I am kind of sad that Ron Conway is no longer a part of Y Combinator funding team. I really thought of the original Y Combinator team as a dream team!
PG - will cutting the initial funding to 80K give Y combinator a better chance to scale? Will you be giving opportunity to diverse companies due to more money being available at your disposal?
PG- my humble request to you is - can you invest the money saved due to this change in diverse companies/founders?
I know you have always said - that you like to invest in people who are like you - i.e. hackers. I, however, have always thought of Y Combinator as brewing pot of coffee. The only issue is the person brewing the coffee - i.e. you, PG, - only likes cream (i.e hackers) in his coffee (Y Combinator) and therefore, the only choice the world gets from this, otherwise brilliant coffeemaker, is a plain black coffee or a coffee with cream.
My humble question and a request is can the person brewing the best pot of coffee be more inclusive and experiment with other choices such as coffee with sugar (single founders) and coffee with splenda (non-technical founders)in a statistically significant way?
PG - I know the final product will be very different but the world will get more choices and, more importantly, the reduction in funding from $150K to 80K would actually create additional opportunities for diverse group of deserving companies!
The answer to this question very much depends on your niche market. The assumption is that the founder is a domain expert in what ever niche (domain) he/she is starting in. Keeping this assumption in mind, one should at a minimum know who the competitors are.
In my humble opinion, the more important question is: does your competitors know who you are?
If they know who you are, then I would have tremendous trust in your execution.
A real hacker would not really care about title. I have never looked at the title when accepting a job. I much rather look at job description and see if it's something cool, refreshing, novel and challenging. Otherwise, I simply say no - thanks.
My question is - if they are buying a product from amazon - why don't they check product reviews posted right on amazon? Why do they need a different site? I do agree that opinions from friends and family counts a lot but the concept has many unknowns.
1. You need to communicate (with friends and family) what product you want buy from amazon
2. Then your friends and family need to have purchased the same product
3. Now, when you are looking for a product, you need to drive them to make a recommendation.
I think you should quickly test the concept and obtain some real feedback before scaling it up.
I think that you get the whole thing wrong. GuysHelpMeDecide is a tool where you enter a question for example:
* What iphone should I buy?
And lets you enter 2 or 3 choices:
* iPhone 4S 16GB white
* iPhone 4S 16GB black
The key here is that the search for this products is light fast and easy. It grabs from amazon.com the title of the product, image, description and even the price, but let's you modify it (if you don't want the price to be public or you want to customize the description with your opinion on that product).
Once created the poll it appears on your facebook friends wall, if they click on the story they'll see the page with the question, the choices and they'll be able to vote and to comment.
I am sorry, I was out of town. My bad, I now see what you were suggesting. I am much clear about the concept. I also looked at your source code and I am assuming that amazon is paying you CPA right?
May be you should apply for shopping.com partners program and negotiate CPC payment based on their rate card. That way, you immediately start making CPC money when you drive traffic and you are not just bound to amazon. Though, amazon is good starting point as Shopping.com will ask to see your website (as a small demo). They are little slow but you can also try shopzilla affiliate program (CPC only).
Once you get good traction and traffic starts building, you will start getting offers straight from various merchants.
Yes, I am using amazon affiliates, which pays me a 4% on all the purchases we refer.
Thx for the info on other shopping affiliate platforms (I didn't know them), but right now my focus is on trying to get traction and traffic to the site. After that we'll see the best way to monetize it
Interesting, though I would like to caution you regarding your assumption that it may go viral. In the world of business - assumptions are very dangerous.
Let me give you an example of what goes viral. I recently came across an app for calling a cab using a smart phone. They advertised it very cleverly. They said, think about you are stuck on the road at an unknown location. It is 2:00 AM in the morning and there's no one around! With our app, you can call a cab with a single click without knowing a thing about your location. All you have to do is click the button, stay put and a cab will be there promptly.
Now, I travel a lot so I realized that this could be really nice and handy. So, I immediately downloaded the app. I spoke with my wife and guess what? She downloaded it as well as she thought this could come in handy for her as well. My wife is more social than I am so she posted this newly found app on FB and within no time, most of her friends had downloaded this app as well.
The important thing I am trying to convey about virility to you is that it has to have two key ingredients - utility and the sense of urgency. If you can effectively communicate those two ingredients - your app will go viral. Otherwise, it’s a rat race so before you develop it a whole lot - test out the concept and its virility!
Perhaps the title of my Ask HN is too much ambitious. I't be better something like "how to make it start getting traction" (more convenient than getting viral)
Finding a business partner (co founder) is just like finding a life partner. You have to start out with a business date and see if you can take the relationship to the next level. Running a business is all about conviction and hard work. You will go through lots and lots of ups and downs and for better or worst your business partner will be there to share your burden. You should try to get a co-founder with skill-set that is different from yours. So, if you are a coder, try to bring someone who is great at sales and marketing especially with user acquisition experience. Two hackers are good but diversity in co-founder is even better! Especially, if you can get someone with user acquisition experience upfront, it will make all the difference. Building some thing that every one wants is the hardest thing to do so in a team try having one person focused on building the product and the second person on bringing users to test it.
I think it can be done but have you thought about your competition? I see thousands of such companies driving the price down on a daily basis. Just type Web Development on Google and you will see how many companies pop up on the first page? I have seen international companies who put out ads on adwords for as low as $5/hrs rate. Granted, these companies may not be very reliable but unfortunately they do form a price ceiling. Ask how will you and your partner compete against such low prices?
In my humble opinion, the web development model is highly outsourced model and while I agree that it is broken, you will have to be very careful about entering into it. You should first identify and validate a proper niche that will provide you a steady stream of revenue. The unfortunate and brutal truth is that as soon as you put out your value proposition in you niche to earn a steady stream of revenue, 10 other international companies will simply copy your value proposition and advertise right underneath your ad for much lower prices.
PG - will cutting the initial funding to 80K give Y combinator a better chance to scale? Will you be giving opportunity to diverse companies due to more money being available at your disposal?
PG- my humble request to you is - can you invest the money saved due to this change in diverse companies/founders?
I know you have always said - that you like to invest in people who are like you - i.e. hackers. I, however, have always thought of Y Combinator as brewing pot of coffee. The only issue is the person brewing the coffee - i.e. you, PG, - only likes cream (i.e hackers) in his coffee (Y Combinator) and therefore, the only choice the world gets from this, otherwise brilliant coffeemaker, is a plain black coffee or a coffee with cream. My humble question and a request is can the person brewing the best pot of coffee be more inclusive and experiment with other choices such as coffee with sugar (single founders) and coffee with splenda (non-technical founders)in a statistically significant way?
PG - I know the final product will be very different but the world will get more choices and, more importantly, the reduction in funding from $150K to 80K would actually create additional opportunities for diverse group of deserving companies!