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Sorry guys - if I was interviewing you as a YC partner, I'd pass on you too. You repeatedly express frustration that the interviewers were not intimately famil

Sorry guys - if I was interviewing you as a YC partner, I'd pass on you too. You repeatedly express frustration that the interviewers were not intimately familiar with your application, but it doesn't seem if you put much into familiarizing yourself with YC and their flavour of logic. YC: Why are you spending so much time developing this application? Creo: It is not only an application, it is a compiler, a virtual machine, a new language and even a mobile operating system. YC was asking why you ignored customer development and just jumped into boiling the ocean before doing anything to verify that there was an existing market opportunity in the form of real customers willing to pay you real money to solve a problem. It's not that they didn't understand what you were trying to do, or questioning whether you could do it. They were right to push you for proof that you had more than a few friends who were desperate to use it. The answer that you gave to the question is just a hairball of red flags. You wrote half a million lines of code before validating your business case? Do you truly believe that your ability to see the future is so strong that you just don't need to back up your vision with data? That is not reassuring to a savvy investor who hears "500klc" and feels fear and/or pity. Listen, it sounds like the experience was positive and that you are taking answering some of the hard questions seriously. However, I urge you not to move forward without questioning that your entire position that YC blew it on an obviously incredible opportunity might be significantly flawed. As to your idea itself: I am deeply skeptical that a drag-and-drop UI for building mobile apps is going to turn non-developers into developers. You're not considering that 10% of writing code is syntax and 90% following a strong intuition of what to do first. Perhaps the reason it doesn't exist is because nobody has that problem. "What does it do?" "Anything you can imagine!" Most people don't understand what they are allowed to imagine. Sorry.

