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That was one of the factors that contributed to the "flop". And your point was addressed in my first issue. "Identifying a problem vs fabricating one".

heretohelp 14y ago
>We should have identified that our service was not adding much value and moved on. We should have done this 6 months in and not waited a year to cut our loses. Coulda figured that out a priori, which is partly why VCs have economic value. They have their limitations, but they're not quite so hypo-maniacally deluded as most valleyite entrepreneurs.
dglassan 14y ago
There are tons (maybe more?) companies that are successful without the help of an incubator. People have been raising money and building successful companies decades before the idea of an incubator even came about. Not making it into an incubator didn't contribute to the flop at all. A bad company going through an incubator is still a bad company. I'm not saying your company was bad, I'm just trying to explain that this whole idea that a startup can only be successful if they go through an incubator is completely bogus.
- cutie 14y ago
  I read it as, perhaps the incubator people would have helped shed light on the reality of the situation.
  - dglassan 14y ago
    I get that, and I'm saying you don't need someone at an incubator to tell you that.
  - emmanuel_p 14y ago
    Correct. Outside perspectives from top notch people could have helped us a lot.
georgemcbay 14y ago
This is a bit of a chicken and an egg thing though. Startup failed because it didn't make it into an incubator or startup didn't make it into an incubator because startup was destined to fail? From the blog post: "If we had gone through several products, and applied multiple times our chances of getting in would have been higher and who knows if I’d be writing this blog post today." Are you sure it works that way? Having never applied for YC, I have no idea if it does or it doesn't, but from what I've read here on HN it seems like the product idea is very secondary to whether or not the YC team believes in the founders as individuals and pitching them again with a new product idea in a subsequent YC round wouldn't have really helped if the product is all that has changed. Which is not to say that failing to get into YC once means you'll never get in but rather getting in in the future won't be due to new product ideas, but rather demonstrable growth as an individual (or team) which is probably actually harder to accomplish in a year-long timeframe if you're constantly focusing on which new product idea you should try. In any case, I'd say your startup failed for the primary reason any startup fails, which is that failure is the natural state of any startup. Successes are the very rare exception.

heretohelp 14y ago

>We should have identified that our service was not adding much value and moved on. We should have done this 6 months in and not waited a year to cut our loses. Coulda figured that out a priori, which is partly why VCs have economic value. They have their limitations, but they're not quite so hypo-maniacally deluded as most valleyite entrepreneurs.

dglassan 14y ago

There are tons (maybe more?) companies that are successful without the help of an incubator. People have been raising money and building successful companies decades before the idea of an incubator even came about. Not making it into an incubator didn't contribute to the flop at all. A bad company going through an incubator is still a bad company. I'm not saying your company was bad, I'm just trying to explain that this whole idea that a startup can only be successful if they go through an incubator is completely bogus.

cutie 14y ago
I read it as, perhaps the incubator people would have helped shed light on the reality of the situation.
- dglassan 14y ago
  I get that, and I'm saying you don't need someone at an incubator to tell you that.
- emmanuel_p 14y ago
  Correct. Outside perspectives from top notch people could have helped us a lot.

georgemcbay 14y ago

This is a bit of a chicken and an egg thing though. Startup failed because it didn't make it into an incubator or startup didn't make it into an incubator because startup was destined to fail? From the blog post: "If we had gone through several products, and applied multiple times our chances of getting in would have been higher and who knows if I’d be writing this blog post today." Are you sure it works that way? Having never applied for YC, I have no idea if it does or it doesn't, but from what I've read here on HN it seems like the product idea is very secondary to whether or not the YC team believes in the founders as individuals and pitching them again with a new product idea in a subsequent YC round wouldn't have really helped if the product is all that has changed. Which is not to say that failing to get into YC once means you'll never get in but rather getting in in the future won't be due to new product ideas, but rather demonstrable growth as an individual (or team) which is probably actually harder to accomplish in a year-long timeframe if you're constantly focusing on which new product idea you should try. In any case, I'd say your startup failed for the primary reason any startup fails, which is that failure is the natural state of any startup. Successes are the very rare exception.