10 ms·

Show HN: No YC interview, but here's my application

148 points by guynamedloren 13y ago

phyalow 13y ago
I wouldnt have thought the market was huge for this. You mention "Textbooks" - most commercial publishing companies would already have internal version control software, you mention essays? Most students would just use google docs. Where is the target market? It's neither casual nor a power tool. Thats probably why your pitch failed, their is adequate substitute products already in the market place.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  > commercial publishing companies would already have internal version control software You'd be surprised. I've talked to published authors, and here's the inside scoop: the writing/editing process is often, amazingly, word documents emailed back and forth with hacked up homebrew version control 'systems' and inline comments. Believe it or not. I've seen them. And it only gets worse when there are more editors involved (depending on the content, there can be many). O'Reilly is working on a similar idea (http://atlas.labs.oreilly.com http://atlas.labs.oreilly.com), which means there is at least some demand by commercial publishers for a system like this. If O'Reilly is working on it, it can't be solved very well. Anyway, I'm not even targeting commercial publishing, I'm targeting independent publishing. > you mention essays? Most students would just use google docs For short essays google docs is fantastic. I don't plan to touch that. But have you tried writing any kind of long-form group research paper (as in, over the course of a semester), especially technical, with google docs or dropbox? I have. It's a nightmare. > their is adequate substitute products already in the market place Craigslist and couchsurfing.org were adequate substitutes for Airbnb, Yahoo search was an adequate substitute for Google, and flash drives were an adequate substitute for Dropbox.
  - flylib 13y ago
    well to be fair, your hitting a very crowded market that already has very established services with large userbases (If Google Docs, Word or Github just takes the idea then your basically done for) and there is a whole bunch of startups in the same exact space as you (Atlas, Editorially and Draft), that might of scared Y Combinator off because chances are one will thrive and the rest will fizzle out
    - mattlutze 13y ago
      "If Google Docs, Word or Github just takes the idea then your basically done for" That is a very non-trivial task for any of those companies. Google could get closest fastest, but they're by no means going to churn something out in a month even if the good idea fairy hits one of their product managers. Microsoft, heck it'd take 3 years to see it.
    - shrikrishna 13y ago
      I've seen a lot of PG's interviews where he literally says "Don't worry about competition". Dropbox released at a time when Google Drive was looming in the horizon. Still they succeeded. It's the execution that matters.
      - flylib 13y ago
        honestly though there was a pretty large gap between the time Dropbox came out and Google Drive did though, Dropbox was already established and had a large user base when Google Drive launched
  - diminish 13y ago
    I agree, and I see a big market especially in academic publishing. A lot of course book text is written in a collaborative fashion with word docs emailed back and forth. Penflip could be to collaborative writing what Dropbox is to team file sharing. Being a single cofounder might have been a negative factor, in your rejection.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    Yes Because formatting a book is painful. And you need to use the tools the publishers use (namely - InDesign) And they import (keeping the styles) from: Word What would be needed is a way to import from a Markdown type of thing to InDesign (or generate the PDF directly, and I'm not sure Latex caters to all the needs that InDesign caters to)
    - guynamedloren 13y ago
      Penflip has markdown to PDF (and other formats) with a single click, with formatting and fairly well designed defaults. I included this feature as somewhat of an afterthought, but it's turning out to be one of the most used features on the site. So yeah, you're right - there seems to be some value in that.
      - raverbashing 13y ago
        Cool! The problem with automatic conversions are the adjustments that are sometimes needed, as well as things like sideboxes, pictures, etc But yeah, since it's been used a lot, looks like a very nice something to have. Good luck!
  - hluska 13y ago
    > Anyway, I'm not even targeting commercial publishing, I'm targeting independent publishing. A few years ago, when I first quit my job, I was originally going to start another magazine, but a previous experience in publishing had convinced me that I needed a version control system my writers, editors and advertising sales/production people could use. There wasn't anything available, so I started building something similar. When I tried to validate it as an actual business, the biggest problem I ran into was that the vast majority of the (magazine publishing) business is in a shambles, nobody knows if they will have jobs in five years and everyone is understandably a little paranoid. Successful publishers could (hopefully) afford to pay me, but they were generally extremely bureaucratic, difficult to penetrate, and averse to change what was (sort of) working for them. New or floundering publishers were interested (and they were seeking something easy to solve this problem), but the most common feedback I received was that they'd love a free tier, but couldn't afford to pay for it. The most interesting thing I saw during the whole process was an editor's version control system. This person edits a shocking volume using this system: /desktop/{author-last-name}/{article-name}/draft1-{date}/from-author.doc or /desktop/{author-last-name}/{article-name}/draft1-{date}/my-edits-to-author.doc You've definitely got a great idea and I can vouch that it's needed. Best of luck!!
PanMan 13y ago
Thanks for sharing this, interesting. However, why don't you mention Google Docs and Dropbox as competitors? Google docs already does this, and Dropbox seems to be clearly heading this way.
- erre 13y ago
  He does, right there in the section called "Who are your competitors?": "Indirect competitors: (...), Google Docs, Dropbox, (...)" Edit: BTW, he also mentions them in the video linked to near the top of the application.
- unhappyhippie 13y ago
  He mentions both in the youtube pitch.
rmena123 13y ago
What's up with the n/a on your application?
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  certain questions were not applicable - no cofounder, not incorporated yet, no other incubators, etc.
rmena123 13y ago
I think one founder is an automatic no at the amount of applications they have now, even if they say it maybe ok. I'd just check off all applications with one person and not have to worry about them.
- praxeologist 13y ago
  It isn't an automatic no. If it was, they would just say that. It is probably an easy no and gets passed by quickly without a really compelling idea/product, some revenue already, past success and you don't really need YC, etc.
