6 ms·

YouNoodle Is A Terrible Idea

32 points by epi0Bauqu 18y ago

swombat 18y ago
I am naturally skeptical of unknown people asking for details that belong in the business plan. If you're a potential investor, I don't mind sending you the plan, and without an NDA, but for random sites to ask for such details just seems wrong. Moreover, I think that any business owner who gives in to such requests is either desperate or stupid. I applied to thefunded.com at some point, and they asked for those kinds of details too. I'm not quite sure what they offer in return for all this confidential information, and actually, the fact that they ask for it and that their members have all given it kind of rules them out as a community worth belonging to, imho - full of "entrepreneurs" who are either desperate or stupid. Would love for someone to contradict me and let me know what I've missed out on by not sending our business plan to be reviewed by unknown parties at thefunded.com.
- stcredzero 18y ago
  In the same spirit, someone should take one of those iPhone "Magic 8-ball" apps and have the app upload a sound recording from the moment the iPhone is tipped around for an answer. Then you could go to a site and listen to an internet radio stream of all the questions people are asking and using the iPhone to scry about.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  The giveaway is that some of the questions would be impossible to use in valuating a company. For example, how do you know the founders? And describe your product in words...
  - pmorici 18y ago
    "how do you know the founders" Is a very valid question. They are trying to measure your chances of success If you don't get along with the people you have to work with your chances are greatly reduced. If your co-founder is a child hood friend chances are you know them very well. If you just met them at the WWDC a couple months back chances are they might be an ass.
    - volida 18y ago
      obviously their historical data implies that as long as some people have known each for more than two years the exact number is irrelevant. So it probably doesnt matter if you ve known someone since childhood. This conclusion is derived from the options they give.
    - Alex3917 18y ago
      The way they actually phrase the question is, "How do you know about this startup?" (I.e., not how do the co-founders know each other.)
- sdpurtill 18y ago
  Hey guys, Sam from YouNoodle here. The research and development project behind this was the biggest of its kind ever conducted. If you want to learn more about predictive analytics you can read some of the well-informed recent articles about Startup Predictor. Harvard Business Publishing: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/anthony/2008/08/younoodle_innovation_through_a.html http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/anthony/2008/08/younoodle_i... The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/07/cnent107.xml http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/... American National Public Radio: http://tinyurl.com/625gva http://tinyurl.com/625gva Venture Beat: http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/07/younoodles-startup-predictor-wants-to-tell-you-how-much-a-company-is-worth/ http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/07/younoodles-startup-predict... We are listening to your privacy concerns and will be making changes to how we convey our measures to protect you. Realize you're giving us sensitive information and we take our role in handling that very seriously. Appreciate any further comments or feedback you guys provide as we are iterating fast on this.
  - jon_dahl 18y ago
    Thanks for being a part of the discussion, Sam. As a startup founder, here are my privacy concerns. -- I'd like internal details of my startup to NEVER be released without my knowledge (including ownership breakdowns, investment amounts, number of employees, strategy/expected launch date, revenue/traffic numbers, etc.), under any circumstances - even anonymously. (If you released info on a "video startup in Minnesota", but left out the name, that would be potentially be enough to be traced back to http://zencoder.tv http://zencoder.tv.) -- If you want to use my information in the aggregate, that doesn't bother me as much, and I understand that you may use information about my company as a part of your predictions. -- Obviously, you should take data security very seriously and go above and beyond 99% of companies in this area. -- I should be able to cancel my account with a click of a button, and this should remove all of my private information from your system. These would make me comfortable with YouNoodle, and if I felt certain that you'd follow these standards, I'd probably try it out.
  - staunch 18y ago
    If you could make it a desktop application and store data locally I'm sure you'd have a lot more takers. I'm sure you want to use information from your users to improve your system -- so let people send in anonymized information (and let them see _exactly_ what's being sent and remove anything they're uncomfortable with). I'm guessing it's unlikely you guys will do that. But if someone else does I'd be happy to try it out :-)
