      Sorry for delay in response. Just saw this. We resolved what we needed to by other means, but thank you for the offer. :)
tlrobinson 18y ago
I would be very cautious about giving a lot of this requested information (funding details, % ownership, etc) out to some random website...
- dcurtis 18y ago
  It's not random. It's funded by Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, and Max Levchin.
  - flipbrad 18y ago
    does that lend weight to, or subtract from, his warning?
- drusenko 18y ago
  Most of the information it requests is pretty generic. If you've raised a round and haven't announced it yet, then by all means, don't give it out. However, for many startups, funding details will be public (and available via crunchbase or startupsearch) -- and generic ownership percentages can be pretty easily inferred. Asking whether investors own <10% or 10-40%, etc, isn't really saying much. As for the rest of the information (mostly how the team relates to each other, their background, and previous work experience), I can't imagine this would be sensitive either, but if it is, by all means, don't give it out.
stats101 18y ago
My startup, InsideDesi (http://www.insidedesi.com http://www.insidedesi.com), will apparently be worth 8 mill by 2011.
c3o 18y ago
Some feedback: * The connections-drawing tool is somewhat broken: First it wouldn't show for me at all ("Loading..."), and then when I wanted to correct something, the eraser didn't remove the lines (although I think it did invalidate them, because I could draw new lines on top of the old ones) * Entering team details is very tedious when every single question is on its own page. I got tired of clicking next, and would very nearly have quit the process there.
- sdpurtill 18y ago
  I can't figure out what's wrong with the flash not loading - several people have reported this now. Can one of you guys hack it and reply with the answer? I'll buy you a pizza (no seriously, I will)
  - sanj 18y ago
    Seriously, pizza? Please! Cash!
    - sanj 18y ago
      It seems a little hypocritical to downmod me and complain about business people taking advantage of hackers.
  - drusenko 18y ago
    Is just loading... on mine as well (and I gave it plenty of time). User agent is: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070206 Firefox/3.0.1 FirePHP/0.1.0.3 I also have Firebug 1.2.0b4 installed.
fiaz 18y ago
Has anybody tried entering the details for a 1990s dot.com to see what kind of valuation you get?
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
flipbrad 18y ago
"Give us your sensitive data, we'll make you feel good and optimistic" Preying on the vulnerability/need for validation of most startup founders?
babul 18y ago
These tools are really only as good as the information they are provided or access, and without looking at failure rates/reasons in the model do seem fundamentally flawed to me. As mentioned by others, the results provided do look very optimistic (at least from what I can tell based on the values it provides for things I am involved with) and with refinement once they get the datasets will probably go down significantly in most cases. Time will be the real judge. It will be interesting is to see what they predict and what actually happens in the next years. Hopefully they will provide this information (semi-)publically, but it seems unlikely.
Tichy 18y ago
"YouNoodle's model is based on rigorous quantitative analysis of historical data and the application of the latest relevant theory" Brilliant generic tag line.
thenextweb 18y ago
Trying my start-up now. Does take a lot of time to fill out everything...
helveticaman 18y ago
I feel super iffy about completing the form.
jfornear 18y ago
My startup will apparently be worth $36 million in August 2011... total BS. The entire YouNoodle process feels like a phishing scam.
jonmc12 18y ago
I'm surprised no one else has asked what the valuation algorithm is yet. Anyone ambitious enough to survey a set of Younoodle inputs and outputs so we can estimate the valuation formula?
dkasper 18y ago
So,this may be a minor grievance, but why is the last name field white unlike the first name and email field even though it is required?

20 points by babul 18y ago

I built the majority of the survey, so if you see any bugs or have feedback reply to this. Thanks!

Apparently my startup (tarsnap, online backups for the truly paranoid) will be worth $3.71M in September 2009. Given that I'm a sole founder and tarsnap is pre-revenue, I can only guess that YouNoodle is giving me very high marks for (a) having a doctorate from Oxford, and (b) having started university when I was 13 years old. Of course, I'd be happy if YouNoodle was correct in their assessment... but if someone offered to buy tarsnap for $3.71M right now -- or offered to buy any fraction of tarsnap for a corresponding fraction of that amount -- I'd have no hesitation in accepting the offer. EDIT: Yes, I do realize that the assessed value is effective a year from now -- but I still think $3.71M would be a generous amount to pay for tarsnap. Of course, tarsnap might take off faster than I expect...

prakash 18y ago
I understand where you are coming from. Some of those calculations might be based on, for a lack of a better term, VC math, meaning if you are in the process of raising a series A, the VC might value your company (pre-money) at say 4 million, give you a A round of 2 million and own 50% of the company. BTW: When are you launching?
- cperciva 18y ago
  BTW: When are you launching? Depends how you define "launching". I haven't got the accounting code written yet, so revenue is still a month or more away -- but if you mean in the sense of "providing a service which people want", tarsnap has been up and running for three months.
  - prakash 18y ago
    nice. good luck.
create_account 18y ago
Yes, yes, you've stated many, many times that you think you're a genius. Hooray for you! Now try to stick to the topic in future comments.
rw 18y ago
"Online backups for the truly paranoid" is something I've been wanting for a while now. Good luck!