iamshs 13y ago
I like the project a lot. Why do you think there was no YC interview? Any retrospection? Was it due to you being the only founder? How strict is the video time limit? The video sounds not really geared for YC but for general audience. Also, did you have a friend go through the application? A lot of it sounds like bragging, which is not bad at all but can be abrasive after a bit. I like the project a lot, and may you reach heights with it.
- jackgavigan 13y ago
  > Why do you think there was no YC interview? Any retrospection? Was it due to you being the only founder? I would guess that was a major factor. YC's view on the size of the founding team is that one is too few, four is too many. pg told Drew Houston to find a co-founder and I know of a four-man team that were turned down two years ago despite having two engineering PhD coders on the team and a product that was already being used by thousands of people.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  > Why do you think there was no YC interview? Any retrospection? Video was too long, automatic rejection. I'm kidding, who knows. I'm thinking a big part of it was probably due to being a single founder, but there are likely other reasons.
- 4891 13y ago
  Personal thoughts (trying to channel pg with a huge stack of applications to get through - I imagine the guy who first applied Naive Bayes to email spam being quite comfortable making snap decisions over small variables): This guy seems smart, but not outstanding. Idea is decent but not amazingly novel. I feel like I've met both this guy and this idea 100 times before. Solo founder without an amazingly impressive background. The t-shirt website is really cool - but sadly these days it's not that novel an achievement. "the t-shirt that I was selling didn't even exist until weeks later" - come on, everybody here's read the Lean Startup/4HWW. Again for the "AirBnB' feat - he wasn't the first person to do something like this. Again, this isn't a reason to say 'no' - he's clearly smarter and more entrepreneurial than 95% of the population - but as a solo founder he needs more than that, he needs a strong reason to say "yes". Onto the idea itself. His early traction is pretty impressive - I wasn't sure if writers would be interested in a tool like this. My main questions are a) how do you balance power and usability for users who might find version control hard to understand and b) is there a significant reachable market of people who would pay for this? Lots of little competitors suggests that this is an idea many people have had but not necessarily with a significant market. For YC it makes sense to reject, for loren, the most interesting card in your hand right now is the feedback from publishers who face this problem and don't have a good solution - worth focusing on them and building an MVP for their needs (if you're not already). It might help to partner up with a biz dev guy who has experience in that industry who could help hack around the slow procurement processes that are likely common in that industry. See if you can get some smallish publishing house on board as a demo user. I note that an existing YC startup "Kivo" is also doing "Git for the masses" though they're in a more lucrative space (Powerpoint).
sheikhimran01 13y ago
This is an Great idea man! I would like meet up and get to know more about your project.
salilpa 13y ago
don't lose heart. YC is not the end of the road for you. keep on trying.
karlhwhite 13y ago
Awesome product! Don't give up hope, I can really see it doing well. One of those links I click and instantly see the appeal and benefits! Great job!
uxwtf 13y ago
Seems like collaborative editing is not hot. No YC interview neither, and somehow related: http://sharepad.co http://sharepad.co
- akanet 13y ago
  YC has invested in many real-time collaborative editing tools. Most similar to sharepad: https://hackpad.com/ https://hackpad.com/
  - uxwtf 13y ago
    Thanks akanet. As "The idea doesn't matter much; it will change anyway", we mostly see SharePad as a foundation to build something awesome.
ronilan 13y ago
The application in the application. Upvoted for meta :)
guynamedloren 13y ago
Thank you for the support, HN. I appreciate it. To be clear, I have no intention of quitting. I started working on this project without even thinking about YC as a possibility, driven only by excitement and the desire to see it exist. In fact, I wasn't going to apply to YC at all, but changed my mind at the last minute. Against my better judgement, this little idea has turned into a full time, 18hrs-a-day-7-days-a-week project (with the occasional burnout day), and I plan to keep working on it is successful or I run out of money. =]
- ekianjo 13y ago
  Nice of you to share your whole application. How much time did you take to prepare it, by the way ?
  - guynamedloren 13y ago
    Worked on the bulk of it over the course of a day, on and off. Thought about it for a while before that though (when I was unsure if I was going to apply). This was my third time applying[1], so I basically have the questions memorized at this point. Oh, and I've been recording every thought and idea for the past three months (some of my lists: http://grab.by/rKOY http://grab.by/rKOY), so filling out the application was mostly compiling those thoughts into readable form. [1] Different ideas each time, spanning 3 or 4 years. Funny enough, last year I got an interview. By that measure, this is a regression :)
    - rfnslyr 13y ago
      What app to make that list?
      - guynamedloren 13y ago
        it's just the sidebar for textmate2
    - OvidNaso 13y ago
      I like how a few people have 'forked' your application on PenFlip. Would be lovely if someone made a few modifications and got accepted. Really like PenFlip btw. Keep up the good work.
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pytrin 13y ago
It's an overall strong application, but it's missing a few key components - namely, you're a single founder, and you're a bit early in terms of product and traction. That might've been enough to get in a few years ago, but competition and standards have gone up with each new batch (the single founder thing might've still held you back). You'll probably have a better chance getting in the next batch, if your product continues to mature and you have more traction by then. If you're interested, I wrote about my experiences reviewing about 300 applications for a different accelerator, 500startups - might be useful http://www.techfounder.net/2013/08/22/after-reviewing-300-startup-applications-this-is-what-i-learned/ http://www.techfounder.net/2013/08/22/after-reviewing-300-st...
tjosten 13y ago
BTW: I really like the clean design.
justhw 13y ago
Application Intros, might be useful. https://www.youtube.com/results?filters=month&search_query=y+combinator+application&lclk=month https://www.youtube.com/results?filters=month&search_query=y...
brickcap 13y ago
Really like the editor of the penflip.
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PMan74 13y ago