ericb 18y ago
YouNoodle failed to use BCC when announcing the site to their beta signup list (I was curious...). There were about 120 other people on the email some of whom immediately started Replying to All. Ugh. Thankfully, I used my gmail account.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- staunch 18y ago
  Not exactly confidence inspiring.
aofstad 18y ago
I think that if it were this easy to predict the success of a startup, VCs would have figured this out a long time ago. Applying for funding would involve filling out a simple form of variables to be plugged into a magical equation. I don't think that this site accounts for the high probability of FAIL inherent in any startup. Probably just assumes that the company will continue along the growth path of previous SUCCESSFUL startups that were included in their historic data.
- taw 18y ago
  One reason why it's not easy is levels of secrecy of all financial data. Nobody has access to enough unbiased quality data, big VCs have loads of data but it is self-selected and misses almost all early failures, who happen to be the most common kind of startups. I don't really understand why financing information of all companies isn't public by law. Companies are not people, they don't have a right to privacy.
aneesh 18y ago
Even as a self-proclaimed math nerd, I'll be the first to admit that certain things just don't lend themselves well to predictive models. You can probably predict success in aggregate, but the individual cases are really tough to predict in situations where a lot of luck is involved (dating, starting a company, etc). Stop trying to find a mathematical formula for the success of a startup. It's hard to find a good one. I think they're overestimating the valuations. Most startups' valuations will go to ZERO within 2-3 years, and yet YouNoodle tells you anyone is worth millions. I played around with their numbers: a startup that hasn't done anything yet, and that the founder is working on 2 hours/wk gets a valuation of over half a million dollars.
- kirill 18y ago
  Aneesh, it's hard to provide an objective experience if you use fake data. Nevertheles, based on the data we analyzed, a 500k valuation was the most likely outcome for the profiles of entrepreneurs you entered, working on a startup for approx 2 hrs/week. Remember that this is a 3-year prediction and the hours is relevant to that initial timeframe pre-funding. Many of those teams will have increased their hours/week during those three years; and 500k is an indication that they are most likely to achieve an angel round within 3 years, but not much more.
  - aneesh 18y ago
    > "a 500k valuation was the most likely outcome for the profiles of entrepreneurs you entered" (emphasis added) Exactly my point. Given 100 startups with that profile, you can say with some confidence that the average outcome will be 500k. But you're ignoring the distribution! It's very risky to make the bet that one individual startup will be worth 500k. I'm not saying you should make better predictions. I'm saying that it's a very risky game to make mathematical predictions on individual valuations at all. Most machine-learned models aren't better than humans, they're just much, much faster than humans. It's a bold bet you're making if you're trying to be better than humans at predicting valuations. Models don't allow for intangibles like "killer sales ability" that may not be reflected in your degree or past job, but that a VC can pick up on 5 minutes after meeting you. See my reply to Sam's post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=272015 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=272015 Edit: Someone put in the relevant numbers for WebVan or Pets.com. I think those two failed within ~3 years.
grag 18y ago
I get the feeling that the startup predictor is just a marketing gimmick to garner some press and that more useful services will be coming... It's certainly not a bad way to get people to talk about their company and register on their site. If / when they do come out with a more useful service they'd likely to get some good press simply because they've already been on the blogosphere radar.
13ren 18y ago
Has anyone managed to get a fail out of YouNoodle (whether for a present, past or hypothetical startup)?
adrianwaj 18y ago
I would love YouNoodle's startup predictor to work great. Why not? It'd allow the cream to rise to the surface. Despite the publicity surrounding startup investment, it can be really hard to secure a first meeting and at least this is another way to attract investors who would otherwise not know about, or look passed someone.
tlrobinson 18y ago
100% gimmick. I wouldn't take investment from anyone who used my company's YouNoodle rating as a guide, and I doubt there are any legitimate investors who would ever do so. So what's the point? Entertainment?

