
$100k in One Month Challenge: Help YC News! - andrew_yates
 Here's the deal:<p>I met this guy, Paul Charlton (<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/techguru" rel="nofollow">http://www.linkedin.com/in/techguru</a>), at a SuperHappyDevHouse party (<a href="http://superhappydevhouse.org/" rel="nofollow">http://superhappydevhouse.org/</a>).<p>Long story short, I'm now "Director of Ventures" at <i>Ventures by ByIQ</i>. I'm 23.<p>While the fund is being raised (probably about 10MM), my first task is to "earn $100k in one month."<p>There's no catch, no reward, and no consequence. Just do it and win, or don't do it and fail.<p>The conditions are:<p>- 100k profit. Donations are OK, too.<p>- Selling equity doesn't count towards the goal. Neither does equity valuation of any ventures.<p>- 100k must be cash equivalent, US dollar.<p>
BUT there IS a loophole. I don't have to earn the 100k myself. I merely have to be "responsible" for creating it.<p>That means I can get help. From you.<p>So how about it, YC News?<p>This is a concrete goal and it's the right kick to actually get your business started beyond just "thinking about it." I have a big plan to make this happen, but I'll need good brains on keyboards. If you don't have an idea but have skills, that's fine.<p>Our base of operations is at my office at in Mountain View (<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&#38;hl=en&#38;geocode=&#38;q=415+Clyde+Ave,+Suite+105+Mountain+View&#38;sll=37.0625,-95.677068&#38;sspn=51.754532,82.265625&#38;ie=UTF8&#38;ll=37.395869,-122.047355&#38;spn=0.012802,0.020084&#38;z=16&#38;iwloc=addr&#38;om=1" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&#38;hl=en&#38;geocode=&#38;q...</a>)<p>Oh, and it starts NOON tomorrow (10/8/07 @ 12:00 PST).<p>There is a meeting at Neto Cafe (<a href="http://www.netocaffe.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.netocaffe.com/</a>) on Castro in Mountain View noon tomorrow (Monday) for those interested. RSVP here or just show up.<p>UPDATE
=================<p>I can spot up to $3k for expenses this month per person if you qualify.<p>UPDATE
=================<p>You keep your own money.<p>Think "Profit Pledge Drive." You keep your own profits, but you do have to create them with something that you do within the space of the month. It's the spirit of the thing that matters.<p>Do you log the time you walked to the store in a "walk for cancer research" pledge drive?<p>My personal motivation is to simply see this happen for the hell of it. The company motivation is obviously to gather ambitious and intelligent people, which is significantly more expensive and difficult than spotting a few business expenses to try a few ideas.
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dbrush
Will giving you a bunch of money allow me to "Work at HOME! and earn $5000 a
week!"?

Jokes aside... Can you elaborate on just what "this" and "it" is? Cause "this
and "it" sound like giving your company money without provisions so that you
can continue to remain in its employ.

Superfluous disclosure: I have no idea if I speak for anyone else here.

~~~
andrew_yates
Haha, good point.

You keep your own money.

Think "walk miles for cancer research" drive. The catch is that what creates
the profit needs to be made / done this month. It's against the spirit of the
contest to log income from elsewhere.

Also, this has nothing to do with my employment, nor are you giving me or my
company anything. It's merely a "profit pledge drive." Self reported.

BUT: something like this, in such a short time, is best done collaboratively.
That's the objective. It's a goal, and nothing more or less.

Edit: see update.

~~~
dbrush
The $987,345,897,349,875 question is...

<ultra bold>What, PRECISELY, is it that you want the members of this community
to do?</ultra bold>

\- Write code for you? \- Write a check to you? \- Let you invest in our
startups and liquidate by the end of the month?

The X-Men should bring you on as a cofounder for your keen ability to stump
people with your being vague. This may cause problems for Professor, though,
because he'd then have nothing to read.

~~~
andrew_yates
Pledge profits "in spirit" in a collaborative effort to actually build
something that makes money.

~~~
rms
It was just kind of confusing because this type of challenge was new to all of
us, like I imagine it was to you as well. Good luck with your new job, I'm
sure it will be an interesting VC firm.

This is of course very bubble-tastic but there is a lot of money in popular
Facebook apps. I saw an app for "Fans of Grey's Anatomy" that had 100,000
active users yesterday, there is definitely money in reproducing fan sites for
popular TV shows and bands and movies as Facebook applications.

~~~
axod
I'd love some numbers on that:

Does 'active users' actually equate to profit? I hear clickthrough rates for
advertising on facebook is something like 0.05% If 100,000 users were active,
that would equate to 50 clicks on adverts, which is probably going to make
enough money to buy a coffee or something.

~~~
rms
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=58193>

Apparently the advertising clickthrough rates are better in the apps, possibly
because a lot of facebook app advertisements are paid ads for _other_ apps.

