
Meet the YC S16 Batch - loyalelectron
http://macro.ycombinator.com/articles/2016/05/meet-the-batch/
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brokentone
This post isn't terribly interesting (introducing a new series), and the
headline is incredibly misleading -- it's "Meet the first YC S16 company," not
meet the batch of companies.

Perhaps this could be repointed to Revlo directly:
[http://themacro.com/articles/2016/05/revlo/](http://themacro.com/articles/2016/05/revlo/)

~~~
nickpsecurity
That's exactly what I referred to in my comment. Terrible title. Expected list
of companies and what they do like in recent contest.

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fitzwatermellow
I have noticed Revlo on Twitch! ("what on earth is a goon dollar???") No
brainer selection for YC. Looks like a compelling digital currency solution
for fan bases. And this space, whatever you want to call it, "internet video
viewer engaement", is gargantuan, nascent.

Just curious, without given too much away, what's the endgame with Revlo?
Create the ultimate platform on top of Twitch, Youtube, etc. that content
creators can then use to run karaoke contests, create mini games, raffle
prizes and such? Or scouting and developing talent and creating their own
studio and channels? Good luck and congrats!

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ahueniken
Adam (one of the cofounders) here. Our long-term goal is definitely to help
creators interact with and engage their fans regardless of what platform they
use. Twitch was a natural starting point because interaction already plays
such a critical role in the content.

~~~
oneloop
Hi Adam,

do you think that Revlo suffers from the typical "building on top of someone
else's platform" problem? It seems to me that this game always end up with you
either being acquired by the platform or being screwed over. What's your view
on this?

Congratulations on the work so far! :-)

~~~
ahueniken
I think it's absolutely a challenge building on someone else's platform, but I
don't think those are the only two outcomes. Think of a company like
Hootsuite, it leverages these social platforms but solves a set of needs for
businesses that Twitter or Facebook can't solve themselves.

These streamers are building their livelihood and businesses off of multiple
platforms and have a number of needs that Twitch isn't likely to solve. How do
I keep my community engaged when I'm not live-streaming on twitch? How do I
work with brands and sponsors?

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katm
Since this is something new we're trying for the S16 batch, we'd love to hear
feedback. Is there any information about the companies you'd like to see?
Formats you'd like to see us try?

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samstave
slightly off-topic, but "amazeballs" is a terrible terrible word :-/

on-topic: Why did you only include one company in this post? Are you going to
reveal one daily or something?

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gkoberger
(For context, neither YC nor any YC Company chose that word. It was a word
used by a famous Twitch user to describe her "currency")

~~~
samstave
Thanks. I am getting old as I can measure by how far away I am from the gaming
community now - which gaming is what got me into computers and the
industry....

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Scirra_Tom
I do like the idea of Revlo. However could it be fair to consider Revlo a
missing feature of Twitch? If Twitch bring out their own similar program I
imagine it would spell bad news.

Secondly, is there any possibility Twitch would not like Revlo in that it
might be increasing the number of people who leave Twitch running in the
background but never watch it?

Also, is it fair to say you may be incentivising people to stream multiple
times with multiple accounts to rack up the points and have a much better
chance of winning the prize draws? My experience is prizes don't have to be
that valuable for people to make big efforts to game it!

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GolfyMcG
To answer your first point, you could argue that but the reality for Twitch is
that they may not possess the bandwidth to build it themselves.

That's not to say that they aren't smart enough, or don't have the money, or
don't possess some sort of hard skill or item that would let them do it. It's
the nature of successful companies to focus on their core competencies and
Twitch may consider it not worth the risk of distracting themselves. If it
picks up traction, they will go to Revlo and look to invest/obtain warrants in
the business. If it's even more successful, they'll try to acquire it and then
they'll have the solution without all the risk.

This dynamic is played out in a lot of industries and is hardly a reason to
not pursue this idea.

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eecks
This is a cool format. I look forward to the coming profiles.

I feel like if I had a startup in the batch the bio for me would read like ..
"normal guy trying his best". Makes me think I would never be suited for stuff
like this.

~~~
ones_and_zeros
Not to take anything away from this team, but one of the few points of one of
the cofounders bios is the size of his bookshelf in minecraft...

~~~
eecks
Still an interesting fact. I am terrible at self assessment.

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nickpsecurity
Is there a list of these somewhere with all the names, brief descriptions, and
links in one place?

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BinaryIdiot
Since there are so many in this batch it seems like a good idea. I'm curious
though; what happens to the companies that pivot? It seems like we hear
stories from YC batches constantly where their original idea almost worked or
maybe just never worked and they pivoted sometimes by a huge margin by the
end. So the founder profiles for the first half of companies may be very wrong
by the time demo day comes around.

Will there be updating? Will this be a permanent page where, 5 years from now,
someone can see each batch from S16?

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wj
I like the idea and look forward to hearing about the companies outside of
TechCrunch articles (not that there is anything wrong with that but like
variety).

One interesting thing that will come out of this for some of us is that we
will be able to see the number of founders for each company. I know it is said
there are some solo-founders but I've never seen it said how many are in each
batch.

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kriro
Why is there no Revlo shirt for Julie? I'd also like to know a bit more about
what James actually did at the non-profit. I'm assuming some sort of customer
development/sales/acquisition as that skill is lacking from the description of
the other two. If so that seems like a pretty interesting and balanced team.

~~~
cahoodle
Hey Kriro! We didn't know there was going to be a photo taken and Adam & I
just happened to wear the same shirt haha. For the skill sets, you are right.
I've done a couple of BD internships in the valley, and for the non-profit, I
helped with planning, recruiting and fundraising!

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nxzero
Maybe I missed it, but was a list release providing the name, URL, etc. of the
YC S16 batch?

If not, why? If so, anyone have a link to it?

~~~
tyre
There is no such list and won't be.

YC allows companies to choose when they announce their acceptance. It holds
some press value, so may as well be used strategically. Transparency here is
interesting to the community, but left up to the company founders as to when
they want to go public.

~~~
nxzero
This list appears to be unofficial, but pretty good:

[http://yclist.com](http://yclist.com)

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ecesena
I really liked the post on Revlo, which I agree it's the link I'd expect to
see here.

Personally, I'd be also interested about the founders relation before starting
the company, i.e. yc question on how did the founder meet.

