

YC Demo Day Session 4: Shoptiques, Pair, Daily Muse, Per Vices, iCracked - canistr
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/27/y-combinator-demo-day-session-4/

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zzzmarcus
Wow. With Pair ze frank's vision from years ago (2007) of a social network for
two has become reality.

<http://www.zefrank.com/social_network/>

<http://www.trypair.com/>

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Alex3917
I am curious about Pair's user acquisition strategy, as the concept is (by
definition) almost as anti-viral as possible. It seems like it would be much
easier to create something similar for cliques, make it support up to 8
people, and market it to middle- and high school kids. And then enable
anonymous inter-group (as opposed to intra-group) messaging, so that way there
is a vector of virality. Obviously a smaller market though.

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karamazov
It's not anti-viral; I tried it out with my significant other to see how it
worked, and I'll recommend it to people who travel frequently or are in long-
distance relationships. Obviously, I won't be using it with them, but that's
different.

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newhouseb
Per Vices is every geeks dream but how on are they going to get past FCC
regulations?

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rdl
Software Defined Radios have been sold for a while -- just not so cheaply, and
as easy to use. (I think the Ettus USRPs have been around for a while; first
as kits and now as assembled devices; SDR itself has been built into a lot of
shipping products).

The FCC actually came out with revised regulations in 2005 and 2007 to make
SDR easier to approve, and to allow open source software for them. I think
there are different regimes for test equipment vs. type-approved consumer
devices.

~~~
newhouseb
I see, I was under the impression they could only be used for non-commercial
purposes, i.e. not sold. My impression was that this was partly why people
weren't selling GNURadio's but rather the kits.

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panthera
Re: pair, what if you have more than one chick?

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kyenneti
I am so impressed with icracked and their 2 awesome business models. Onsite
Technicians and repair yourself tool kits. This is a real business. Hope they
succeed big time.

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defen
In case the Per Vices people are reading - I tried to go to the "Buy It" link
but I'm getting a PHP error.

~~~
wollesen
Thanks - The Per Vices people are reading, and the link is fixed.

~~~
rachelbythebay
You're also using file URIs in some of your web pages. Check out the
community_form.html where it handles shortcut icons.

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psycho
And what's so cool about AnyVivo?

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rdl
People buy a lot of pets, Amazon won't touch them (one of the few legal areas
of commerce which Amazon can't dominate; guns are another...).

They've been making a lot of money (and 50-60% margin) in the past few weeks
selling jellyfish, which I didn't realize was even possible to keep as a pet.
Presumably as they move into other more interesting pets, they will make more
money.

~~~
psycho
I guess, it's good business but I never noticed YC backing such "trivial" kind
of business.

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gibybo
What makes selling live animals trivial?

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hackinthebochs
I think he means the "change the world" vibe we get from a lot of startups. I
think its great YC is broadening its scope into more traditional businesses.

~~~
psycho
Well, you got it right - YC is broadening its scope - that means that this
investment is really kind of new type for Graham and co. I guess, I should not
ask what was so cool in AnyVivo but try to say in another words that it looks
like a turn to traditional spheres to me.

~~~
rdl
It's probably true that YC companies are more willing to have a physical
component (producing hardware hasn't worked out very well, but service,
inventory, etc. might) now than in the past, but that is probably true of
startups in general (Square is a great example; a tiny loss-leader physical
product which is the wedge into a trillion dollar business).

