freax

> but being an entrepreneur

Means you need people who can actually do shit. If you need people with business experience then a program that connects you with investors makes perfect sense. Investors need people like her. Thus the rejection was a mistake.

> or has experienced building a company

Neither did Google! That's why you partner with investors who have experience. Duh!

> or that she can think on her feet, for example.

Really bad example in this case.

> I wouldn't take them as a given

A given?!? What is a "given" in a venture?!?

You're making the same mistake with "good bet" when you really mean "guarantee".

> but understand that many of the terms we use here that you might not be overly familiar with

I was making fun of you. Why do you insist on being enduringly stupid?

> I didn't actually say that

"especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting". There's such a big time gap there it's like saying "as soon as they graduate sixth grade and start college", which, as far as I know, only applies to one person here.

> Are you thinking of this person

Yes, apologies. I hardly got any sleep. Change "your" to "the" as in "the actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted" and the rest applies.

But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

> Because having a family - nesting (it's a very common term, google it)

Female college graduates are pushing back the age when they start families to historical highs, which puts lie to your claim that they start nesting right out of college.

Yes! Nests = ducks! I have never heard it applied to humans before! One might have thought I was comparing your incorrect and oversimplified description of female college graduates to instinctual waterfowl lifecycle behavior!

It's pretty funny you completely missed the sarcasm, focused on that, and then completely missed the point. And then start in with red herrings. Apparently your upmodders like fish.

That explains a lot more. They just raised most of it.

But after $4.6 mil they don't even have a checkout system?!? Or search? Or customer service? Or even competitive wages?!?

I'm in the same boat! If I were an investor I certainly would invest in people of that caliber.

> Are you unfamiliar with it?

Yeah, I totally thought you were talking about ducks!

> Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade crafts than men?

Now you're trying to change the subject.

Your actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted quite specifically is that as soon as women graduate college they start "nesting". In fact women college graduates are pushing back starting families by record amounts.

I know a lot of female professionals and I can't think of any without kids that spend any appreciable amount of time on handmade crafts.

Ruby was really slow prior to the latest version. It made Python look fast. It wasn't just Rails.

> doesn't necessarily make her a good bet as an entrepreneur, however amazingly talented she might be.

Yes, yes it does make her a good bet. If you are betting, bet on people with immense talent and drive.

Who else are you going to bet on, people with far less talent and drive? I think you're confusing "good bet" with "guaranteed to be more successful".

> No selection process is perfect

Yes, but there's a huge gulf between "almost perfect" and "woefully inadequate" when it comes to not being perfect. YC is closer to the latter just due to the lack of time they spend on the process.

> and one data point does not a trend make.

Correct -- but it's one more data point. There are multiple others from reports here. For example, YC not looking at demos; or asking questions that indicate they didn't bother to read or understand the application. Plus when you see some of the schlock they've funded it's clear something's broken.

First off, I wouldn't recommend a high-protein, low carb diet. It's very hard on your internal organs. Kidney problems abound from all the protein waste processing.

There are are some extremely effective substances you can use but they are a bit harder to get.

Clenbuterol will shed pounds like crazy but it's not something to stay on long-term. So plan to maintain your weight after you have help losing it.

Human Growth Hormone is a very effective fat-burner but it's also expensive from a reputable source. Most black market HGH is fake (usually HCG is substituted).

The diet industry doesn't want you to have these products because it would put them out of business. So you need a prescription, and most people are unaware of those options entirely.

Hormones are extremely influential when it comes to fat storage. If your stress level rises, your body will automatically store fat to compensate and burn muscle for fuel.

So getting rid of stress is critical.

If you are already tired but force yourself to work out, it may help your mental stress, but it does add MORE physical stress so your body may break down muscle and store fat. A lot of people have heard about overtraining but don't realize you don't already have to work out a lot in order to overtrain yourself. Simply being stressed/exhausted can cause overtraining with any vigorous exercise you perform in that state.

Avoid processed food. The more fresh whole foods you eat, the harder it is to overeat, and the vitamins and minerals will make your body stop feeling hungry in a way that doesn't happen when you eat something processed and devoid of nutrition..

Any kind of sugary drinks are a big problem. This includes fruit juice, which typically has all the sugar with none of the fiber. You can drink hundreds of calories of fruit juice in seconds, whereas if you eat whole oranges it takes a lot more work!

Exercise is key. You won't lose much weight because your appetite increases commensurately, but all sorts of things go wrong when you don't exercise. Exercise is a body regulation mechanism. If you don't do it you are guaranteed to have problems.

> especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting

Nesting? What are they, ducks? As a feminist I'd like to say that's some pretty idiotic stereotyping. Female college graduates overwhelmingly enter the workforce, not nests.

> and the company makes money.

The company loses money. Read it again.

I'm not disparaging the business, I'm disparaging the business combined with the amount of funding. That's just ridiculous.

> and if people know the situation going in to the interview (which they clearly do)

You do the interview. Then you get a phone call with a percentage mentioned and no negotiation allowed. You say yes or they claim you "failed an IQ test". 5 minutes to decide.

> then it's just not worth YC's time

Yeah, not when you do this stuff in bulk, assembly-line style, with most companies fizzling out if they don't fund them (so very little risk of "being proven wrong").

You have to judge the idea, not appeal to authority. Investors make mistakes most of the time!

> But what you probably have to consider is the size of the handmade craft market in the US. Then consider the entire world-wide market. It's probably very large.

That's every business plan ever. "Look how huge this market is! If we could just get one percent, why..."

It's like Ali G's pitch. "Zen" (Venn) diagram of "People who like ice cream" intersected with "People who has hands". Voila, the Ice Cream Glove.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs

As a side note, this article made me check out the resume of the author of that essay it references. Started college at 12? Graduated at 17 with a double BS in CoSci and Physics? University Medal in CoSci? All sorts of scholarships and awards. And yet rejected by YC.

