Startups that launched at Y Combinator’s S18 Demo Day 2

If you actually believe that, go ahead and pick the ten companies you think are worth something, and I'll take the "unpromising" part of the batch. We can put a five year bet into longbets that the top ten companies of my group will outperform your ten companies, as scored by either exit value or value of last round raised.

Picking winners is hard, and most great companies today looked dramatically different when they were first getting started.

"really, a company that is renting out air mattresses" "another Digg clone" "sync my folders? there are a million tools for that"

Though your knee-jerk reaction is correct, it is specifically this which makes YC stand-out. They often seem to pick the things that don't seem promising, and yet those turn in to stand-out successes.

ex-FAANG is the VC equivalent of "nobody got fired for buying IBM". It's what happens when nobody has any idea how to assess anything: they use brand as a proxy for quality. This happens in every market from consumer packaged goods (is one soap better than another?), university education, pretty much anywhere there's no accepted criteria for comparing two things.

Personally, I think it is much the opposite -- if you worked in corporations for your whole life, how does that relate to running a startup? I think it's a general consensus that most programmers expect a job description. These people do not usually make great startup founders, because the obscurity of direction and lack of significance for coding early on might startle them.

It's just one of those things in life. :-D

Every single company in YCombinator's portfolio these days, with rare exception seems visionless, they're single product businesses, that's why they always exit (how many went to IPO?); which is inherent with the 'people they invest in'. What is the intersection of characters of the founders of Microsoft and Apple, of Bill Gates and Paul Allen compared to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak? One was an idea man, whose credentials or lack there of allowed him to be, and partly the predisposition for the former to be the case, a subversive generalist; the other was a technical specialist who spent much time focusing on the intricacies of engineering. Who do you think will have a better idea? The individual who did everything right because he was told it was right or the man who didn't do everything right because he tried to trust himself? The latter's neglecting of extreme specialization along with making his own choices, which forbid him from certain credentials of supposed proof of success, gave him the time to explore more areas than the exhausted specialist. As a specialist I can tell you my ideas suck, I haven't been able to understand the big picture yet because I've spent all my time thinking in terms of these small technical details that don't allow for creativity. I'm a frog, that's why my company failed.

The specialist chose problems because he was told to do so, he never had time to exercise this broad judgement, while it's the opposite for the apparently less successful generalist. Who would be more likely to correctly identify a market niche in an overall anthropological system, the frog or the bird respectively?

Regardless, given that this is controversial, should a VC really be investing in people over the quality of the business? Whatever happened to finding people who work smart not hard? Are VC's so inept that they can't trust themselves on potential businesses and instead are forced to trust institutional credentials which signal the exact opposite of a capability for original rigorous, creatively destructive, thought?

The portfolio of YCombinator actually sucks. They invest in products that almost always exit and get bought for their single product, they all sell because they have no vision. Those products are almost always shut down eventually too: they're just bought for insurance purposes of potential disruption from the same VC delusion. Who doesn't sell? The people who have vision, the people who don't have the credentials like the founders of Stripe.

Whatever happened to investing in the Goddards, the Newtons, the Wrights, the Pitts, the Edisons's, the Jobs, the Rockfellers, the Jack Mas, and the Cubans of the world? And let me tell you, you'll reject these people, everyone will, but they're use to it——that's why they become so great. They'll find a way to make the next Fortune 500 company without you.

> countless B2B products truly worth it?

"B2B" is a very vague and extremely overarching term. Computers, internet, and cell phones were all, at one point, very much "B2B".

> Who could possibly, genuinely want to work at such places?

For starters, I can imagine some people would fancy having a large impact on the world and the subsequent 10-12 figures attached to their name from all the value they created. Microsoft was "B2B", Amazon was an online bookstore (some people would imagine "instant food" in a category close to that), etc. It can be hard for many to see the value of something at its origin and not be able to see how that would shape a society, let alone an exponentially changing one. I think Peter Thiel would call some of these things "secrets".

People who find their meaning outside of their work rather than through their work -- ergo most people.

I am thankful for my employer that provides a salary for me to allow me to do fun things with my family and take vacations and all the fun stuff that actually create memories that I will cherish when I am older and no longer working.

> making decisions about all 60

Numbers game for them now ?

Even a code generator that's wrong 50% of the time would be pretty useful.

For them to be found, the influencers on whatever medium they are on, be it YouTube, Steemit, D-Tube, BitChute, YouNow, etc, etc then need to tell their audience to install another app and find them on there to purchase "stuff".

It's this extra few steps that limit engagement and incur huge drop-offs. Besides, with YouTube now adding in built in stores and Patreon like services. It makes it easier for influencers on there to stick with YouTube. For the other platforms that I mention, once they start doing the same. Well, the days of ShopWith would be numbered.

Finally, will ShopWith fall fowl of the same problems as Busker.co as they were forced to pay a Google/Apple Tax on purchases through the app and this lead them to close. Having not used the app, I don't know if any purchases then redirect to a webpage to do the purchase rather than on the app. Again, an issue which may cause drop-off points. As genZ may just wish to push their thumb rather than having to fill in a form, which may be a drag.

Disclaimer: I'm in the Ecommerce space and I think of this stuff down to a minute detail. I know all the different verticals and competitors in the space and what they are doing. I don't think I would have accepted them as the next 3 years are going to be very interesting and I don't think they will survive.

While it seems like specialized social media apps like these are a natural progression from more generic tools like Facebook, Twitter etc, I am not too sure. Most of social media has been taken over by bots. But twitter, fb etc do have some incentive to try and root the bots. In comparison these apps are made specifically for bot based engagement.

The monetization apparently works there:

https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/21/the-deanbeat-robloxs-kid-...

There's a very clear exit route to selling to a phone manufacturer that wants to add more "fun" functionality to its camera app..

On my first reading I was very impressed by how many health care startups are in the list, solving hard and important problems of society.

Each startup gives a two to three minute pitch with slides, one pitch after another. No questions. They have 15 to 30 minute breaks every 20 pitches or so.

Investors can express interest via a web app, and meetings are set for later. It is also possible to talk to founders during the breaks and in the hallway.

However, I think YCombinator has more often than not stated that they invest in the team and not the specific product they are making at the time. The invested product is generally just a learning vehicle for the team. The selected team is expected to plausibly have the insight and technical capability to pivot and retarget as new data is gathered.

Nigeria is the most interesting country in Africa at the moment and Lagos is projected to be the largest city on the planet in 2100. It's totally credible to try sounding the local market at this point. Funding a couple of small startups with a talented team sounds like a great way to do that.

Probably poor writing on their part.

So each shot is $10k