9 ms·

Today Is Y Combinator W13 Demo Day

75 points by jcr 14y ago

jcr 14y ago
I wanted to wish everyone the best of luck, and I figured most people here would appreciate the reminder, but unfortunately I got a "posting too fast" message when trying to use a temp/throw-away account to avoid karma gaming. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tmp_w13 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tmp_w13 Anyhow, I'm going to make popcorn and start relentlessly reloading techcrunch.
dishank 14y ago
Good luck to the current batches, you've been preparing for this so you'll be fine. I look forward to reading about you guys doing big things soon.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rdl 14y ago
I saw these all during Alumni Demo Day last night, and if you're an investor, I would strongly suggest going to Demo Day this time.
- Kiro 14y ago
  Why?
  - rdl 14y ago
    The quality of the companies is quite good, even compared to S11, W12, S12. So, good investment opportunities, and even if you don't invest, I think it sets or exemplifies a lot of the greater trends in Silicon Valley. (I don't want to comment on the specific companies until after they present, though.)
    - jareau 14y ago
      Agree. Quality of ideas an founders was quite high this time around (my 3rd Alumni Day). General themes: marketplaces, kickstarter-derivatives, and big data. In general, lots of companies that have high probability of making money.
- beambot 14y ago
  :-( I don't think we met last night. Pity, I would've liked to meet the person behind "rdl". Perhaps we could meet sometime after DDay craziness dies down?
jkaljundi 14y ago
Wish https://angel.co/y-combinator https://angel.co/y-combinator had a better portfolio by batches.
- dmor 14y ago
  I have been keeping an index of companies from the current batch as they launch, with short descriptions and web traffic stats. Right now 27 of the 47 companies have already publicly launched (mostly on TechCrunch). I will update this throughout the day: http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/preliminary-yc-index-winter-2013-batch-companies/ http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/preliminary-yc-index-...
  - jcr 14y ago
    At the moment (before today's Demo Day starts), 30 of 47 are public.
    - dmor 14y ago
      I have updated to include Bitnami, Goldbely and Paytango. Is there anyone else I missed?
      - jcr 14y ago
        diff against the ycuniverse link I posted.
  - crapshoot101 14y ago
    Really helpful Danielle - thanks!
- jcr 14y ago
  I'm not sure how complete it is, but HN user citizenkeys keeps a nice index of YC companies listed by batch. http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies#ycw13 http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies#ycw13
- aashaykumar92 14y ago
morgante 14y ago
Good luck to all! Hope the new size works out well too.
adventureloop 14y ago
Is today going to be the first test of the handshake protocol? http://ycombinator.com/hdp.html http://ycombinator.com/hdp.html
- pg 14y ago
  I've heard people have already started using it actually.
allsystemsgo 14y ago
Is there a live feed of this? Or is there a video of it I can watch after work?
- simonw 14y ago
  No, YC have never to my knowledge published or recorded video of the pitches. I doubt they would either - it would increase the stress on the participants, and often the investor pitches include commercially sensitive information.
  - allsystemsgo 14y ago
    Ah, you're right about the commercially sensitive information.
    - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
      I wonder about "commercially sensitive" as much as "National Security". I often assume they are catch-alls that in a transparent world would be unremarkable, or cause for pressure to fix from stakeholders - I would guess there are very few things a competitor would be able to take advantage of that you could make public about a startup. Its business model? Made public to every customer. Its financial status? Its a start up - the status is terrible by default. Its customer list? If Google is my customer, I am letting you know for sure. Its source code? Yes, but I am not sure that a) that is what most people consider commercially sensitive information (ie its more an asset such as IP) and b) even if we gave the main competitor of WuFoo their git repos, the competitor would probably have to use all of the code to make much use of any of the code. Except maybe grep for swear words in the comments
- jcr 14y ago
  The YC Demo Day is a private gathering. From descriptions I've read, it's essentially just the founders of the given batch and "accredited investors" (in US legal parlance, I believe "accredited investor" means having a net worth greater than 1 million or a yearly income in excess of 250K, but I'm not a lawyer so I might be wrong). On past Demo Days, at least there was one, trusted, member of the "press" from techcrunch at the event. One of the problems with Demo Day is not all of the companies are publicly announced when it happens and they want to keep working in "stealth mode" while raising capital. Said trusted person from the press is told which companies they can and can't write about. Though the world could probably learn a lot from videos of the pitches on Demo Day, I sincerely doubt they will ever be released to the public.
tptacek 14y ago
You stole the Computer History Museum from my kids today! They flew out from Chicago to see it! We're picketing.
- jcr 14y ago
  There's something wrong with this picture... You're trying to tell me an "Internet Famous" security pen tester is unable to get into the Computer History Museum? Well, I made it in here. I showed up yesterday and locked myself inside a running CRAY overnight. The burns were worth it, but I still haven't managed to get out yet...
  - joshu 14y ago
    Inappropriate and creepy.
    - jcr 14y ago
      It was meant in good humor, but if you think it's off, then I'll ask to have it deleted.
RyanZAG 14y ago
YC should organize a mini-demo day the day after demo for all of these exciting companies to give small presentations on what they're working on. It would be very interesting for other startups to watch, and would give a lot of very much needed publicity to these companies. I think a "YC-Demo Day" youtube video would generate a fairly enormous amount of traffic and publicity (and be interesting to watch)!
- 2arrs2ells 14y ago
  The day after demo day is usually spent frantically setting up meetings with investors... probably not the best timing. But I do think some sort of "Show HN: YC W13" would be awesome!
  - rdl 14y ago
    It would be fun to get ~all of the YC companies to do video clips for Startup School or something, though.
reaclmbs 14y ago
It'd be need if somebody ran a YC Hedge Fund. I'd happily pay 2% and 20% management fees! :D
- jwb119 14y ago
  Yuri Milner and SV Angel pretty much do exactly that though the Start Fund. Although I doubt it's that easy to buy in. Ha.
- swampthing 14y ago
  maybe wefunder can get in on the YCVC program :) all they need is ~$1m
  - gbelote 14y ago
    Haha - maybe we'll do something like that for the next batch, we'll see! We do have a few batchmates on our platform, you can always create your own index and invest in all of them. :) (Unfortunately due to regulations we can't publicly say who they are, and viewing/investing is limited to accredited investors only... for now!)
    - johnrob 14y ago
      I've been looking for the right place to ask for this very thing. There's no savvier investor than YC itself, and they allocate their money in a very specific and consistent manner: equally across all startups in a batch. Full coverage is more important than doubling down on a winner. For anyone with X to invest, it's hard to argue that investing X/n in all n YC startups is not the best approach. Do it!
- lisper 14y ago
  I ran such a fund for the S08 batch. It did quite well (>60% annual IRR, which was very good for an '08 fund). I wanted to make it a regular revolving fund (i.e. a new fund for every YC class), but there wasn't enough interest. Most people who angel invest want to be in control of the investment decisions, so a fund is a hard sell. Administering such a fund is non-trivial, but I would happily do it again if I could find enough interested investors. It's a great way to get started and/or diversify a relatively small investment.
randall 14y ago
Good luck demo day startups!! I used to be behind the scenes, and it was always a nerve wracking time for me, so I figure if I times my nerves by 1000, that's what it would be like for the startups. :)
jedc 14y ago
Fun fact; if you look at the robots.txt file for ycombinator.com, this page (dday.html) is the only one that's disallowed.

