"X for Y" Startups

I hear this a lot, but I disagree.

1. Firstly, take startups where the founders had an original idea, but they pitch it as "X for Y". Is this a bad thing? Many people will say that they should pitch it on its own merits. The thing is human communication is all about reducing an idea to concepts the listener already understands. I used to work on a startup that was an online freelancer marketplace based around social connections. I could also describe it as "eLance meets Linkedin". The latter gets the idea across even though it's not a perfect description. Doesn't matter. If I'm dealing with someone who hears a lot of startup ideas, or has a low attention span (eg the typical investor), brevity trumps accuracy.

2. What about startups that use the "X for Y" template to generate business ideas? This might seem a bit more questionable. But if a certain model worked for one industry, why can't it be adapted for another? Uber's model of combining the best features of a marketplace and a high quality service firm worked well for taxis. Could it work for other markets? onefinestay is Uber meets AirBNB. Exec is Uber meets TaskRabbit. You get the idea. And it's clearly not true that Uber are the company best positioned to succeed in those markets, as they have no business selling hotels or personal services.

One of the examples given of a startup that created a new category is Angellist. I generally agree, but it's worth noting that Angellist has embraced being described as "Facebook for startups" and "Facebook for companies": http://betabeat.com/2011/09/angellist-gains-prestige-as-it-b...

Note that Youtube was originally the Flickr for video. It has done a fair bit better than flickr.

http://techcrunch.com/2008/03/16/video-coming-to-flickr-soon...

Parse pitched itself as "Heroku for Mobile."

Seems to be an effective shorthand to convey what you do.