
How Rap Genius Raised $1.8M in Seed Funding Without Knowing What We Were Doing - tomlemon
http://news.rapgenius.com/Lemon-how-rap-genius-raised-s18m-in-seed-funding-without-knowing-what-we-were-doing-lyrics
======
smacktoward
_> It’s not just about the merits of your website – if it were we’d be at the
Four Seasons 6 months earlier – it’s about whether you project energy,
excitement, and confidence._

Thank you, Rap Genius, for packing everything depressing about what the
industry I chose to spend my life working in has become into a single
convenient sentence.

~~~
saddino
If you, as a startup founder, can't authentically and sincerely project
energy, excitement and confidence about your idea, then something is either
wrong with your idea or you are in the wrong business.

~~~
rhizome
The problem with this logic is that "energy, excitement and confidence" don't
have anything to do with the merits of an idea. An idea can be good without
_any_ exhibitions of personality. The tree still falls, after all.

However, if expressions about an idea _do_ relate to the quality of that idea,
each taken in isolation, what does that say about the concept of meritocracy?
That perhaps meritocracy applies only to people and not ideas, and that
"meritocracy" in this context has a much narrower definition than a plain
reading of the word would suggest.

~~~
chrischen
The merit of execution is equally important, if not more, and execution will
require taking risks, and risk will require confidence.

~~~
rhizome
Sure, but neither are the expressions described components of execution.

~~~
chrischen
Not all startups are purely technical execution.

~~~
rhizome
What do you mean?

~~~
chrischen
I mean confidence can be a part of execution... for example, when you are
trying to sell a product. Ingenuity, perseverance, etc, are also attributes of
execution and they are not strictly technical.

In other words, if you just have technology (and we're assuming not
groundbreaking patentable-technology), you'll likely fail if you have no
perseverance and no ability to convince people why it's useful.

------
thesis
How does it go from

"The problem was that even if every warm lead invested the maximum plausible
amount we’d still barely make it to $1M."

on to: "PG advised us to dream up some way of lowering our cap for our
existing investors to get more takers, which would have been a hella-beta
conversation to have and who knows whether it would even work because showing
that kind of weakness is a major turnoff."

then: "And yet it ended up totally fine!"

\-- all this fluff about sockless bearded russians, and apartments with track
lighting but they left out the most important part?

BTW.. does track lighting in apartments state some level of wealth that I'm
unaware of?

~~~
tomlemon
I explain more in
[http://news.rapgenius.com/1901085](http://news.rapgenius.com/1901085) (Click
the green lines FOR ANNOTATIONS)

~~~
DannoHung
But what's the deal with track lighting?

~~~
dfc
I see track lighting and immediately assume a botched renovation job or if it
is a new space they ran way over budget and then realized they needed lights
in the room.

~~~
jakejake
It's funny, when I think of track lighting the first thing that comes to mind
would be art galleries or renovated high-end loft spaces. I guess it must be
whatever type of track lighting you're most used to seeing.

I didn't know what the heck the OP was trying to indicate about track lighting
either. Given the context I figured it was some type of insult about him being
cheesy though, I didn't really understand it.

~~~
dfc
I should have been more specific with my comment. It should have read "When I
see track lighting in a residence...". Track lighting and art galleries go
hand in hand for me as well.

That being said high-end lofts are just as susceptible to crappy renovations
or going over budget and forgetting to light a room. The way I see it lighting
should either be a flourish of design (pendant lights in a kitchen /
chandelier-esque hanging thing in a dining room) or not seen at all.

~~~
jakejake
good point. I still can't figure out if the OP was trying to say that the
"baller" track lighting indicated he was really rich (ala art gallery) or if
he was really cheesy (ie, cheap condo renovation). Also mentioning $600 per
night on AirBnB would seem to indicate that the place was swanky, seeing as
how that's towards the high end even for San Francisco. I don't know what they
were trying to say, I'm confused!

~~~
dfc
About that $600 figure, if you click the text you get something closer to the
truth:

 _It was actually closer to $300 / night, but $600 sounds better_

------
awwstn
These guys are loud, belligerent, arrogant and outright absurd [1]. But they
are doing something incredible.

They have a product with widespread adoption and a massive scope of new
verticals to tackle, and they (I think) have a vision for this technology to
make the web a better place for all of us. Just as Facebook was brilliant to
attract the love of the cool kids (first Ivy league, then all college kids,
then high school + college, etc.), which led to worldwide adoption, RapGenius
is taking a far more creative approach than to just build an annotation layer
over the entire web without any common beliefs, passions or interests to
galvanize the community.

I'm excited to see it pan out.

Edit: I probably shouldn't call someone loud, belligerent, arrogant and
outright absurd without a link. :)

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo)

~~~
dram
For a social site, they are doing great but how could they possibly have any
technology that the CIA would need?

And while I realize their personas are a joke, to me, they represent
everything I dislike about music.

Also advocating amphetamine use (not much different than meth) and openly
talking about delusional theories of having sex on them would somehow produce
smarter kids is just insane. I know some of it's a joke but their narcissism
seems authentic.

~~~
dfc
"And while I realize their personas are a joke, to me, they represent
everything I dislike about music" and pop culture in general. The decline of
authenticity is depressing.

------
austenallred
It's nice to see someone calling out fundraising for what it is: an enormous
mind game. Imagine how hard it would be to be that confident if you _weren 't_
the hottest YC company in the batch. The RapGenius guys had everything you
could ever want in terms of traction, network, and social proof, and they
still had to convince themselves that they were worth it.