32 points by epi0Bauqu 18y ago

I am naturally skeptical of unknown people asking for details that belong in the business plan. If you're a potential investor, I don't mind sending you the plan, and without an NDA, but for random sites to ask for such details just seems wrong. Moreover, I think that any business owner who gives in to such requests is either desperate or stupid. I applied to thefunded.com at some point, and they asked for those kinds of details too. I'm not quite sure what they offer in return for all this confidential information, and actually, the fact that they ask for it and that their members have all given it kind of rules them out as a community worth belonging to, imho - full of "entrepreneurs" who are either desperate or stupid. Would love for someone to contradict me and let me know what I've missed out on by not sending our business plan to be reviewed by unknown parties at thefunded.com.

stcredzero 18y ago
In the same spirit, someone should take one of those iPhone "Magic 8-ball" apps and have the app upload a sound recording from the moment the iPhone is tipped around for an answer. Then you could go to a site and listen to an internet radio stream of all the questions people are asking and using the iPhone to scry about.
Alex3917 18y ago
The giveaway is that some of the questions would be impossible to use in valuating a company. For example, how do you know the founders? And describe your product in words...
- pmorici 18y ago
  "how do you know the founders" Is a very valid question. They are trying to measure your chances of success If you don't get along with the people you have to work with your chances are greatly reduced. If your co-founder is a child hood friend chances are you know them very well. If you just met them at the WWDC a couple months back chances are they might be an ass.
  - volida 18y ago
    obviously their historical data implies that as long as some people have known each for more than two years the exact number is irrelevant. So it probably doesnt matter if you ve known someone since childhood. This conclusion is derived from the options they give.
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    The way they actually phrase the question is, "How do you know about this startup?" (I.e., not how do the co-founders know each other.)
sdpurtill 18y ago
Hey guys, Sam from YouNoodle here. The research and development project behind this was the biggest of its kind ever conducted. If you want to learn more about predictive analytics you can read some of the well-informed recent articles about Startup Predictor. Harvard Business Publishing: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/anthony/2008/08/younoodle_innovation_through_a.html http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/anthony/2008/08/younoodle_i... The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/07/cnent107.xml http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/... American National Public Radio: http://tinyurl.com/625gva http://tinyurl.com/625gva Venture Beat: http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/07/younoodles-startup-predictor-wants-to-tell-you-how-much-a-company-is-worth/ http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/07/younoodles-startup-predict... We are listening to your privacy concerns and will be making changes to how we convey our measures to protect you. Realize you're giving us sensitive information and we take our role in handling that very seriously. Appreciate any further comments or feedback you guys provide as we are iterating fast on this.
- jon_dahl 18y ago
  Thanks for being a part of the discussion, Sam. As a startup founder, here are my privacy concerns. -- I'd like internal details of my startup to NEVER be released without my knowledge (including ownership breakdowns, investment amounts, number of employees, strategy/expected launch date, revenue/traffic numbers, etc.), under any circumstances - even anonymously. (If you released info on a "video startup in Minnesota", but left out the name, that would be potentially be enough to be traced back to http://zencoder.tv http://zencoder.tv.) -- If you want to use my information in the aggregate, that doesn't bother me as much, and I understand that you may use information about my company as a part of your predictions. -- Obviously, you should take data security very seriously and go above and beyond 99% of companies in this area. -- I should be able to cancel my account with a click of a button, and this should remove all of my private information from your system. These would make me comfortable with YouNoodle, and if I felt certain that you'd follow these standards, I'd probably try it out.
- staunch 18y ago
  If you could make it a desktop application and store data locally I'm sure you'd have a lot more takers. I'm sure you want to use information from your users to improve your system -- so let people send in anonymized information (and let them see _exactly_ what's being sent and remove anything they're uncomfortable with). I'm guessing it's unlikely you guys will do that. But if someone else does I'd be happy to try it out :-)

ericb 18y ago

YouNoodle failed to use BCC when announcing the site to their beta signup list (I was curious...). There were about 120 other people on the email some of whom immediately started Replying to All. Ugh. Thankfully, I used my gmail account.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
staunch 18y ago
Not exactly confidence inspiring.

