

First 5 MVPs greenlighted - benologist
http://hnproposition.blogspot.nl/2013/02/first-5-mvps-green-lighted.html

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therealarmen
This is awesome. There is, no doubt, going to be a lot of haters complaining
about how hmexx is taking advantage of techies/the terms are unfair/don't do
it/etc.

But the reality is he/she is putting money where his/her mouth is, and _making
it happen_. To come up with something completely new like this takes guts, and
even moreso to follow through. The fact that ~300 proposals were submitted is
evidence that demand exists for such a program.

Also interesting is the fact that 4 out of the 5 participants selected are
located outside of the United States. We'll see if geographic distance becomes
an issue. I've long thought YC is missing out on a lot of talented developers
who may not have the freedom to drop everything and move to Mountain View.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the results!

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31reasons
Where did you find 300 proposal number? didn't see that in the blog.

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therealarmen
[http://hnproposition.blogspot.nl/2013/01/0-unread-
emails_23....](http://hnproposition.blogspot.nl/2013/01/0-unread-
emails_23.html)

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dougk16
You should apply for the upcoming YC batch with this project...that would be
so meta.

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Eduardo3rd
Kickstarter's terms of use explicitly say you can't Kickstart a Kickstarter
competitor on Kickstarter. I wonder if YC would accelerate another
accelerator?

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alanctgardner2
It sounds like some preposterous way to break the speed of light; we'll just
accelerate the accelerator, and it's turtles all the way down.

On the one hand, it reduces YC's risk even further, by giving them a miniscule
stake in a wide range of companies. But I don't think they would be content
with helping the meta-accelerator; they'd want to be hands-on with every node
on the tree. That's a lot of time investment with little capital investment,
which is not really their bag.

The proposition generally seems less like an accelerator, and more like a
small-scale VC fund. Less intensive, less structured, just a way to invest
money in startups.

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jacquesm
They'd have a front row seat when the companies in 'tier 2' eventually apply.
After all YC is a lot more than just cash.

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bwilliams18
Yeah. They could use this sort of thing as a bye or something. It can help
them see who is already doing good and interesting work.

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jacquesm
see also:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5037694>

and later:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5039241>

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guycook
whilst I'm usually loathe to see comments such as this, I was interested in
reading this and must say:

The post is completely unreadable on opera mobile, whether I send through
desktop or mobile UA, and on default 2.3 browser. Guess I'll give it a read at
work tomorrow.

~~~
StavrosK
I can confirm this, although this is Blogspot, so the author probably won't be
able to do much about it.

Also, you are "loath", rather than "loathe".

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ricardobeat
What's the reason for so much secrecy? Besides having no idea who is behind
it, we now have no info about the selected companies :)

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martinced
I'm not sure it's secrecy: it's investment on a smaller level and investing in
smaller teams (4 out of the 5 are solo-founder).

Maybe that nobody got the time to do something "more professional" at the
moment. What counts at the moment is that these solo founder got some
recognition and a little boost thanks to the money.

That part seems to be doing fine. We'll see what comes next.

~~~
ricardobeat
I'm not sure what you're talking about; what I mean is we don't know who hmexx
or any of the founders is, not even a first name, location, or _anything_.

I'm not that paranoid, but if this was a completely imaginary enterprise, we
wouldn't be able to tell.

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sharkweek
Impressive -- I'm excited to watch this progress in the coming months; would
love some form of regular updates.

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JimWillTri
It would be nice to see the HN members step forward and substantiate this - no
need to give away your idea.

