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How Rap Genius Raised $1.8M in Seed Funding Without Knowing What We Were Doing
- applecore 13y agoYou can enjoy that sockless look without giving up the benefits of a comfy sock. Look up low-cut, "incognito" or "no show" designs.
- tomlemon 13y agoI feel you, but if someone happens to CATCH you wearing incognito socks (perhaps while you're mid step or something).. well, that's basically the most beta feeling in the world (so I don't think it's worth the risk!!)
- alanctgardner2 13y agoI mostly understood the post, but why is it baller not to wear socks? You can afford to burn your shoes every evening? Signed, a proud beta stealth sock wearer. Also, there is no such thing as too much pink
- pclark 13y agosocks really don't add that much comfort if you wear nice shoes.
- rdl 13y agoI wonder how many groups have gotten rejected from TechStars but accepted into YC. That seems somewhat surprising to me, although I guess the individual TechStars programs are smaller.
- smalter 13y agoMy impression is that both programs rely heavily on in-network recommendations, and the programs largely have non-overlapping networks.
- canadev 13y agoHow does Rap Genius make money?
- huffman 13y agothey don't edit: they ask for it
- sillysaurus 13y agoReally? Zero money? I think your comment would be better if it were better-substantiated. Or any substance at all.
- sp332 13y agoAs of 2011: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/03/why-the-music-industry-wants-a-piece-of-lyrics-site-rap-genius/ http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/03/why-the-music-industry... By placing advertisements on their site, Rap Genius could generate significant revenue, with Web traffic that would make almost any content-driven site green with envy. Lots of other avenues are open for turning the site into a business. A premium version of the site is one possibility. Creating sponsored pages, where musicians or labels generate activity around new album releases and other content. There have been discussions with an agent to pitch network Comedy Central the idea of a Rap Genius television show, which could be similar to Mystery Science Theater 3000. So no monetization strategy has (had?) actually been deployed yet.
- eightyone 13y ago"Today at TechCrunch Disrupt, the Rap Genius founders told me they plan to monetize by building installation of their site for big companies and government agencies. Biz Genius is coming." http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/rap-genius-enterprise/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/rap-genius-enterprise/
- jaynos 13y agoThat is, for lack of a better word, "genius". The Warren Buffet example is interesting in terms of background, but this idea would be even better for "translating" from legalese to something that an average person could understand.
- ssharp 13y agoI'm not sure if its disrespectful or awesome that they're referring to a VC as a "baller ass Russian dude". I suppose being able to talk like this is a privilege only available to a site like Rap Genius. I think I love it.
- merlincorey 13y ago"Baller ass" might be some of that rap lingo. We don't have rap genius annotations here, so I can't verify.
- alex_doom 13y agoHeh, I hope you're kidding. If you're not in this context it means the dude is extremely rich and shows it.
- merlincorey 13y agoThis would be perfect for that annotation! (I was kidding :D)
- gailees 13y agoWe should get Rap Genius annotations on HN comments.
- akiselev 13y ago"Baller ass" in this context is equivalent "badass" or "awesome" Edit: Source: Grew up in LA?
- OGC 13y agoI thought it was extremely clear that they are selling their image instead of just saying: "So, we've got this wiki-ish kind page but when you click on a link you get this modal popup thing where stuff is explained to you instead of visiting a new page." They know they are selling their name and image and they do it full-force.
- joshuaellinger 13y agoAnd since it worked for the Seed, they continued it with the Series A. And it worked again. I think A16Z invested for the entertainment value.
- knodi 13y agoI really hate this style of writing.
- recursive 13y agoWhaat?? That writing steez totally rules. It sounds totally natural to me, like the same as I would talk to my boys, chilling at the park. You must be totally lame.
- dfc 13y agoIt is not just you. I was constantly distracted by the writing style. How can a "saucy" sub taste like cardboard? Why bread-y and not sauce-y? I do not know if this overly affected style of communication is prominent in the valley or if it is done in the service of pump priming for newsgenius annotations. I am still curious what a "hella-beta conversation" is.
