The 10 Best Startups From Y Combinator’s S12 Demo Day
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Evil persons would mention that much of the content on 9gag is copied from Reddit's r/funny (which is on a large scale hard to proof) - but they got funding, so why not, looks like a viable business model.
The example-pic the article uses can be found on Reddit, with the same title, over Google: http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/ykrlh/when_links_are_... Can't tell which one came first, as the article's pic doesn't have a time.
>Its founders say that in July, 9gag had more than 65 million unique visitors, compared to Reddit’s 39.7 million
According to Wolfram Alpha, Reddit has roughly double the amount of unique daily visitors when compared to 9gag: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=reddit+9gag (Keep in mind these numbers are daily, not monthly like in the article)
I don't know how ranking.com generates the numbers, but in their ranking reddit.com is 11,763, 9gag is 11,768 and 4chan is 11,775 - all kinda identical.
Incidentally, the 65mm visitors from that quote seems to have been actually referring to page views, of which Reddit had 429mm monthly in 2010.
[0] http://www.quantcast.com/9gag.com [1] http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-...
(disclaimer: I work for Quantcast).
Also, off-topic question: How do you measure a visitor's income or education level, do you deduce based on location?
Because Reddit is the amalgamation of its communities, you get this backlash against 9gag--us vs. them and all. I'm interested to see how this evolves. I think 9gag will have to be something better than "funny stuff" eventually. Internet history is littered with companies/sites that were spun up around other people's funny content, got very popular, and have since gone by the wayside.
That's why I think Reddit will continue to survive. Its communities are its lifeblood. I don't know enough about 9gag to know if it can really form this community well and keep it, or if it's another just ebaum's World.
Done.
You also have to wonder about how they select these startups (other than at random)? It's comparing apples to oranges and doesn't even seem to have a consistent metric (expected roi, innovativeness of idea, best pitch, etc).
Why is instacart not on there?
As you correctly pointed out - why is instacart missing while 9gag is present? I can name so many much better alternatives to 9gag: instacart, KIPPT, Everyday.me etc.
What if the only criteria required by this article was to list startups that sold something (rather than be a platform or <insert disruptive buzzword here> that doesn't currently monetize. E.g. Makr.io, ReelSurfer). So that would boil it down to: Double, Coco Controller and a handful others.
As investor Kevin O'Leary would say: Follow the money.
Fundersclub sounds quite disruptive.
Bufferbox might be useful (at the right price) once it is within walking/bicycling distance of my house, as a UPS store location already is.
It preys on the 'seeker' human behaviour (like reddit, minecraft, even HN). Maybe next visit there will be something hilarious?
A lower volume of higher quality wouldn't invoke the same response.. visits would often have no new content, and users wouldn't regularly visit.
Regarding price, IIRC the prices for service (in the Beta at least) were extremely attractive, only a few bucks for the couple of credits needed for a decent sized box. For larger item's I'd probably find a cheaper way to get it shipped direct and avoid their charges, but for small items (4 or 5 books from Amazon maybe) their fee is pretty insignificant.
Could FunderesClub be an avenue for laundering money?
Think of it this way - an entity or a group could setup many accounts on FundersClub to invest small-ish amounts <9500 in many many avenues and be able to make interest on that money and then sell whenever they want. Because they invested smaller amounts than would be required to be reported, however you would have to pay tax on all interest/dividends received over $1500.
Although, I am sure there are some very creative financial mangers for the elite of silicon valley that do away with even these rules with a deft hand...
For your punishment, you must donate to the charity of my choice:
I think your average individual or organization laundering money would want to invest in the kind of things he understood, like small businesses, in the later stages of laundering money, too.
They already exist... on the industrial scale. Which is where the rumored Wachovia laundering of mexican drug money was really active...
Cellphone stores are often used for this, I think, though.
I have no use for BufferBox personally because packages get delivered to my house just fine. In the case of USPS, our neighborhood mail boxes have the old style key boxes and the postman just locks it in and puts the key in my mailbox. In some cases I've had things delivered to my office instead. I can't think of the last time I had to go retrieve a package.
Anyway, I understand that a great number of people do not have a reliable solution for getting packages when not at home... or keep hours that do not match with the non-24x7 drop points. BufferBox seems to solve that issue by making things self-serve. Sure it costs a few bucks per delivery, but that is the price you pay for convenience. And when you don't really have a better solution, you pay it. I wish them a great deal of success.
There is more of a real world feel to these companies. Robots, Big boxes of delivered things, instacart which isn't in this list, but is another example.
I also notice there's a lot more traction already with these companies than I remember -- it's a more mature bunch. I wish you all the best of luck. The journey hasn't even begun yet, but you've come a long way already.
Personally, I am not to fond of that word... crop...
Probably nothing. The consumer putting up his bucks is what really matters.
Saying these businesses are "done" is like saying mobile phones were "done" when Motorola launched their first phone. Startups are about creating businesses, not about materializing some idea the first time on the Earth.
For investors you also get startups that have already been vetted enough by the ycombinator team for them to invest time into, so you know that the startup already has connections in the right places
I was really expecting to see what kind of product they would launch. Did they just not launch at the demo day but still working on it, or did they actually pivot into something else?
When a company pivots, it's the same thing. It's usually the same company legally and fiscally, in which case YC still has a stake. If the company pivots and the founders decide to set up a new company, and the old company does not own the new company, then YC does not have a stake in the new one unless the founders are good sports and cut them in.
Side projects are usually built under the corporate umbrella, in which case the profits/losses from the side project count as part of the owning company's. In this case, YC's stake in the parent company carries over to all side projects (unless, again, they set it up as something separate from the company).
Quite surprised about 9gag though. When did they start? Their pictures were so popular for some time it gives me the feeling that they've been online for ages already.
PS: I saw 9gag.com often in Facebook. OFTEN.
While I never visited the site, I noticed their presence.
Anyone else care to test it?
I think it would be Chrome's grammar and spell-check function that gets overloaded....