I can't remember where I saw it before but ever since then any instance grates on me: describing your product in terms of other product. - GitHub for writers - Facebook for Pearl Divers - LinkedIn for Horse Whisperers - Twitter for Ornithologists Merits of the idea aside it really turns me off, smacks of a lack of creativity, a lazy route to explaining your product benefits. Very superficial I know, it may be just me.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  This is actually recommended by YC: "One good trick for describing a project concisely is to explain it as a variant of something the audience already knows. It's like Wikipedia, but within an organization. It's like an answering service, but for email. It's eBay for jobs. This form of description is wonderfully efficient. Don't worry that it will make your idea seem "derivative." Some of the best ideas in history began by sticking together two existing ideas no one realized could be combined." http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html
  - PMan74 13y ago
    Good to know where it comes from. I still hate it I have to say, probably for the reason they mention i.e. it comes off as derivative. But yet I don't argue that some of the best ideas in history began by sticking together two existing ideas. I'm conflicted.
- deleted 13y ago
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selmnoo 13y ago
> [ http://www.lorenburton.com/ ] > [...] I posted the site to HN and dropped a "share on twitter" button on > the bottom of the page, racking up tens of thousands of hits and hundreds > of tweets. I was in touch with Joe Gebbia (thanks pg!!) within hours, who > expedited the interview process, and I flew to SF the next morning. Though > I didn't get the job [...] Wait, what?! You made http://www.lorenburton.com http://www.lorenburton.com ... and then didn't get a job at AirBNB? Goodness gracious. The job was for some frontend stuff, right? You seem pretty good at making frontend stuff, I can't imagine why you didn't get it.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  I have a solid history of failing remarkably. Good lessons learned, though. To be honest I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was completely unprepared and under qualified, and it was my first job interview ever. I bombed it.
  - ronaldx 13y ago
    I find the remarkable part more important than the failure. Best of luck for the future.
  - gscott 13y ago
    You may be selling yourself short, you might feel under qualified but with technology you're always in the fire meaning that things change at such a rapid pace the real qualification is that your competent to keep up with it.
  - cmbaus 13y ago
    That's crazy that you didn't get the job. Considering AirBNB's growth rate, it seems they could have taken a risk that someone like yourself would grow into the position.
    - Segmentation 13y ago
      This isn't the 1970s where you could get hired as a novice and trained on the job. In today's world you need to be a rockstar programmer right out of college. Training? No start up wants to gamble resources on that.
intelliot 13y ago
Penflip is similar to a project I'm working on. We should talk.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Sure, shoot me an email (see profile for email)
pearjuice 13y ago
I am not 100% certain but signal has it that they let one of your competitors in. And with that I mean one of the handful of other "github for writers" which were showcasing on HN.
- yesimahuman 13y ago
  Just use that as fuel. Good luck!
hmsimha 13y ago
I think penflip is a great idea, and if you have a usable product already you might want to consider marketing it to people attempting NaNoWriMo
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Already on it! A small barrier is the $6000 donation to become an official NaNoWriMo sponsor, but I'm managing to get some NaNoWriMo writers on the platform through other means.
  - pani5ue 13y ago
    See if you can scrape emails off public library websites They often advertise book writing month on a board and might happily add the web link.
meritt 13y ago
Create yourself an http://angel.co http://angel.co profile and solicit funding & advice on there. The startup world is a tiny bit bigger than YC.
arturhoo 13y ago
Thank you very much for sharing this. I found it very helpful as I am also preparing some applications. One thing that I noticed though, was that the video you submitted is both well beyond the 1 minute restriction, and you also spent a lot of time talking about the project and not about yourself ("1 minute video [...] introducing the founders"). When recording our previous video we were very worried about being on the 2-minute mark and straight to the point, spending more time introducing myself and my colleagues. Do you (and the HN community) think that may have caused some serious loss of points? Good luck from Brazil!
kriro 13y ago
I wasn't aware LOC is used as a heuristic of sorts at YC. Good luck Loren. It seems like you're not really targeting scientists and are willing to concede that to the Harvard folks. As someone that was recently involved in sending tex-files back and forth I can assure you there's a need there (and probably some money from volume licensing, univerities tend to buy this stuff with "wtf-don't care" money if you get a champion) Edit: You could also sell it to conferences as SaaS. Call for papers -> use our amazing tool to write it link.
franciscoprat 13y ago
Thanks for sharing your application. It takes guts to be open about this kind of stuff. One thing I didn't see in the application was what your distribution strategy will be. I understand the collaborative nature of GitHub for Writers, but are there established channels that you could take advantage of to help your customer acquisition. Publishers are one group but perhaps they don't closely manage writers in that way. Perhaps advertising firms or print media might be a way to go. A couple big enterprise customers might be good validation for your business.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  > but are there established channels that you could take advantage of to help your customer acquisition Yes, absolutely. See "How will you get users" question. I listed 6 different growth/distribution strategies, but redacted 3 of them for the purpose of sharing publicly. They are not necessarily groundbreaking, but I'd rather not just hand over my growth strategies to competitors.
pygy_ 13y ago
The Git learning curve is far too steep for non-technically inclined people. You must write a DropBox-like client. Example UX: In the special folder, each folder starting wit a "+" is a repository. Each user has his own branch. No master. Provide a good online UI for diff reviews and merging, and a way to locally commit (the how is left as an exercise to the reader). You can branch by creating another folder with the same name plus the branch as a suffix. +foo // user1 branch of the "foo" repo // It may be displayed as "user1+foo-bar" in the web UI, // to avoid confusion. +foo-bar // "user1-bar" branch of the "foo" repo baz/+qux // the username branch of qux // "baz" is just a location, and may vary // on a per user basis. // If user2 wants to place it elsewhere, let it be. baz/+qux-quux // you get the idea... Educate the users to pick unambiguous repo names. Profit!
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  This seems immensely cumbersome and error-prone. Why not just a client with a simple GUI (ie buttons)?
