6 ms·

Y Combinator Demo Day: The Ultimate Roundup

143 points by brendanlim 15y ago

coderdude 15y ago
I wonder when exactly it was that TechCrunch was like, "wow, all we really need to do is write YC articles all day." They're playing this site like a violin.
zhyder 15y ago
My Picks for: - Most likely to succeed in a big way: Parse - Most interesting/clever (want it to succeed): Verbling - Most scary (wary of it succeeding): Double Recall
- greendestiny 15y ago
  I don't think Double Recall is as scary as the kind of ugly paywalls and interstitial ads a lot of news sites currently use. Although as a consumer I'd be bound to hit the close button on any site that used it, but that's the sites problem to try an optimise.
  - thisisfmu 15y ago
    making me type advertiser-specified words on a mobile device to visit some site? terrible and easily worse than an interstitial.
    - greendestiny 15y ago
      On closer inspection I see that it is itself an interstitial, so clearly I'm wrong. Still beats a paywall.
- thisisfmu 15y ago
  Double Recall looks like one of the very few startups that would make the world a worse place if they succeed :(
  - devongall 15y ago
    The other side of the coin is it could allow more content to remain accessible for free (given the stats advertisers are bound to pay more). I'd rather enter brand-specified words than my credit card info.
    - thisisfmu 15y ago
      i do not think it is as clear-cut that brand advertisers will pay higher rates or even accept the format as they may think. sure, conversion/recall etc might be higher but company X making me do some annoying work is not exactly endearing them to me and tarnishes their brand. people are lazy.
  - nhebb 15y ago
    There are a few cases where Double Recall wouldn't be so bad. For example, if I had to pick between a Double Recall interstitial and watching a commercial before a video starts, I'd go with Double Recall. I'd also prefer them to pop under ads (which, BTW, I hadn't seen in years until I switched from FF to Chrome).
  - jeremymims 15y ago
    Keep in mind that Double Recall works with news publishers. The number one thing that publishers need is more money to pay for content production. Most publishers are toying with a paywall model right now. I hope they go the Double Recall route. I'd rather type in two words once a day and have an advertiser pay for my content than pull out my credit card to hop over a paywall. So, here's the alternative. If the Double Recalls have figured out a nice sustainable way to pay for a good chunk of the journalism you enjoy, wouldn't that make the world a better place?
    - iconfinder 15y ago
      "I hope they go the Double Recall route. I'd rather type in two words once a day and have an advertiser pay for my content than pull out my credit card to hop over a paywall." Well, that depends on the price of the paywall, the quality of the content and how much you value your time, right?
- gyardley 15y ago
  Double Recall looks like Solve Media with a self-service-for-advertisers interface and some mobile ad units. No real need to be afraid of Double Recall, since Solve has been in the market for a while and is doing really well. I'm sure they'll do fine if they bring on the right salespeople - it's a sales-centric business.
prpon 15y ago
Quite a few of the companies mentioned have traction and that is pretty impressive. I haven't seen anyone else say it but kicksend looks a lot like getcrate from sahil lavingia with facebook integration added to it.
- ayanb 15y ago
  Infact, traction could be one of the key drivers behind some of the companies getting selected into YC.
  - jorde 15y ago
    It would be interesting to get an overview on how many of the startups in the current batch had their products out 1) before getting funded by YC, 2) during YC.
qasar 15y ago
The S11 demo day writes up are probably one of the best ways to get a sense of what the early stage ecosystem looks like right now. Its not a bad picture either. These are some great startups - mature and refreshingly diverse. It's a good time to be an entrepreneur in the valley.
cyberguppy 15y ago
MarketBrief sounds like a home run to me. If the product works as described it's a tremendous value proposition.
- thisisfmu 15y ago
  It's basically search engine spam generated from SEC docs. Adds needless verbosity to when people want the info in a concise format. When looking for actionable financial info I hate having to read through sentences when a table or graph will do. Consider why audio podcasts never really caught on for non-entertainment.
  - randall 15y ago
    I don't know how to read an S1, which is why I go to places like CNBC and the sort in the first place. Granted, I'm not a financial services kind of guy, but it's useful to have that info generated in a digestible format. I don't think the podcast analog works quite right... it's more like taking a blog post from tech crunch, and automagically repurposing it for usa today by adding relevant context programmatically. There's definitely value in that, but I don't think it's "Bloomberg" money.
bdr 15y ago
I'd say Codecademy has the potential to create the most value. Lowering the barrier to learning to code will create a lot more coders.
cooperadymas 15y ago
I'm amazed at how many "Groupon for X" startups have been popping up. In this group there is Munch On Me (restaurants) and Aisle50 (groceries), but if you look through a site like http://startupli.st/startups http://startupli.st/startups there are a lot of others. Opez also says they want to turn independent professionals into their own Groupons, which doesn't really equate. I presume they really mean giving the independent professionals the ability to publish their own coupons. With as much criticism as GroupOn has received, and the suspect way they have measured their success it seems there must be a better model of comparison. Saying you want to be the LivingSocial of X would likely give a better impression. Still, I'm not sure applying that business model to a specific industry like restaurants or groceries will lead to success. For restaurants, LivingSocial and GroupOn already give out a lot of restaurant deals. Google will soon be moving in the market also. It's quickly becoming saturated. How long can restaurants give away meals for half price? Aisle50 is at least attacking an area that isn't really covered by existing businesses.
brlewis 15y ago
Go Snapjoy! I'm looking to them for market validation.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tomlin 15y ago
VidYard isn't really much of an innovation, in fact, Bits on the Run has been doing this - better - for quiet some time. VidYard is caught in between trying to emulate YouTube and being a streaming hosting provider without convincing me of either strengths. BOTR offers an elegant API, skin-able players, pay-as-you-go usage, statistics and, as an option, a totally configurable ad platform plugin for the player that works with more than one ad platform. FWIW, I know VidYard does a lot of this, too, but what's the YouTube angle doing for them? Other than having a chart comparing them to community-based video platforms? EDIT: Down-vote if you want, but provide a reason. Otherwise, I'll assume: "he said something about my startup, get him!"
whichdan 15y ago
Bushido sounds really interesting. I've always liked the Add-Ons for Heroku, and a platform-independent version of that would be a huge help.
tuomasb 15y ago
No one mentioned Mixrank in the comments, I like the idea. Maybe someday it will be one of those essential marketing tools like SEOmoz. I for one, am lazy and would prefer just mimic my competitors ads instead of making 10 different ads and A/B testing them. Coverage seems quite narrow at least for .fi domains. They probably need to get some ad-crawler servers with IP addresses(according to GeoIP) from Finland or any other country they want to have coverage in. http://www.mixrank.com/a/groupon.com http://www.mixrank.com/a/groupon.com lol @ "90% off"

