
Six best start-ups from Y Combinator demo day - polvi
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10199730-2.html
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gojomo
The writeup describes Wattvision as being "whole-house only". For all I know,
that's true.

However, if it's got sufficient resolution to give "15 second" updates, it
seems you could train it to recognize certain draws: holding everything else
constant, turn individual items on at exact cues given by the software.

(The software might even be able to form hypotheses about individual draws
before they're exactly named. Then the user just goes in and recognizes
certain steps on the constructed timeline: "oh, yeah, that's the hallway light
I turn on when I get home from work, and that's obviously the electric dryer,
and this random thing must be the refrigerator compressor coming on and off
through the night.")

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savrajsingh
You're right -- there's a lot of stuff Wattvision can do with the data we
gather today. There's no reason we can't make smart conclusions about what's
running (as gojomo suggests) or or eventually expand to per-device sensors.
We're just starting simple.

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danw
Combine those two ideas and you can do "Your washing machines energy profile
has changed for the worse, perhaps you should get it serviced?"

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old-gregg
Am I the only pessimist here? After being bombarded with "ideas are cheap"
nonsense all I can see is the same old "share, sync, discover, publish" stuff
re-packaged and re-wrapped with different version of rounded corners, peppered
with the same old&boring punches like "groundbreaking", "easy to use" and
"disruptive" over and over again?

I mean come on, does anyone really believe that sharing a photo on the net is
an unsolved problem?

Hey, here's an unsolved problem for you: endless signups everywhere - every
single person who owns a computer will tell you that they're fucking tired of
logging into gmail or yahoo mail or whatever, and "remember me" checkboxes
work only for a little while. But sharing a photo online? I never heard anyone
complaining: we all have multiple "Share!!!" buttons staring at us in iPhoto,
Picasa, Vista, whatever and we don't give a flying fuck.

And how about millions of people screaming in pain who sit in front of their
half-dead Windows machines, overloaded with spyware, malware, bloated slow
registry and 8174 useless "services" running in background, slowing everything
down, showing marketing messages from Logitech and overall ruining their
everyday experience? Who's smart enough to solve that mess in 3 months?

Those obvious, screaming-in-your-face issues remain unsolved because they are
_HARD_ and, therefore, fall into a problematic category of problems that work
against conventional "release often, release early" wisdom. After all, it
seems like sending 140 characters to a list of subscribers can pass as a
billion dollar technology, why bother with stupid Windows users?

Actually I believe that great, ambitious ideas are very, very rare and are, by
far, the most important ingredient for a true innovation, for a true
sustainable business. Great idea, more than anything else, separates Googles,
Microsofts and Yahoos from thousands of tiny "widget" startups, focused on
minimal coding and fastest time-to-flip, created and sold-or-died within two
years, leaving everybody but the founders with nothing but lesser quality of
personal lives, which makes their "change the world with us" hiring songs look
kinda hilarious.

Ideas are priceless. If you are a programmer and you aren't "plugged" into the
bubble money, a great idea is your only chance. Crappy-idea-great-execution
companies are usually examples of networking/salesmanship skills, something
programmers aren't terribly good at.

In the end, not a single YC-funded startup can compete with something like
Mongrel, a one-man non-commercial effort which, when measured in value it
brought into this world, or how much people wanted it, is what defines wealth,
according to PG's own writings. I've been following YC-backed companies for
more than 2 years and not a single one produced something I wanted. Come on, I
am a computer-savvy, technology-loving, ad-blocking geek with a huge PC-per-
capita ratio and a hefty tech gadget/software monthly budget, how come none of
these startups managed to get a single dollar out of me? Am I alone asking
myself this question?

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breck
>> Come on, I am a computer-savvy, technology-loving, ad-blocking geek with a
huge PC-per-capita ratio and a hefty tech gadget/software monthly budget, how
come none of these startups managed to get a single dollar out of me? Am I
alone asking myself this question?

Dropbox is one that immediately comes to mind that has solved a very hard
problem that I pay for.

Also keep in mind that these startups are 10 weeks old and are at most 3
people. Sometimes solving hard problems takes time. Sometimes it's the
byproducts of the original idea that end up solving a really hard problem
(such as a new web server).

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inrev
> how come none of these startups managed to get a single dollar out of me? Am
> I alone asking myself this question?

Count me in. :)

> Dropbox is one that immediately comes to mind that has solved a very hard
> problem that I pay for.

Not really... It is not so hard to setup SVN, Apache, WebDAV, and NetDrive,
and you got your own Dropbox...

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cedsav
That would still count as solving a very hard problem for 99% of people.

It's even a hard problem for me, not because I can't set up svn/apache/webdav
and whatever, but because I need to actively avoid doing this kind of things
and focus on higher order issues.

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dpnewman
I would say that no problem is ever "solved". So, while "me too" offerings are
ever abundant, it's always gonna be a few that offer something that resonates
on a greater level, and offers yet a better way sometimes in arenas that we
don't even see as problems.

