All 50 startups from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day 1 | Hacker News Reader

All 50 startups from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day 1

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235 pointsnsparrow199 comments

Flock seems like it could help solve some crimes, but at a huge cost - privacy. You can't opt out, unless you live nearby and register with the company. "Residents of monitored neighbourhoods can opt-out of being tracked - but visitors, or people passing through, cannot."

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41008141

Do people like law enforcement collecting license plates and keeping them in databases indefinitely? How about random people? (Flock says it deletes data after 30 days, users have it beyond 30 days). What if their users had a database with pictures of faces, not just license plates? Facial recognition seems to be in their roadmap.

For context, it's presumably legal in California to collect licenses plates, and pictures of people's faces, if they're in public spaces.

A quote from the founder on privacy: "We don’t want into get into the business of making decisions about privacy and how this technology is used beyond the original use case."

Aren't there better ways to solve the problem(s) this product solves?

Isn't driving a public activity?

Supposedly they're selling to HOAs; not sure how public/private those streets are. But I imagine you have a huge degree of control over that.

Generally speaking, only gated communities are on private streets. Otherwise, every street is public and managed by the local city/county.

You can't opt out while being in public. That's unreasonable.

"That's unreasonable" isn't an argument. What's reasonable is decided by society. New technologies may change what's possible, and make something that was ok before the means to achieve something entirely new.

If, for example, these gadgets, or existing security cameras started to pool their data, run (accurate) face-detection on it, and start publicising everyones' location history online, I'm pretty sure most people would object to that–even those that previously had no problem with their image being recorded by the CCTV at the gas station, or the tourist taking a photo that included them.

It is an argument, what a "reasonable person" thinks is a standard judicial system consideration

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person

You have no expectation of privacy in a public space, and the courts have agreed with that many times

https://www.wired.com/2010/09/public-privacy/

That's far more simplistic than what the law actually says (where "law" is the collection of statutes and judicial interpretations).

As an example:

http://resources.uscannenbergmedia.com/2016/08/videotaping-a...

"Remember, even if you’re in public, you cannot record conversations between two people unless you have their permission. This includes conversations that you’re one of the parties to. If one person in the conversation can reasonably expect his or her conversation to be confidential, this standard applies."

If you're having a private conversation in a public park, then it is probably illegal for somebody else to record you.

Driving is a different question. Personally I think since a license plate is literally meant to publicly identify your car, a reasonable person should expect it to be recorded. But my guess is this will go to SCOTUS at some point, since privacy is increasingly being invaded in unanticipated ways by private companies.

That's not really a response to matt4077's argument, which is that what a "reasonable person" may think can change based on changed circumstances such as development of new technological possibilities.

each neighborhood owns their data and they would have to opt-in to any type of data sharing between neighborhoods.

our goal isn't to build a big-brother system. we believe that if you are on a public road there isn't a perceived expectation of privacy.

Depends on where you live. In Germany any CCTV recording of a public place is automatically illegal. There’s a handful of exceptions (for example, for the parliament), but generally, this holds true.

Opt-in is what’s legally required, and should be the default.

How can all the people passing before the camera to opt in?

Exactly. That’s why you don’t put up cameras in the first place.

So only the government can record what's happening, and if private citizens or companies do so they are shamed and jailed?

The government can’t do that either, they’s the point (except for a handful of rare exceptions).

The police can’t even film protests to identify protestors.

You're saying the German government has no video cameras on any traffic intersections / public areas period?

Unless there is a specific situation that there is a threat there, and a warrant for that situation, no.

For traffic situations there are specialized systems that open a physical filter in front of a camera lens only if someone is detected to be speeding, and the camera is then limited to that lane, for that short moment.

That's rather much the point, they can't. Therefore the service would be illegal in Germany.

Sometimes things are illegal and you can't get around it. Just because the company spent a lot of effort on it doesn't mean anything.

Alexro, there are clear and large signs about the cameras at the entrance to our neighborhoods.

Our neighborhoods are not large public roads, they are typically 100-400 home communities. You would never have to enter the community.

Alot of cities have camera's at intersections which could potentially do the same thing before a stolen car reached my neighborhood. The police dept. in my city is asking now people to register there webcams with police so they can ask for video I guess when crimes occur, but I can see scenarios where that could wrong. Even with home webcams, criminals have no issues just walking and stealing UPS boxes right off the porch and there face clearly identifiable. HOA's are pretty stingy about increased neighborhood costs, I'd tend to think this be targeted to cities and justify it less police manpower needed. The smarter criminal will figure out ways around a camera anyways.

Hey sumoboy, you are right. Just having a picture of a suspect's face is rarely enough to prosecute. We constantly hear from Police that a license plate is the trick to start building a case.

Re: Pricing -- hard to put a price on something that can actually solve crime. In addition, most of our customers/prospects see more benefit to the technology than just solving crime (i.e., speeders).

Hey rudimental, Garrett (co-founder of Flock), we built this product because there wasnt a better way to solve crime in our neighborhoods.

Police are only able to solve 13% of cases due to lack of evidence. We are simply trying to provide the police with the evidence they need to do their job.

We believe this type of technology is inevitable (look at our highways and major city roads already). We believe the data should be owned by the community and not the government.

We care deeply about privacy which is why we (a) sell to neighborhoods and not the government, (b) only focus on cars/license plates and (c) allow residents to opt-out if they want to.

> We believe the data should be owned by the community and not the government.

> ... sell to neighborhoods ...

> ... allow residents to opt-out ...

(emphasis mine)

I'm not a linguist or a political scientist, but I don't think you have a very clear understanding of the word 'own' or what a government really is.

no.

You care deeply about YOUR privacy and the privacy of those you know. You care very little for the privacy of 'others' and feel comfortable with neighborhoods, which are public spaces unless otherwise noted, making privacy choices for others based on a perceived threat and fear of the unknown 'other'

You are creating a market and product off of fear of those you don't know, the same attitudes that are used to harass people of color and the same attitude that caused the death of Trayvon Martin amongst may others.

I'm surprised about the stem cell company. Stem cell storage companies are notorious scams. I remember doing research into these when my first child was born.

There's only a small subset of diseases it can actually help, and until you can actually grow organs, it's generally useless, for a lot of money. Also you can generate stem cells from adult blood cells or bone marrow anyway.

