
Startups That Launched at Y Combinator Winter 2015 Demo Day 2 - sinak
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/y-combinator-demos/
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aabajian
I think Open Listings has the potential to be huge. It's a great example of
Schlep Blindness
([http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html](http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html)).

Real estate agents have disproportionate commissions largely based on where
they operate. A real estate agent in San Bernardino, CA may make $1K for
selling a home, while an agent in Palo Alto makes $10K+, because, well, the
house costs 10x as much. Disclaimer: My father is a broker in San Bernardino.
He's mentioned to me a number of times how incredible it is that agents get to
take a percentage of the selling cost rather than a fixed fee. "Doctors get
rich by going into real estate," a famous quote of his.

Certainly there is more competition for agents in Palo Alto, but the actual
amount of work done by a real estate agent in PA is damn near equivalent to
the work done by one in SB. There are standard California forms, inspections,
financing etc. The only "added perks" provided by luxury firms in the Bay Area
are aesthetic improvements designed to attract wealthy buyers.

For those who are interested, innovation in the real estate market has been
difficult due to the monopoly on housing listings. The "Multiple Listing
Service" ([http://www.mls.com/](http://www.mls.com/)) is the only master
directory of housing lists and is only made available to "Realtors". In case
you didn't know, Realtors are not exceptional agents, they simply pay to be
members and gain access to the MLS. My dad was a member for the longest time
just to have access to the MLS. After all, when a customer asks you to help
buy a home, where are you going to get your list of available properties from?

In order for Open Listings to succeed they're going to have to upset the MLS.
This means building their own listings. Here's my (crazy) suggestion: Hire 20+
people to drive around the Bay Area looking for "for sale" signs in order to
populate their database. It's what my dad and I used to do before he paid to
be a Realtor. Once we had a list of available properties we could show them to
clients.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> Certainly there is more competition for agents in Palo Alto, but the actual
> amount of work done by a real estate agent in PA is damn near equivalent to
> the work done by one in SB. There are standard California forms,
> inspections, financing etc. The only "added perks" provided by luxury firms
> in the Bay Area are aesthetic improvements designed to attract wealthy
> buyers.

Work != value.

Here, you seem to have overlooked the fact that Open Listings is trying to
"disrupt" the buyer's agent (although technically that's what it is). If you
think the only thing a buyer's agent has to do to close deals in hot markets
like Palo Alto is to submit an offer and run through the motions, you're
mistaken. A great agent can be the difference between getting a property or
not.

> For those who are interested, innovation in the real estate market has been
> difficult due to the monopoly on housing listings. The "Multiple Listing
> Service" ([http://www.mls.com/](http://www.mls.com/)) is the only master
> directory of housing lists and is only made available to "Realtors". In case
> you didn't know, Realtors are not exceptional agents, they simply pay to be
> members and gain access to the MLS. My dad was a member for the longest time
> just to have access to the MLS. After all, when a customer asks you to help
> buy a home, where are you going to get your list of available properties
> from?

You do realize that the number of pocket listings has grown substantially in
the past several years, right? In some markets, pocket listings account for
double digit percentages of sales.

This, incidentally, is another reason to work with an agent who is a top
producer, particularly in a hot market. They're far more likely to be tapped
into the networks that will give their clients access to properties that
haven't hit the MLS.

~~~
aabajian
Admittedly, I've never worked in real estate other than the brief stories with
my father.

>> A great agent can be the difference between getting a property or not.

I've heard such success stories, and I agree with you. An agent knowledgeable
about one city would be ill suited to sell homes in another. It's very
difficult for an agent to transition between cities, even if that agent is
excellent at selling properties in his or her current city. Success depends
too much on how much an agent knows about the local region and community. The
point I was trying to make was that the amount of knowledge is relatively
constant (e.g. what sellers look for in a buyer), it's just a different body
of knowledge that depends on the region.

>> You do realize that the number of pocket listings has grown substantially
in the past several years, right?

No, I did not realize, sorry for my narrow perspective!

>> They're far more likely to be tapped into the networks that will give their
clients access to properties that haven't hit the MLS.

This is again to my point - the success of an agent depends more on what they
know about their region (e.g. available properties, all-cash offers vs. larger
offers, etc.), than the actual amount of work.

IMHO it simply isn't enough of a difference to justify a 10-fold increase in
price. Palo Alto is an extreme example. There are likely niche communities
where buyers would rather pay a fixed-cost and accept the risk inherent with
taking a less-reputable agent.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> This is again to my point - the success of an agent depends more on what
> they know about their region (e.g. available properties, all-cash offers vs.
> larger offers, etc.), than the actual amount of work.

Knowledge is money. This is just as true in real estate as it is in, say,
software development.

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forgottenacc56
I know this isn't the right forum for anything but enthusiasm, but I cant help
feeling that it's getting ever harder to find exciting things to work on.

I can see there's innovation here and hard work but not much is inspiring.

