freax
Means you need people who can actually do shit. If you need people with business experience then a program that connects you with investors makes perfect sense. Investors need people like her. Thus the rejection was a mistake.
> or has experienced building a company
Neither did Google! That's why you partner with investors who have experience. Duh!
> or that she can think on her feet, for example.
Really bad example in this case.
> I wouldn't take them as a given
A given?!? What is a "given" in a venture?!?
You're making the same mistake with "good bet" when you really mean "guarantee".
I was making fun of you. Why do you insist on being enduringly stupid?
> I didn't actually say that
"especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting". There's such a big time gap there it's like saying "as soon as they graduate sixth grade and start college", which, as far as I know, only applies to one person here.
Yes, apologies. I hardly got any sleep. Change "your" to "the" as in "the actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted" and the rest applies.
But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.
Female college graduates are pushing back the age when they start families to historical highs, which puts lie to your claim that they start nesting right out of college.
Yes! Nests = ducks! I have never heard it applied to humans before! One might have thought I was comparing your incorrect and oversimplified description of female college graduates to instinctual waterfowl lifecycle behavior!
It's pretty funny you completely missed the sarcasm, focused on that, and then completely missed the point. And then start in with red herrings. Apparently your upmodders like fish.
But after $4.6 mil they don't even have a checkout system?!? Or search? Or customer service? Or even competitive wages?!?
Yeah, I totally thought you were talking about ducks!
> Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade crafts than men?
Now you're trying to change the subject.
Your actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted quite specifically is that as soon as women graduate college they start "nesting". In fact women college graduates are pushing back starting families by record amounts.
I know a lot of female professionals and I can't think of any without kids that spend any appreciable amount of time on handmade crafts.
Yes, yes it does make her a good bet. If you are betting, bet on people with immense talent and drive.
Who else are you going to bet on, people with far less talent and drive? I think you're confusing "good bet" with "guaranteed to be more successful".
> No selection process is perfect
Yes, but there's a huge gulf between "almost perfect" and "woefully inadequate" when it comes to not being perfect. YC is closer to the latter just due to the lack of time they spend on the process.
> and one data point does not a trend make.
Correct -- but it's one more data point. There are multiple others from reports here. For example, YC not looking at demos; or asking questions that indicate they didn't bother to read or understand the application. Plus when you see some of the schlock they've funded it's clear something's broken.
There are are some extremely effective substances you can use but they are a bit harder to get.
Clenbuterol will shed pounds like crazy but it's not something to stay on long-term. So plan to maintain your weight after you have help losing it.
Human Growth Hormone is a very effective fat-burner but it's also expensive from a reputable source. Most black market HGH is fake (usually HCG is substituted).
The diet industry doesn't want you to have these products because it would put them out of business. So you need a prescription, and most people are unaware of those options entirely.
Hormones are extremely influential when it comes to fat storage. If your stress level rises, your body will automatically store fat to compensate and burn muscle for fuel.
So getting rid of stress is critical.
If you are already tired but force yourself to work out, it may help your mental stress, but it does add MORE physical stress so your body may break down muscle and store fat. A lot of people have heard about overtraining but don't realize you don't already have to work out a lot in order to overtrain yourself. Simply being stressed/exhausted can cause overtraining with any vigorous exercise you perform in that state.
Avoid processed food. The more fresh whole foods you eat, the harder it is to overeat, and the vitamins and minerals will make your body stop feeling hungry in a way that doesn't happen when you eat something processed and devoid of nutrition..
Any kind of sugary drinks are a big problem. This includes fruit juice, which typically has all the sugar with none of the fiber. You can drink hundreds of calories of fruit juice in seconds, whereas if you eat whole oranges it takes a lot more work!
Exercise is key. You won't lose much weight because your appetite increases commensurately, but all sorts of things go wrong when you don't exercise. Exercise is a body regulation mechanism. If you don't do it you are guaranteed to have problems.
Nesting? What are they, ducks? As a feminist I'd like to say that's some pretty idiotic stereotyping. Female college graduates overwhelmingly enter the workforce, not nests.
The company loses money. Read it again.
I'm not disparaging the business, I'm disparaging the business combined with the amount of funding. That's just ridiculous.
You do the interview. Then you get a phone call with a percentage mentioned and no negotiation allowed. You say yes or they claim you "failed an IQ test". 5 minutes to decide.
