hiddenstage

0 views. Which is weird because last batch we got 4 views and we feel this was a much better application.

How many times was your pitch video viewed?

git push was hanging for me. Got the 500 as well.

http://status.bitbucket.org/

Last time emails went out around 8:15pm EST.

If only the.. uhh.. "people" glued to Fox News and MSNBC could open their eyes and realize that their side is just as culpable as the evil side.

If the current Congress fails to come up with something here, let's elect all new people during the next election.

Maybe code-wise but it makes the given URL look bad.

Automatically downloaded a soundcloud file. It then told me "This site is requesting you download multiple files. Allow or Deny." Running Chrome for Android.

Traditional banner advertising isn't ideal for mobile screens. Mobile advertising WILL be huge - but it will come from ads being baked into the app experience rather than simple banners.

Poker. A good player has a pretty huge advantage over average players given a decent sample size.

Netflix gives up on streaming, doubles down on DVDs.

Maybe Google will come to the rescue.

Super System by Doyle Brunson is great for both beginners and intermediate players. Really the best way to learn, like most things, is to get out and play.

Do users have to be registered to vote? How will you bring in the non-developer person to sign up to LaunchSky? If I was building a SaaS type app, this would be awesome because my target market would actually be voting. But any other type of app I'd like the avg consumer to be voting.

I think you should be more clear that it is a launch page on the first screen rather than after clicking the sign up button.

It sort of seems like a Quora-esque "you must sign up to see more" type of thing right now.

Ha good catch. I assumed the stuff in the background were already projects on the site, tried clicking out to browse, got frustrated and clicked back.

I hate that you have to sign up before browsing the site. I'd be much more interested in signing up if I can browse with free will.

I'm assuming you can only vote if you sign up? If so, the target sign up market for LaunchSky are devs/entrepreneurs/etc which are usually not the target market of the apps that are using the service.

I assume by decreasing the amount of startups interviewed in order to re-interview a few of the startups, you guys believe that you make more mistakes in the interview process than in the application review process. That is kind of surprising.

Did YC bring in less interviewees this batch than summer 2012?

Ehhh you get into meta when it comes to options and futures, but I would argue they still aren't zero sum. I mean, you could argue almost everything money wise can be looked at as zero sum.

If a VC buys a 10% stake in company ABC for $1 million the trade looks like:

VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $1,000,000)

Net = $0

ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $1,000,000)

Net = $0

Now let's say ABC doubles their valuation. Now the trade looks like:

VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $2,000,000)

Net = +$1,000,000

ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $2,000,000)

Net = -$1,000,000

Obviously the $1,000,000 helped ABC double their valuation, which means that the transaction was not zero sum. Same could be said about all investments and to a lesser extent, options and futures. You can't ignore the context of the trades such as using put options to hedge a long position, for example.

I guess I don't think there is a 100% correlation between success and a great idea. I think that luck can be just as big a factor in success as the idea, especially in the mass consumer space.

If celebrities didn't take to Twitter I very much doubt they would have hundreds of millions of users now. You could argue the idea is what drove celebrities to use the service, but did it? If another service came out before or around the same time that celebrities used instead, would we say "Twitter is obviously a great idea that just didn't catch on?"

Stock market investing isn't a zero sum game anymore than VC investing or even Y Combinator.

Edit: OK, YC adds much more hands on value to businesses, but the investment aspect is exactly the same as it would be if you bought shares over the market.

Twitter was built so people would be able to blog via SMS. That was the idea; that was the problem they were setting out to solve. That's not what made them big.

They inadvertently solved the need of microblogging. No need to maintain blogs; no need to write long posts. Just a simple, short way to keep people informed with what you are doing. But that's not what made them big either.

What made them big is celebrities took to it and used it as their main form of communication with their fans. That's why I made an account a few years back and I'd venture to say over half of the active users did the exact same. Twitter has since evolved past that, at least for me, but it was definitely the initial reason for the boom. Would they have been successful without that? Probably not.

So is Twitter a good idea? I don't know. I really don't know.

When Apple was at $700, it had the market cap of Google, Exxon Mobil, and Caterpillar combined.

In a hypothetical scenario, would you rather own all of Apple or all of Google, Exxon Mobil, and Caterpillar?

My point is, I'm not sure P/E means as much with such a ridiculously high market cap.

Edited my comment. I was answering his question about everyone getting an email.

Yes every applicant gets an email telling you whether you get in or not.

This should calm your nerves:

http://askolo.com/ycalumni#4f851fc828e186c372000201

Good luck to everyone!

I'm not part of YC so take this with a grain of salt, but I don't think that not viewing videos is necessarily a bad sign based on comments I've seen from the YC founders about the subject. Videos are mainly viewed to see the chemistry between founders. Someone posted on HN the other day who said that last batch their video had 2 views and they got an interview. As long as your written application has all the relevant info, I wouldn't worry about this stuff.

I used to live in a city which had only one ISP. They have a deal with the city that restricts building of infrastructure from competing products (just a rumor - but competing ISPs just so happen to be available in smaller surrounding cities 5-10 miles away).

I'm not sure if this is common in other cities, but it really wouldn't surprise me one bit.