143 points by brendanlim 15y ago

I wonder when exactly it was that TechCrunch was like, "wow, all we really need to do is write YC articles all day." They're playing this site like a violin.

zhyder 15y ago

My Picks for: - Most likely to succeed in a big way: Parse - Most interesting/clever (want it to succeed): Verbling - Most scary (wary of it succeeding): Double Recall

greendestiny 15y ago
I don't think Double Recall is as scary as the kind of ugly paywalls and interstitial ads a lot of news sites currently use. Although as a consumer I'd be bound to hit the close button on any site that used it, but that's the sites problem to try an optimise.
- thisisfmu 15y ago
  making me type advertiser-specified words on a mobile device to visit some site? terrible and easily worse than an interstitial.
  - greendestiny 15y ago
    On closer inspection I see that it is itself an interstitial, so clearly I'm wrong. Still beats a paywall.
thisisfmu 15y ago
Double Recall looks like one of the very few startups that would make the world a worse place if they succeed :(
- devongall 15y ago
  The other side of the coin is it could allow more content to remain accessible for free (given the stats advertisers are bound to pay more). I'd rather enter brand-specified words than my credit card info.
  - thisisfmu 15y ago
    i do not think it is as clear-cut that brand advertisers will pay higher rates or even accept the format as they may think. sure, conversion/recall etc might be higher but company X making me do some annoying work is not exactly endearing them to me and tarnishes their brand. people are lazy.
- nhebb 15y ago
  There are a few cases where Double Recall wouldn't be so bad. For example, if I had to pick between a Double Recall interstitial and watching a commercial before a video starts, I'd go with Double Recall. I'd also prefer them to pop under ads (which, BTW, I hadn't seen in years until I switched from FF to Chrome).
- jeremymims 15y ago
  Keep in mind that Double Recall works with news publishers. The number one thing that publishers need is more money to pay for content production. Most publishers are toying with a paywall model right now. I hope they go the Double Recall route. I'd rather type in two words once a day and have an advertiser pay for my content than pull out my credit card to hop over a paywall. So, here's the alternative. If the Double Recalls have figured out a nice sustainable way to pay for a good chunk of the journalism you enjoy, wouldn't that make the world a better place?
  - iconfinder 15y ago
    "I hope they go the Double Recall route. I'd rather type in two words once a day and have an advertiser pay for my content than pull out my credit card to hop over a paywall." Well, that depends on the price of the paywall, the quality of the content and how much you value your time, right?
gyardley 15y ago
Double Recall looks like Solve Media with a self-service-for-advertisers interface and some mobile ad units. No real need to be afraid of Double Recall, since Solve has been in the market for a while and is doing really well. I'm sure they'll do fine if they bring on the right salespeople - it's a sales-centric business.

