Ask YC: What would it take to create a viable alternative to Evite.com | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: What would it take to create a viable alternative to Evite.com

3 pointsraghus11 comments

Evite's been around forever and has hardly seen any serious competition. There's renkoo and mypunchbowl etc but nobody's made a dent in Evite. I am wondering what ingredients a compelling alternative will need.

I am tempted to give it a go myself but wanted to ask to see what others think...

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The brand awareness evite has is something I wouldn't want to compete with. Making something technologically superior wouldn't be hard. Making people aware of it and trust it would.

There are a number of well funded and executed takes on the idea in addition to the ones you listed:

http://www.socializr.com/ http://going.com/ http://eventbrite.com/

Perhaps the problem is that none of them are a 10x improvement over Evite. Perhaps MySpace/Facebook are diminishing the space's potential. Maybe this is just one of those things that will take years.

It's part of the vernacular: "Did you get the evite?" - "Send me the Evite!" "Did you get the upcoming link for the event?" "Did you get the 'going'... " are both awkward. Renkoo is another. With all respect, if I'm having a party, what am I going to do, Renkoo you? Granted, they just got another $6m - let's hope they figure that out ;)

A few more features added to Wufoo.

this was our yc app idea for quite awhile. we spent months on analyzing competitors, trends, current practices, drafted up use cases, wireframed an entire site, programmed out some functionality, made a screencast demo, and got denied. i have a 1 Gb folder of due diligence for this but ultimately the conclusion was this probably isn't worth pursuing. the dynamics involved requires more than just better technology.

Not a bad process to go through regardless of whether you pursued the idea.

I am actually working on something similar-ish, but since I am in stealth mode I won't say what the differences are, and I am definitely aware that it is a difficult area to get into. You need a recognizable brand and a certain starting size to get it snowballing.

I have the luxury of doing it for my own personal enjoyment, so I don't have any concerns :)

well i've rejected from yc 5 times in a row now. my project folder just grows bigger and bigger. but i guess it goes with the territory of thinking i'm an entrepreneur.

Excellent - shows you are dedicated and in it for the long haul. My suggestion is in that group of 5 applications, there is probably a good enough idea.

I struggled with bouncing from ideas too long, and really there isn't one factor that makes or breaks an idea. A lot rides on the execution. So start executing to start making some new mistakes to learn from, thats what I am doing :)

Real Artists Ship. Bootstrap!

Dude, if you've been rejected from YC five times, you absolutely just need to bootstrap and get going. Take one of those projects and just keep coding in your spare time, etc.

Try maybe Prosper? Or ask your friend engineers? The money at YC's levels can be found just about anywhere. The YC 'bump' with expertise, connections, etc, is likely of very high value, but zillions of people get by without it.

It sounds like your ideas may not align with YC-- maybe it's them and not you?

If you've proposed 5 times, you've got more gumption than a lot of entrepreneurs-- just keep moving.

"we spent months on analyzing ... i have a 1 Gb folder"

"well i've rejected from yc 5 times in a row now. my project folder just grows bigger and bigger"

I can't believe people spend so much time (and GBs) just preparing themselves to ask for the kind of beer money you get at YC, and more importantly all this is time spent NOT HACKING. How do you cope? I seriously couldn't... ;)

Granted, the money is enough for students to live of Ramens for a couple of months. But if you spend months working on your YC pitch, you can just as well spend the same time earning that kind of money or more by bartending or moonlightning/consulting.

PG, admit it, you'd love to invest in bootstrappers / fanatical-about-frugality entrepreneurs but the trouble is, they'll never apply to YC in the first place. :)

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