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And yet YCombinator is funding Loopt. Care to explain this? Does this mean you think Loopt will fail as well?

• Alex3917 20y ago
  I don't know if Loopt will fail or not because I don't know how close they are to partnering with other carriers. I do know that if they can't expand beyond Boost then they have zero chance of succeeding, and publicly we haven't seen much evidence of progress in nearly a year. I also know that their CEO said if he had to do it again, he wouldn't do a business that relied on partnering with the carriers. As for YCombinator, PG described it as being a difficult problem to solve, but noted that the job of a startup is to solve difficult problems. Certainly you can get rich solving a problem that's too hard for everyone else. But there are a lot of other problems with fairly easy answers, it's just that no one else has figured out that answer yet. I'm not saying definitely don't do it, but certainly be aware of the issues. If your business manages to avoid these central issues, then maybe it's feasible. But if you're going to try to pull a Ulysses S. Grant style meat-grinder approach, then, well, good luck because you'll need it.
  • jamongkad 20y ago
    Hmmm something to think about indeed, anyways good points on the issues it actually gave me a "Don't do-avoid" list for future plans and ideas.