prpon 15y ago

Quite a few of the companies mentioned have traction and that is pretty impressive. I haven't seen anyone else say it but kicksend looks a lot like getcrate from sahil lavingia with facebook integration added to it.

ayanb 15y ago
Infact, traction could be one of the key drivers behind some of the companies getting selected into YC.
- jorde 15y ago
  It would be interesting to get an overview on how many of the startups in the current batch had their products out 1) before getting funded by YC, 2) during YC.

qasar 15y ago

The S11 demo day writes up are probably one of the best ways to get a sense of what the early stage ecosystem looks like right now. Its not a bad picture either. These are some great startups - mature and refreshingly diverse. It's a good time to be an entrepreneur in the valley.

cyberguppy 15y ago

MarketBrief sounds like a home run to me. If the product works as described it's a tremendous value proposition.

thisisfmu 15y ago
It's basically search engine spam generated from SEC docs. Adds needless verbosity to when people want the info in a concise format. When looking for actionable financial info I hate having to read through sentences when a table or graph will do. Consider why audio podcasts never really caught on for non-entertainment.
- randall 15y ago
  I don't know how to read an S1, which is why I go to places like CNBC and the sort in the first place. Granted, I'm not a financial services kind of guy, but it's useful to have that info generated in a digestible format. I don't think the podcast analog works quite right... it's more like taking a blog post from tech crunch, and automagically repurposing it for usa today by adding relevant context programmatically. There's definitely value in that, but I don't think it's "Bloomberg" money.

bdr 15y ago

I'd say Codecademy has the potential to create the most value. Lowering the barrier to learning to code will create a lot more coders.

cooperadymas 15y ago

I'm amazed at how many "Groupon for X" startups have been popping up. In this group there is Munch On Me (restaurants) and Aisle50 (groceries), but if you look through a site like http://startupli.st/startups http://startupli.st/startups there are a lot of others. Opez also says they want to turn independent professionals into their own Groupons, which doesn't really equate. I presume they really mean giving the independent professionals the ability to publish their own coupons. With as much criticism as GroupOn has received, and the suspect way they have measured their success it seems there must be a better model of comparison. Saying you want to be the LivingSocial of X would likely give a better impression. Still, I'm not sure applying that business model to a specific industry like restaurants or groceries will lead to success. For restaurants, LivingSocial and GroupOn already give out a lot of restaurant deals. Google will soon be moving in the market also. It's quickly becoming saturated. How long can restaurants give away meals for half price? Aisle50 is at least attacking an area that isn't really covered by existing businesses.

brlewis 15y ago

Go Snapjoy! I'm looking to them for market validation.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

tomlin 15y ago

VidYard isn't really much of an innovation, in fact, Bits on the Run has been doing this - better - for quiet some time. VidYard is caught in between trying to emulate YouTube and being a streaming hosting provider without convincing me of either strengths. BOTR offers an elegant API, skin-able players, pay-as-you-go usage, statistics and, as an option, a totally configurable ad platform plugin for the player that works with more than one ad platform. FWIW, I know VidYard does a lot of this, too, but what's the YouTube angle doing for them? Other than having a chart comparing them to community-based video platforms? EDIT: Down-vote if you want, but provide a reason. Otherwise, I'll assume: "he said something about my startup, get him!"

whichdan 15y ago

Bushido sounds really interesting. I've always liked the Add-Ons for Heroku, and a platform-independent version of that would be a huge help.

tuomasb 15y ago

No one mentioned Mixrank in the comments, I like the idea. Maybe someday it will be one of those essential marketing tools like SEOmoz. I for one, am lazy and would prefer just mimic my competitors ads instead of making 10 different ads and A/B testing them. Coverage seems quite narrow at least for .fi domains. They probably need to get some ad-crawler servers with IP addresses(according to GeoIP) from Finland or any other country they want to have coverage in. http://www.mixrank.com/a/groupon.com http://www.mixrank.com/a/groupon.com lol @ "90% off"