

Unveiling Stealth Y Combinator Startup URX - uptown
http://uncrunched.com/2013/10/08/unveiling-stealth-y-combinator-startup-urx/

======
jmilinovich
Co-founder here - we decided to stay in stealth because we didn't need the
press to get customers.

Our target customers are mobile commerce companies like LivingSocial whose
inventory 1) has a higher cost of sale, and 2) isn't subject to the 30% App
Store rake. This means that they are willing to be more aggressive with their
paid marketing, similar to how things work on the web.

We just posted a case study with LivingSocial on our website if you'd like to
learn more.

~~~
xutopia
Can you explain your choice for the name URX?

~~~
jmilinovich
The name URX stemmed from a conversation our team had with Paul Graham during
YCombinator. PG and our team agreed that URX was the most succinct way to
describe the opportunity behind our vision.

The ability to link into the middle of mobile apps is massive. Imagine where
the web (or AdWords) would be if the deep content within websites was not able
to be indexed or referenced. Right now, most mobile developers don't implement
deeplinks, and even fewer marketers use them to drive traffic.

In concept, "URX" represents this next version of the URL that is built for
the cross-screen, native/web world. URX's mission is to help app developers
and marketers enable and monetize deeplinking in their mobile apps, and the
name "URX" keeps us honest to that.

~~~
lesterbuck
I really like the concept for your company, and I wish you the best.

That said, I have to admit I read your explanation of the name of your company
three times before I understood that you are changing the L in URL into an X.
In my head, I guess I had latched onto the URX as something like "You Are X",
and then that opens up all the possibilities to what I can be, where I am,
etc. That may happen to a lot of people.

Is it possible that, by skipping demo day, you also skipped the communications
training that allows you to transmit your idea in two minutes? Since you are
going to be asked to explain your name dozens if not hundreds of times in the
future, maybe you could iterate on the three paragraphs above until you can
get the URL->URX connection into an ordinary persons head.

~~~
alook
(CTO here) Thanks for the feedback! We didn't actually skip demo day, we did
indeed present and vet our pitch with investors - just figured we didn't need
the press at that point.

Besides "you are X", the other feedback we've gotten is that some people read
it as "irks".

However, in a space full of not-subtly-named companies such as Tap{Stream,
Joy, Jump} and App{Salar, sFlyer, etc}, we'd prefer to stand out with
something that sounds like it might be more than your average DSP.

We also think it could be a cool acronym, but we're keeping that to ourselves
for now :)

------
NathanKP
It's a pity that there is no Ad Block for apps. I hate in app ads like the one
on the Craiglist app in the example picture, and I refuse to use any app that
wastes screen space on ads like that, unless they have an ad free paid version
that I can buy to avoid the ads.

~~~
randomhunt
I've used an AdBlock alike proxy on an OpenWRT a few years ago which stopped a
lot of ads in apps and XBox360, it worked surprisingly well until a power
surge killed the box and I've never investigated hacking my new router.

Perhaps there's a market for such a plug-and-play product?

~~~
alook
Whoa interesting! I've heard of people playing OpenWRT pranks like Upsidedown-
ternet [1], but it's cool to see more practical use cases of router-level
filtering.

Did you hand-roll the ad proxy or find something open-sourced? I'm definitely
a believer that if you don't want ads, the resources should be widely
available to avoid them.

[1] [http://ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html](http://ex-
parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html)

------
saosebastiao
Why did it need to be a stealth startup? It looks like they thought they had a
great idea, but instead of being first to market, they went stealth and let
facebook be first.

~~~
untog
I've come to the conclusion that 90% of 'stealth' startups do so entirely out
of psychology. It's cooler to invest in stealth startup, and the mystery
builds notoriety. I'm not sure it has much if anything to do with the actual
business at hand.

~~~
alook
Personally, I think about this differently; Startups who are outspoken about
what they do early on are generally hoping to benefit from inbound interest.

From what I observed in YC, launching a TechCrunch article typically doesn't
lead to a ton of inbound interest (at least for B2B companies this is true -
if you're Uber/Vine/Tinder/Grouper, it's a different story).

