
This app says 'yo' and has raised $1 million - Futurebot
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101769986#_gus
======
tptacek
If you follow the references, the story seems a little bit saner than CNBC
makes it sound: Or Arbel didn't raise 1MM from institutional VCs, but rather
(FT reports, without any details on the terms or confirmatory details) from
his former boss at a company called Mobli, who apparently has an "angel fund".
That boss, Moshe Hogeg, had in the same time frame commissioned an app from
Arbel.

So, contra the impression you'd get from second- and third- hand reports of
this story, some unknown guy did not spend 8 hours coding an app that just
says "Yo", tour it to venture capitalists, and pick up 1MM.

~~~
krapp
And here I was about to whip up an app that just nods knowingly at you and
wait for the money train.

~~~
chrisgd
I would buy it

~~~
krapp
The sad thing is right after I posted that I realized it could actually
work...

~~~
cabalamat
You'll have to build it now, to see if it does :-)

~~~
krapp
It's such a stupid idea that I'll hate myself if I don't at least try it...

~~~
naturalethic
I'll do your cloud configuration

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eterm
I can see the value in this, it's the same value that agencies get from
metadata.

I might be sending a "yo" cos I'm home, I might be sending a "yo" because I'm
out of weed, I might be receiving a "yo" because my pizza is about to arrive.

In all these cases it's the metadata that matters, I can infer the rest from
that.

~~~
minimaxir
You can't derive _context_ from just a "yo." (to clarify: you can't derive
context from this app alone, since all you can do is send "yo"s. There isn't
enough information to formulate a _why_. Facebook/Twitter, of course, could
make more use out of the "yo"s, but they already have that data.)

~~~
alttab
You can if there is a pre-arrangement, or at least the sender and the
recipient. Its essentially a contextual "ping" that only the sender and
receiver understand, usually from a different channel.

It being easier allows people to drive, spend less time texting when meeting
up, etc. Silly use case? Sure. But look at the install base.

I can't believe I hated on Slingshot, but am actually giving this credit.

~~~
cruise02
> You can if there is a pre-arrangement, or at least the sender and the
> recipient.

That's the point. My dealer and I have that context. The police don't.
(Hypothetically speaking, of course.)

~~~
alttab
Yeah, even collecting the "intent and time of contact" with those involved can
be used when paired with other metadata about both people.

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Globz
From the App Store :

"Not just a means of simple but effective communication, Yo is a way of life.
Since downloading Yo, all my relationships have improved and I've regrown most
of my hair. My girlfriend no longer complains that I don't text her enough, I
just Yo that b. Mom no longer asks why I don't call when I just sent that b a
Yo."

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minimaxir
It should be noted that Yo has the Snapchat-esque we-cater-to-teens UI and UX
that other apps like Tinder and Slingshot have adopted. (bright pastel colors,
whimsical fonts, app incredibly unintuitive to navigate due to excessive
minimalism, etc.)

I'm beginning to think you could make literally any kind of app with that kind
of paradigm and get funding.

~~~
cbhl
Reviews on Play seem to be full of "I only installed this app because <friend>
told me about it."

It's actually kind of interesting; you don't really need much of an onboarding
flow because either you play with it to figure out how to use it (and
apologize for the accidental notifications later) or you are told by a friend
and they tell you how to use it.

~~~
stcredzero
So basically, it's down to UX insights for the youth audience, implemented
well.

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gedrap
Reading this made me feel a wide range of emotions. But mainly, seriously,
wtf...?

Who is funding those apps? This just doesn't propose any value to the user
other than momentary coolness (like most other apps for teenagers). Once it
fades away, it will be just one of 'cool' apps, like there are thousands of
them already.

Or is that $1M with crap-loads of various clauses for releasing money and
after all it's actually just a few grands and just some nice PR stuff because
media loves $1M?

Are the investors just some rich people who are like 'startups! yeah! I
watched Social Network! this will print the money yo!'? Or is there something
I don't see?

If not, I just find it a bit insulting to founders who work their butts off
with decent projects.

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gkop
In case you were wondering how this new app is better than Facebook Poke,
apparently [0] Yo allows group yo's as well as double yo's. So you effectively
have morse code broadcast to a select group.

[0] [http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/06/18/3450334/yo-
app-t...](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/06/18/3450334/yo-app-tech-
bubble/)

~~~
syllogism
Also, it's called a "yo", and not a "poke". Important.

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FLUX-YOU
>Thus far, it has attracted over 50,000 users, who have sent about 4 million
"yos."

You can buy likes and followers. Can you buy app downloads and usage? How much
of your user specifics and metrics do you have to disclose to your funding
sources?

~~~
curmudgeon224
Of course you can! Its called cost-per-install ads.

How else do you think Facebook has been growing their revenue so fast quarter
over quarter?