75 points by jcr 14y ago

jcr 14y ago

I wanted to wish everyone the best of luck, and I figured most people here would appreciate the reminder, but unfortunately I got a "posting too fast" message when trying to use a temp/throw-away account to avoid karma gaming. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tmp_w13 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tmp_w13 Anyhow, I'm going to make popcorn and start relentlessly reloading techcrunch.

dishank 14y ago

Good luck to the current batches, you've been preparing for this so you'll be fine. I look forward to reading about you guys doing big things soon.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rdl 14y ago

I saw these all during Alumni Demo Day last night, and if you're an investor, I would strongly suggest going to Demo Day this time.

Kiro 14y ago
Why?
- rdl 14y ago
  The quality of the companies is quite good, even compared to S11, W12, S12. So, good investment opportunities, and even if you don't invest, I think it sets or exemplifies a lot of the greater trends in Silicon Valley. (I don't want to comment on the specific companies until after they present, though.)
  - jareau 14y ago
    Agree. Quality of ideas an founders was quite high this time around (my 3rd Alumni Day). General themes: marketplaces, kickstarter-derivatives, and big data. In general, lots of companies that have high probability of making money.
beambot 14y ago
:-( I don't think we met last night. Pity, I would've liked to meet the person behind "rdl". Perhaps we could meet sometime after DDay craziness dies down?

jkaljundi 14y ago

Wish https://angel.co/y-combinator https://angel.co/y-combinator had a better portfolio by batches.

dmor 14y ago
I have been keeping an index of companies from the current batch as they launch, with short descriptions and web traffic stats. Right now 27 of the 47 companies have already publicly launched (mostly on TechCrunch). I will update this throughout the day: http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/preliminary-yc-index-winter-2013-batch-companies/ http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/preliminary-yc-index-...
- jcr 14y ago
  At the moment (before today's Demo Day starts), 30 of 47 are public.
  - dmor 14y ago
    I have updated to include Bitnami, Goldbely and Paytango. Is there anyone else I missed?
    - jcr 14y ago
      diff against the ycuniverse link I posted.
- crapshoot101 14y ago
  Really helpful Danielle - thanks!
jcr 14y ago
I'm not sure how complete it is, but HN user citizenkeys keeps a nice index of YC companies listed by batch. http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies#ycw13 http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies#ycw13
aashaykumar92 14y ago

morgante 14y ago

Good luck to all! Hope the new size works out well too.