S4M 12y ago
I think they missed the point of another question as well: > YC: How many apps has been developed with your software? > Creo: As I already said and as I clearly written in our apply, we are currently in pre-beta so we just developed apps for internal usage, nothing is on the market yet. So that means that after all those efforts, you haven't even tried yourself to create an app with the beta you have?
- aidos 12y ago
  I just watched the video expecting it to show how to build an app. Instead it felt like 15 minutes of messing around with widgets. If the Creo guys are reading (and I'm sure they are), take a look at how these guys (http://www.atomic.io http://www.atomic.io) show off their product - https://vimeo.com/120035868 https://vimeo.com/120035868
  - lettergram 12y ago
    Now that video makes me want it.
benbou09 12y ago
You seem to think that fast product iteration and testing with customers is the only way to go. It isn’t. The most ambitious projects sometimes need bold commitment. For instance if you want to create a space travel company, you will need funding way before you've finished your proof of concept. Now, maybe Y Combinator is simply not their market.
- david927 12y ago
  Exactly. Applying to YC was a mistake: it's an accelerator for making money, not an incubator for innovation.
  - justin 12y ago
    If you don't think consumer software like Dropbox or marketplaces like Airbnb are innovations, consider that we have funded companies like Gingko Bioworks (synthetic biology) and Helion Energy (nuclear fusion). One thing you're right about: we're not an incubator. http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/16/why-the-first-yc-backed-biotech-company-may-just-be-the-future-of-pharma/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/16/why-the-first-yc-backed-bio... http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-invest-in-helion-a-nuclear-fusion-startup/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-in...
    - david927 12y ago
      YC is not really for technical innovation, it's for product development: it's for taking X and doing something new with it, not for creating a revolutionary new X. For example, you certainly might have funded Facebook but I don't think you would have funded Google with Page Rank. There were a lot of search engines at the time and there was no clear market for it. And that's not pejorative -- there's nothing wrong with that; you're not crying yourself to sleep at night. Your whole application process reflects it: with tiny textboxes and the 10-minute interview time frame. It's perfect for saying "We're like MySpace for college students," but not at all appropriate for saying, "We use a new form of compiling search results that place ranking based on complex algorithm of reputation-based weighting." A funny example was given by Noam Chomsky. A producer at CNN (IIRC) once told him they wouldn't feature him because "he is from Neptune and lacks concision." To which he replied something like that it was fair, because if you're saying something strikingly different, you look like you're from a different planet, and then you need to justify how you got there, and that means you have to talk a lot, so by definition you lack concision. If these guys have spent years writing their own VM, they need a lot of time to talk about why they did that, the corner they turned and all of the complex differences their VM exhibits. A one-page application is fine if you're building Facebook for Cats but if you're doing something 'from Neptune', you can't have concision. They simply don't go together.
dlubarov 12y ago
But some products can't be validated in their early stages. It's hard enough to find early adopters willing to spend hours learning a new IDE and language that no one else uses. If the product is also buggy or missing important features, who would want to use it? It's also not a brand new paradigm they're inventing. Look at Game Maker which is pretty commercially successful.
- yitchelle 12y ago
  So if they don't validate their product, are the Creo folks building the product for the love of it?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - dlubarov 12y ago
    It's a calculated risk. If no one risked building such products we wouldn't have innovative operating systems, languages, storage engines, etc.
    - yitchelle 12y ago
      A calculated risk means that they have though about the market for their product. From what I read, it seems that they have adopted the "build it and they will come" strategy.
archagon 12y ago
"Most people don't understand what they are allowed to imagine." Heh, I'm saving this as a quotable quote. Very true.
solve 12y ago
"I give business leaders honest feedback" Just a side note, I'm ALWAYS noticing lately that there's a certain segment of people like to use the word "honest" as a justification for spreading their negative predictions and negative feelings. Whether selecting these founders would have worked out well in the future for YC? That's purely a prediction. But somehow people like to throw in the word "honest" for predictions and then suddenly they can give cheap criticism without putting any real effort into making specific suggestions for how to do better. Plenty of successful entrepreneurs have honestly thought that their success is undeserved and the whole thing is a bad idea that will collapse at any minute. Honest isn't a synonym for useful, in fact it's usually just harmful, for successful startups where 90% of the time everyone feels terrible and confused - because that's just the nature of the business.
- peteforde 12y ago
  If you're going to quote me, at least quote me in context: I give business leaders honest feedback, new ideas and access to my network. Typically in that order. This is my actual job, not a vague promise. I have a demonstrable track record and since all of my business comes from referrals, I must not be entirely out to lunch. I suspect that you are internally switching out my use of the word honest for [something like "prediction"] which has nothing to do with my feedback. I don't predict what any of my clients will do, although I do certainly run the numbers in my head before I take on a new client. When I say that I give honest feedback, it means that I don't pull punches — no matter how awkward it is. Humans are trained from birth to tell people what they think that they want to hear. They want to be encouraging. Unfortunately, that means that you've sacrificed telling someone that you can see flaws in their logic for telling them selective truths that will make them feel good. This gets you off the hook socially and gives them no useful information about the hard road ahead of them. Next time you have an idea, run it past me. I'm happy to give you 15 minutes over Skype. You can decide if I'm negative. The feedback I usually get is "awesome" but I do approach every conversation with the assumption that they have something to teach me.
pizu 12y ago
To all you aspiring entrepreneurs, this is all you need to know: "Verify that there was an existing market opportunity in the form of real customers willing to pay you real money to solve a problem" Now, go!
- david927 12y ago
  Now, go... build a lifestyle business!
forthefuture 12y ago
Your last point is exactly how I feel when I go to Amazon.com. I really want to buy things, I like spending money, hearing the doorbell, and opening packages, it's all a great experience. But when I go to Amazon.com and their front page greets me, I have no idea what to do. I just want to see 10 new cool things every day and maybe buy some of them. So services like Meh and Massdrop make a lot more sense for my use case.
nickbauman 12y ago
Yes. YC will not fund the company that will invent something new. They will fund a company that looks like it might be a good business and make money. These two things aren't inherently incompatible in theory. But we've seen time and time again in practice that they are. To invent new things you need Xerox Parc (the PC) or a big government program (the Internet). To make a lot of money off the inventions, you need Apple. The ecosystem needs both kinds of companies. Unfortunately (for the future of ideas) YC will select the latter type only.
- beambot 12y ago
  I don't think that's true... YC funds plenty of inventive companies (sometimes based on idea alone). Still, the onus is on the founders to articulate why they're the ones to pull it off and how their inventions could plausibly become billion dollar companies.
  - nickbauman 12y ago
    Can you name an example?
    - jamiequint 12y ago
      Two hard-technology businesses YC has funded are Helion Energy and UPower.
    - jl 12y ago
      Bikanta, Ginko Bioworks, Helion, 20n, Farmlogs, uPower...
    - nickbauman 12y ago
      Still, these are unusual, not the typical YC, no?
      - prawn 12y ago
        Then don't say "YC will not fund the company that will invent something new." YC openly talks about how validating your idea and growing the business are big signals to them that you are worth the investment. But while that's the most common path, there are clearly alternatives. They are just giving advice on what might maximise your chances with them.
mhomde 12y ago
The thing is the most ludicrous ideas might also be the most brilliant ones, and the only way to know is in hindsight. I mean hell Google was a ridiculous idea in its day. Tesla was too in the beginning, and numerous other companies. Some ideas do require a lot of risk in form of up-front development for a shaky idea, but that's the only way to find out if that particular idea works. There are some ideas where you can simply throw shit on the wall until something sticks and iterate from there but there are also ideas that you have to go all in on. If someone says they're going to develop a "revolutionary new programming language" that will obsolete java/c# (or something) I'd roll my eyes and call bullshit, and in 99.9% cases it will be true, except for the one that isn't. Its up to every entrepreneur and venture capitalist to choose what kind of idea to bet on. I'd only hope that the entrepreneur picks something they're passionate about. You could say that you should at least be aware of the risk and scope of the idea your pursuing, but is that even true? Some might be better of not knowing or they'd never attempt it. As George Bernard Shaw famously said: "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."