What the YC company appears to offer doesn't seem much more than a Silicon Valley Blood Boy, the unproven promise of youth from young blood.

Don't understand the parent downvote, i was also very intrigued by the startup's claims. If someone with good expertise on the field could bring arguments that would be great.

YC is not very good at evaluating medical companies. Its track record is not great.

As I'm in the industry, my thoughts on some of the recruitment-related companies:

10 BY 10 - I don't get it. Their website says they are a contingency search firm with a value prop of having resumes filtered by people with domain knowledge before submission to clients. Also that they deliberately hit a low acceptance rate on resumes because they try to submit a diverse field of candidates. If the goal is to get the hiring manager the right person, then the best resumes should be submitted without imposing some arbitrary diversity requirement.

70 Million Jobs - love the concept. Big believer that proper recruitment practices can help rehabilitation of offenders.

ShiftDoc - marketplace concept in the healthcare space. Not sure of regulatory environment in the US but in the UK, these models will suffer due to regulatory issues over the status of the workers.

Gustav - I like this model. Offers a platform for smaller agencies to compete with the larger players. Will be interesting to see how sustainable it is given the commoditisation in certain sectors as the 3% take seems very high given pressure on margins in staffing in the US.

10 BY 10, going purely by your description, makes it sound to me along the lines of Malcolm Gladwell's pasta sauce realization[0]--if you want to find the perfect sauce for person X, you need to offer chunky, spicy, and "plain". None is inherently the best, so you offer three that are best in distinct ways.

[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauc...

I'm not familiar with the video and will check it out when I'm at home.

If I was to say more on 10 BY 10 it's that I don't see the differentiator. Plenty of search firms are staffed by people with domain knowledge and the pre-screening of resumes by an expert or qualifying candidate interest prior to resume submission are not significant enough to differentiate in that space.

If I was to be cynical, I'd say that going through YC gives them access to a lot of prospective clients because I fail to see why any particular significant investment would be needed to start a search firm.

I see the TC article talks about a marketplace so perhaps there is a development down the line of what their solution looks like.

If the goal is to get the hiring manager the right person, then the best resumes should be submitted without imposing some arbitrary diversity requirement.

I can see value in being offering 3 different 'types' of candidates instead of 3 different candidates of the same type, even if the latter 3 in theory have the strongest resumes.

I take the point but by their own admission, resume acceptance is at 50% when it could be at 80% so on that score they are failing to convince the client of the benefit of that diversity.

If I am a hiring manager and I am rejecting 1/2 resumes as opposed to 1/4, I'd question what the search firm is doing.

70 Million Jobs featured Show HN recently. I recall an expert asking them to change the depressing picture on their website front page. Appears they did not take the advice. Such little things matter.

I've just skimmed a few pages of the site and frankly I'm amazed that they do not have 1) a video of an ex-offender talking about the the opportunity afforded by an employer using the service and 2) a video of the HR Director of Coca-Cola or AA or Facebook or...talking about how they found a great person through the service.

The recruitment of ex-offenders is such a story from both sides. Nobody really cares about the story of the top engineer getting a job at Google but there is a resonance with the story of the ex-offender who had looked for 6 months for a job and finally an employer took a chance on them using 70 million jobs etc...

and as of right now, there website seems to be down

Co-founder of Gustav here. Thanks for the kind words :-) The 3% is of course a blended rate. There are positions/sectors where that would never fly, but others where 5% is feasible. Also we cover the full spectrum of what staffing agencies typically offer, including permanent placement type transactions. For those, our take-rate is closer to 20%.

Here's more info on the pricing: https://hellogustav.com/recruiters-and-staffing-agencies

Totemic is interesting to me, since one of my close relatives spent five hours on the floor of their house after falling, as she could never remember to carry her cellphone (hard habit to acquire at 90 years old...). And of course, she could have lost consciousness, which would render the cellphone useless.

That said, I wonder how can they have a single device for the whole house, and how it works for harder floors, like ceramic tile, which doesn't make much of a sound. Seems to me that something so sensitive would be triggered by way too many false positives.

It doesn't listen for sound, it uses wireless signals and sensor fusion to monitor movements.

>Totemic Labs is building a device that resembles an Amazon Echo that uses sound to identify and respond to falls automatically.

I'm in the current batch. That's wrong.

Cofounder of Totemic here! Austen is right! We use a variety of wireless sensors to monitor people's movements. We can do much more than detection of falls at a singular moment in time this way and we actually will be using a singular device for small apartments and multiple for larger houses (think like Eero).

It would be interesting to see their technology. As I understand, many falls aren't what we think of in the general sense of "fall". Many are slow fall to the ground, for example struggle to get out of a chair and go down on one knee, then to the floor.

Totemic cofounder here. We actually don't just detect "falls" as a moment in time, but also use patterns to figure out things along the line of someone being on the floor in a place they usually aren't and they're not able to get up.

Interesting. Very good idea. I work in a large teaching hospital and review all admissions everyday. We get a ton of patients admitted with rhabdo or break/fracture every week. Good luck!

Dr. Cathy Bodine at Denver-Anschutz is doing this exact thing. It's not on the website but Totemic should contact her. They were using the Pebble previous to that company auto-bricking last year. She has had a lot of students working with that tech and using it out in the local community to great success. Dr. Sliker is also very very good with this stuff.

http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/Engineering/resea...

Cofounder of Totemic here. Just to add detail, it should be corrected in the article now but we don't use sound. Just as you say, we believe one major advantage of our system is not requiring behavior change on the part of seniors when that can be really difficult even if they want to because of memory and other issues.

We'll likely use one device for small apartments and have to scale up to 2-3+ for larger houses much like Eero does.

On GameLynx:

Gamedev studio targeting mobile device platforms with an emphasis on hardcore, competitive league style play. Backed by "one of the largest game companies in the world."

Honor of Kings, Clash Royale, Vainglory, Hearthstone and Supercell's upcoming Brawl Stars create a crowded marketplace. Interested to hear what will differentiate GameLynx's game? How is it planning to innovate and compete? What is the strategy for capturing market share in China, India and the rest of Asia? What exactly is the "next gen" in mobile eSports?

Revenues that these games generate is astronomical. And at some of the highest margins possible. Supercell hit the $2B per year mark recently. And Tencent's profit last quarter was close to $3B.

Best of luck to the team and can't wait to play!

