3 ms·

The YC brand has little weight to the customers of a startup, and without those a startup quickly dies. It would be interesting to see numbers on that. Informa

The YC brand has little weight to the customers of a startup, and without those a startup quickly dies. It would be interesting to see numbers on that. Informally, I noticed that back when reddit was good, anyone who was asked had either heard about it because it was YC-funded, or heard about it from someone who heard about it that way. I'm not certain, but I would probably bet that the submitters of, say "Man sentenced to NINETY THREE days in jail for taking 6 seconds to sit down! Outrageous!" or "Warrant Issued For Man Paying Fine With Pennies" didn't find out about it the same way.

pg 18y ago
Reddit's a unique case because their initial user base (like News.YC's) consisted of other YC founders. And since they couldn't afford any form of promotion that cost money, news of the site spread mainly from those users.
- meredydd 18y ago
  I'm finding it difficult to square your assertion that Reddit is "unique" in this respect with the assertion that it's the web that's "making marketing and distribution free". The only way that web marketing is "free" is if product awareness spreads between customers, or is pushed through the founders' personal contacts. Wouldn't this imply that we could expect this phenomenon - the initial user base being in some way close to the founders - to grow as the industry approaches the asymptotes you assert it is heading for?
  - pg 18y ago
    I meant only that Reddit's connection to YC was unique. Awareness of Reddit did spread between users.
- nostrademons 18y ago
  And other followers of your essays, and people who got rejected from YC that first time. I checked out Reddit at first because I was curious what the folks who did get in were up to. And they happened to have built something cool, so I told a lot of my friends and family, and who knows who else they told. I think it's a fairly good bet that Reddit did a lot better with their initial group of users being seeded from folks who'd heard of you or followed comp.lang.lisp, than if they tried to launch something among their UVa friends.

pg 18y ago

Reddit's a unique case because their initial user base (like News.YC's) consisted of other YC founders. And since they couldn't afford any form of promotion that cost money, news of the site spread mainly from those users.

meredydd 18y ago
I'm finding it difficult to square your assertion that Reddit is "unique" in this respect with the assertion that it's the web that's "making marketing and distribution free". The only way that web marketing is "free" is if product awareness spreads between customers, or is pushed through the founders' personal contacts. Wouldn't this imply that we could expect this phenomenon - the initial user base being in some way close to the founders - to grow as the industry approaches the asymptotes you assert it is heading for?
- pg 18y ago
  I meant only that Reddit's connection to YC was unique. Awareness of Reddit did spread between users.
nostrademons 18y ago
And other followers of your essays, and people who got rejected from YC that first time. I checked out Reddit at first because I was curious what the folks who did get in were up to. And they happened to have built something cool, so I told a lot of my friends and family, and who knows who else they told. I think it's a fairly good bet that Reddit did a lot better with their initial group of users being seeded from folks who'd heard of you or followed comp.lang.lisp, than if they tried to launch something among their UVa friends.