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crisnoble
This app is extremely easy to dismiss. As someone else mentioned, if you send
a yo to "WORLDCUP" you get a yo everytime someone scores. I could see this
getting wired into IFTT and actually becoming useful "automatically send a yo
to my friend every time I visit his city", "Have my plants send me a yo when
they need some water", "Send a yo to me when kid gets home from school". These
things maybe extremely annoying to some, but useful to others. It seems so
dumb, as did snapchat, but when you start to use it you see it is actually
kind of novel.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Why bother sending these messages via yo? All that does is make it harder to
understand them. You could have your plants text you when they need water, and
the message would contain information itself (the zero bits of information you
get from "yo" mean whenever you get the message you have to remember what you
originally defined it to mean) and be your choice of more accommodating to the
user's choice of platform or more robust in the face of yo service failure.
You don't get anything out of the yo layer of the stack.

~~~
crisnoble
I must admit you are absolutely correct. I guess I was thinking it would be
more like a ping or a blip, something to trigger more investigation via
another app or channel. Nothing text messages couldn't solve, but just a
bucket for blips I guess.

I also kind of like the lack of extra information, because it may seem like
there is no context but really it would be encoded between the yodlers. If I
get a "yo" from my buddy maybe I secretly know that he doesn't want to talk
but really wants to smoke some weed downstairs. Again, texts could solve this
same problem so I am not sure why I am fascinated by the simplicity, stupidity
and possibilities of this app.

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buro9
It's already almost impossible to get any reasonable username on the service.

I'm going to have to change my name to get ahead of the young kids who are now
in front of me.

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cmart
I count 6-7 taps to text somebody 'yo' from my iPhone, depending if they're
above the fold in the messages app or not...Wonder how he got to 11

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thevlade
If you add the user WORLDCUP and send it a 'yo' then you will get a 'yo' every
time someone scores a goal during the world cup.

~~~
dTal
I can't think of anything less useful and more annoying. If I'm watching a
game, I don't need to be told when there's a goal. If I'm not, I don't want to
be bothered by random 'yo's all the time - especially if I'm not told _who_
scored.

~~~
thaumasiotes
It is my understanding that goals aren't all that common in soccer; that
particular example actually made a certain amount of sense to me. Then again,
I don't watch sports. But the fear of getting "random yos all the time" from
the world cup seems a little overblown?

Wikipedia lists the following scores for the past few world cups:

    
    
        2010: 1-0
        2006: 1-1
        2002: 2-0
        1998: 3-0 (!)
        1994: 0-0
        1990: 1-0
    

They actually pick up noticeably before 1990, but the most goals ever scored
was seven in 1958. Are you sure you were thinking about the world cup?

~~~
namenotrequired
Are you sure you aren't looking at the finale scores only? So far the world
cup has seen 53 goals in 18 matches, and we're only about a quarter through.

Edit: numbers updated, I wasn't looking right.

~~~
thaumasiotes
No, I'm pretty sure you're correct. See my above disclaimer.

Three goals a match, though, still seems more like something rare enough that
you might prefer to focus your attention elsewhere and be alerted when they
happen than like something that will slowly drive you insane. Do the matches
happen at predictable times?

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cruise02
I just wish he had named it "ping" instead. "Ping me when you... do X" sounds
much better than "Yo me..."

~~~
icedbergs
Ping sounds so..corporate, or adult.

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u124556
From their twitter stream "My mom should get @YoAppStatus just so I can yo her
and let her know I'm still alive."

That's a great use case. My family would love to know I'm still alive when I
go mountain climbing and calling is too much of a hassle.

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tsunamifury
VC's are just mining for user signups using User Psychology based UX patterns
to sell to established social-media buyers.

There is a commodity and a buyer and the VC's and social app developers are
trying to arbitrage it.

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SchizoDuckie
I'm gonna make an app that says 'WTF' and get rich now

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theforgottenone
'Sup

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nilkn
This app does not appear to respect the mute setting on my phone.

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nsxwolf
To be fair, he only spent 8 hours developing it.

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lnnn
Was sniffing around for access to their api in the app binary, found some
hidden features instead: guess they are going to monetise with custom
sounds/yos.

~~~
infinite_snoop
Out of interest, would you mind sharing what backend they are using?

Is it something like Parse or a custom development?

~~~
infinite_snoop
Ok, answered my own question, it contains the Parse library.

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liricooli
Well, We're living in a time where money is cheap and there's a new SnapChat
every couple of weeks.

Nobody who has money to invest wants to miss the train.

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myhf
Amazing! How do they keep it from autocorrecting to "To"?

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HansonSP
It's the pet rock of the app world

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notastartup
I think this sorta proves that we've reached the bubble peak.

After this startup bubble pops, we are going to see investors who are very
wary of companies that thinks we are in a new economy now and that non-paying
users is the way to billions.

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alaskamiller
Sending smoke signals is worthy of a million.

~~~
dueprocess
Good idea for an app. Think about it.

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dudurocha
A company to raise a million US dollars (2,2 Million Reais) here in Brazil has
to be profitable and have at least 1 Million U$ in profit!

The VC Firms abroad should come to Brazil, we have several good companies who
can't raise half a million dollars. Way better than yo's.

~~~
lukasm
> 1 Million U$ in profit!

What is the point of raising a million if you make one? Did you mean revenue?

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dudurocha
Yes, pardon my english. I mean revenue.

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sillysaurus3
Investors fund growth. This app has demonstrated growth.

Isn't $1M pretty much pocket change for big investment funds? What if this app
becomes the next Snapchat?

Users give leverage. If the team is dedicated, and they can pivot their
adoption into long-term growth, then it was a good investment.

Startup investing is counter-intuitive by nature. It's counter-intuitive for
most people to think of $1M as a small amount of money, but to a fund it might
be. And if it's a small amount of money, then there's no downside to invest in
them. Whereas if they miss their chance to invest in the next big company,
then those same investors will ultimately lose, because the entire model of VC
depends on (a) investing in a big winner, (b) early.

EDIT: Well, that's what I get for not researching before speaking. 1MM in this
case was a large amount of money for any angel investor. But the premise of
investing early in a big winner is the central idea.