I'm somewhat surprised there's no demo/preview/marketing for any game yet. Seems like it would be hard to approach YC with "we want to make a game that makes tons of money", because there are a crazy amount of variables involved in that. Perhaps they applied with more info, but it's not public yet?

They don't have any games on their website currently but as far as I remember, they published their first game in January this year and generated a good amount of revenue

Their original goal of online microtransaction boardgames is a far cry from very popular eSport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oed9nM7MFA

This is their more recent pitch, but still no eSports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6GWa2NyEKw

I'm guessing this is a pivot they've made recently- surprised they pitched it when so early: doesn't look like they are even at proof of concept yet with this new idea.

A lot of those games make money by time-gating content with the option to buy your way past that. I don't think hardcore gamers like games with pay-to-play features. How can that be competitive if people can purchase their way past things?

If they aren't building the game platform that way (time gated content w/pay-to-play) then its hard to even compare against companies that make a fortune that way.

Also, hardcore gamers like to be in control. Mobile platforms don't have fine controls since they are touch based. Accidentally swipe or touch the screen the wrong way and game over.

> I don't think hardcore gamers like games with pay-to-play features

They do not. They really do not. I, along with several of my friends, would easily be considered part of the "hardcore gaming" audience and everything I know of the people on the forums I frequent and the games I play points to the fact that dumping cash into a game in order to progress is just about the most despised trend in video games among that section of the gaming community. A lot of people will happily pay for cosmetic purchases to support the developers and have some extra fun, but anything affecting the balance of the game is a strict no-no.

Games like Fifa generate lots of money from selling "packs" in their ultimate team mode. When you buy a player pack, they have a guarantee of containing a fixed number of gold, silver, or bronze players but since the gold, silver, and bronze players can have vastly different ratings, it doesn't disturb the balance of the game.

People spend hundreds of dollars buying packs in that game and end up winning not a single useful player while someone can win the best player of the whole game through a free pack they received from an in-game tournament

I appreciate your reply, because sports games are actually something I have little to no experience with. I wasn't aware of the current trends in that area.

One counterexample is Hearthstone. Players buy packs to have access to cards that otherwise would take them weeks to unlock. AFAIK, professional & hardcore players actually spend a lot of money buying these packs so that they can unlock the cards ASAP and study & test them for competitive play.

I feel like CCGs tend to get a weird pass because of games like Magic making it a common occurrence while managing to appeal to hardcore gamers.

Aren't there a ton of people that play Clash of Clans pretty seriously?

> Mobile platforms don't have fine controls since they are touch based. Accidentally swipe or touch the screen the wrong way and game over.

There are a number of accessories on the market combating this problem. This one was showcased at a gaming convention I visited this past weekend: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HKPB2VC/A/gamevice-contro...

It's officially supported by Apple (for iPhones and iPads), and Android production is in the works. I was able to play GTA: Vice City on an iPhone with virtually no issues. Phone-based gaming is getting closer than you think.

edit: formatting.

> I don't think hardcore gamers like games with pay-to-play features.

Does _anyone_ really like playing pay-to-play features?

> Also, hardcore gamers like to be in control.

Which is why none of the hardcore gamers flock to mobile apps for real competition. Even with PS4, Xbox, etc in the mix, the largest eSports tournaments (Dota, CSGO, LoL, anything blizzard, etc) are still on a PC. I don't see any justification why this would change any time soon.

Lastly, most games that are popular in eSports drive a ton of value for the game itself via "skins" (e.g. dota, lol, csgo). I'm curious if hardcore gamers would want to buy skins on a mobile game platform. It feels way to ephemeral to me personally.

This is a great business, but typically game companies don't make good startups. They are typically about cultivating teams that can create compelling content, and not defensible technology. They typically don't need capital as much as they need talent.

I find it interesting that "Honeydue" is in the list, when there are multiple free apps already in existence such as Buxfer and Splitwise that have already been available for years.

Both Buxfer and Splitwise serve the exact same functions as Honeydue (splitting bills/expenses with room mates and/or partners), and both of them are free to use. Sadly, neither app has found a way to be all that profitable after all these years.

Maybe Honeydue will do something to solve the marketing problem that apparently both Buxfer and Splitwise have?

Splitwise user who absolutely loves it here. I wouldn't think to do budgeting on it at all. Its purpose is splitting expenses, nothing more. It does it great and the single function is a part of why I use it. Hooking up with Venmo, big plus. People here are talking modularity, and those two services are great examples.

Honeydue looks to be budgeting and larger finance management targeted at couples. I don't know Buxfer well, but it looks like the couples targeting is the variation it has over it.

As someone in a long term relationship who expects to be sharing finances relatively soon, Honeydue looks like a very interesting option. Currently we are separate but discuss and keep tabs on spending together, and have one giant splitwise going. The majority of that budgeting is done on Excel / Sheets - good for customizability, but a bit of a pain. Once we merge accounts and the like, that Splitwise goes away and Honeydue may just come in now that I know about it. It if was just me, I would have no need for Buxfer.

Yeah, long term relationship here, we split our expenses using Google Sheets. I have to say I don't feel any pain doing it this way, and it's super simple - just sum two columns and show the outstanding difference.

I certainly appreciate how often applications can grow out of spreadsheets, but I don't see why I need an application to do this kind of thing...

Some questions that add complications, particularly when finances merge:

What are the individual budgets by activity for each person and how is the budget reflecting reality?

What about any shared bank accounts?

Do you separate investments by person? How do you handle diversification?

Those questions are not all current problems or by any means all possible problems, but hopefully you can see how a spreadsheet could grow too big for its bridges there. If Honeydue were able to provide an easy method that addresses many of those questions, it would be impressive. TBD of course, and color me a bit doubtful. I've thought of making a personalized app for myself given the level of detail I'd probably require for me to use it.

YNAB is another option (although it's not free)

My partner and I merged our finances when we moved to London as we both essentially started at zero here. We use pocketsmith[0] to manage and keep track of everything. It's fantastic and has completely changed the way I look at money. It has a great cashflow view and good forecasting. I now never look at our account balances, as I know, from the cashflow view, that we're definitely earning more than we spend. So now I optimise for that. I highly recommend people check it out, it's a revelation once you get it all setup.

Looking at honeydue it looks like a sub-optimal alternative to pocketsmith.

