Startups That Launched at YC S15 Demo Day 1 | Hacker News Reader

Startups That Launched at YC S15 Demo Day 1

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100 pointsnoteloop38 comments

Circle Medical is "Uber for doctors". That's going to be interesting.

The tea-making robot seems to come with overoptimistic numbers.

The sandwich-making robot is a good idea, but it will need a complete redesign to make it cleanable. All stainless and Teflon, no food trap points, machine-washable, steam-cleanable. Whether it's cost effective is another issue. That idea has been tried many times. Here's AMFare, from American Machine and Foundry, in 1964.[1] That system worked quite well, but needed a constantly busy fast food outlet to justify the expense.

Then there's the version for the 1%[2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmXLqImT1wE [2] http://factor-tech.com/robotics/17437-robot-chef-that-can-co...

Who needs a teaBOT when you can have a teasmade! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teasmade)

Teasmade? I hate tea!

I was quite surprised to see the tea-making and sandwich-making robots.

I met a startup in Hong Kong, CafeX, who were working on a coffee-making robot, and my first reaction was that they were using cutting-edge technology to solve a trivial problem. I do like good coffee though, so I thought through the business case.

It seemed to fit into an awkward gap between "cheap coffee vending machine" and "cafe kiosk with trained barista". People grabbing a convenient coffee in places like gas stations and convenience stores, care about price over quality and will be fine with a cheap machine. People who like quality coffee will usually prefer a trained barista if one is available, unless they want to try the novelty of a robot.

The two niches I can see are:

1) Inside fancy office buildings, where the drones don't want to walk outside to get good coffee. (The robot is also good for impressing visitors).

2) Places without decent cafes around, i.e. shopping malls, theme parks, airports, where the robot might be as good or better than Starfucks burned-for-consistency beans.

"People who like quality coffee will usually prefer a trained barista if one is available, unless they want to try the novelty of a robot."

That's not why Starbucks is so labor-intensive.

Starbucks developed a good automated coffee-making machine, but decided not to deploy it. Instead, they built a lower-profile manual machine which allows their employees to maintain eye contact with the customer. The whole point of Starbucks, the thing that justifies their high prices, is the ego boost the customer gets from making the barista perform. Starbucks is about sucking up. All their employees know this; it's in their training. Starbucks is a fast food operation with the sucking-up level of a sit-down restaurant.

Read what their CEO has to say on the subject.[1]

[1] http://www.kplu.org/post/robot-baristas-heres-starbucks-ceo-...

I've only just seen this comment; all I wanted to say is that your interpretation sounds far too cynical. Maybe I just can't fathom what kind of mind gets an ego boost from "making the barista perform".

> People who like quality coffee will usually prefer a trained barista if one is available, unless they want to try the novelty of a robot.

I seem to recall (and I can't remember where I saw it) that Heston Blumenthal uses a very expensive automated coffee machine to remove the variance inherent in human baristas.

It's a Nespresso machine - it's not even that expensive.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/apr...

It's only a trivial problem until the costs for their human counterparts rise to a certain point (training / turnover & salaries / benefits)

New startup idea: self-driving solar-powered bikes which make sandwiches for you and collect payment via smartphone app.

You must own a time machine. How was the YC16 launch?

Perhaps I am nit-picking but....

ROSS "is a digital legal expert" that managed not to attribute its landing page's photo legally.

The photo is from here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stuttgart_Bibliothek...

And according to the licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), attribution credit as well as link to the cc license should be provided.

I think the idea is very cool by the way -- just trying to help!

The wikipedia page, under "Permission" says "If you use this picture somewhere outside the wiki-world, I'd be happy to get a short eMail from you."

I believe that's the attribution. As it says in the license section below:

"attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor"

So you can't really say if its not attributed properly.

For those interested, here are the Summer 2015 startups ranked on Product Hunt: http://www.producthunt.com/e/y-combinator-summer-15

If you'd like to see how many of the startups in the current YC batch have evolved over time, I have created a special collection on the S15 group of companies (using content from the Internet Archive):

http://www.startuptimelines.org/collections/ycombinator_summ...