That's a pretty glaring big data point that says YC's claim about choosing people, not ideas is junk. They probably didn't even read her resume because they don't spend enough time on the applications, which is still an indictment of their selection process. If you habitually make decisions in the absence of vital information you end up screwing the pooch.

If I were an investor I'd bet on that one for sure. Not even an interview?!?

Don't count yourself out. It sounds so trite, but do you realize how often you already do it? Not just in start-ups, but everything: Do you not talk to that girl/boy because you don't want to bother them, or think they'll say no? If you're not convinced you're worthwhile, how will you convince anyone else? Are you so concerned with being right that you won't let yourself become absolutely certain of your own success because "there are no absolutes"? Are you worried that if someone takes a chance on you, you'll let them down? Does that worry stop you?

Most people stop even trying and take themselves out of contention!

Rejections are like points. There's a secret magic number you need to collect, and then you succeed.

F Me. $15 mil for adding tinsel to your MySpace? And "RockYou is lining up a new round of funding to stay sharp.".

Etsy: $31.6 mil for a swapmeet just for handmade crafts.

When people take that much buck for so little bang it doesn't seem like they are interested in ROI or making it big so much as having a jobs program for them and their buddies.

Auctomatic sold for what probably amounts to a few months' burn rate for these suckers and still made their founders millionaires. How are these guys with 20 or 30 mil invested going to find a buyer that makes them a profit?

By the strict definition of entrepreneur (assuming the risk), that title goes to the VCs. When the venture tanks it's not going to be the founder who's out $30 mil.

Not a lot of technical wow in that list. Drupal probably leads by a good margin.

> But since we currently decide last, we're not pressuring anyone.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible, eh?

And then there's the "accept immediately or you failed an IQ test" attitude. If you have a common date with the others then that's got to change.

Except these things can be empirically shown to be harmful. The "value" of playing EverCrack or WoW all day every day can destroy many other valuable things in your life. This is why addiction is considered a problem, not a value -- except to pushers.

> Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard from us. I assume they'll do that again. That makes me mad, I admit. It seems such a nasty thing to do to a group of young founders.

Wait a minute, aren't you the guy who gives them 5 minutes to accept once you make your offer?

If they did their interviews/acceptance AFTER you, it would be the same situation with YOU pressuring founders before they'd heard back from anyone else!

Pot. Kettle. If you really care about the founders then you all need to get your schedules together so founders have the option of choosing from multiple offers. Leave the window open longer. It's pretty easy. Give them the forms and have them mail them back once they decide. Like college acceptance; this is a solved problem.

> what part of 'make something people want' contradicts creating value?

Crack? Junk food? Time-wasting websites? People rarely act even in their own best interests.

Virgin ISP? Not with all the porn I've downloaded it isn't.

Err now as for myself...

Well you got the century right.

> Apple had one of the most spectacular exits in history. Their IPO in 1976 was the biggest since Ford's.

Amazing they managed to IPO before they even shipped the Apple II. ;)

Haha, yesterday I was off by a year but today you're off by 4 :P

Apple went public in December 1980.

I pray to pagan gods.

I have this wall chart of all sorts of religions, and I move a game piece around it like a boardgame. Then whoever I'm on that day, I pray, like, "O great Yegbabo, deliver unto me a vision of a start-up idea." Then I imbibe the appropriate ceremonial substance, such as hashish, peyote, coca leaves, licking a toad, LSD -- it depends on the culture.

Anyway that's how McCarthy "invented" Lisp (he was at Esalen on vacation with Timothy Leary).

You need an exit strategy during sex too or there's going to be a merger and then an acquisition of your paycheck.

You don't wanna be left holding the (diaper) bag.

That's some life advice, boys, since some of y'all are going to be millionaires and that makes you a target for all sorts of golddiggers.

Naturally, PG had this one sussed like everything else. "Wait a minute, friend," you might be saying to me, "didn't RTM get an equal share? That's like 50% in a divorce!" Naw, you see, before they got together, they wasn't worth two bits between 'em. PG rode that horsey into the sunset and 59 million pesos!

Gone? That presupposes they used to be there, but left.

No, it's always been like this, modulo the foolhardy dot-com bubble.

The thing is, there are two types of potentially successful start-ups. The first kind is start-ups that have the talent and capability but who, if they don't get a helping hand, will quietly fizzle out.

My impression is a lot of YC groups are like this; getting into YC determines whether they go for it or just stay in school, for example. If Reddit didn't get in, would they be millionaires now? The risk here isn't YC missing the boat, but the boat never departing in the first place.

The second type is the start-up where they are going and you had better get on board or get out of the way. Steve Jobs personifies this approach. Jobs would beguile, needle, browbeat, or otherwise force the issue or pressure anyone he needed to get things done.

Ironically some VC successes aren't based on their BOLD choices so much as being strong-armed into getting over their risk aversion by someone like Jobs.

I second its greatness but the name is all wrong!

It's not only not hands-free, you also now have to use your arms, legs, jump in place, lean, twist...

I didn't watch the whole thing because I don't want to know how they handle sex... shudder

http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/09/afternoon-delig....

The MIT computer lab used to forgo passwords. If you wanted to dick with the system you could, so it removed the thrill of "breaking in". You could mess with other people's accounts but they could mess with yours, too. Kind of like how everyone in Texas carries guns starting in kindergarten and so everyone is really polite.

I think it's a great lesson so I think I'll make my startup's vital information globally accessible (admin functions, source code, even my billing info for the ISP) and trust to my fellow human beings' goodwill.

I love you guys!!

You need to take more risks, pg. You need to become... pg-13