> then it's just not worth YC's time
Yeah, not when you do this stuff in bulk, assembly-line style, with most companies fizzling out if they don't fund them (so very little risk of "being proven wrong").
> But what you probably have to consider is the size of the handmade craft market in the US. Then consider the entire world-wide market. It's probably very large.
That's every business plan ever. "Look how huge this market is! If we could just get one percent, why..."
It's like Ali G's pitch. "Zen" (Venn) diagram of "People who like ice cream" intersected with "People who has hands". Voila, the Ice Cream Glove.
That's a pretty glaring big data point that says YC's claim about choosing people, not ideas is junk. They probably didn't even read her resume because they don't spend enough time on the applications, which is still an indictment of their selection process. If you habitually make decisions in the absence of vital information you end up screwing the pooch.
If I were an investor I'd bet on that one for sure. Not even an interview?!?
Most people stop even trying and take themselves out of contention!
Rejections are like points. There's a secret magic number you need to collect, and then you succeed.
Etsy: $31.6 mil for a swapmeet just for handmade crafts.
When people take that much buck for so little bang it doesn't seem like they are interested in ROI or making it big so much as having a jobs program for them and their buddies.
Auctomatic sold for what probably amounts to a few months' burn rate for these suckers and still made their founders millionaires. How are these guys with 20 or 30 mil invested going to find a buyer that makes them a profit?
By the strict definition of entrepreneur (assuming the risk), that title goes to the VCs. When the venture tanks it's not going to be the founder who's out $30 mil.
Not a lot of technical wow in that list. Drupal probably leads by a good margin.
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible, eh?
And then there's the "accept immediately or you failed an IQ test" attitude. If you have a common date with the others then that's got to change.
Wait a minute, aren't you the guy who gives them 5 minutes to accept once you make your offer?
If they did their interviews/acceptance AFTER you, it would be the same situation with YOU pressuring founders before they'd heard back from anyone else!
Pot. Kettle. If you really care about the founders then you all need to get your schedules together so founders have the option of choosing from multiple offers. Leave the window open longer. It's pretty easy. Give them the forms and have them mail them back once they decide. Like college acceptance; this is a solved problem.
Crack? Junk food? Time-wasting websites? People rarely act even in their own best interests.
Err now as for myself...
Amazing they managed to IPO before they even shipped the Apple II. ;)
Haha, yesterday I was off by a year but today you're off by 4 :P
Apple went public in December 1980.
I have this wall chart of all sorts of religions, and I move a game piece around it like a boardgame. Then whoever I'm on that day, I pray, like, "O great Yegbabo, deliver unto me a vision of a start-up idea." Then I imbibe the appropriate ceremonial substance, such as hashish, peyote, coca leaves, licking a toad, LSD -- it depends on the culture.
Anyway that's how McCarthy "invented" Lisp (he was at Esalen on vacation with Timothy Leary).
You don't wanna be left holding the (diaper) bag.
That's some life advice, boys, since some of y'all are going to be millionaires and that makes you a target for all sorts of golddiggers.
Naturally, PG had this one sussed like everything else. "Wait a minute, friend," you might be saying to me, "didn't RTM get an equal share? That's like 50% in a divorce!" Naw, you see, before they got together, they wasn't worth two bits between 'em. PG rode that horsey into the sunset and 59 million pesos!
No, it's always been like this, modulo the foolhardy dot-com bubble.
The thing is, there are two types of potentially successful start-ups. The first kind is start-ups that have the talent and capability but who, if they don't get a helping hand, will quietly fizzle out.
My impression is a lot of YC groups are like this; getting into YC determines whether they go for it or just stay in school, for example. If Reddit didn't get in, would they be millionaires now? The risk here isn't YC missing the boat, but the boat never departing in the first place.
The second type is the start-up where they are going and you had better get on board or get out of the way. Steve Jobs personifies this approach. Jobs would beguile, needle, browbeat, or otherwise force the issue or pressure anyone he needed to get things done.
Ironically some VC successes aren't based on their BOLD choices so much as being strong-armed into getting over their risk aversion by someone like Jobs.
It's not only not hands-free, you also now have to use your arms, legs, jump in place, lean, twist...
I didn't watch the whole thing because I don't want to know how they handle sex... shudder
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/09/afternoon-delig....
I think it's a great lesson so I think I'll make my startup's vital information globally accessible (admin functions, source code, even my billing info for the ISP) and trust to my fellow human beings' goodwill.
I love you guys!!