I will say as well, the necessity of apps like venmo and these splitting apps to exist at all blows my mind having always lived in countries with functioning banking systems and fast, free electronic transfers.

[1] https://www.pocketsmith.com/

I live in Denmark where we have had phonebased money transfers for years now (since around 2013 I believe). I've used splitwise for tracking purchases at a festival where whoever had money on them would buy beer or food and we would just track it in a group budget.

Since you didn't have cash transactions when adding you don't need too much security so there's lower friction. Further you reduce the amounts of transactions going on, while still retaining decently detailed logs. It also gave the option of solving things with cash when splitting with people from abroad who may not have the same access to easy money transfer.

Just to add some perspective.

I'll check out pocketsmith - it does sound kind of cool and I'm looking at the possibility of merging my finances with my partner soon-ish.

Thanks for this. Looks really promising.

My frustration with most these budgeting apps is that they're usually designed around the idea of split finances, which is something I fundamentally have a problem with. My wife and I keep nothing but joint accounts. There is no "splitting". I don't need to "control what my partner sees". I just need a place where I can keep track of _our_ budget.

HoneyDue seems to be more like "Mint for couples" than a straight up splitting service. The goal is transparency.

Gopher is a poorly chosen name for a platform - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)

Dropleaf (Netflix for indie games) - at $10/mo for a 50-game bundle I can't see how this can attract any of the quality games and devs.

I thought the same thing - FTP. I suppose we're all aging ourselves if we immediately think of that.

Games sales, like movie sales, are mostly made in the first month. I can imagine like Netflix, lots of people with good 18 month old games might be happy to put them on this service.

Further, I might seriously consider using it if they ban in-app purchases (or at least psy-to-win in app purchases), because they are increasingly hard to avoid.

If "psy-to-win"'s not a typo, would you please explain.

If it is, it's the best typo this month.

well, a and s are next to each other...

psy-ops > pay-ops

I have very strong feelings against in-app purchases. Also micro transactions, I think for the most part actively hurt the games industry.

> Quality games and devs

You don't know the games industry, do you? Tons of amazing indie games make a pitiful amount of money. Mostly because of lack of exposure.

In the world we are, where the consumer is drowned with options, paying up front for a game requires some serious convincing of the consumer. Which is also why so many games are turning to F2P monetization (it's all that works if you're not a Jonathan Blow unicorn).

If a dev has a story to tell (not amenable to F2P) he's largely dead in the water unless some huge youtube gives him exposure.

> Tons of amazing indie games make a pitiful amount of money. Mostly because of lack of exposure.

Is it lack of exposure, or extreme excess of supply vs demand? As a lifelong gamer, what I've seen is a ton of high quality content being released that I simply don't have time to enjoy. There are several orders of magnitude more decent games than anyone has time to play, and frequently very little differentiation between whole swathes of indie releases.

Yes, they lack exposure, but that's because the indie game market is unbelievably competitive, and as a result their game isn't worth that much. These game bundles are great for increasing numbers of sales, but at $0.50/sale - fees, they're still not going to be making much money, and they're still competing with 600 games this year for your attention.

This is just an extension of the many existing game bundles that are available, but with higher density and a lower price.

Keep in mind EA Access is $3/month...

I can't see how this can attract any of the quality games and devs.

Humble Bundle consistently gets great, high quality games that they give away for basically free.

Most of those have already been through the initial sales period. It's mainly a way to gain additional revenue, not be the main avenue of money-making

Yup.

They'll get high quality games, 1-2 years after they have their mainstream release.

Modular Science - Outdoor farm robot. They pivoted from lab automation to outdoor farm bots? How?

I applied to YC twice(unsuccefully) with the same idea. And I am a farmer. Just not a PhD from MIT. I would love to know they came up with that number. Really. Would love love love to know how..

Maybe they had more than just an idea?

Of course. Most likely. What else can it be..

Colour me bitter..but my biggest weakness is that I am not 'technical' enough...but why is someone who has never tilled a field or known the rhythms of growing food in the natural world and knows the diff between dirt and soil be better qualified to make what we need?

And keep us suckling on the giant teat(or whatever) of tech? Like Monsanto does..like John Deere and dmca..we are ok trying to adapt nature to tech. Would tech people dare invent something medical without input or participation of doctors and surgeons? Look at the water..the obesity rates..the degraded soils..the poisons in the environment..that's the hubris of science and tech and the power of $. Because peasants have no value, right? Right now..I would rather be a witch riding a broomstick than a farmer or a fan of science/tech.

Find technical cofounders. It's not too late. YC is just one VC company.

And don't be so bitter, it's not VC's fault that you lack technical skills.

To build a farm bot you need..electrical engg, AI guy, mechanical engg, roboticists. I am just disappointed that a biotech company that was doing lab automation(because that's what modular science was doing) could 'pivot' into farm robots. It actually makes me sick in the stomach because I think I see how SV works.

Chill... They're actually not replacing the farmer, but the hired hand that picks the tomatoes. That's manual labour requiring a 10-minute introduction ("This one is ripe, this one is not").

Such robots could potentially improve soil and food quality: they could manually remove weeds, making chemicals unnecessary, and they could possibly also replace the current, heavy machinery that requires large monocultures for efficiency. Imagine strawberries picked by a robot from almost-wild plants grown in between the natural vegetation on terrain that was previously inaccessible to farming. Or growing any number of crops in a chaotic mix on current fields.

Automation of 99% of vegetable production process for $2000/acre.

I am not worried at all that they will replace the farmer. I just have a dim view of certain things and people that were shiny earlier.

Yes, building a robot without being technical is an incredibly high risk, especially if you don't have anything built yet.

If you want to build robots, you need to have a working prototype to show that you or your team has the technical skills and the passion to build something with your own money to pull it off. That's how you get investors.

I understand that. Thanks.

Did you really expect them to fund you with just an idea and some domain knowledge? Not to sound rude, but that's pretty naive. How many people are out there who have a "million dollar idea" who just need someone to build it? The answer is a ton and a boatload of them apply to YC every year. Good ideas are abundant. Proof of concepts and prototypes are not.

Getting into YC does not mean that Modular Science is going to be a success. They still need a good tech team, people with domain knowledge, and a market to sell to. Your farming knowledge is definitely important to a project like this, but there is a much greater supply of it. It wouldn't be that hard to hire a couple farmers to be subject matter experts. It is and continues to be insanely hard to put together a team that can build autonomous robots.

