Startup School Radio: How Optimizely Knew It Was on to Something Big

People who paid them up-front were basically companies they've done some business with before.

It's good to work your network to get first customers but every startup can do that. It's just common sense.

And nowhere in the article Optimizely claims this was how they knew they were onto "something big". So the title is misleading.

Really been enjoying these podcasts. Very cool to hear these first-hand stories

I know companies that did the same thing, only they were not onto something big. Having customers pre-product is a good signal. I'm sure that the class of companies for which this happens have a much higher success rates than a typical startup. However, that's far from knowing you've hit something big. That's something you can only say in hindsight.

Serious question; what is the deal with the something-ly.com names? It just seems really odd and me-too-ish to my ear.

When the guys at Optimizely asked for money upfront for their new software idea, were they already backed by YC?

I wonder if they collected the check up front. Big difference there too...