  - pygy_ 13y ago
    Maybe... It looks straightforward to me, but it is off course highly subjective. Creating a folder is something that most people can do, and you don't have to do it often. Even if what I propose is not your cup of tea, the general idea is that you have to think of a streamlined workflow for writers. Another thing I'd add to the above idea would be a local, private branch for each branch, that would keep every step on save (no need for a commit message), and then rebase the private branch on its public counterpart on commit (message required) for sharing with others. The WIP branch may also be pushed, for backup purpose. Now that I think of it, the above would better be implemented using tags. Only share tagged commits with you collaborators. "CTRL + S" is ingrained in most people's hands, and having an automatic time machine would be a nice addition. I'm just throwing out ideas, hopefully, you'll like some :-)
dear 13y ago
Getting into YC shouldn't be your goal. Build your own business is.
sjtgraham 13y ago
Looks very nice. Most likely the biggest problem is the single founder aspect, I'm in the same boat as you there. I have a feeling that when you select "yes" on that red flag option, your application goes straight into PG's queue. Keep at it, my man.
- Segmentation 13y ago
  Single founder applications are probably a red flag that the founder isn't good at networking, and YC is all about networking. They probably fear you'd be reclusive at YC.
pani5ue 13y ago
An early pivot maybe? Have you considered a on-premise hosted version for the enterprise? For mundane and painful things like requirements documents. User manuals , documentation etc. Certainly not as cool as going consumer but enterprises have way more money than hungry writers looking for feedback. Let me know when you're ready and/or interested and I can schedule a demo at my company. I work for a large semiconductor company.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Not a pivot, this is a planned subset of penflip. Just realized this was one of the redacted bits from the application I posted here. > For mundane and painful things like requirements documents. User manuals , documentation etc. Yes. This is huge. Actually, lots of this happening on the platform already. Not quite ready for a demo, but I'd love to chat about this. lorendburton [at] gmail
  - pani5ue 13y ago
    Cool. I'll send you an email Enterprise is often ignored by cutting edge technologies. Sounds like it could somehow eat into sharepoint confluence enterprise wikis etc. market share. of course harder to demonstrate traction but you should consider (amount of money you make + amount of money a large existing enterprise solution loses) as what makes your company valuable.
smallegan 13y ago
Are you still seeking funding?
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Not actively, right now, but possibly in the future. Going to bootstrap and possibly attempt to monetize soon. I wasn't even looking to YC for the funding, really, mostly just the network and mentorship.
wehadfun 13y ago
Market this thing as "The easiest way to get your book sold on Amazon" Figure out the process for people to sell there e-books on amazon and assist them all the way. Make sure this tool outputs in what ever format it needs to be to be sold on Kindle/Nook/what ever. Offer conversion from Word/Google Doc/ to pen flip No one knows what Markdown is.
uladzislau 13y ago
What caught my eye - number of n/a answers. It shows a certain level of ignorance on the applicant part. If these questions are included, they are included for a reason. Second, single founder is a not a good fit for YC - everyone knows about it. Not addressing this issue wasn't very smart. The Airbnb stunt is another proof that Loren wants more to stand out than to fit in.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Ignorance? Not at all. YC has thousands of applications to read in a short period of time. If a question says "If you're already incorporated, when were you?" and I go on to explain why I'm not incorporated, I'm wasting their time. N/A means "I'm not incorporated, this does not apply to me." Go and read the questions that have N/A as answers. They simply do not apply.
- OvidNaso 13y ago
  Did you read the questions that he answered n/a to? They specifically didn't apply to his situation, not incorporated, sole founder, never participated in another accelerator, and no one is only partially commited. What exactly would you want him to write in these sections?
- bambax 13y ago
  > The Airbnb stunt is another proof that Loren wants more to stand out than to fit in Isn't it better for a founder to want to stand out than to "fit in"? Fit in what, exactly?
jamescraft34 13y ago
Good work man!
rhgraysonii 13y ago
I just wanted to chime in and say (though possibly off topic) that Loren is an extraordinary developer. I saw penflip on ShowHN when he first posted it, and before that when it was simply an idea he threw out here, and immediately signed up. I began writing a book on Clojure using the platform and I couldn't be happier. He also is great at engaging users. Just look at the twitter. He's personally helped me multiple times and even contributed to my project. So, if you're looking to write. Use penflip. It's awesome. But this really goes to show YC is a cutthroat place to try and get into. It really is amazing how much this system pg has started up has inspired. Just think of the entrepreneurs who have sat and thought of ideas because they know networks like this exist. It's truly an awesome thing for the world.
tinbad 13y ago
Love the idea, been using iA Writer for MAC to work on my book. But since I'm co-authoring with somebody else this would be the best tool to use. Too bad you didn't get into YC (just like me and many others), but you got a user (an possibly many more after getting on HN)! Just apply again next time when you're able to show some traction!
Jon_Levin 13y ago
This seems like it would be an immensely useful tool for government. In many regulations/rules scenarios, there are multiple agencies or offices (spread widely across the bureaucracy) vying for impact on a the in-progress document and the person or entity initially in control often loses ownership due to political, bureaucratic, funding or other reasons. A product like this would significantly improve this process and provide the kind of historical record needed create transparency in lawmaking. Just a thought.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Do you work in government or know somebody that does? If so, let's chat.
  - Jon_Levin 13y ago
    I spent the last 3.5 years running a company that provides professional education to government contractors and was a government contractor myself. Before that, I worked in government for a couple years. Shoot me an email - happy to discuss.
wellboy 13y ago
Github for writers is big though dude. Get some traction and everybody will lick your toes!
papasmrf 13y ago
I don't know if this idea will be successful or not, but as a long time lurker here at HN I think the way you are putting yourself out there is fantastic. Keep up the good work and see this thing through.