Don't give up on your dream, but you need to realize that a farming robot is technology. That's what you're selling. You need people who can build the technology. Find them and build the company. Make a prototype. Use your domain knowledge to make it better than the competition's product. Don't just be a guy with an idea, be a guy who builds things.

Your words are encouraging but unfortunately I don't think you understand how many diff techs converge to create a farm bot.

You need to actually be able to build your idea, be it an app, a robot, an algorithm ... So if you are not technical enough, you need to get a technical cofounder that can. They are also not building this in a vacuum: they are likely talking to farmers, hiring experts, running trials, etc.

Right. 99% for $2000/acre.

email me, I am working on a outdoor rover. Hopefully for beyond organic farm products. http://openrover.com/ haven't finished updating the site from this summers project.

Thanks. I am just starting our fall crop plan. Will be in touch. Regards.

Hi! Email please? Couldn't locate it!

Since it isn't clear what "number" you are talking about, thought I ask. Also, for ease of reference, here's the information on the company for the link above:

"Modular Science – Outdoor robot farming: Elon Musk may be concerned about robots taking over the world, but Modular Science just wants robots to farm our vegetables. The startup, which currently has robots out in the field (!) in Petaluma, CA, is aiming to automate 99 percent of the processes involved in vegetable farming within the next six months with their specialized farming bots. Modular Science is looking to charge $2,000 per acre, which they say is half of what farms are currently paying to for human labor."

I know. I read it. I also know who is doing it and people who know him.

How come a biotech company doing lab automation can pivot into building a farm bot but a farmer is useless to building a farm bot? I am not a modest person. Neither am I vain. I am a pragmatist. The evolutionary basis of being modest rests on being AWARE. Of impact, pros and cons. I won't ever venture into a field where I have no expertise..like as a roboticists. Or a doctor. Or a biotech scientist.

To ask a farmer to learn more than their area of expertise and demand that they also be a 'technical' person is to set them up for failure. If a surgeon wants to build a robotic arm for delicate surgery, do you make him go to engg school? But can you make the surgery bot without the surgeon's input.

It's disregard. It's disregard for the work we do and disregard for what we create. It's disregard for our expertise and knowledge. It's disregard and disrespect for the earth for which we are stewards.

No. This stings. Bitterly.

People are chiding you for your bitterness, but apart from an idea and technical prowess, there is a third (very important) pillar that you have to offer. Sales. Can you gather 50 other farmers that have the same need for automation, cheques in hand? Most other non-technical founders have said the same.

If you can you'll have (good) technical talent lining up around the block and subsequently interest from YC.

Are you kidding me? Who chides someone for being bitter when they haven't walked in their shoes? I am not understanding? I am not raising a mob or expressing an entitlement. I am sharing how I feel.

Chide away. We are not built delicate.

I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding the parent comment's intent, or choosing to focus on the personal aspect (chiding). They're suggesting a strategy for you to get into either YC or an automated farming startup.

That is a strategy that isn't realistic.

And yes, I am focusing on the 'chiding' comment because it's condescending and not helpful.

You wouldn't believe how much condescension and lack of respect a non technical/non SV person has to endure to be heard. From people who haven't a clue what they are doing...it seems that an inclusive incestous valley club wants to give opportunities to their in group. I get it. I see how their minds work.

But I am telling you that they will fail. We are facing a shortage of labour and land.

Why did the green revolution fail? Why can't farmers in Punjab grow wheat anymore? Why is there disappearing water tables? And poisoned watersheds? Why are cotton farmers killing them selves? Why is the US producing more soy and corn not for human consumption and import our food? Why is Monsanto contributing to shrinking genetic diversity in our seeds? Why are we losing top soil? Why is our food production so dependent on fossil fuels? Why are farmers hiring Eastern European hackers to bypass John Deere's expensive DMCA restrictions to tractors they paid for and don't actually really own.

Because 'scientists' are condescending towards 'peasant farmers' and don't listen to their 'ideas'. We are not uneducated hillibillies that need techies kindness and be rescued by Silicon Valley.

Engineers have no business coming up with ideas for farmers just as farmers have no business coming up with new ways to cure cancer.

I wish people would stop saying that 'it's just an idea'. An idea is the most valuable seed. This is like kids playing in the sandbox and not wanting to share.

There will be a price for this. We are already paying it. Farmers are not children who need to be rescued. We need help from other areas od expertise we don't possess.

Yeah should've clarified. I don't approve of the chiding, just giving more constructive advice. Domain experts like you are critical to start-ups in complex domains like farming.

I found airthium [http://www.airthium.com/] to be quite interesting I wonder how the efficiency compares with the liquid metal battery at Ambri http://www.ambri.com

Yeah, this space is very exciting at the moment. Would be great to see a summary of all the current incumbents and new companies and what they're working on.

I'm surprised this includes non-public stats like MRR metrics. Is that normal for a TechCrunch demo day summary?

I haven't been to a demo day in a while but it's typically been split into an "on the record" group and an "off the record" group. Startups like to share their MRR number because it can help grab the attention of potential investors.

Yup. But afaik most founders don't want this info to be public. (I'm an investor and was at demo day. I seem to recall that previous TC coverage described what each company did without exposing metrics, but I could be wrong.)

As far back as 4 years ago, it was standard practice to have revenue/growth/traction info published in TC - e.g. https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/20/y-combinator-demo-day-summ...

Right, I was at Demo Day today. They warned us repeatedly, that unless we opted in to the "off the record" group, anything we said was fair game to become public.

They say Pyka already built a plane, so why do they only show renderings? Seems weird to waste that credibility advantage.

https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/pyka.jp...

Second image on Techcrunch article.

Thanks! I clicked to their site, didn't occur to me to check the TC article.

a video of the plane taking off and flying would be a nice addon.

It's curious there's no video, since they're already crop-dusting. Even searching on the internet didn't turn up anything. BTW "piker" is slang for giving up, not the best startup connotation! (though mightn't be widespread)

Parse that again - I'm not sure that they are actually cropdusting in New Zealand.

I have not heard of anything here in NZ (where we don't call it cropdusting anyway), but who knows.