------
ssharp
I'm not sure if its disrespectful or awesome that they're referring to a VC as
a "baller ass Russian dude".

I suppose being able to talk like this is a privilege only available to a site
like Rap Genius. I think I love it.

~~~
merlincorey
"Baller ass" might be some of that rap lingo. We don't have rap genius
annotations here, so I can't verify.

~~~
alex_doom
Heh, I hope you're kidding. If you're not in this context it means the dude is
extremely rich and shows it.

~~~
merlincorey
This would be perfect for that annotation!

(I was kidding :D)

------
knodi
I really hate this style of writing.

~~~
dfc
It is not just you. I was constantly distracted by the writing style. How can
a "saucy" sub taste like cardboard? Why bread-y and not sauce-y?

I do not know if this overly affected style of communication is prominent in
the valley or if it is done in the service of pump priming for newsgenius
annotations. I am still curious what a "hella-beta conversation" is.

~~~
ASpring
"Hella-beta"

I'm assuming they are speaking of beta in the kind of male-dominance sense it
holds in the animal kingdom.

So being "hella-beta" is kind of backing down and giving up the power to
someone else who is the alpha of the group.

~~~
rhizome
I think it's a typo of "betta" for "better."

~~~
dfc
Initially I thought the same thing but after rereading the sentence/paragraph
it seems that the situation is not "better."

------
canadev
How does Rap Genius make money?

~~~
simonw
It looks like they sell equity to investors for cash. This is a perfectly
reasonable startup business model, provided you have a good potential to make
money in the future.

~~~
OGC
1\. start project 2\. sell equity 3\. ??? 4\. profit

Did i get that right?

------
liveinoakland
Rap genius is the first site in a long while that I discovered and then
promptly spent HOURS on in the next few days. Now I can't listen to a song
without checking it out. The annotations on all of Kanye's song have a wealth
of amazing back story and information. This site is pure gold even if it only
ever did lyrics. The idea that they can expand to other verticals is pure
diamonds. This site will slay. I think it already leaves Quora in the dust.
IMO it's the next big thing blue chip tech co.

PS rap genius annotations implemented on HN would make it a lot cooler. The
comments about particular writing style here... u guys should just hop over to
Rap Genius and annotate what "hella betta" means. You're living in ancient
technology land!

~~~
rhizome
The interesting thing is that there have come and gone browser extensions to
do just this for _15 years_. Maybe it makes a difference that it's all
contained in the rapgenius site rather than overlaid on other sites (propriety
problem) with the content served from the extension provider's servers (data
protection problem).

~~~
liveinoakland
The tech isn't enough without the community. Clearly there are some great
annotators over on RG. I agree that starting it on a closed website is key. We
all know the big hits were just refining things that had been existing in some
form or other in the past. FB not first social network, Google not first
search engine, etc.

~~~
rhizome
I think there's a moderation angle too, since the old browser extensions
invariably resulted in a hundred "LOLFAG" comments on random CNN stories.

------
jonathanjaeger
Saw Ilan talk at a music tech meetup in NYC and he was about as open as you
can get about the behind-the-scenes of starting a community and raising
funding. About as open as the blog post but in much greater detail.

------
anandkulkarni
This is pretty much spot-on with what it's like to fundraise.

RG is such a breakout star today that it's remarkable to see they went through
similar fundraising adventures to everyone else in YCS11.

------
rdl
I wonder how many groups have gotten rejected from TechStars but accepted into
YC. That seems somewhat surprising to me, although I guess the individual
TechStars programs are smaller.

~~~
smalter
My impression is that both programs rely heavily on in-network
recommendations, and the programs largely have non-overlapping networks.

------
applecore
You can enjoy that sockless look without giving up the benefits of a comfy
sock. Look up low-cut, "incognito" or "no show" designs.

~~~
tomlemon
I feel you, but if someone happens to CATCH you wearing incognito socks
(perhaps while you're mid step or something).. well, that's basically the most
beta feeling in the world (so I don't think it's worth the risk!!)

~~~
alanctgardner2
I mostly understood the post, but why is it baller not to wear socks? You can
afford to burn your shoes every evening?

Signed, a proud beta stealth sock wearer.

Also, there is no such thing as too much pink

------
joshuaellinger
And since it worked for the Seed, they continued it with the Series A. And it
worked again.

I think A16Z invested for the entertainment value.

------
ryguytilidie
This doesn't really describe much about how they raised at all. In fact, it
seems to focus on pretty much everything except for what they actually did to
successfully raise the money, just that they eventually got it...

------
elsurudo
Love the writing style, and the fact that these guys manage to keep it so
light, and not take themselves too seriously. Keepin' it real... Nice gimmick.

Posting using your own software to pimp it is a good idea, too. I'm not sure I
like annotations in this case, because I really read them all anyways, which
means that it's just annoying to click them all. There should be a way to
expand them all into the body of the article, if you wanted to (is there?).

------
zbruhnke
What I want to know is when Code Genius comes to fruition. I think it would be
a much better version of Stack Overflow for some specific use cases.

------
tar
Is this supposed to be a good thing?

------
lowglow
Super relevant meetup happening tonight with SFHN for those that are
interested in knowing more about raising a seed round: [http://sfhn-
seedround.eventbrite.com/](http://sfhn-seedround.eventbrite.com/)

------
wtrurtiyuryt
These are very respectable people:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo)

------
franciscoprat
Best sentence about the attitude: "The shoes aren’t magic, you have to force
yourself to dance."

------
EricMuller22
I absolutely lost it at the "hockey gear" annotation. Would have been
hilarious.