aofstad 18y ago

I think that if it were this easy to predict the success of a startup, VCs would have figured this out a long time ago. Applying for funding would involve filling out a simple form of variables to be plugged into a magical equation. I don't think that this site accounts for the high probability of FAIL inherent in any startup. Probably just assumes that the company will continue along the growth path of previous SUCCESSFUL startups that were included in their historic data.

taw 18y ago
One reason why it's not easy is levels of secrecy of all financial data. Nobody has access to enough unbiased quality data, big VCs have loads of data but it is self-selected and misses almost all early failures, who happen to be the most common kind of startups. I don't really understand why financing information of all companies isn't public by law. Companies are not people, they don't have a right to privacy.

aneesh 18y ago

Even as a self-proclaimed math nerd, I'll be the first to admit that certain things just don't lend themselves well to predictive models. You can probably predict success in aggregate, but the individual cases are really tough to predict in situations where a lot of luck is involved (dating, starting a company, etc). Stop trying to find a mathematical formula for the success of a startup. It's hard to find a good one. I think they're overestimating the valuations. Most startups' valuations will go to ZERO within 2-3 years, and yet YouNoodle tells you anyone is worth millions. I played around with their numbers: a startup that hasn't done anything yet, and that the founder is working on 2 hours/wk gets a valuation of over half a million dollars.

kirill 18y ago
Aneesh, it's hard to provide an objective experience if you use fake data. Nevertheles, based on the data we analyzed, a 500k valuation was the most likely outcome for the profiles of entrepreneurs you entered, working on a startup for approx 2 hrs/week. Remember that this is a 3-year prediction and the hours is relevant to that initial timeframe pre-funding. Many of those teams will have increased their hours/week during those three years; and 500k is an indication that they are most likely to achieve an angel round within 3 years, but not much more.
- aneesh 18y ago
  > "a 500k valuation was the most likely outcome for the profiles of entrepreneurs you entered" (emphasis added) Exactly my point. Given 100 startups with that profile, you can say with some confidence that the average outcome will be 500k. But you're ignoring the distribution! It's very risky to make the bet that one individual startup will be worth 500k. I'm not saying you should make better predictions. I'm saying that it's a very risky game to make mathematical predictions on individual valuations at all. Most machine-learned models aren't better than humans, they're just much, much faster than humans. It's a bold bet you're making if you're trying to be better than humans at predicting valuations. Models don't allow for intangibles like "killer sales ability" that may not be reflected in your degree or past job, but that a VC can pick up on 5 minutes after meeting you. See my reply to Sam's post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=272015 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=272015 Edit: Someone put in the relevant numbers for WebVan or Pets.com. I think those two failed within ~3 years.

grag 18y ago

I get the feeling that the startup predictor is just a marketing gimmick to garner some press and that more useful services will be coming... It's certainly not a bad way to get people to talk about their company and register on their site. If / when they do come out with a more useful service they'd likely to get some good press simply because they've already been on the blogosphere radar.

13ren 18y ago

Has anyone managed to get a fail out of YouNoodle (whether for a present, past or hypothetical startup)?

adrianwaj 18y ago

I would love YouNoodle's startup predictor to work great. Why not? It'd allow the cream to rise to the surface. Despite the publicity surrounding startup investment, it can be really hard to secure a first meeting and at least this is another way to attract investors who would otherwise not know about, or look passed someone.

tlrobinson 18y ago

100% gimmick. I wouldn't take investment from anyone who used my company's YouNoodle rating as a guide, and I doubt there are any legitimate investors who would ever do so. So what's the point? Entertainment?