
Counterintuitive Stories From Rapportive’s (YC S10) Seed Funding - jedc
http://gigaom.com/2010/08/03/4-counterintuitive-stories-from-rapportives-seed-funding/
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jedc
Well done to Rahul, Martin and Sam! Really interesting details around the
timings of launching a demo, getting funded, and seeing competitors (even
within YC) pivot.

I love these lines in particular:

"But rather than write him fan mail, they used their own product as bait,
portraying McClure as the example user of their original web site. “We
plastered his face all over, and then people kept asking him, ‘These
Rapportive guys, are they your company?’” After McClure got that question more
than once, he was intrigued enough to follow up and commit to investing, and
then made copious intros for the rest of the round."

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nzmsv
This is an interesting hack. I think most of us hold an implicit assumption
that privacy is always good. So many hackers would never even consider doing
something like that. I probably wouldn't. But this outcome shows that it pays
to question assumptions, even (especially) your own.

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seiji
It's good to see people treating YC as a business transaction instead of
pouring their self worth into the prospects of getting in: "The value is
incredible — it’s a very strong brand. it helps when trying to recruit and
talking to press. It helps with getting upvotes on Hacker News. It helps on
raising money."

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gojomo
Has Rapportive said whether they raised this money as convertible debt or set
a valuation?

With a close that stretches "2 to 3 months", is there any practical difference
in treatment between the first-dollars-in and last-dollars-in? (For example,
does convertible debt interest begin at different dates?)

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jedc
I'm guessing they raised convertible debt with a valuation cap. One of the
founders had an interesting post here:

[http://www.yes-no-cancel.co.uk/2010/05/05/valuation-caps-
on-...](http://www.yes-no-cancel.co.uk/2010/05/05/valuation-caps-on-
convertible-notes-explained-with-graphs/)