------
jey
Step One: Hold the meeting somewhere other than Neto Cafe. Put the money saved
by not buying $13 salads toward your $100k.

Why is it that googling for "ByIQ" doesn't turn up any useful hits?

~~~
andrew_yates
www.byiq.com

The DNS will be resolved by sometime Monday.

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mynameishere
God damn, this is the most incoherent crap I've read in a long while. Can we
get a downmod arrow?

~~~
Jd
But this is supported by Paul Charlton who has lots of connections on Linked-
In and is in the 'Who's Who of Who's Who' !

------
shawndrost
I'm not sure I understand, but it sounds interesting, you talked about giving
people money, and I think I'd be a candidate, so maybe you can help me with an
example :) Actually, this might even be the best way for you to illustrate to
everyone, so if you can make some kind of canonical statement, it'd be awesome
-- the rest of what's written is kinda scattered.

I've been building something in my spare time for the last few weeks, and it
could be making money in the next month. (It sounds like that's what you're
looking for.) So... what would happen now, exactly? It sounds like all you
want me to do is email you some proof of profit at the end of the month or
something, is that right? You talked about spotting expenses, how would we
arrange that?

------
rms
Can you post an email address? If you have one on your user page, it doesn't
show up publicly which is a "feature", you need to retype in the about area of
your profile page. Or email me at the address in my profile.

~~~
andrew_yates
My email is andrew.yates@byiq.com.

Thanks for the tip.

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alex_c
Just a minor nitpick:

There should probably be a comma between "Help" and "YC News".

------
andrew_yates
Clarification: Pledge profits "in spirit" in a collaborative effort to
actually build something that makes money.

If it can be done for hacking projects, it can be done for business.

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daniel-cussen
Let me get this straight. You want a startup to go from $0 to $100,000 in
revenues in thirty days and prove it to you guys, in exchange for funding?

~~~
rms
He wants n number of people to go from 0 to $100,000 in profit in exchange for
nothing explicit except a mention of paid living expenses, though I imagine an
investor relationship could certainly develop.

------
rms
Does it have to be legal?

~~~
aston
Does it have to be run where it'd be illegal?

~~~
andrew_yates
No. ;)

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prakster
My 2c: At best, this is a prank. Nothing adds up, including the LinkedIn link.
If andrew_yates were serious, he would have explained things in a simpler
manner.

~~~
andrew_yates
I'm in a hurry. I'm making this up as I go. I'm in the luck business of
diversifying risk over lots of stupid ideas very quickly.

~~~
dbrush
"I'm in a hurry. I'm making this up as I go. I'm in the luck business of
diversifying risk over lots of stupid ideas very quickly."

That sentence says volumes, both about you and the organization you're
representing.

~~~
sharpshoot
Then again, if startup founders knew exactly what they were doing all the time
that would be a counter to innovation, which is a function of adaptation and
serendipity.

He knows where he is starting and where is going but not the journey
inbetween. I think thats pretty fair. Give him time.

~~~
amih
We can help him in discovering the journey.

1\. It is quite similar to Steve Pavlina's Million Dollar Experiment.

2\. My interpretation is that this is a sort of a "club" where anyone is
welcome to contribute ideas and work on their own or in ad hoc collaborations
to increase the value to the world and as a by product report their earnings
so that Andrew Yates can add them to his total as being the trigger for this
whole thing. This is like the butterfly effect in chaos theory or a leadership
training in the real world. This month will be fun for the participants and is
achievable.

I won't be able to come to the face to face meeting (I'm in Israel) but will
participate if there is a website. waiting for byiq.com

~~~
andrew_yates
<http://byiq.com/1m1m/>

~~~
amih
Oops, did you just add a zero there?

Instead of 100K you're aiming at 1MM?

I'm working on a subscription based web site, I like the challange and this
will help me to motivate myself to work extra on making it fast!

Thanks! I like the idea.

------
neilk
Nice bait. I can't wait to hear what the switch is.

~~~
dbrush
That his last name is actually Ponzi.

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rms
Do you have any non-human capital for this challenge or does it have to be
created from scratch?

~~~
andrew_yates
"from scratch" is not specified. Part of the challenge, I assume, is not
inventing assumptions that don't exist.

I'll see how much capital I can get on short notice. Seed amounts (a few
thousand for equipment like PCs and office stuff, base living expenses) I can
spot. Office space too, though we're in the process of moving from a small
office to a larger one, so I can't spot you a private office this month.

Real capital, what you would need to hire and whatnot... that's a process that
takes longer than a month, so it's not _immediately_ applicable. There's no
reason not to raise capital, though.

~~~
Jd
You also seem to be "in the process" of getting a website. Some fund...