S4M 12y ago

I think they missed the point of another question as well: > YC: How many apps has been developed with your software? > Creo: As I already said and as I clearly written in our apply, we are currently in pre-beta so we just developed apps for internal usage, nothing is on the market yet. So that means that after all those efforts, you haven't even tried yourself to create an app with the beta you have?

aidos 12y ago
I just watched the video expecting it to show how to build an app. Instead it felt like 15 minutes of messing around with widgets. If the Creo guys are reading (and I'm sure they are), take a look at how these guys (http://www.atomic.io http://www.atomic.io) show off their product - https://vimeo.com/120035868 https://vimeo.com/120035868
- lettergram 12y ago
  Now that video makes me want it.

benbou09 12y ago

You seem to think that fast product iteration and testing with customers is the only way to go. It isn’t. The most ambitious projects sometimes need bold commitment. For instance if you want to create a space travel company, you will need funding way before you've finished your proof of concept. Now, maybe Y Combinator is simply not their market.

david927 12y ago
Exactly. Applying to YC was a mistake: it's an accelerator for making money, not an incubator for innovation.
- justin 12y ago
  If you don't think consumer software like Dropbox or marketplaces like Airbnb are innovations, consider that we have funded companies like Gingko Bioworks (synthetic biology) and Helion Energy (nuclear fusion). One thing you're right about: we're not an incubator. http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/16/why-the-first-yc-backed-biotech-company-may-just-be-the-future-of-pharma/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/16/why-the-first-yc-backed-bio... http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-invest-in-helion-a-nuclear-fusion-startup/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-in...
  - david927 12y ago
    YC is not really for technical innovation, it's for product development: it's for taking X and doing something new with it, not for creating a revolutionary new X. For example, you certainly might have funded Facebook but I don't think you would have funded Google with Page Rank. There were a lot of search engines at the time and there was no clear market for it. And that's not pejorative -- there's nothing wrong with that; you're not crying yourself to sleep at night. Your whole application process reflects it: with tiny textboxes and the 10-minute interview time frame. It's perfect for saying "We're like MySpace for college students," but not at all appropriate for saying, "We use a new form of compiling search results that place ranking based on complex algorithm of reputation-based weighting." A funny example was given by Noam Chomsky. A producer at CNN (IIRC) once told him they wouldn't feature him because "he is from Neptune and lacks concision." To which he replied something like that it was fair, because if you're saying something strikingly different, you look like you're from a different planet, and then you need to justify how you got there, and that means you have to talk a lot, so by definition you lack concision. If these guys have spent years writing their own VM, they need a lot of time to talk about why they did that, the corner they turned and all of the complex differences their VM exhibits. A one-page application is fine if you're building Facebook for Cats but if you're doing something 'from Neptune', you can't have concision. They simply don't go together.

dlubarov 12y ago

But some products can't be validated in their early stages. It's hard enough to find early adopters willing to spend hours learning a new IDE and language that no one else uses. If the product is also buggy or missing important features, who would want to use it? It's also not a brand new paradigm they're inventing. Look at Game Maker which is pretty commercially successful.

yitchelle 12y ago
So if they don't validate their product, are the Creo folks building the product for the love of it?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dlubarov 12y ago
  It's a calculated risk. If no one risked building such products we wouldn't have innovative operating systems, languages, storage engines, etc.
  - yitchelle 12y ago
    A calculated risk means that they have though about the market for their product. From what I read, it seems that they have adopted the "build it and they will come" strategy.

archagon 12y ago

"Most people don't understand what they are allowed to imagine." Heh, I'm saving this as a quotable quote. Very true.