148 points by guynamedloren 13y ago

I wouldnt have thought the market was huge for this. You mention "Textbooks" - most commercial publishing companies would already have internal version control software, you mention essays? Most students would just use google docs. Where is the target market? It's neither casual nor a power tool. Thats probably why your pitch failed, their is adequate substitute products already in the market place.

guynamedloren 13y ago
> commercial publishing companies would already have internal version control software You'd be surprised. I've talked to published authors, and here's the inside scoop: the writing/editing process is often, amazingly, word documents emailed back and forth with hacked up homebrew version control 'systems' and inline comments. Believe it or not. I've seen them. And it only gets worse when there are more editors involved (depending on the content, there can be many). O'Reilly is working on a similar idea (http://atlas.labs.oreilly.com http://atlas.labs.oreilly.com), which means there is at least some demand by commercial publishers for a system like this. If O'Reilly is working on it, it can't be solved very well. Anyway, I'm not even targeting commercial publishing, I'm targeting independent publishing. > you mention essays? Most students would just use google docs For short essays google docs is fantastic. I don't plan to touch that. But have you tried writing any kind of long-form group research paper (as in, over the course of a semester), especially technical, with google docs or dropbox? I have. It's a nightmare. > their is adequate substitute products already in the market place Craigslist and couchsurfing.org were adequate substitutes for Airbnb, Yahoo search was an adequate substitute for Google, and flash drives were an adequate substitute for Dropbox.
- flylib 13y ago
  well to be fair, your hitting a very crowded market that already has very established services with large userbases (If Google Docs, Word or Github just takes the idea then your basically done for) and there is a whole bunch of startups in the same exact space as you (Atlas, Editorially and Draft), that might of scared Y Combinator off because chances are one will thrive and the rest will fizzle out
  - mattlutze 13y ago
    "If Google Docs, Word or Github just takes the idea then your basically done for" That is a very non-trivial task for any of those companies. Google could get closest fastest, but they're by no means going to churn something out in a month even if the good idea fairy hits one of their product managers. Microsoft, heck it'd take 3 years to see it.
  - shrikrishna 13y ago
    I've seen a lot of PG's interviews where he literally says "Don't worry about competition". Dropbox released at a time when Google Drive was looming in the horizon. Still they succeeded. It's the execution that matters.
    - flylib 13y ago
      honestly though there was a pretty large gap between the time Dropbox came out and Google Drive did though, Dropbox was already established and had a large user base when Google Drive launched
- diminish 13y ago
  I agree, and I see a big market especially in academic publishing. A lot of course book text is written in a collaborative fashion with word docs emailed back and forth. Penflip could be to collaborative writing what Dropbox is to team file sharing. Being a single cofounder might have been a negative factor, in your rejection.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Yes Because formatting a book is painful. And you need to use the tools the publishers use (namely - InDesign) And they import (keeping the styles) from: Word What would be needed is a way to import from a Markdown type of thing to InDesign (or generate the PDF directly, and I'm not sure Latex caters to all the needs that InDesign caters to)
  - guynamedloren 13y ago
    Penflip has markdown to PDF (and other formats) with a single click, with formatting and fairly well designed defaults. I included this feature as somewhat of an afterthought, but it's turning out to be one of the most used features on the site. So yeah, you're right - there seems to be some value in that.
    - raverbashing 13y ago
      Cool! The problem with automatic conversions are the adjustments that are sometimes needed, as well as things like sideboxes, pictures, etc But yeah, since it's been used a lot, looks like a very nice something to have. Good luck!
- hluska 13y ago
  > Anyway, I'm not even targeting commercial publishing, I'm targeting independent publishing. A few years ago, when I first quit my job, I was originally going to start another magazine, but a previous experience in publishing had convinced me that I needed a version control system my writers, editors and advertising sales/production people could use. There wasn't anything available, so I started building something similar. When I tried to validate it as an actual business, the biggest problem I ran into was that the vast majority of the (magazine publishing) business is in a shambles, nobody knows if they will have jobs in five years and everyone is understandably a little paranoid. Successful publishers could (hopefully) afford to pay me, but they were generally extremely bureaucratic, difficult to penetrate, and averse to change what was (sort of) working for them. New or floundering publishers were interested (and they were seeking something easy to solve this problem), but the most common feedback I received was that they'd love a free tier, but couldn't afford to pay for it. The most interesting thing I saw during the whole process was an editor's version control system. This person edits a shocking volume using this system: /desktop/{author-last-name}/{article-name}/draft1-{date}/from-author.doc or /desktop/{author-last-name}/{article-name}/draft1-{date}/my-edits-to-author.doc You've definitely got a great idea and I can vouch that it's needed. Best of luck!!

PanMan 13y ago

Thanks for sharing this, interesting. However, why don't you mention Google Docs and Dropbox as competitors? Google docs already does this, and Dropbox seems to be clearly heading this way.

erre 13y ago
He does, right there in the section called "Who are your competitors?": "Indirect competitors: (...), Google Docs, Dropbox, (...)" Edit: BTW, he also mentions them in the video linked to near the top of the application.
unhappyhippie 13y ago
He mentions both in the youtube pitch.

rmena123 13y ago

What's up with the n/a on your application?

guynamedloren 13y ago
certain questions were not applicable - no cofounder, not incorporated yet, no other incubators, etc.

rmena123 13y ago

I think one founder is an automatic no at the amount of applications they have now, even if they say it maybe ok. I'd just check off all applications with one person and not have to worry about them.

praxeologist 13y ago
It isn't an automatic no. If it was, they would just say that. It is probably an easy no and gets passed by quickly without a really compelling idea/product, some revenue already, past success and you don't really need YC, etc.

iamshs 13y ago

I like the project a lot. Why do you think there was no YC interview? Any retrospection? Was it due to you being the only founder? How strict is the video time limit? The video sounds not really geared for YC but for general audience. Also, did you have a friend go through the application? A lot of it sounds like bragging, which is not bad at all but can be abrasive after a bit. I like the project a lot, and may you reach heights with it.