~~~
basch
construction industry document management.

there needs to be a medium.com for rfp/rfi/rfq etcs that has digital
signatures, and allows anyone, no matter how little technology experience they
have to jump in and make and collaborate on industry documents and contracts.

~~~
onlyfortoday2
whats wrong with these?

[http://www.filestreamsystems.co.uk/construction-document-
man...](http://www.filestreamsystems.co.uk/construction-document-
management.htm)

[http://www.unionsquaresoftware.com/document-management-
syste...](http://www.unionsquaresoftware.com/document-management-system/)

[http://www.mclarensoftware.com/industries/construction.aspx](http://www.mclarensoftware.com/industries/construction.aspx)

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rdl
Wow (I missed alumni demo day this year because I'm at a conference in
Florida). I knew about a lot of these already, and some are great, but of
those I didn't know about -- if [http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/16/shift-labs-
medical-devices-...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/16/shift-labs-medical-
devices-dripassist/) is actually possible, executes well, etc., it's going to
be amazing, both in terms of any potential profits, but more importantly,
changing the industry. Less extortionately expensive medical devices would be
huge, especially outside the developed world. If equipment drops in price so
it can be updated more frequently, it should evolve faster, and rapidly get
better than the expensive equipment even independent of cost, too.

~~~
anon8418
FDA clearance is a real pain. I spent some time at a medical device
manufacturer and saw very long cycles from R&D to FDA clearance.

I see their point about the high average cost of most medical devices, but I'm
interested in why they started out with an infusion pump... that market is
pretty competitive, even in the low-cost segment.

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lancewiggs
A down under perspective - some potential conversations to have:

Seed, Kickpay: Xero.com, others in their ecosystem. (data)

NextTravel: Serko.com (direct competition, large)

Industrial microbes: lanzatech.com (did this with 1 use case)

Valor: taggle.com.au (long lasting remote meters)

Open Listings: 200square.co.nz (similar)

Spire: fphcare.co.nz (respiratory specialists)

Smarking: frogparking.com (the parking sensors)

Pretty Instant: magicmemories.com (tourist photos)

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andrelaszlo
Pedantic moment (Lumi): "Everyone is starting their own business, and everyone
needs help getting their brand out their."

This is a typo, right? Or is it a pun that I'm not getting? :)

~~~
danieltillett
I would say it is a bad pun.

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Alex3917
This seems like it's by far the strongest batch ever. All of the ideas are
solid, and it seems like most of them are in fast-growing markets and already
have traction. Whereas even as recently as five years ago, it seemed like at
least a third of the startups were built around ideas that were barely even
plausible.

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tdaltonc
Part of what's great about the "two people and a laptop" startup is that it
empowers outsiders. You don't need buy-in for the established players. You
just need to be able to execute. I wonder if the shift away form "two people
and a laptop" and towards bio and energy is signaling the waning of the anti-
establishment startup.

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shortoncash
I'm wondering why YC invested in DirectMatch. Market volumes have been abysmal
the past few years and I'd have guessed a partner would've picked up on the
shrinking-pie situation and passed.

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highCs
kickpay amazes me: is it available outside the US?

~~~
pmtarantino
I found it amazing too, but I don't know how legal is in another countries.