- beat 13y agoIf something sufficiently awful happens to you, everything you eat can and will taste like cardboard.
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- thesis 13y agoHow does it go from "The problem was that even if every warm lead invested the maximum plausible amount we’d still barely make it to $1M." on to: "PG advised us to dream up some way of lowering our cap for our existing investors to get more takers, which would have been a hella-beta conversation to have and who knows whether it would even work because showing that kind of weakness is a major turnoff." then: "And yet it ended up totally fine!" -- all this fluff about sockless bearded russians, and apartments with track lighting but they left out the most important part? BTW.. does track lighting in apartments state some level of wealth that I'm unaware of?
- tomlemon 13y agoI explain more in http://news.rapgenius.com/1901085 http://news.rapgenius.com/1901085 (Click the green lines FOR ANNOTATIONS)
- DannoHung 13y agoBut what's the deal with track lighting?
- dfc 13y agoI see track lighting and immediately assume a botched renovation job or if it is a new space they ran way over budget and then realized they needed lights in the room.
- jakejake 13y agoIt's funny, when I think of track lighting the first thing that comes to mind would be art galleries or renovated high-end loft spaces. I guess it must be whatever type of track lighting you're most used to seeing. I didn't know what the heck the OP was trying to indicate about track lighting either. Given the context I figured it was some type of insult about him being cheesy though, I didn't really understand it.
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- austenallred 13y agoIt's nice to see someone calling out fundraising for what it is: an enormous mind game. Imagine how hard it would be to be that confident if you weren't the hottest YC company in the batch. The RapGenius guys had everything you could ever want in terms of traction, network, and social proof, and they still had to convince themselves that they were worth it.
- anandkulkarni 13y agoThis is pretty much spot-on with what it's like to fundraise. RG is such a breakout star today that it's remarkable to see they went through similar fundraising adventures to everyone else in YCS11.
- jonathanjaeger 13y agoSaw Ilan talk at a music tech meetup in NYC and he was about as open as you can get about the behind-the-scenes of starting a community and raising funding. About as open as the blog post but in much greater detail.
- smacktoward 13y ago> It’s not just about the merits of your website – if it were we’d be at the Four Seasons 6 months earlier – it’s about whether you project energy, excitement, and confidence. Thank you, Rap Genius, for packing everything depressing about what the industry I chose to spend my life working in has become into a single convenient sentence.
- schraeds 13y agoThe technology is easily commoditized but a team is not? Stop being so idealistic and understand what it truly takes to convince people with money to give you some, k?
- saddino 13y agoIf you, as a startup founder, can't authentically and sincerely project energy, excitement and confidence about your idea, then something is either wrong with your idea or you are in the wrong business.
- rhizome 13y agoThe problem with this logic is that "energy, excitement and confidence" don't have anything to do with the merits of an idea. An idea can be good without any exhibitions of personality. The tree still falls, after all. However, if expressions about an idea do relate to the quality of that idea, each taken in isolation, what does that say about the concept of meritocracy? That perhaps meritocracy applies only to people and not ideas, and that "meritocracy" in this context has a much narrower definition than a plain reading of the word would suggest.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- elsurudo 13y agoLove the writing style, and the fact that these guys manage to keep it so light, and not take themselves too seriously. Keepin' it real... Nice gimmick. Posting using your own software to pimp it is a good idea, too. I'm not sure I like annotations in this case, because I really read them all anyways, which means that it's just annoying to click them all. There should be a way to expand them all into the body of the article, if you wanted to (is there?).