dcurtis 18y ago

Considering that about 70% of startups fail, shouldn't this actually give you a negative valuation most of the time?

sdpurtill 18y ago
You can always sell the laptops back on eBay, right?

hooande 18y ago

YouNoodle is busy... We're experiencing lots of activity so we can't handle your request just yet. Please click the refresh button and try again. scaling = fail

sdpurtill 18y ago
Appears to be a problem with our search index, we're on it ;)
plusbryan 18y ago
yeah, cause with twitter, scaling is a feature!

mixmax 18y ago

My unlaunched startup which I work on part-time will apparently be worth $10 million in 2011. maybe I should start working on it full time :-)

demandred 18y ago

YN wants the data -- not sure they really care about making an (accurate) prediction. Foolhardy exercise to fill in the information.

babul 18y ago
On a side note, and without wanting to be negative, at times I am not really sure they care about many things apart from growing really fast and getting momentum/exposure/traction (which is understandable). You can gauge how much they (or anyone for that matter) care by the response you get when you try and engage with them. In this respect, my past experience has not been good (no response to emails/queries/etc), but maybe that is because I am not significant to them as an individual. When I compare this to the engaging experiences I find with many YC start-ups (http://www.socialbrowse.com http://www.socialbrowse.com springs to mind) and others (e.g. http://www.huddle.net http://www.huddle.net and http://www.freshbooks.com http://www.freshbooks.com), the difference is night and day. Maybe this is just my experience. Still, I’d be more likely to provide sensitive information to sites I trust and that seem to ‘care’.
- kirill 18y ago
  Babul - we aim to respond to every email and query, sorry to hear your experience. Feel free to email me: kirill@younoodle.com with more details and if you think we didn't cover any particular issue properly. Thanks.
  - babul 18y ago
    Sorry for delay in response. Just saw this. We resolved what we needed to by other means, but thank you for the offer. :)

tlrobinson 18y ago

I would be very cautious about giving a lot of this requested information (funding details, % ownership, etc) out to some random website...

dcurtis 18y ago
It's not random. It's funded by Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, and Max Levchin.
- flipbrad 18y ago
  does that lend weight to, or subtract from, his warning?
drusenko 18y ago
Most of the information it requests is pretty generic. If you've raised a round and haven't announced it yet, then by all means, don't give it out. However, for many startups, funding details will be public (and available via crunchbase or startupsearch) -- and generic ownership percentages can be pretty easily inferred. Asking whether investors own <10% or 10-40%, etc, isn't really saying much. As for the rest of the information (mostly how the team relates to each other, their background, and previous work experience), I can't imagine this would be sensitive either, but if it is, by all means, don't give it out.

stats101 18y ago

My startup, InsideDesi (http://www.insidedesi.com http://www.insidedesi.com), will apparently be worth 8 mill by 2011.

c3o 18y ago

Some feedback: * The connections-drawing tool is somewhat broken: First it wouldn't show for me at all ("Loading..."), and then when I wanted to correct something, the eraser didn't remove the lines (although I think it did invalidate them, because I could draw new lines on top of the old ones) * Entering team details is very tedious when every single question is on its own page. I got tired of clicking next, and would very nearly have quit the process there.

sdpurtill 18y ago
I can't figure out what's wrong with the flash not loading - several people have reported this now. Can one of you guys hack it and reply with the answer? I'll buy you a pizza (no seriously, I will)
- sanj 18y ago
  Seriously, pizza? Please! Cash!
  - sanj 18y ago
    It seems a little hypocritical to downmod me and complain about business people taking advantage of hackers.
- drusenko 18y ago
  Is just loading... on mine as well (and I gave it plenty of time). User agent is: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070206 Firefox/3.0.1 FirePHP/0.1.0.3 I also have Firebug 1.2.0b4 installed.

fiaz 18y ago

Has anybody tried entering the details for a 1990s dot.com to see what kind of valuation you get?

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

flipbrad 18y ago

"Give us your sensitive data, we'll make you feel good and optimistic" Preying on the vulnerability/need for validation of most startup founders?

babul 18y ago

These tools are really only as good as the information they are provided or access, and without looking at failure rates/reasons in the model do seem fundamentally flawed to me. As mentioned by others, the results provided do look very optimistic (at least from what I can tell based on the values it provides for things I am involved with) and with refinement once they get the datasets will probably go down significantly in most cases. Time will be the real judge. It will be interesting is to see what they predict and what actually happens in the next years. Hopefully they will provide this information (semi-)publically, but it seems unlikely.

Tichy 18y ago

"YouNoodle's model is based on rigorous quantitative analysis of historical data and the application of the latest relevant theory" Brilliant generic tag line.

thenextweb 18y ago

Trying my start-up now. Does take a lot of time to fill out everything...

helveticaman 18y ago

I feel super iffy about completing the form.

jfornear 18y ago

My startup will apparently be worth $36 million in August 2011... total BS. The entire YouNoodle process feels like a phishing scam.

jonmc12 18y ago

I'm surprised no one else has asked what the valuation algorithm is yet. Anyone ambitious enough to survey a set of Younoodle inputs and outputs so we can estimate the valuation formula?

dkasper 18y ago

So,this may be a minor grievance, but why is the last name field white unlike the first name and email field even though it is required?