> Pyka has developed a placeholder business doing crop dusting in New Zealand. That helps it earn $600 per hour while logging the hours necessary to prepare for the human transportation market.

It depends on what "developed" means, but the next sentence seems to say they are currently earning $600 ph from it. I suppose it could be parsed to mean that a hypothetical "business" earns that.

Hi lance, they really are. Not sure how much of the plan is public yet but they provided detail in person.

PS: we do call it cropdusting

Tons of engineering firms are really bad at names. My favorite was the big bold red letters of PMS (power management solutions).

Though they seem to have gone to blue now http://www.pmspower.com

Not to mention that Pica is an eating disorder where you eat dirt and other assorted things.

And also "pica" (also sounding the same way) its a slang in Brazil for dick.

Can you guess the laughing when people say:

"Oh no, my Pyka is going down"

"You can touch my Pyka if you want"

They can have REAL sale problems if they eventually decide to sell in the Brazilian market.

Probably because the renderings are more stylish than the prototype? Still, I also wanted to see the real plane on their site

Small personal planes will be amazing

Two Words: Drunk. Flying.

I don't want someone intoxicated going 300/mph above my house.

The second photo in the article, under Zendar, is actually a screenshot from a video game called Scanner Sombre. I guess this is just a mistake?

I don't think this is a mistake, I think they needed a "visual," Googled LIDAR and thought Sombre Scanner was the coolest looking image... I wonder if Introversion knows about this usage? I guess for an indie game any kind of exposure is good even if its completely misappropriated...

It's also sloppy on Techcrunch's part because it's not even a real LIDAR capture, it's a video game emulating LIDAR.

On the startups relating to ground based mobility / autonomous vehicles:

Zendar

Interesting concept! I recently talked to an Engineer from Hella and it seems most of the big automotive suppliers seem to develop some kind of low cost radar units that can then be combined to generate rough point clouds.

Definitely willing to test the tech, if you have some spare units @ Zendar ;-)

MayMobility

If I get the concept right isn't the business modell very similiar to Door2Door, CleverShuttle (even though they are not yet using shuttles) or a number of London competitors ?

I personally agree with the underlying assumption from many of the players in that market that one of the easiest entries for autonomous vehicles designed for urban environments with a max speed of 30 - 40 km/h that only navigate in pre mapped and pre defined areas.

Overall, I think this is a really impressive list. It seems like a varied mix, and given criticism from a couple years back that Silicon Valley isn't focusing on "hard" stuff, was cool to see lots of awesome tech (auto-piloting planes! robot vegetable pickers!)

Sunu looks really cool - I did a project a while ago where we embedded distance sensors and vibrators in shoes to help the visually impaired navigate objects that were close to the ground (e.g. curbs, stairs) - glad to see someone else doing work in that space.

D-ID seems to me quite interesting, if only because their interests are directly opposed to those of several governments.

It's a shame they don't seem to offer a 1-click "buy now" alternative, but I imagine the process might be too time-intensive for that.

Did I miss it, or are there no virtual reality startups on this list?

I'm a wee bit surprised: VR is nascent and there aren't enough devices out there to build sustainable businesses shipping content, but I would have expected at least 1 or 2.

There are a couple -- in this article they mentioned Escher Reality, which is providing a backend to AR. Definitely think there will be more in the future as things progress!

There's still a second day of companies today. There may be more in day 2.

Verge Sense looks interesting. Is it just a platform for gathering data from sensors and providing insights for facilities? Or do you use their applications to actually do facility management (ie, seat booking, etc...)

Sounds like they do the latter too - action items to help utilize space better.

Aside from a selected few, I am not very impressed with said "offering" :/ It feels as if it is all a bunch of recycled stuff. But I guess that's just the cynic in me talking!

Wish we had a list of what they are all using on the front and back ends.

Although I think that might be interesting, would it actually be valuable? Serious question honestly, what would that do for us? How would we use that data?

To discuss it? I guess?

It would certainly increase the awareness of it.

Probably highlight some interesting bits and pieces in relation to the whole "use boring tech" vs "use bleeding edge tech" argument that so many people seem to make.

I guess it depends very much on the company. If the company is doing something cutting edge in the web app space then it might be interesting. If, on the other hand, they're a robotics or biotech company then who cares if their home page is just a hosted WordPress site.

https://stackshare.io/stacks gathers data about which frameworks are used by tech companies - though probably none of the startups from the article are listed here yet.

Ubiq looks interesting, but I thought this space was already quite crowded.

I wonder if they're going for SMBs / companies that are deploying video conferencing solutions for the first time.

It sounded like mid-size companies with a few conference rooms at least. Agreed that it's crowded but also there's been no great solutions either. Unless you have the $$ to get Cisco systems.

That makes sense to me.

Helium seems like a decent idea and I'm proud to see a Nigerian startup represented.

However, to my mind and from my experience, the major issue in the medical records space is how the data obtained from caregiver/patient interaction gets captured in the first instance. Health workers have not embraced typing in any form (and they most likely will not)and traditional way of recording by hand does not digitize readily .

How are you solving this problem ?

Anyone got more information on gamelynx? The information given there is extremely vague and the site doesn't offer any clarification either

Waterlooo based startup. Maybe you can find an older pitch online searching for Velocity fund. I think it's a major from their first direction though :/

TechCrunch's top 7 picks of this group of 50:

Pyka, PullRequest, Zendar, Gopher, Modular Science, Escher Reality, Forever Labs.

With the exception of Gopher, I think that's a solid list. I just can't get excited about another company putting apps on top of email, though. Maybe it's just me.

All the others seem to have at least a potential path to strong growth that's pretty obvious.

How did Guggy get into YC? It's going to become another Yik Yak, where it has a lot of users and growth but no strategy for monetization (users aren't gonna accept ads in their text messages, for example).

Do the video recordings of these demos get posted online?

Videos of the presentations are only available to the investors invited to demo day.

Yeah, you either need to be an investor or make friends with one of the founders and ask really nice

I'm one of the founders from today. We don't have access to other startup's videos AFAIK, only our own. I think only investors get to see them all.

Yes you do. Just need to go to the right URL and sign in with your HN account.

You're right, was at the wrong URL.

Right, what I meant was, if someone wanted to see your video, they'd either need to ask you or be an investor invited by YC.