- lowglow 13y agoSuper relevant meetup happening tonight with SFHN for those that are interested in knowing more about raising a seed round: http://sfhn-seedround.eventbrite.com/ http://sfhn-seedround.eventbrite.com/
- wtrurtiyuryt 13y agoThese are very respectable people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo
- awwstn 13y agoThese guys are loud, belligerent, arrogant and outright absurd [1]. But they are doing something incredible. They have a product with widespread adoption and a massive scope of new verticals to tackle, and they (I think) have a vision for this technology to make the web a better place for all of us. Just as Facebook was brilliant to attract the love of the cool kids (first Ivy league, then all college kids, then high school + college, etc.), which led to worldwide adoption, RapGenius is taking a far more creative approach than to just build an annotation layer over the entire web without any common beliefs, passions or interests to galvanize the community. I'm excited to see it pan out. Edit: I probably shouldn't call someone loud, belligerent, arrogant and outright absurd without a link. :) [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo
- austenallred 13y agoThe transition from "give me love... We decided to ballersource it" to "the technical limitations of the web dating back to Netscape" and "our vision for annotation as a new form of communication" is breathtaking.
- dram 13y agoFor a social site, they are doing great but how could they possibly have any technology that the CIA would need? And while I realize their personas are a joke, to me, they represent everything I dislike about music. Also advocating amphetamine use (not much different than meth) and openly talking about delusional theories of having sex on them would somehow produce smarter kids is just insane. I know some of it's a joke but their narcissism seems authentic.
- dfc 13y ago"And while I realize their personas are a joke, to me, they represent everything I dislike about music" and pop culture in general. The decline of authenticity is depressing.
- liveinoakland 13y agoRap genius is the first site in a long while that I discovered and then promptly spent HOURS on in the next few days. Now I can't listen to a song without checking it out. The annotations on all of Kanye's song have a wealth of amazing back story and information. This site is pure gold even if it only ever did lyrics. The idea that they can expand to other verticals is pure diamonds. This site will slay. I think it already leaves Quora in the dust. IMO it's the next big thing blue chip tech co. PS rap genius annotations implemented on HN would make it a lot cooler. The comments about particular writing style here... u guys should just hop over to Rap Genius and annotate what "hella betta" means. You're living in ancient technology land!
- rhizome 13y agoThe interesting thing is that there have come and gone browser extensions to do just this for 15 years. Maybe it makes a difference that it's all contained in the rapgenius site rather than overlaid on other sites (propriety problem) with the content served from the extension provider's servers (data protection problem).
- liveinoakland 13y agoThe tech isn't enough without the community. Clearly there are some great annotators over on RG. I agree that starting it on a closed website is key. We all know the big hits were just refining things that had been existing in some form or other in the past. FB not first social network, Google not first search engine, etc.
- rhizome 13y agoI think there's a moderation angle too, since the old browser extensions invariably resulted in a hundred "LOLFAG" comments on random CNN stories.
- charleshaanel 13y agoYou needed RapGenius to figure out what 'ye's was saying? lulz. I wonder if people realize this is the equivalent of an old lady saying "I need Kompozer to edit my CSS". For some reason - albeit illogically - I look at that site and just see a bunch of outsiders monetizing someone else's creativity. Yes there are all the arguments about how the technology can be expanded to other verticals but I mean really. It's mad corny. Next you'll have Oxford tutors walking around singing So Solid Crew lyrics. Sorry I mean Funky Dee's Ruby on Rails remix (what happens in 'napa stays in 'napa..) - Conlige suspectos semper habitos.
- tar 13y agoIs this supposed to be a good thing?
- ryguytilidie 13y agoThis doesn't really describe much about how they raised at all. In fact, it seems to focus on pretty much everything except for what they actually did to successfully raise the money, just that they eventually got it...
- EricMuller22 13y agoI absolutely lost it at the "hockey gear" annotation. Would have been hilarious.
- zbruhnke 13y agoWhat I want to know is when Code Genius comes to fruition. I think it would be a much better version of Stack Overflow for some specific use cases.
- franciscoprat 13y agoBest sentence about the attitude: "The shoes aren’t magic, you have to force yourself to dance."