solve 12y ago

"I give business leaders honest feedback" Just a side note, I'm ALWAYS noticing lately that there's a certain segment of people like to use the word "honest" as a justification for spreading their negative predictions and negative feelings. Whether selecting these founders would have worked out well in the future for YC? That's purely a prediction. But somehow people like to throw in the word "honest" for predictions and then suddenly they can give cheap criticism without putting any real effort into making specific suggestions for how to do better. Plenty of successful entrepreneurs have honestly thought that their success is undeserved and the whole thing is a bad idea that will collapse at any minute. Honest isn't a synonym for useful, in fact it's usually just harmful, for successful startups where 90% of the time everyone feels terrible and confused - because that's just the nature of the business.

peteforde 12y ago
If you're going to quote me, at least quote me in context: I give business leaders honest feedback, new ideas and access to my network. Typically in that order. This is my actual job, not a vague promise. I have a demonstrable track record and since all of my business comes from referrals, I must not be entirely out to lunch. I suspect that you are internally switching out my use of the word honest for [something like "prediction"] which has nothing to do with my feedback. I don't predict what any of my clients will do, although I do certainly run the numbers in my head before I take on a new client. When I say that I give honest feedback, it means that I don't pull punches — no matter how awkward it is. Humans are trained from birth to tell people what they think that they want to hear. They want to be encouraging. Unfortunately, that means that you've sacrificed telling someone that you can see flaws in their logic for telling them selective truths that will make them feel good. This gets you off the hook socially and gives them no useful information about the hard road ahead of them. Next time you have an idea, run it past me. I'm happy to give you 15 minutes over Skype. You can decide if I'm negative. The feedback I usually get is "awesome" but I do approach every conversation with the assumption that they have something to teach me.

pizu 12y ago

To all you aspiring entrepreneurs, this is all you need to know: "Verify that there was an existing market opportunity in the form of real customers willing to pay you real money to solve a problem" Now, go!

david927 12y ago
Now, go... build a lifestyle business!

forthefuture 12y ago

Your last point is exactly how I feel when I go to Amazon.com. I really want to buy things, I like spending money, hearing the doorbell, and opening packages, it's all a great experience. But when I go to Amazon.com and their front page greets me, I have no idea what to do. I just want to see 10 new cool things every day and maybe buy some of them. So services like Meh and Massdrop make a lot more sense for my use case.

nickbauman 12y ago

Yes. YC will not fund the company that will invent something new. They will fund a company that looks like it might be a good business and make money. These two things aren't inherently incompatible in theory. But we've seen time and time again in practice that they are. To invent new things you need Xerox Parc (the PC) or a big government program (the Internet). To make a lot of money off the inventions, you need Apple. The ecosystem needs both kinds of companies. Unfortunately (for the future of ideas) YC will select the latter type only.

beambot 12y ago
I don't think that's true... YC funds plenty of inventive companies (sometimes based on idea alone). Still, the onus is on the founders to articulate why they're the ones to pull it off and how their inventions could plausibly become billion dollar companies.
- nickbauman 12y ago
  Can you name an example?
  - jamiequint 12y ago
    Two hard-technology businesses YC has funded are Helion Energy and UPower.
  - jl 12y ago
    Bikanta, Ginko Bioworks, Helion, 20n, Farmlogs, uPower...
  - nickbauman 12y ago
    Still, these are unusual, not the typical YC, no?
    - prawn 12y ago
      Then don't say "YC will not fund the company that will invent something new." YC openly talks about how validating your idea and growing the business are big signals to them that you are worth the investment. But while that's the most common path, there are clearly alternatives. They are just giving advice on what might maximise your chances with them.

mhomde 12y ago

The thing is the most ludicrous ideas might also be the most brilliant ones, and the only way to know is in hindsight. I mean hell Google was a ridiculous idea in its day. Tesla was too in the beginning, and numerous other companies. Some ideas do require a lot of risk in form of up-front development for a shaky idea, but that's the only way to find out if that particular idea works. There are some ideas where you can simply throw shit on the wall until something sticks and iterate from there but there are also ideas that you have to go all in on. If someone says they're going to develop a "revolutionary new programming language" that will obsolete java/c# (or something) I'd roll my eyes and call bullshit, and in 99.9% cases it will be true, except for the one that isn't. Its up to every entrepreneur and venture capitalist to choose what kind of idea to bet on. I'd only hope that the entrepreneur picks something they're passionate about. You could say that you should at least be aware of the risk and scope of the idea your pursuing, but is that even true? Some might be better of not knowing or they'd never attempt it. As George Bernard Shaw famously said: "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."