jackgavigan 13y ago
> Why do you think there was no YC interview? Any retrospection? Was it due to you being the only founder? I would guess that was a major factor. YC's view on the size of the founding team is that one is too few, four is too many. pg told Drew Houston to find a co-founder and I know of a four-man team that were turned down two years ago despite having two engineering PhD coders on the team and a product that was already being used by thousands of people.
guynamedloren 13y ago
> Why do you think there was no YC interview? Any retrospection? Video was too long, automatic rejection. I'm kidding, who knows. I'm thinking a big part of it was probably due to being a single founder, but there are likely other reasons.
4891 13y ago
Personal thoughts (trying to channel pg with a huge stack of applications to get through - I imagine the guy who first applied Naive Bayes to email spam being quite comfortable making snap decisions over small variables): This guy seems smart, but not outstanding. Idea is decent but not amazingly novel. I feel like I've met both this guy and this idea 100 times before. Solo founder without an amazingly impressive background. The t-shirt website is really cool - but sadly these days it's not that novel an achievement. "the t-shirt that I was selling didn't even exist until weeks later" - come on, everybody here's read the Lean Startup/4HWW. Again for the "AirBnB' feat - he wasn't the first person to do something like this. Again, this isn't a reason to say 'no' - he's clearly smarter and more entrepreneurial than 95% of the population - but as a solo founder he needs more than that, he needs a strong reason to say "yes". Onto the idea itself. His early traction is pretty impressive - I wasn't sure if writers would be interested in a tool like this. My main questions are a) how do you balance power and usability for users who might find version control hard to understand and b) is there a significant reachable market of people who would pay for this? Lots of little competitors suggests that this is an idea many people have had but not necessarily with a significant market. For YC it makes sense to reject, for loren, the most interesting card in your hand right now is the feedback from publishers who face this problem and don't have a good solution - worth focusing on them and building an MVP for their needs (if you're not already). It might help to partner up with a biz dev guy who has experience in that industry who could help hack around the slow procurement processes that are likely common in that industry. See if you can get some smallish publishing house on board as a demo user. I note that an existing YC startup "Kivo" is also doing "Git for the masses" though they're in a more lucrative space (Powerpoint).

sheikhimran01 13y ago

This is an Great idea man! I would like meet up and get to know more about your project.

salilpa 13y ago

don't lose heart. YC is not the end of the road for you. keep on trying.

karlhwhite 13y ago

Awesome product! Don't give up hope, I can really see it doing well. One of those links I click and instantly see the appeal and benefits! Great job!

uxwtf 13y ago

Seems like collaborative editing is not hot. No YC interview neither, and somehow related: http://sharepad.co http://sharepad.co

akanet 13y ago
YC has invested in many real-time collaborative editing tools. Most similar to sharepad: https://hackpad.com/ https://hackpad.com/
- uxwtf 13y ago
  Thanks akanet. As "The idea doesn't matter much; it will change anyway", we mostly see SharePad as a foundation to build something awesome.

ronilan 13y ago

The application in the application. Upvoted for meta :)

guynamedloren 13y ago

Thank you for the support, HN. I appreciate it. To be clear, I have no intention of quitting. I started working on this project without even thinking about YC as a possibility, driven only by excitement and the desire to see it exist. In fact, I wasn't going to apply to YC at all, but changed my mind at the last minute. Against my better judgement, this little idea has turned into a full time, 18hrs-a-day-7-days-a-week project (with the occasional burnout day), and I plan to keep working on it is successful or I run out of money. =]

ekianjo 13y ago
Nice of you to share your whole application. How much time did you take to prepare it, by the way ?
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Worked on the bulk of it over the course of a day, on and off. Thought about it for a while before that though (when I was unsure if I was going to apply). This was my third time applying[1], so I basically have the questions memorized at this point. Oh, and I've been recording every thought and idea for the past three months (some of my lists: http://grab.by/rKOY http://grab.by/rKOY), so filling out the application was mostly compiling those thoughts into readable form. [1] Different ideas each time, spanning 3 or 4 years. Funny enough, last year I got an interview. By that measure, this is a regression :)
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    What app to make that list?
    - guynamedloren 13y ago
      it's just the sidebar for textmate2
  - OvidNaso 13y ago
    I like how a few people have 'forked' your application on PenFlip. Would be lovely if someone made a few modifications and got accepted. Really like PenFlip btw. Keep up the good work.

deleted 13y ago

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pytrin 13y ago

It's an overall strong application, but it's missing a few key components - namely, you're a single founder, and you're a bit early in terms of product and traction. That might've been enough to get in a few years ago, but competition and standards have gone up with each new batch (the single founder thing might've still held you back). You'll probably have a better chance getting in the next batch, if your product continues to mature and you have more traction by then. If you're interested, I wrote about my experiences reviewing about 300 applications for a different accelerator, 500startups - might be useful http://www.techfounder.net/2013/08/22/after-reviewing-300-startup-applications-this-is-what-i-learned/ http://www.techfounder.net/2013/08/22/after-reviewing-300-st...

tjosten 13y ago

BTW: I really like the clean design.

justhw 13y ago

Application Intros, might be useful. https://www.youtube.com/results?filters=month&search_query=y+combinator+application&lclk=month https://www.youtube.com/results?filters=month&search_query=y...

brickcap 13y ago

Really like the editor of the penflip.

deleted 13y ago

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PMan74 13y ago

I can't remember where I saw it before but ever since then any instance grates on me: describing your product in terms of other product. - GitHub for writers - Facebook for Pearl Divers - LinkedIn for Horse Whisperers - Twitter for Ornithologists Merits of the idea aside it really turns me off, smacks of a lack of creativity, a lazy route to explaining your product benefits. Very superficial I know, it may be just me.