The companies I have personally found most surprising have been Wheely's Cafe, Nebia, L., Luna, and Scentbird [1] ... great to see YC supporting such unique kinds of companies.

http://www.davidxgoliath.com/five-crazy-startups-from-the-cu...

Description for Tesorio, mentions Tenant Turner

Nice to see at least some of these are building things which aren't just smartphone apps solving first-world problems.

I would love to try out the Nebia shower, just a shame they didn't name it Nebula ... seems more fitting imo.

They used to be called that but then PG wrote a blog post about what to do when the .com is already taken.

nebula-showers.com?

But you have a point indeed.

The name comes from the Italian word "nebbia" (mist) but I'm curious why you think Nebula fits better. The cloudiness?

Nebulizers create mist.

Congratulations to all of the startups who launched!!

A lot more health, bio, and food related startups in this batch.

Tea and sandwich making robots makes me think that one day YC will open its own automated coffeeshop or restaurant. Theoretically lower operating costs, making the business much higher margin. Call9 and Circle Medical look very interesting in the medical space.

And of course, gotta cheer for onboardiq. Their users really love them. They're bringing on clients so quickly and are some of the hardest and smartest workers I've met.

ShapeScale definitely caught my eye!

I feel like that level of data about my body would really help motivate me to eat better and exercise more.

There's no evidence that data motivates people to start doing anything. There's plenty that shows data helps you continue once you've started (if you're succeeding, otherwise data works as a negative reinforcer), but if you haven't started yet, additional data won't help.

I can only say from personal experience, but data has certainly helped motivate people in my life.

Examples:

Data on why saving earlier for retirement is a good idea.

Data on why on being overweight is not good for you.

Data on why smoking looks to increase your risk of cancer.

In these instances people didn't know how 'bad' there situation was and took action.

There's plenty of evidence that shows those signs on highways that show you your speed cause you to slow down.

There's evidence that the threat of punishment for not slowing down makes you slow down. The signs act as a reminder of that. If it weren't for the law, would many people who are already speeding pay attention to the signs? That would be an interesting thing to test.

I haven't heard of Circle Medical before, but one thing that might be really useful is if they were to "contract" out. Hear me out here :D

There's a big shift moving "risk" to the provider. As a result there's a big focus on not only metrics, but also "care management". I used to work for a company that did metrics, and would look for high cost patients that had "opportunities" for cost savings. Their cases would be transferred to a care management team who would then on a case by case basis investigate ways to help the patient.

From what I've heard a lot of times, the patient would become more expensive because they skipped simple follow up visits due to an issue just getting to the office.

This might be a really easy way to get a patient the followup they need.

I really like the sandwich maker. That seems like one of those quiet billionaire makers.

Also the shower-head looks neat, but not at $300. and why the hell are they even thinking about an electronic version?

I wondered if the misting shower head might feel great but be a bit annoying at rinsing suds? I've noticed that feeling unsatisfying in some showers I've had in hotels.

The water saving aspect is great though. Could there be a similar application with washing dishes?

>The garden consists of “smart capsules” that contain seeds, nutrients and soil that’s geared toward the specific plant. (It’s kind of like a Keurig capsule, but for plants.)

REALLY?

Hopefully there isn't any DRM ;).

I think this could work. There could be a decent aftermarket sales opportunity, too. The ability to sell 'prettier' planters/etc.

Xendit — Venmo for Southeast Asia

Xfers — PayPal for Southeast Asia

Seems like a direct conflict?

I wouldn't say so. I send my friends money I owe them through Venmo. I make most of my online purchases through PayPal. There's rarely a time where I can substitute one for the other. Although, I don't know the details of the two companies in question.

Fun fact: PayPal owns Venmo. They've tried to keep it quiet because the Venmo brand is much stronger independent from the various screw-ups and annoyances of PayPal.

The big difference: PayPal is for the computer, Venmo is for the smartphone.

I do all my Venmo-ing on a computer. I'd be curious to know if I was just an isolated case.

some serious tea making!

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