Startup School Radio: How Optimizely Knew It Was on to Something Big

https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-startup-school-radio-how-optimizely-knew-it-was-on-to-something-big

by loyalelectron • 11 years ago

48 13 11 years ago

blog.ycombinator.com

jak1192• 11 years ago

Really been enjoying these podcasts. Very cool to hear these first-hand stories

marktangotango• 11 years ago

Serious question; what is the deal with the something-ly.com names? It just seems really odd and me-too-ish to my ear.

timdorr• 11 years ago

Because of the .ly TLD. Many companies employed a play on words to have a single-word domain for any word ending in -ly. Bit.ly is probably the most well-known.

The problem is that .ly is managed by Libya, and they tend to have restrictive laws and government practices that many people take issue with. So, many companies just got the -ly.com versions of their domains and made the switch.

beambot• 11 years ago

To expand upon your comment.... those startups used something.ly domains when they were small and just starting out -- i.e. before they could afford to buy something-ly.com. Once they had traction and raised money, they purchased the proper domain. It's the same reason TheFacebook later dropped "The".

xirdstl• 11 years ago

Agreed. After the first few, they just sound too 'cutesy' to me.

groby_b• 11 years ago

Cute-ly. Clearly you mean cutely.

Eiriksmal• 11 years ago

Mr. Graham thinks it's not cool to have .ly anymore. It's an interesting means to date a tech company's founding in the Post-Web 2.0 era.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/601821633385398273

diego• 11 years ago

I know companies that did the same thing, only they were not onto something big. Having customers pre-product is a good signal. I'm sure that the class of companies for which this happens have a much higher success rates than a typical startup. However, that's far from knowing you've hit something big. That's something you can only say in hindsight.

tarr11• 11 years ago

I wonder if they collected the check up front. Big difference there too...

lubos• 11 years ago

People who paid them up-front were basically companies they've done some business with before.

It's good to work your network to get first customers but every startup can do that. It's just common sense.

And nowhere in the article Optimizely claims this was how they knew they were onto "something big". So the title is misleading.

loyalelectron• 11 years ago

Fair point on the title -- perhaps I should have left it at "on to something." Will keep in mind for next time.

duncanawoods• 11 years ago

Thanks for these I will give it a listen.

Even "on to something" is a click-bait title which HN guidelines say should be neutered. IMHO you don't need to force it, just be classy and straight-forward e.g. "YC Startup School Radio Ep. 3 - Optimizely & Lawn Love" or something.

faithfone• 11 years ago

When the guys at Optimizely asked for money upfront for their new software idea, were they already backed by YC?

Startup School Radio: How Optimizely Knew It Was on to Something Big

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