guynamedloren 13y ago
This is actually recommended by YC: "One good trick for describing a project concisely is to explain it as a variant of something the audience already knows. It's like Wikipedia, but within an organization. It's like an answering service, but for email. It's eBay for jobs. This form of description is wonderfully efficient. Don't worry that it will make your idea seem "derivative." Some of the best ideas in history began by sticking together two existing ideas no one realized could be combined." http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html
- PMan74 13y ago
  Good to know where it comes from. I still hate it I have to say, probably for the reason they mention i.e. it comes off as derivative. But yet I don't argue that some of the best ideas in history began by sticking together two existing ideas. I'm conflicted.
deleted 13y ago
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selmnoo 13y ago

> [ http://www.lorenburton.com/ ] > [...] I posted the site to HN and dropped a "share on twitter" button on > the bottom of the page, racking up tens of thousands of hits and hundreds > of tweets. I was in touch with Joe Gebbia (thanks pg!!) within hours, who > expedited the interview process, and I flew to SF the next morning. Though > I didn't get the job [...] Wait, what?! You made http://www.lorenburton.com http://www.lorenburton.com ... and then didn't get a job at AirBNB? Goodness gracious. The job was for some frontend stuff, right? You seem pretty good at making frontend stuff, I can't imagine why you didn't get it.

guynamedloren 13y ago
I have a solid history of failing remarkably. Good lessons learned, though. To be honest I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was completely unprepared and under qualified, and it was my first job interview ever. I bombed it.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  I find the remarkable part more important than the failure. Best of luck for the future.
- gscott 13y ago
  You may be selling yourself short, you might feel under qualified but with technology you're always in the fire meaning that things change at such a rapid pace the real qualification is that your competent to keep up with it.
- cmbaus 13y ago
  That's crazy that you didn't get the job. Considering AirBNB's growth rate, it seems they could have taken a risk that someone like yourself would grow into the position.
  - Segmentation 13y ago
    This isn't the 1970s where you could get hired as a novice and trained on the job. In today's world you need to be a rockstar programmer right out of college. Training? No start up wants to gamble resources on that.

intelliot 13y ago

Penflip is similar to a project I'm working on. We should talk.

guynamedloren 13y ago
Sure, shoot me an email (see profile for email)

pearjuice 13y ago

I am not 100% certain but signal has it that they let one of your competitors in. And with that I mean one of the handful of other "github for writers" which were showcasing on HN.

yesimahuman 13y ago
Just use that as fuel. Good luck!

hmsimha 13y ago

I think penflip is a great idea, and if you have a usable product already you might want to consider marketing it to people attempting NaNoWriMo

guynamedloren 13y ago
Already on it! A small barrier is the $6000 donation to become an official NaNoWriMo sponsor, but I'm managing to get some NaNoWriMo writers on the platform through other means.
- pani5ue 13y ago
  See if you can scrape emails off public library websites They often advertise book writing month on a board and might happily add the web link.

meritt 13y ago

Create yourself an http://angel.co http://angel.co profile and solicit funding & advice on there. The startup world is a tiny bit bigger than YC.

arturhoo 13y ago

Thank you very much for sharing this. I found it very helpful as I am also preparing some applications. One thing that I noticed though, was that the video you submitted is both well beyond the 1 minute restriction, and you also spent a lot of time talking about the project and not about yourself ("1 minute video [...] introducing the founders"). When recording our previous video we were very worried about being on the 2-minute mark and straight to the point, spending more time introducing myself and my colleagues. Do you (and the HN community) think that may have caused some serious loss of points? Good luck from Brazil!

kriro 13y ago

I wasn't aware LOC is used as a heuristic of sorts at YC. Good luck Loren. It seems like you're not really targeting scientists and are willing to concede that to the Harvard folks. As someone that was recently involved in sending tex-files back and forth I can assure you there's a need there (and probably some money from volume licensing, univerities tend to buy this stuff with "wtf-don't care" money if you get a champion) Edit: You could also sell it to conferences as SaaS. Call for papers -> use our amazing tool to write it link.

franciscoprat 13y ago

Thanks for sharing your application. It takes guts to be open about this kind of stuff. One thing I didn't see in the application was what your distribution strategy will be. I understand the collaborative nature of GitHub for Writers, but are there established channels that you could take advantage of to help your customer acquisition. Publishers are one group but perhaps they don't closely manage writers in that way. Perhaps advertising firms or print media might be a way to go. A couple big enterprise customers might be good validation for your business.

guynamedloren 13y ago
> but are there established channels that you could take advantage of to help your customer acquisition Yes, absolutely. See "How will you get users" question. I listed 6 different growth/distribution strategies, but redacted 3 of them for the purpose of sharing publicly. They are not necessarily groundbreaking, but I'd rather not just hand over my growth strategies to competitors.

pygy_ 13y ago

The Git learning curve is far too steep for non-technically inclined people. You must write a DropBox-like client. Example UX: In the special folder, each folder starting wit a "+" is a repository. Each user has his own branch. No master. Provide a good online UI for diff reviews and merging, and a way to locally commit (the how is left as an exercise to the reader). You can branch by creating another folder with the same name plus the branch as a suffix. +foo // user1 branch of the "foo" repo // It may be displayed as "user1+foo-bar" in the web UI, // to avoid confusion. +foo-bar // "user1-bar" branch of the "foo" repo baz/+qux // the username branch of qux // "baz" is just a location, and may vary // on a per user basis. // If user2 wants to place it elsewhere, let it be. baz/+qux-quux // you get the idea... Educate the users to pick unambiguous repo names. Profit!