Your comment gives me an idea: perhaps YC should make all the video pitches public when their companies get funded. It would be both entertaining an educative

Feather seems very solid. If you guys want a China partner let me know. It's Ikea's fastest growing market.

Do you think? There are already plenty of companies in the UK at least that rent furniture and home electrical goods to people who can't afford it

Are they bringing anything new to the party?

I think they're going for the convenience factor of full delivery/setup, which I think is more or less a distinguishing factor.

We've seen the replacement of a globally fragmented sector with a well funded and executed global technology-heavy upstart before. What did airbnb bring that was new to the party? UX and a marketing budget.

There are already plenty of companies in the UK at least that rent furniture and home electrical goods to people who can't afford it

We have those in the states too. The interesting thing is that their business model isn't renting furniture and appliances, their business model is providing credit. They are more like banks than they are rental stores.

They may or may not make money, but how is this in any way qualify as a tech startup ? Aren't they a leasing company ?

Isn't amazon a logistics company?

Unless they switch up the line up or numbers, I don't see how it can be popular enough to be profitable. When they did a Launch HN[1] a few weeks back the rent vs. buy costs was high enough that I couldn't imagine anyone using it.

Best of luck to them though.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14664851

You're missing the point. A lot of people don't want to bet on acquiring stuff, moving stuff, selling stuff, etc. They just want a known cost and a known quality of living... with some choice and control... now. Particularly young people.

The furniture wasn't particularly great. I found the exact models on Wayfair.

The rental price was even worse. Adding in the delivery and return fee, I think it was more expensive at any of the durations (3 month, 6 month, etc).

Combining those two together I don't see this working out.

Are there really that many people who live in a place for less than year that will pay a premium of a couple hundred bucks for okayish furniture? I would imagine that target market would instead rent a furnished apartment. Baked in cost, no dealing with movers at all, and you leave everything where it's at when you're done.

EDIT: Added that there's both a delivery and return fee of $99. That means a three month rental of a queen sized bed (https://rentfeather.com/collections/bedroom/products/durham-...) would be $99 + 3 x $53 + $99 = $357. I'm pretty sure it's this bed on Wayfair (https://www.wayfair.com/Varick-Gallery-Bonfiglio-Upholstered...) which is currently $223 with free shipping arriving next Thurs. That leaves $134 to pay someone to dispose of it or just pocket the difference and spend 10 seconds listing a "Free Bed - Just Pick It Up" on Craigslist. Again, I just don't see this working. Even modern consumers aren't this stupid.

Tell that to their revenue numbers :)

Relationship Hero is hilarious to me. We're going to solve the unpredictability of human relationships with a "light-weight" solution. Oh and we assume no responsibility for the advice given or the actions you take.

Luckily no one reads the ToS and it's a huge market - everyone has relationship problems.

So they'll make millions because most of the population isn't rational enough to understand that at a base-level that none of us know shit about all the intricacies of human relationships. Life coaches and psychiatrists included.

Kudos to them on their traction. I'm talking shit but preying on people's insecurities in relationships is an endless market. Can't wait to see their FB ads pop-up right after a Tai Lopez infomercial.

Directly quoted from their TOS:

The Platform enables you to communicate with a Dating Expert for the purpose of getting dating advice, information or any other input, benefit or service (not considered "Counselor Services"). The Dating experts are neither our employees nor agents nor representatives. Furthermore, we assume no responsibility for any act, omission or doing of any dating expert. We make no representation or warranty whatsoever as to the willingness or ability of a Dating Expert to give advice. We make no representation or warranty whatsoever as to whether you will find the Dating Expert’s advice relevant, useful, correct, relevant, satisfactory or suitable to your needs. We do not control the quality of the dating advice and we do not determine whether any Dating Expert is qualified to provide any specific service as well as whether a dating expert is categorized correctly or matched correctly to you. While we may try to do so from time to time, in our sole discretion, you acknowledge that we do not represent to verify, and do not guarantee the verification of, the skills, degrees, qualifications, licensure, certification, credentials, competence or background of any Dating Expert.

>the endless sea of video chat experts websites wasn't enough

This is what annoys me about the current "innovation" worshiping cult. Everybody just takes a already existent idea and changes just a simple variable. "Uber/Airbnb of X" style of thinking should just be put to rest forever. This is obviously happening because our current way of thinking is a mistake in itself. Everything should be modular and Jef Raskin was a proponent of this idea unfortunately nobody took him seriously enough.

I should be able to use a search application that lists to me every available expert, click the link, and then have a modular app skype/whatsapp/telegram blend in my workspace or open and be able to chat with that said expert.

Speaking of search engines every website should index they're own content and those indexes be categorized in blocks and linked to a central repository that then can be coupled with searching algorithms and users should be able to connect to that central repository and query it like a public library of the internet. Goodbye Google!!

Another thing if find annoying is paywalls. What if I go to Netflix and I just want to watch a just a specific movie or episodes without having to pay a membership fee. Let's say that Netflix has "Pirates of the Caribbean" and just want to click that video and stream it for 0.9 cents with not login in features and my ISP provider to add that payment to my utility bill. No Paypal/ApplePay/Google Wallet! Is it that hard to innovate in those way?

The reason people don't do that is because VCs can't fund that. Disintermediating or removing the middle man means "you can't make money from this". Well your shares don't have value anyway, you as an individual might make some money though.

VCs tried to fund a bunch of dreamers decentralizing and modularizing everything in their blockchain apps. Many organizations conduct ICOs or token sales so they are able to secure funding in their one-time revenue event, and bring the product to the world. Is it a panacea? Nah. It is very Machiavellian and we'll see this evolve very quickly into something more efficient. But we aren't stuck in the limitations that require companies to become the same toll-taking middlemen as before.

I believe the current system is already over saturated and the online players Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix, Tencent, Alibaba, Facebook and Microsoft are already encroaching on each others territories. Also a lot of the companies already posses powerful network effects and product synergies that make the entry of newcomers almost impossible. I'm force to remember every time I see a new VC investment that the purpose of VC is not to make the next tech giant like a Microsoft but to rapidly make a exit. I'm really sad by the current investment in tech but perhaps the real investments in disease treatment/space exploration are being ignored by the mass media.

You want a lot of people to do a lot of work that benefits you and pay them little to nothing.

