sama

38 ms·

481.
by sama 11y ago
We may try something in a future iteration to help people meet cofounders. In the mean time, working a large tech company is a good strategy.
482.
by sama 11y ago
Extra credit for that.
483.
by sama 11y ago
good if you're willing to take the fall semester off.
484.
by sama 11y ago
We will be slightly more open to solo founders because we think at this stage you still have a good chance of finding a cofounder. But the bar will still remain higher for solo founders given all of our historical data.
485.
by sama 11y ago
YC has evolved quite a bit. This seems like a good way for us to scale and to enable more innovation. A lot of companies need the full $120k, but I bet many will be able to make great progress with just $12k. We thought about trying to co
486.
Rescale (YC W12) raises $6.4M(blogs.wsj.com)
45 points by sama 11y ago|7 comments
487.
by sama 11y ago
She walked in to a hot mess of a situation after the previous CEO resigned on the spot and kept the company from falling apart (which I thought was a live concern at the time). You try doing that some day.
488.
by sama 11y ago
I still think picking an initial niche is a good one, but ideally you'd pick one that represents a complex task that is easier to get done in broken-down subsets, and that customers don't have an easy way to get done today.
489.
by sama 11y ago
Not only do I think it's possible to stay involved in engineering/design work, I think it's optimal, at least for the first few years. The best technical CEOs do this--they're happy to hand off most of the organization
490.
by sama 11y ago
I'd be tempted to try a Nespresso/Gillette model, where the initial product is cheap and the "refills" are relatively expensive subscriptions, but very high quality and easy to use.
491.
by sama 11y ago
If the main thing you want to prove out is that you can build a platform where small tasks can be easily farmed out (which again, sounds like a really good idea), I'm very unsure this is the right way to start. It's well establis
492.
by sama 11y ago
I think you will have a hard time claiming that the project is open source except the data which you keep and monetize. I strongly suggest considering other models. Why do you want to "open-source" this at all? Why not just make
493.
by sama 11y ago
This sounds really good. If mobile base stations are the right first customers, go try to get some of them to agree to buy your chip (if you deliver it as planned), and then go try to raise a seed round. After you deliver the evaluation u
494.
by sama 11y ago
I think one of the challenges is that there is usually extra capacity to the ISS, and so you at least initially you need to compete on convenience not money (by the way, I should note that we funded Bagaveev in the last YC batch). The most
495.
by sama 11y ago
Ok this sounds really cool so I can't resist replying. This is great time to be selling security software, especially at the data level. I've never totally bought the "start with startups" approach for enterprise securit
496.
by sama 11y ago
Could you say more about how making the product open-source will give you a monopoly? Will the data be open-source too? If the product is open-source, how will monetization work? If you can get 30 houses in your neighborhood as happy custo
497.
by sama 11y ago
Hi Zhuang and Derrick-- I think that 98% of the time, the right answer is to start out and remain focused on one vertical until you take it over. Most startups expand far too early and then fade out everywhere (this is often the fault of b
498.
by sama 11y ago
We funded a semiconductor company in the current YC batch (I believe for the first time). I think extreme energy efficiency is a great thing to go after for a new semiconductor company. It fits the "surf someone else's wave"
499.
by sama 11y ago
10% weekly growth for a year will certainly get investors' attention. However, for a company like this, I think the most important consideration is how you plan to build a monopoly. There are lots of companies proposing to build autom
500.
HN Office Hours with Kevin and Sam
191 points by sama 11y ago|144 comments
501.
Tell HN: Kevin and I are doing HN office hours Friday from 11 am to 1 pm PDT
143 points by sama 11y ago|46 comments
502.
by sama 11y ago
I deserve to be scolded. It's been a rough day. I was up all night. I thought I'd try to be funny. It didn't have the intended effect.
503.
by sama 11y ago
The great majority of people we fund have no connection to us whatsoever. YC partners do dozens of events every year in the US and dozens more in the rest of the world to reach out to people we don't have any connection to. A great ide
504.
by sama 11y ago
this was intentional buzzfeed satire :)
505.
by sama 11y ago
Greg isn't a founder of stripe. Larry and Sergey have been working on Google for 17 years. Mark has been working on Facebook for 11. Drew and Arash have now been working on Dropbox for 8 years. Brian, Nate, and Joe have been working
506.
by sama 11y ago
I did apply to and do YC, and then I ran that company for 7 years. Had it been going better I would have been happy to run it for 3 more!
507.
New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity(blog.ycombinator.com)
1248 points by sama 12y ago|631 comments
508.
The Magic Thread(blog.geoffralston.com)
67 points by sama 12y ago|3 comments
509.
by sama 12y ago
can you send me your email address? i'm sama@
510.
by sama 12y ago
a fair point. i didn't define "VC" well enough. if another VC from a top-tier fund with at least $500MM under management would like to take the bet, i will make the same bet once more.

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