guynamedloren 13y ago
This seems immensely cumbersome and error-prone. Why not just a client with a simple GUI (ie buttons)?
- pygy_ 13y ago
  Maybe... It looks straightforward to me, but it is off course highly subjective. Creating a folder is something that most people can do, and you don't have to do it often. Even if what I propose is not your cup of tea, the general idea is that you have to think of a streamlined workflow for writers. Another thing I'd add to the above idea would be a local, private branch for each branch, that would keep every step on save (no need for a commit message), and then rebase the private branch on its public counterpart on commit (message required) for sharing with others. The WIP branch may also be pushed, for backup purpose. Now that I think of it, the above would better be implemented using tags. Only share tagged commits with you collaborators. "CTRL + S" is ingrained in most people's hands, and having an automatic time machine would be a nice addition. I'm just throwing out ideas, hopefully, you'll like some :-)

dear 13y ago

Getting into YC shouldn't be your goal. Build your own business is.

sjtgraham 13y ago

Looks very nice. Most likely the biggest problem is the single founder aspect, I'm in the same boat as you there. I have a feeling that when you select "yes" on that red flag option, your application goes straight into PG's queue. Keep at it, my man.

Segmentation 13y ago
Single founder applications are probably a red flag that the founder isn't good at networking, and YC is all about networking. They probably fear you'd be reclusive at YC.

pani5ue 13y ago

An early pivot maybe? Have you considered a on-premise hosted version for the enterprise? For mundane and painful things like requirements documents. User manuals , documentation etc. Certainly not as cool as going consumer but enterprises have way more money than hungry writers looking for feedback. Let me know when you're ready and/or interested and I can schedule a demo at my company. I work for a large semiconductor company.

guynamedloren 13y ago
Not a pivot, this is a planned subset of penflip. Just realized this was one of the redacted bits from the application I posted here. > For mundane and painful things like requirements documents. User manuals , documentation etc. Yes. This is huge. Actually, lots of this happening on the platform already. Not quite ready for a demo, but I'd love to chat about this. lorendburton [at] gmail
- pani5ue 13y ago
  Cool. I'll send you an email Enterprise is often ignored by cutting edge technologies. Sounds like it could somehow eat into sharepoint confluence enterprise wikis etc. market share. of course harder to demonstrate traction but you should consider (amount of money you make + amount of money a large existing enterprise solution loses) as what makes your company valuable.

smallegan 13y ago

Are you still seeking funding?

guynamedloren 13y ago
Not actively, right now, but possibly in the future. Going to bootstrap and possibly attempt to monetize soon. I wasn't even looking to YC for the funding, really, mostly just the network and mentorship.

wehadfun 13y ago

Market this thing as "The easiest way to get your book sold on Amazon" Figure out the process for people to sell there e-books on amazon and assist them all the way. Make sure this tool outputs in what ever format it needs to be to be sold on Kindle/Nook/what ever. Offer conversion from Word/Google Doc/ to pen flip No one knows what Markdown is.

uladzislau 13y ago

What caught my eye - number of n/a answers. It shows a certain level of ignorance on the applicant part. If these questions are included, they are included for a reason. Second, single founder is a not a good fit for YC - everyone knows about it. Not addressing this issue wasn't very smart. The Airbnb stunt is another proof that Loren wants more to stand out than to fit in.

guynamedloren 13y ago
Ignorance? Not at all. YC has thousands of applications to read in a short period of time. If a question says "If you're already incorporated, when were you?" and I go on to explain why I'm not incorporated, I'm wasting their time. N/A means "I'm not incorporated, this does not apply to me." Go and read the questions that have N/A as answers. They simply do not apply.
OvidNaso 13y ago
Did you read the questions that he answered n/a to? They specifically didn't apply to his situation, not incorporated, sole founder, never participated in another accelerator, and no one is only partially commited. What exactly would you want him to write in these sections?
bambax 13y ago
> The Airbnb stunt is another proof that Loren wants more to stand out than to fit in Isn't it better for a founder to want to stand out than to "fit in"? Fit in what, exactly?

jamescraft34 13y ago

Good work man!

rhgraysonii 13y ago

I just wanted to chime in and say (though possibly off topic) that Loren is an extraordinary developer. I saw penflip on ShowHN when he first posted it, and before that when it was simply an idea he threw out here, and immediately signed up. I began writing a book on Clojure using the platform and I couldn't be happier. He also is great at engaging users. Just look at the twitter. He's personally helped me multiple times and even contributed to my project. So, if you're looking to write. Use penflip. It's awesome. But this really goes to show YC is a cutthroat place to try and get into. It really is amazing how much this system pg has started up has inspired. Just think of the entrepreneurs who have sat and thought of ideas because they know networks like this exist. It's truly an awesome thing for the world.

tinbad 13y ago

Love the idea, been using iA Writer for MAC to work on my book. But since I'm co-authoring with somebody else this would be the best tool to use. Too bad you didn't get into YC (just like me and many others), but you got a user (an possibly many more after getting on HN)! Just apply again next time when you're able to show some traction!

Jon_Levin 13y ago

This seems like it would be an immensely useful tool for government. In many regulations/rules scenarios, there are multiple agencies or offices (spread widely across the bureaucracy) vying for impact on a the in-progress document and the person or entity initially in control often loses ownership due to political, bureaucratic, funding or other reasons. A product like this would significantly improve this process and provide the kind of historical record needed create transparency in lawmaking. Just a thought.

guynamedloren 13y ago
Do you work in government or know somebody that does? If so, let's chat.
- Jon_Levin 13y ago
  I spent the last 3.5 years running a company that provides professional education to government contractors and was a government contractor myself. Before that, I worked in government for a couple years. Shoot me an email - happy to discuss.

wellboy 13y ago

Github for writers is big though dude. Get some traction and everybody will lick your toes!

papasmrf 13y ago

I don't know if this idea will be successful or not, but as a long time lurker here at HN I think the way you are putting yourself out there is fantastic. Keep up the good work and see this thing through.