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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 commi

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.
    - nostrademons 12y ago
      They did fund DropBox, which is also in the category of "There is a lot of X, there is no clear market for X, but here's a new way of doing things that may or may not work technically." Granted, I've heard that they almost turned him down (twice!), but they were at least open to the possibility of it working. I suspect that a lot of that is because Drew actually went to the trouble of building a video and getting a few thousand signups before applying. Similarly, Google had significant traction at Stanford well before it became a company. While it takes years for world-changing ideas to become world-changing, it usually takes about 4 months for them to get an initial prototype out that can at least excite some users.
      - david927 12y ago
        I used to think of Silicon Valley as the birthplace of the future in revolutionary terms -- what Peter Thiel refers to as going from 0 to 1. Doug Englebart, Alan Kay and Xerox PARC, etc. Now when Silicon Valley talks about innovation, it's about making it so much easier to store files on a server and metrics to gauge product/market fit. There is nothing about DropBox that changed the world. Simply and sadly nothing. But there is everything in that it's what is cited as "innovation" in 2015.
        graeme 12y ago
        >There is nothing about DropBox that changed the world. Simply and sadly nothing. This seems narrow minded. Dropbox completely changed how I use my computer. I use it every day and it's incredibly valuable. None of the competitors I looked at offer a similarly simple experience. It's like wheels on a suitcase. Not a large innovation, but completely changed how people travel. Gigantic innovations are great too, but there's no need to disparage things which radically change how people use devices.
        nostrademons 12y ago
        You're moving the goalposts - your initial post was about hard technical innovation. Very often, the change in the world happens decades after the initial technical innovation, and is done by a different person or company. You don't actually use a mouse or web browser made by Doug Engelbart, do you? Do you get paid to program in Smalltalk? And I bet your laptop says "Apple" and not "Xerox". It took 20-40 years for these innovations to actually "change the world". Check back in a couple decades on the status of YC companies and see what the world looks like then. (A bit more personally - I used to think of Silicon Valley as the birthplace of the future in revolutionary terms. Then I realized that I was wrong - not about Silicon Valley, but about how innovation happens. There's no such thing as a revolutionary invention made by a lone technical genius, a priori. Instead, there are environmental changes, often years after the fact, that make the original tinkering of someone who dared to be a little different seem amazingly prescient. You can't predict what these changes will be, but you can tinker and you can capitalize on the tinkering of others.)
- yuncun 12y ago
  Are there such things as incubators for innovation? Example?
  - david927 12y ago
    Yeah. In Europe there are incubators that are based, not on market demand but on technical innovation, and offer public money; no equity is taken.
    - ZeroFries 12y ago
      Canada has a similar program as well.
    - FeloniousHam 12y ago
      What is the "success rate" (growth or just survival after the program) of these products/companies/ideas after incubation?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
dia80 12y ago
Space doesn't preclude customer development. E.g Virgin Galatic pre-selling rides
sunir 12y ago
The proof of concept for space travel was NASA, the ESA, the CSA, RKA, etc. plus all science fiction plus space camps plus parabolic microgravity flights plus preselling seats. In their case there are many rapid app builders so it isn't crazy talk to enter that market. What is crazy talk is they haven't entered the market but are forming up on the beachhead (waiting for what?) and (critically) applying for YC before they have tested the market.
graeme 12y ago
>For instance if you want to create a space travel company, you will need funding way before you've finished your proof of concept. There are always some ways to test concept. I've done a fair bit of indirect testing in my business, as my products take years to develop. I always found a way to test the most central aspects of them, usually in a week or two. I don't know how you'd do it for the product these guys are trying to build, because I'm not familiar with their space. But there must be a way.
dingodoo 12y ago
Plus, people like Elon Musk and Richard Branson have built up enough credibility in their own names, that when they say "we're going to make commercial space travel possible" you tend to believe them, because they don't make those kinds of announcements without having done significant research ahead of the announcement. I'll agree you need bold commitment, but the last thing you want is to commit to a concept that doesn't have any outlooks on whether or not people want it, much less, pay for it.
- simonster 12y ago
  I can't comment on whether or not you're correct, but if the only way you can take on a large, world-changing project is if you're already famous, that seems kind of sad, doesn't it?
  - confiscate 12y ago
    Look at some of Elon's videos--instead of trying to "making something complex to change the world", he aims to "reduce complex things to simple base principles" WATCH his videos about hydrogen cells and why he thinks they are way too complex and not useful. He didn't start SpaceX by starting with a complex theory. He started SpaceX by looking at the basic principles of cost of production and using that as a starting point Instead of aiming for "Making a crazy complex spaceship that will have more features than those made by NASA", he's going in the other direction, namely "cutting corners and reducing complexity to come up with a simpler, cheaper spaceship".
bobbles 12y ago
"I want to expand my lemonade business" "Great, how much lemonade have you sold?" "We have 50,000 lemons on backorder!"