Streaming a movie for 0.9 cent is something I would hardly call a steal seeing how Netflix fee is 9 usd/month and a streamed video isn't something you can rewatch. Also a lot of websites make money out of ads and your personal data but image that build in payment system that I described could be used to pay for my facebook use. All those annoying ads and data collection goes away. Facebook/Linkin/twitter are storing systems that present data in a certain way along with a address booking system. Since they are all storing system that means that they are similar in cost with G Drive that costs 100GB/3 usd/month. 3 usd per month to use Facebook without data collection and ads!? Where do I sign up?

Do you mean 0.9 cents or 0.9 dollars (90 cents)? One is equivalent to a tenth of a Netflix subscription, the other a thousandth. If you're talking about the higher amount, I misunderstood you.

But why doesn't it "just work"? Why isn't the internet more simple? It comes down to two things: this way is more profitable, and stuff is hard.

I don't believe that these companies have a personal data fetish. They have a money fetish. If they believed they could make more money by charging every user a flat rate and keeping their data secret, they'd do it. And I'm pretty sure they're right. If simple pricing and privacy was the better option, it would have won by now. There is no shortage of people who want to try a new twist on things in the tech world.

As for the second item, the hardness. Indexing data is hard. There isn't enough value for every given website to do it. So, Google does the work for them and also extracts the value.

You want a video site to charge your ISP. So they'll have to integrate with every ISP? That's quite a task. Maybe a company will come in and help with that. They'll integrate with every ISP and then allow every movie streamer to use them as a service. And perhaps to simplify things, they'll charge the thing you use to pay your ISP bill (credit card) instead of adding to the bill. Cut out a middle man. Maybe they'll even let you use any credit card you choose and hide them from the merchants you're purchasing from. Of course, this is a good idea, so they'll have competition.

Oh shit. Now you have all those payment processing companies you're tired of. It's hard.

I'm not the previous poster, but the ISP charging thingy could probably be done with a standard protocol, a bit like OAuth. The site would emit a payment request, then redirect to the ISP (you could have a generic URL that each ISP would redirect to their own payment system) that would sign it and redirect back. Then the sites could take those signed tokens and charge the ISP in a lump sum.

Still, the ISPs would definitively charge something for the service, so it's unclear if it would actually be cheaper.

Meant 0.90 cents. "Why isn't the internet more simple?"

I guess it's the same reason why we don't use modularity in operating systems and applications. We have gotten used to how things have been done until now. Recommend reading this article since this ideas have been in my head for some time.

https://joshondesign.com/2017/08/18/idealos_essay

Disclaimer: this isn't my article.

Doesn't mean that this things can't be disrupted.

"Indexing data is hard. There isn't enough value for every given website to do it."

Well a lot of websites have their own search feature and a modular FOSS search engine wouldn't be out of the question. The database would need to figure out what is the context of the content and then tag those contents. The data could be feed to a repository or pass around different computers if we would use a decentralized protocol.

Given the modular nature of the system you could be hooked to more than one repository and your application would only need to figure out if the data feed is a duplicate and sort the content by metadata.

I'm curious to what would the web look like if a large numbers of websites decided that they don't want Google. A verification system would also be need to verify that no one website tempers with it's data in order to rank higher in the results.

Then again this would be a very modular experience so you would have a lot of choices regarding verification systems,wall crawlers, database repositories. True, the last part is true, that you would have more choices but isn't that what we want? Also i'm not saying that I wouldn't want Paypal and Gwallet to not exist just saying that there is a lot of interesting things out there I would wish to see happen.

You still didn't clarify. Did you mean:

A) Most of a penny

B) Ninety pennies

Streaming a movie for 0.9 cent is something I would hardly call a steal seeing how Netflix fee is 9 usd/month

Well, at nine cents, that'd mean you'd only pay the $9 if you watched 100 movies per month. Most people don't watch nearly that much, so you've just heavily decreased the price per movie. Even if you hadn't, a fixed subscription is probably much better for them than variable income; it's not like Netflix couldn't just let you buy "credits" and then spend them, even while using existing payment providers. Chances are they don't want to suffer from the "app store problem", ie, users having to make a spending decision on every item.

Also, what makes you think your ISP would be cheaper than whatever payment provider they're using now?

What we really need is a relationship advice app that treats the root causes of relationships problems:

1) Tells kids they should go to the gym instead of learning to code

2) Career change for optimal male to female ratio

3) Gets you fired so that you can spend more time with your family

4) Alarm when you've had too much/too little coffee

Any app that doesn't address these issues is purely for entertainment value

Ha, an app that tracks your blood sugar and warns you not to interact with humans when it gets too low would be killer.

This sounds like that wretched YC Startup, "Dating Ring" that was subject to Gimlet's season 2 series. The idea being some interviews and questionnaires would give an employee enough insight to designate a dating match.

Don't even see how it's scaleable, even if they manage to find someone capable of that intuition.

I'm amused that peergrade's home link to the academic research behind the product 404's

Zendar and Darmiyan look interesting. Good to see startups tackle real problems.

Skyways.com VTOL vehicles looks interesting but not photos.

Personal favorite snippet from the article:

> With this pedigree, PullRequest has managed to draw interest from 450 teams. Though only a portion of these are actually using the service, PullRequest touts a $136 million annualized revenue run rate.

From Crunchbase: founded May, 2017.

As a disclaimer, I'm no accountant, but that just seems downright deliberately misleading. Their standard plan is $49/mo.

Probably a typo or mistake by the reporters.

Maybe all of their current customers are on the enterprise plan?

I'd guess it's a 136 thousand run rate, and there's just a typo in the article. $136 million would really be something.

From their standard billing option section.

> * Billing is dependent on amount of meaningful change per month. $9 per user per month for static analysis.

I agree it still sounds far fetched that their at the $136 million ARR, but it's not infeasible they're somewhere near the the low-to-mid 8-figures, with their enterprise solutions as well.

If it was $9/user, for all those companies that figure would require the average team size to be 2,800 people. Which is extremely unlikely.

That's a pretty bad typo. $136K.

Founder of PullRequest here: To be clear: $136,000, not $136mm. Typo on article.

Gotcha! Thanks for clarifying; that makes a lot more sense.

Congrats on the revenue and best of luck growing the company.

I bet that typo gets them a lot of extra attention from investors. Even if they immediately correct them, at the very least they've got their attention to start a conversation.

lol. I was going to say, PullRequest preparing to IPO soon...

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