

Y Combinator Demo Day Spring 2009 - aneesh
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/18/y-combinator-demo-day-spring-2009/

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agotterer
Congrats to everyone!

reMail: what will you guys be doing differently then the new iPhone email
search announcement from yesterday?

and

Wattvision: what are you guys doing differently then Googles plan for web
based energy readings?

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gruseom
_Wattvision: what are you guys doing differently then Googles plan for web
based energy readings?_

Well, for one thing, Wattvision _exists_. Google put out a press release. For
another, Wattvision works with existing power meters. Google (and pretty much
everybody else) is waiting for the magical day that everybody gets new meters.

(Just to be clear, I'm not part of Wattvision.)

~~~
avibryant
To an outside observer, Wattvision doesn't exist yet either :). But given that
I doubt I'll be getting a new meter anytime soon, it does seem a better bet.
If anyone from Wattvision is reading, I would love to be a beta tester...

~~~
savrajsingh
Hi Avi -- email me at savraj [at] wattvision.com and we'll see what we can do!
And Gruseom is spot on with his answers -- thanks Gruseom!

~~~
ajju
I would like to beta test as well. I live in an apartment though so I guess
I'll have to convince our officemanager to install this at work. Will give it
a shot if you need beta testers.

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zhyder
Congrats!

I'm intrigued that YC is doing more non-web/non-SW startups: Wattvision and
Propable in this batch. Does YC add just as much value in such different
areas?

~~~
JacobAldridge
One of the basic premises of my firm (Shirlaws) is that all businesses are the
same once you remove what they actually do.

In other words, the business advice, perspective and experience YC bring will
apply just as well.

Note - this is based on my understanding, which is that YC help with the
business not sitting down and helping you code.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_all businesses are the same once you remove what they actually do_

no offense, but this makes almost no sense. I mean, I guess when you remove
what reader's digest, ycombinator, and my local model train shop all actually
do, they're "the same" in that they have customers and exist to make a profit,
but that's hardly a practical or helpful piece of information.

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AlexTheFounder
Why there were only 15 or 16 startups? Was it the initial number or have some
companies not made it to the Demo Day?

~~~
wumi
airBnB did not present

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markessien
I happen to now that the largest energy supplier in Germany has a concept
similar to what wattvision is doing. The dude who was working on it was
working at the same lab as I was, and he told me about the concept. It's some
type of infrared thing you put on top of your meter, and it sends the signal
per wlan and desktop client to the web.

So, the wattvision idea seems like it's going to be the new hotness in coming
months.

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wumi
This is a great list of the YC start-ups that launched, but doesn't look like
it's an actual writeup of the event.

Was much more exciting in person.

Companies were phenomenal.

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vaksel
It seems that most of those companies have already launched. In the past,
wasnt' demo day the point where everyone launched?

~~~
immad
Demo day is for investors. No one ever launches on demo day. More people that
are launched before demo day the better it is.

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sachinag
I hope this doesn't turn into a "let's pick winners and losers" thing today.
We can do that tomorrow.

Let's just congratulate all 16 teams on being accepted into YC and for making
it to Demo Day successfully. I hope you're all getting wildly drunk and then
sleep for a very long time tomorrow morning.

~~~
pg
They presumably wouldn't be getting drunk tonight, because there is a second
(identical) day of Demo Day tomorrow. We can't fit all the investors into our
building at once, so Demo Day is now actually 2 days.

~~~
sachinag
That is _incredible_. There are that many legitimate investors are still out
there? Wow. I'm just so impressed with YC.

(Send them my way. If they won't travel to Chicago, I'll come out to GDC next
week. :) )

~~~
pg
The audience today was one of the most encouraging signs I've seen that the
recession is not going to shut down the startup world. Not just the number of
people, but the degree of interest they had. You could not have told there was
anything amiss with the economy if you didn't already know.

~~~
anamax
The technical term is "flight to quality" and it's actually an indicator of
economic hard times.

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yan
wow! wattvision is _exactly_ the idea I had for a personal project.

~~~
ph0rque
that was the idea my ex-startup did: i-conserve.com (it's been since sold to
getgreenbox.com)

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davi
wattvision sounds interesting, hadn't heard of it previously