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.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    They did fund DropBox, which is also in the category of "There is a lot of X, there is no clear market for X, but here's a new way of doing things that may or may not work technically." Granted, I've heard that they almost turned him down (twice!), but they were at least open to the possibility of it working. I suspect that a lot of that is because Drew actually went to the trouble of building a video and getting a few thousand signups before applying. Similarly, Google had significant traction at Stanford well before it became a company. While it takes years for world-changing ideas to become world-changing, it usually takes about 4 months for them to get an initial prototype out that can at least excite some users.
    - david927 12y ago
      I used to think of Silicon Valley as the birthplace of the future in revolutionary terms -- what Peter Thiel refers to as going from 0 to 1. Doug Englebart, Alan Kay and Xerox PARC, etc. Now when Silicon Valley talks about innovation, it's about making it so much easier to store files on a server and metrics to gauge product/market fit. There is nothing about DropBox that changed the world. Simply and sadly nothing. But there is everything in that it's what is cited as "innovation" in 2015.
      - graeme 12y ago
        >There is nothing about DropBox that changed the world. Simply and sadly nothing. This seems narrow minded. Dropbox completely changed how I use my computer. I use it every day and it's incredibly valuable. None of the competitors I looked at offer a similarly simple experience. It's like wheels on a suitcase. Not a large innovation, but completely changed how people travel. Gigantic innovations are great too, but there's no need to disparage things which radically change how people use devices.
      - nostrademons 12y ago
        You're moving the goalposts - your initial post was about hard technical innovation. Very often, the change in the world happens decades after the initial technical innovation, and is done by a different person or company. You don't actually use a mouse or web browser made by Doug Engelbart, do you? Do you get paid to program in Smalltalk? And I bet your laptop says "Apple" and not "Xerox". It took 20-40 years for these innovations to actually "change the world". Check back in a couple decades on the status of YC companies and see what the world looks like then. (A bit more personally - I used to think of Silicon Valley as the birthplace of the future in revolutionary terms. Then I realized that I was wrong - not about Silicon Valley, but about how innovation happens. There's no such thing as a revolutionary invention made by a lone technical genius, a priori. Instead, there are environmental changes, often years after the fact, that make the original tinkering of someone who dared to be a little different seem amazingly prescient. You can't predict what these changes will be, but you can tinker and you can capitalize on the tinkering of others.)
yuncun 12y ago
Are there such things as incubators for innovation? Example?
- david927 12y ago
  Yeah. In Europe there are incubators that are based, not on market demand but on technical innovation, and offer public money; no equity is taken.
  - ZeroFries 12y ago
    Canada has a similar program as well.
  - FeloniousHam 12y ago
    What is the "success rate" (growth or just survival after the program) of these products/companies/ideas after incubation?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

dia80 12y ago

Space doesn't preclude customer development. E.g Virgin Galatic pre-selling rides

sunir 12y ago

The proof of concept for space travel was NASA, the ESA, the CSA, RKA, etc. plus all science fiction plus space camps plus parabolic microgravity flights plus preselling seats. In their case there are many rapid app builders so it isn't crazy talk to enter that market. What is crazy talk is they haven't entered the market but are forming up on the beachhead (waiting for what?) and (critically) applying for YC before they have tested the market.

graeme 12y ago

>For instance if you want to create a space travel company, you will need funding way before you've finished your proof of concept. There are always some ways to test concept. I've done a fair bit of indirect testing in my business, as my products take years to develop. I always found a way to test the most central aspects of them, usually in a week or two. I don't know how you'd do it for the product these guys are trying to build, because I'm not familiar with their space. But there must be a way.

dingodoo 12y ago

Plus, people like Elon Musk and Richard Branson have built up enough credibility in their own names, that when they say "we're going to make commercial space travel possible" you tend to believe them, because they don't make those kinds of announcements without having done significant research ahead of the announcement. I'll agree you need bold commitment, but the last thing you want is to commit to a concept that doesn't have any outlooks on whether or not people want it, much less, pay for it.

simonster 12y ago
I can't comment on whether or not you're correct, but if the only way you can take on a large, world-changing project is if you're already famous, that seems kind of sad, doesn't it?
- confiscate 12y ago
  Look at some of Elon's videos--instead of trying to "making something complex to change the world", he aims to "reduce complex things to simple base principles" WATCH his videos about hydrogen cells and why he thinks they are way too complex and not useful. He didn't start SpaceX by starting with a complex theory. He started SpaceX by looking at the basic principles of cost of production and using that as a starting point Instead of aiming for "Making a crazy complex spaceship that will have more features than those made by NASA", he's going in the other direction, namely "cutting corners and reducing complexity to come up with a simpler, cheaper spaceship".

bobbles 12y ago

"I want to expand my lemonade business" "Great, how much lemonade have you sold?" "We have 50,000 lemons on backorder!"