

Why did 30-year-old former Microsoft engineers apply to YC? - amitutk
https://medium.com/p/d639607056f6

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flyinglizard
I don't like doing this because I'm a founder too and, well, "you don't shit
where you eat" \- you don't go and pass judgement about the ventures of others
because you don't want to be in their spot yourself.

Nevertheless, I couldn't help but notice their landing page reeks of buzzword
laden hustle and nothing more. This, to me, is not a legitimate venture, or at
least not presented as such.

1\. The service doesn't seem to exist;

2\. The landing page textual content is badly made and badly spelled, which
makes you question the capabilities and efforts of the team behind it;

3\. They have this slider that name drops companies they have nothing to do
with (AirBnB, CoffeeTable etc) with some headline stats and icons, and slides
out of your way just before you begin to read the smaller print, which is
about how these companies improved business metrics using push notifications.
It has nothing to do with _their_ product whatsoever. But you wouldn't think
that on first glance, as they deliberately made it look like customer
testimonials. This to me is a huge red flag;

4\. They have a $599 recommended plan which is way above what SaaS MVPs
usually aim for;

5\. Microsoft employs ~100k people worldwide. Being a Microsoft employee is
completely meaningless in this context, and I feel is only used to lend them
credibility in light of points #1-#4.

There's a very fine line between MVP, hustling and outright scamming. I feel
they went too far. I'm sorry if I hurt someone's feelings but I doubt this is
YC material.

~~~
mattmanser
I think the service looks very, very interesting. A potential conversion game
changer.

There's actually not a single link to the website in the post, I'm pretty
certain they've not even got an MVP yet, or if they do it'll just be string
and duct tape. He talks about phone interviews, they're still in customer
exploration.

I think it entirely depends on the light you look at it in. Turn to the left
slightly, and it suddenly looks like the beginnings of something that just
needs a bit of tiller correcting, a bit more businessman, a bit less engineer.

That style of writing on the blog and on the website, to me, is very Indian. I
think it's just a cultural difference, try re-reading it.

And in the end if all they get out of the application is a clearer vision,
they still got something out of it.

OTOH I'm not sure why he thinks YC doesn't accept 30 year olds with solid
engineering backgrounds...

~~~
flyinglizard
[http://informion.com](http://informion.com) is what I assumed their service
is. I apologize if this is not the service they discuss (this is what appears
on the author's bio line at the bottom).

When I wrote my comment it was really coming from a place of honest criticism.
It wasn't cautionary, as I don't expect most HN-ers to go dropping $599 on
their recommended plan. As a founder myself, I felt I had to give them my
opinion of how this looks from the outside. Yes they had spelling errors as
other posters politely noted but this is just going around the edges of the
core issue here.

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daviding
Good luck. As constructive criticism of the headline, my mind fleetingly tried
to parse what a 'yo' engineer was (and a Microsoft one at that), and why 30 of
them had applied for YC. :)

~~~
ritwikt
Good point and well 30 yo's applying to YC was funny .. Fixed it in the
original post.

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kgb-11
note to founders, your landing page has several typos. the headline is the
most glaring one.

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lukasm
"Do not have network intros to YC-Partners" that got me thinking what are my
odds of getting in. pg once said "your chances are either very high or very
low". No intros. Haven't co-founder a successful startup in the past. Haven't
worked for FB. I'm from "middle of nowhere".

~~~
ritwikt
We really have none of these - yet wanted to apply and encourage others like
us to apply. We laid out our reasons with the hope to encourage a few more to
polish their customer pitches using the framework we used ...

For us it came to two things: a. Did we FEEL that the guys running the
accelerator cared b. Had we developed respect for their OPINIONS As I said we
found 3 fitting our criteria and YC was only one

That Ethos seems to be have been lost :( ..

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m0g
Please don't use caps meaninglessly. This blog is awfully hard to read.

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vqc
I wonder how big of an effect getting on the front page of HN has on your YC
application. I can't imagine it being that much, but this won't be the first
time someone has tried (and succeeded).

~~~
ritwikt
I must say that we really didn't plan it this way we wrote this yesterday
given we felt strongly about it.

The intent was not necessarily to talk about YC but to:

1\. Spell out the framework we used to evaluate accelerators so others could
use it as appropriate For us it came to two things: a. Did we FEEL that the
guys running the accelerator cared b. Had we developed respect for their
OPINIONS As I said we found 3 fitting our criteria and YC was one among those
– it depends on what pre-access founders get to these guys/their thoughts –
being in Seattle guys @ 9 mile have helped us out from even before we left our
day jobs, similarly Andy and Techstars alum has been nothing but vested.
Thought this will be helpful for others deciding on accelerators.

2\. Using YCs app as a tool for improving sales/pitches We found YCs
application & what they expect to have most resonance with what customers
asked and expected – I would concur that almost all applications have these
questions in one form of the other but PG has done well to express what they
expect in his essay – we found him echoing what our customers expected but
never demanded – so the app could be a tool one could use to refine the sales
call/pitch.

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dalek2point3
You've misspelt "notifiactions" on your main page.

~~~
avilay
Thanks! Fixed it. Please let us know if you spot any other typos.

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jacalata
tl;dr: because we think that the questions asked on the application are good
ones to have considered simply for the future of a startup anyway.

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rco8786
Seems like 30 year old engineers from Microsoft/Amazon would pretty much fit
in perfectly to an ideal YC founding team.