adventureloop 14y ago

Is today going to be the first test of the handshake protocol? http://ycombinator.com/hdp.html http://ycombinator.com/hdp.html

pg 14y ago
I've heard people have already started using it actually.

allsystemsgo 14y ago

Is there a live feed of this? Or is there a video of it I can watch after work?

simonw 14y ago
No, YC have never to my knowledge published or recorded video of the pitches. I doubt they would either - it would increase the stress on the participants, and often the investor pitches include commercially sensitive information.
- allsystemsgo 14y ago
  Ah, you're right about the commercially sensitive information.
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    I wonder about "commercially sensitive" as much as "National Security". I often assume they are catch-alls that in a transparent world would be unremarkable, or cause for pressure to fix from stakeholders - I would guess there are very few things a competitor would be able to take advantage of that you could make public about a startup. Its business model? Made public to every customer. Its financial status? Its a start up - the status is terrible by default. Its customer list? If Google is my customer, I am letting you know for sure. Its source code? Yes, but I am not sure that a) that is what most people consider commercially sensitive information (ie its more an asset such as IP) and b) even if we gave the main competitor of WuFoo their git repos, the competitor would probably have to use all of the code to make much use of any of the code. Except maybe grep for swear words in the comments
jcr 14y ago
The YC Demo Day is a private gathering. From descriptions I've read, it's essentially just the founders of the given batch and "accredited investors" (in US legal parlance, I believe "accredited investor" means having a net worth greater than 1 million or a yearly income in excess of 250K, but I'm not a lawyer so I might be wrong). On past Demo Days, at least there was one, trusted, member of the "press" from techcrunch at the event. One of the problems with Demo Day is not all of the companies are publicly announced when it happens and they want to keep working in "stealth mode" while raising capital. Said trusted person from the press is told which companies they can and can't write about. Though the world could probably learn a lot from videos of the pitches on Demo Day, I sincerely doubt they will ever be released to the public.

tptacek 14y ago

You stole the Computer History Museum from my kids today! They flew out from Chicago to see it! We're picketing.

jcr 14y ago
There's something wrong with this picture... You're trying to tell me an "Internet Famous" security pen tester is unable to get into the Computer History Museum? Well, I made it in here. I showed up yesterday and locked myself inside a running CRAY overnight. The burns were worth it, but I still haven't managed to get out yet...
- joshu 14y ago
  Inappropriate and creepy.
  - jcr 14y ago
    It was meant in good humor, but if you think it's off, then I'll ask to have it deleted.

RyanZAG 14y ago

YC should organize a mini-demo day the day after demo for all of these exciting companies to give small presentations on what they're working on. It would be very interesting for other startups to watch, and would give a lot of very much needed publicity to these companies. I think a "YC-Demo Day" youtube video would generate a fairly enormous amount of traffic and publicity (and be interesting to watch)!

2arrs2ells 14y ago
The day after demo day is usually spent frantically setting up meetings with investors... probably not the best timing. But I do think some sort of "Show HN: YC W13" would be awesome!
- rdl 14y ago
  It would be fun to get ~all of the YC companies to do video clips for Startup School or something, though.

reaclmbs 14y ago

It'd be need if somebody ran a YC Hedge Fund. I'd happily pay 2% and 20% management fees! :D

jwb119 14y ago
Yuri Milner and SV Angel pretty much do exactly that though the Start Fund. Although I doubt it's that easy to buy in. Ha.
swampthing 14y ago
maybe wefunder can get in on the YCVC program :) all they need is ~$1m
- gbelote 14y ago
  Haha - maybe we'll do something like that for the next batch, we'll see! We do have a few batchmates on our platform, you can always create your own index and invest in all of them. :) (Unfortunately due to regulations we can't publicly say who they are, and viewing/investing is limited to accredited investors only... for now!)
  - johnrob 14y ago
    I've been looking for the right place to ask for this very thing. There's no savvier investor than YC itself, and they allocate their money in a very specific and consistent manner: equally across all startups in a batch. Full coverage is more important than doubling down on a winner. For anyone with X to invest, it's hard to argue that investing X/n in all n YC startups is not the best approach. Do it!
lisper 14y ago
I ran such a fund for the S08 batch. It did quite well (>60% annual IRR, which was very good for an '08 fund). I wanted to make it a regular revolving fund (i.e. a new fund for every YC class), but there wasn't enough interest. Most people who angel invest want to be in control of the investment decisions, so a fund is a hard sell. Administering such a fund is non-trivial, but I would happily do it again if I could find enough interested investors. It's a great way to get started and/or diversify a relatively small investment.

randall 14y ago

Good luck demo day startups!! I used to be behind the scenes, and it was always a nerve wracking time for me, so I figure if I times my nerves by 1000, that's what it would be like for the startups. :)

jedc 14y ago

Fun fact; if you look at the robots.txt file for ycombinator.com, this page (dday.html) is the only one that's disallowed.