

Ask HN: Got rejected this time, here is my application - vgrichina

See my application on following link, everything is the same as submitted (except few items marked as REDACTED and typo fixes):<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;spreadsheets-on-steroids.tumblr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;82903500034&#x2F;my-failed-application-to-yc-summer-2014<p>BTW, here is also somewhat relevant discussion about crazy&#x2F;clever ways of using spreadsheets – https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7363824
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sithu
Hi, thanks for sharing your experience. I think when proposing anything, it
helps to be able to clearly express your idea in such a way that anyone
including non-technical people like myself can understand and relate to. I
think this aspect could be improved. Other things: (1) I don't have a strong
idea what pain point you are addressing. You mention features extensively, but
could say more about the problem you are solving. (2) You mention 50$/mo but
no idea how many potential users/market size. (3) The way you've described it,
your idea seems more like a research project suited for a university than an
actual product that can be sold to consumers. Need to make it easier for
people without expertise in the area to understand what exactly your product
is.

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vgrichina
Got your point about being less technical. Also I agree that project is
currently more about research than building actual product.

(1) There are 2 main pain points: 1) for programmers it is building and
debugging systems in non-interactive way; 2) for non-programmers is building
contraptions using Excel and bubble gum – see some discussion on that here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7363824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7363824)

(2) Potential market size is around 20 million exiting software developers,
based on e.g. this post [http://www.quora.com/Ruby-on-Rails-
Professionals/Where-can-I...](http://www.quora.com/Ruby-on-Rails-
Professionals/Where-can-I-find-up-to-date-numbers-on-the-Ruby-developer-
market-size) Around 0.05% of that market needs to be captured to have
reasonable ROI I guess.

(3) Agree with you. BTW, may you detail what is your background?

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chriscool
About (2) I think programmers don't buy development tools any more. They use
open source or maybe free tools. Only Microsoft might still be able to have
people pay for Visual Studio (but that's because they own Windows).

Either your project should be open source or it should be aimed at non-
programmers like finance or accounting people.

I think the best plan might be to create an open source tool first and then,
when the product start to be good enough, sell special packages around it for
finance/accounting.

~~~
EpicEng
I think you are using a massive brush to paint all "programmers" here. There
are many types of programmers working on many types of software. Many if us
buy dev tools. There are not open source equivalents for everything

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s0x
What are some essential dev tools you've purchased that lacked any sort of
open source equivalent?

~~~
vgrichina
I think even more important question is "what essential dev tools you've
purchased that __had __some sort of open source equivalent ".

As for me, last thing I remember – I've purchased
[http://theolabrothers.com/sip/](http://theolabrothers.com/sip/) when is
wasn't free. And it is just a simple tool I don't require at all (any image
editor can be used instead), it is just much more convenient than any other
alternative.

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tokenadult
Did you not have a co-founder? That appears to make quite a difference.

~~~
vgrichina
Unfortunately I don't have a co-founder yet. Started working on the idea not
so long enough.

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daemonk
I guess its similar to fivetran?
([https://www.fivetran.com/](https://www.fivetran.com/))

~~~
vgrichina
To some extent maybe yes, but my main idea isn't to make better spreadsheets.

I want to take direct manipulation of data present in spreadsheets and make it
more universal. Something more similar to ideas expressed by Chris Granger –
[http://www.chris-granger.com/2014/03/27/toward-a-better-
prog...](http://www.chris-granger.com/2014/03/27/toward-a-better-programming/)

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ravensley14
hey how can i request my application?

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vqc
I recall some kind of notice indicating that if you wanted a copy, you had to
save it yourself; there was no way (or no resources) for them to give you a
copy.

~~~
ravensley14
oh alright thanks