I also think that beyond the login issue -- the whole social network concept
ultimately has to be pulled from being site-centric into being web-centric.
The web itself in its entirety _is_ my social network; and I bring different
friend combos and profiles with me to the different places I go -- gracefully
evolving these rather than constantly recreating them.

Certainly there needs to be a "lightly branded" API for friendship/profile but
beyond that I think the missing piece is a best-of-breed UI that sites can be
"inject" to leverage the API. Should only require a few lines of Javascript
code to add a friendship system. FB Connect can be learned from in this ...
paving that road -- it's limitation in my opinion is the heavy branding and
assumption that we only will need 1 set of friends or 1 profile and. Of course
...the challenge is adoption... without the easy add injected UI, complete
coverage of friendship and profile management ...a simple API alone or
universal login system is not enough.

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ibsulon
The one thing I'm not sure about foodoro is... I understand paying one
shipping price if I'm buying from a food catalog. However, buying six things
from six vendors gets expensive pretty quickly. (Ten dollars of shipping for
three fairly lightweight items?)

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diN0bot
Plus, I'd rather see a company encouraging people to buy local and depend less
on high-energy infrastructure. I suppose specialty food shops could themselves
buy local and avoid supporting mega-corp farms, and there are likely other
'goods' I'm not seeing right now. Nonetheless, this strikes me as the wrong
direction. Maybe I'm temporarily blinded by recent 'rebuild better over the
recession' optimism.

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patio11
_Plus, I'd rather see a company encouraging people to buy local and depend
less on high-energy infrastructure_

The high-energy infrastructure is the car trip to "local", not making
additional use at the margin of mail trucks which would travel the same
streets regardless of whether they had another case of organic blueberry jam
on them or not.

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Tichy
I like thesixtyone. I wish we could start over with music and eliminate all
non-free music from the world. Sure, there is the one or other old gem I am
still attached to (Radiohead for example), but the sacrifice would be worth
it.

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unalone
That's an awful mindset to have.

With all respect to TheSixtyOne, the minds in the world that are making the
best music aren't putting their stuff into a social commune. They're aware of
how talented they are, and as such they're looking for compensation for their
ability.

In all of history, the vast majority of the best art has come to us
commercially. There are always exceptions, and it tends to be that the free
breeding grounds lead to the next generation's brilliant artists, but people
do things for money. To quote a brilliant actor in a film by a gifted
director, both of whom were paid substantially: "If you can do something well,
never do it for free."

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Tichy
It's more complicated than that. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but
the best artists also admit that they are standing on the shoulders of giants.
A piece of music that I am not allowed to "use", other than passively consume,
is worthless to me - as worthless as watching TV 24/7. It might be
entertaining, but in the end I would wish that I had not wasted my time in
such a way. In that sense I wish the "closed source art" would not even exist,
because at the end of the day it is just a pain in the butt.

Take photography, for example: say there is a really nice building in a
street, an architectural marble. Fine - only now I am not allowed to take a
photo of my girl-friend in front of the building anymore and put it on the
internet, because the architect has the copyright. I'd rather live in a world
where I can take a photograph without having to consult a lawyer first.
Ultimately the art is interesting to me because of it's meaning, not because
of it's commercial value.

I am not at all against artists earning money, but I don't think TheSixtyOne
is a piracy site, either.

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jacoblyles
Foodoro seems most clearly positioned to make money. Some of the others look
like it's acquisition or bust.

It's nice to see that most are trying to charge for something.

It's easy to see how cloudkick could make money, especially since their
competitors already charge for similar services. However, they should probably
put out a pricing plan soon. It might even draw more interest to their company
(a giffen good!) because potential customers might want to do business with a
company that looks like it is making money and therefore stable.

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floozyspeak
Another thing people aren't factoring in is the rush YC gets from being the
"great uncle" to all these startups. Incubators are in, they are popping up
all over the country. They themselves are a biz model thats attractive to
investors. Seed money into multiple projects, get a window seat on all the
advancements.

YC is in the biz of banking potential IP.

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joanou
That's a sad bunch of start ups. Nothing excites me and it has all been done
already. If implemented, they'll just add to the noise of little apps that I'd
have to invest time in. Oh yea...how are they going to acquire customers and
make a profit?

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inrev
Is there any video coverage of the event?

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socmoth
usually it isn't filmed because people haven't launched. it is an investor
event, not a publicity event.

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saprasad
I have an idea. Please comment on it. Idea is about a personal info mgmt site.
The system allows user to define any number of entity like Contact
(Name,Address, Phone No, ..), CC-Txion Info (...) in easy steps (like online
form creator but easier) and add data to it. Allows to download data (Excel)
and cleanup the data if needed. Common search feature to search for info
across all entities. Basically this system lies between Unstructured wiki
(Easy) and Complex website generator (Online form/page builder) (Complex).

