
Ask YC: What did YC see in Disqus? why are they special? - shayan
I used Disqus and liked it, and would like to congratulate them on their recent launch.  But this is a very competitive market.  Disqus is doing a good job, but I am not too clear how (in a major way) they differentiate from others.  But they are getting lots of support from important bloggers.  I know they were funded by Y Combinator and spent the summer in Boston. <p>I believe launching a product is as important (if not more important) than the idea, and getting it developed.  These guys have had a great launch.  I want to learn from them.<p>
Here are my questions:<p>Q1: Knowing there is many competition out there (but not exactly any clear leaders!) what made them interesting to Y Combinator, why were they chosen?<p>
Q2: Why so much hype and support (and so many positive reviews all over the place)? is it because of Y Combinator connections and support or there is more to it?<p>Q3: How big is this market and the potential of this business (if things workout for them) that got YC to invest? 
 <p>Note: I am not arguing whether they deserve it or not, and I am not questioning their product (but you could!) I just don't think they have revolutionized, there is many competition and they get the most attention, and I believe this kind of support could make or break a product.  <p>Few similar products: SezWho, Intense Debate, Tangler, JS-Kit, CoComment ...
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mattmaroon
Here's what's special about Disqus's business model/idea:

1\. They have a grand long term plan (provide blog readers a centralized place
to manage discussions on the web). They're sort of a social network in that
way and their value will increase exponentially as their user base does.

2\. They have an easy route to gaining the critical mass, by providing
bloggers a simple plug-in that gives threaded, voteable comments, as well as
some extra kick ass functionality. So they have a ton of initial value even
with no user base.

3\. They have a path to revenue. Large blogs would gladly pay for the service.
And they could form their own ad network, as they know who reads what blogs
(interests). There's also a lot of moving going on in the web publishing
space.

I feel like some of the competitors you've mentioned have parts of the puzzle
but Disqus has the whole thing. Given all that, it's pretty easy to see why Y
C would fund these guys.

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vegashacker
This was surely a factor: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4783>

~~~
mynameishere
I wonder why people do that sort of thing except as an exercise:

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+this+works+perfect...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+this+works+perfectly+well+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&btnG=Search)

~~~
vegashacker
Well, not necessarily disagreeing with you, but as it happens, I used
BigHeadLab's search to find the thread that I linked. I searched

"<http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/>"

(no quotes) on the site <http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/> and the first result
was the one I wanted (although the link format that YC uses has since changed,
so I had to hack the URL).

I tried this Google search, and the result did not appear:

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22http%3A%2F%2Fnyc...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22http%3A%2F%2Fnycs.bigheadlabs.com%2F%22+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&btnG=Search)

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SwellJoe
Because the founders are really smart, capable, and driven. Same reason YC
picks almost every company. The actual business idea is less important than
the founders, as pg has said frequently.

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JMiao
Jason & Daniel make a great team?

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tocomment
The big problem with this product for bloggers is that bloggers won't get any
search traffic from their comments.

Search engines either don't look inside of iframes, or point to the iframe's
URL if they do.

~~~
danielha
While there may be some indexing issues, it is due to another matter
altogether. The comments are not in iframes.

~~~
tocomment
I'm not sure if search engine indexing for comments is too big of a deal
anyway. I still can't think of any way for them to generate the comments in a
search engine friendly way though. Search engine bots don't render Javascript
right?

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russ
They're special cuz they're Aggies! Go Davis!!!

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tocomment
Excellent question. Maybe they have future features planned that will
distinguish them?

~~~
shayan
even if this is true, this will only answer question 1, but what about
question two? why are they getting so much attention from everyone?

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corentin
Maybe because they're good? Even the Uncov guy likes it! :)

~~~
shayan
what do you mean by they? the team or the product? ... if the product, then
how did YC knew it was going to be good... and it takes more than being good
to convince people to take a look at your product .... I think _they are good_
but I don't see how they are so different from other ones... specially since
they are so late in the game ... when you are late and you have a product that
has social aspects to it, you need to do a lot more than being good in order
to compete ... you have a major disadvantage and thats network effects (maybe
not _as_ crucial here since no one has really gained it yet, but once someone
does its very hard to compete) ... also its not that easy to convince a
blogger to switch from their current commenting system to a new one, specially
that they have created an archive for themselves, and many of the current
systems do not let you move your content around (i.e. at the end of the day
you don't really own your comments)

~~~
zaidf
Being different in the manner you describe is overrated.

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richcollins
They have a Hypnotoad.

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Harj
because they get shit done

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shayan
I meant between all those that get shit done what happened here ... I thought
that was clear???

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herdrick
Jason and Daniel.

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alaskamiller
the domain name

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drubio
'why are they getting so much attention from everyone?'

Its called a PR firm, and they take care of bombing every worthy media outlet
with a tailored-made hyper-inflated story on how they will change the world
(a.k.a 'Press release').

They are generally expensive, but are often worth every penny since they have
contacts in all the major media departments, which in turn create this type
buzz. Wait till their PR budget runs out, then we will see if the software
stands on its own.

~~~
pg
_Its called a PR firm_

Neither Disqus nor YC has a PR firm.

I think the main reason Disqus gets attention from bloggers is that it's
designed _for_ bloggers. They know better than anyone what a pain it is to
manage comment threads.

~~~
shayan
could you give some points about Q1 and Q3 as well?

~~~
pg
Q1: They were energetic and smart.

Q3: We liked the idea because it was clearly something the world needed.
Comments are badly broken on most blogs, including even big ones like
Techcrunch. I have no idea how big the market is in dollars. It's not worth
thinking too much about anyway. Startups evolve. It's enough to start with
something you know people need.

~~~
shayan
thanks for the response, and I am happy to see these as _your_ answers to my
questions