For B2B companies, press helps get investor attention, can help with inbound
hiring, and can potentially help get clients, if your press releases are well
targeted enough (which most aren't).

From our perspective, staying quiet was the default. Now we're at the point
where we're interested in reaching a slightly broader audience.

------
pbreit
I guess I didn't even know that deep-linking from an add was not possible.

It's unfortunate, although sort of understandable, that Facebook is so strict
on how its adds can call-to-action.

~~~
alook
Yeah, it's surprising this medium hasn't been explored more. It seems like
everyone just finally figured out app install ads.

Especially since the nascent mobile advertising market focused so heavily on
the gaming industry, it makes sense that people weren't terribly motivated to
start indexing deep app content early on.

We (at URX) feel especially passionate about non-game apps that we use on a
daily basis, and get excited about the ability to help them grow faster and
reach their users in more relevant ways. Personally I'd prefer to see ads from
apps that I already trust, rather than ads trying to get me to install more
games that don't add a lot of value for me as a non-gamer.

I'm interested to hear what about Facebook's approach [1] is so strict. It's a
little funky that they make you register an ugly custom protocol scheme... in
their words, "the deep link scheme would be your app id prefixed by "fb". e.g
'fb1234567://'". I'm also somewhat surprised that they limit you to a very
specific set of call-to-action phrases: \- Open Link \- Shop Now \- Use App \-
Book Now \- Play Game \- Listen Now \- Watch Video ... "Use App" is a little
boring, isn't it?

Would you have done anything differently than facebook?

I really think twitter is on the right track with Twitter Cards [2]; it seems
that once we're able to better understand the content within apps (or pair it
up with the web equivalents), we can construct a much richer data set and make
awesome new experiences possible in the ways people use their apps.

[1] [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ads-for-apps/mobile-
app...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ads-for-apps/mobile-app-ads-
engagement/)

[2] [https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/app-installs-and-deep-
lin...](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/app-installs-and-deep-linking)

~~~
the_watcher
Facebook is really pick about their buttons and keeping anything that goes
into the News Feed tightly controlled (I don't think it's a bad call by them,
in my experience, the News Feed ads have been pretty relevant to me, and I
don't feel overly spammed). "Use App" could definitely use some work, but I'm
not sure if I have a better general purpose call to action to suggest, and it
seems like most of the use cases are covered by the other options (at least
for now). Maybe in the future they will allow some kind of user submission
that they can approve to allow a bit more flexibility?

Twitter cards are incredible, and really promising. Now Twitter just has to
figure out a way to get people that advertisers reach with them to actually
spend money (not to mention the miles they have to catch up with Facebook on
attribution and conversion tracking).

------
smoyer
What I really need is more ads in my life!

------
ecesena
It looks promising. I don't get:

1\. why they explicitly says that they don't send users to your app, but
either to your mobile website or to the app store

2\. why users, that do not come back to my app, will go back to URX

~~~
jmilinovich
URX links users into the middle of apps, not the app store or mobile web, and
users don't have to use URX just the app developers/marketers.

~~~
ecesena
Omg! I misunderstood from the video, re-watching it was clearer.

------
kaleazy
These guys have a smart team, don't bet against them.

------
carterschonwald
Very cool. I have a friend building something in a related space, he'll be
very happy to discover more competition. Best of luck!

~~~
alook
Thanks! We think it's an exciting space, and feel strongly that deep-linking
is a good starting point to begin breaking down some of the silo's that exist
between apps on our smartphones.

Is your friend anyone we would have heard of? If he's working on deeplinks,
we'd love to get his feedback on our open-source project, Turnpike [1], which
helps developers enable deeplinks in their apps.

[1] [http://urxtech.github.io/turnpike-
ios/](http://urxtech.github.io/turnpike-ios/)

~~~
carterschonwald
I don't think you'd have heard of my friend.

I'm actually doing ad tech consulting with a focus on helping folks integrate
standard machine learning tools into low latency bidding infrastructure. (and
was helping the friend with such)

I'm a bit curious about the "deep learning" remark in your hiring post, i'd be
curious to learn more!

