1.) Free press, lots of it, results in free traffic and traction SO increased chance of success. As an investor, getting behind an 'animal' capable of producing either viral growth or free press (helping reach users) delivers a product with free marketing built in and that is a huge overhead ticked off with growth potential beyond most ideas.
2.) Investment is easier to raise, you get more of it, faster, at a better deal and from better investors SO increased chance of success.
3.) 'Sexy' tends to attract A Class employee's, who in turn attract and build an A Class company with the potential to execute the idea or pivot SO increased chance of success.
4.) Directly related to No. 3 is the increased retention of staff. Again, hiring, knowledge and skill loss, downtime, etc can kill a startup so this is a huge advantage.
5.) Company moral - It's a lot more fun to work long hours on an idea that could change the world. It is more rewarding and so going the extra mile, maybe even for a lower wage, can result. Maintaining company focus and moral is vital to success.
6.) Finally, Users. If it's sexy it's sticky. If it's 'viral' it can grow fast, become addictive and present users a product they just love.
Sex sells. Really, a better question is what defines 'sexy'. It's the job of the founder(s) (entrepreneur) to communicate the vision to the press, investors, potential employee's, current employee's, etc. The skill is in making the idea appear sexy. Many successful companies simply took an existing idea and put a 'sexy' image on it, sold the idea better, resulting in 1-6 and bang, you got a winner.
As for being new, innovative, it's obvious that's important. And as for Crazy, well, what's sane about any startup?
If you could find the time to appear at that event, it may be more productive it coincide with the Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford event held in November, or FOWA London on 3-5th Oct, both of which you have presented at in the past.
Move to the Valley, get valley investors. Do deals with American companies, focus your product on the USA more. Try attracting/optimising for American search traffic/users more. Aim to get Americans using your site to find, research, and comment on their travel abroad. America is a test bed for the world and THE BEST at building, then exporting brands. Why make a hard job harder? The above may seem hard, crazy to you even, but the alternative option seems harder and crazier to me.
On a seperate note friend, pick your chin up! I like your site and idea.
I (YC S09) applied about 20mins before the deadline I think. I didn't tell my co-founders. One was living in Malaysia at the time. They had persuaded me to wait till we were 'ready'. We are a UK based company. It was about 2/3am in the morning and I was lying awake regretting that. I felt it didn't fit with the fundamentals of YC mentality - 'screw it just do it'. I was overcome with a great sense of obligation, not just to my co-founders (someone has to make the big decisions) but also to my family and girlfriend who had supported me that far.
I crept down stairs with her phone and mine to video the pitch in the kitchen of the close-to-derelict-renovation job-extraordinaire of a house I'd just bought. Videoing with her phone and timing myself on mine, it took me 15 recordings, fumbling around with 2 phones. You can see the exposed pipe work and partially tiled and stained walls of the filthy kitchen in the back ground; we had no kitchen, bathroom or hot water. The lighting is terrible....it looks more like an interrogation.
A week later our Malaysian based co-founder was on a marathon 7 flight trip around the world only to land into a marathon of meetings I’d set up with YC companies (14 in total) first in London and then in the valley. 5 days later we'd hacked something together whilst meeting these companies and were sat in front of PG having spent the week sleeping on Justin Kans floor with about 5hrs sleep a night.
Live and hope......what better a reason to base decisions on.
Entrepreneurs are not people who come up with ideas; they are people who successfully execute ideas through further iteration and development.
There is an element of discovery in success; continually questioning the status quo (TechCrunch comments seem hung-up on this point).
I'm sure those who are chosen by YCombinator will be those who seem most capable of iteration and further creativity regardless of the origin of the idea.
Past that, the idea comes from one individual normally. It then takes a team to execute it and they share a passion for that idea. This is just like having PG on your team.
This is a chance to become a full time employee, the first, with equity and a say in the business. But we have now discovered that European students are more than interested in this opportunity; students from the top Universities, but the commenters here are giving the impression that it's too below American kids and that the only thing they find valuable in return for their time is money. Honestly, I love America but people like you embarrass others and tar everyone with your own opinion.
I know this isn't true of all coders, I know there are some good guys out there who would take a risk and would do this to benefit from the greater reward. Working for equity is clearly not something you are interested in. Nor is the environment of a startup. Why are you here then?
> This is a chance to become a full time employee, the first, with equity and a say in the business.
That's different. Equity is a form of payment (although, admittedly, it is a gamble). However, the way that you advertised it here really makes it sound like you are looking for free work, and a naieve student to take advantage of. And working without any sort of compensation is indeed being taken advantage of.
Also, as a side note, I suspect (and Google seems to support) that American students have far higher costs for going to university -- I believe that in Europe, the tuition fees are significantly cheaper thanks to government subsidies. With lower costs, there's less pressure to earn money to cover the costs.
ori_b, please don't take this all so personally. We are trying to keep costs as low as possible in our startup. Is there such harm in asking? If we get someone, great, if we don't there is no damage done.
You make a valid point above. We are not looking to screw people out of money. We were hoping to offer someone a good experience, and begin line up future employees for when we could afford to pay them.
We apologies, we appear to be poorer than the students :)
I'm not taking it personally, but really, you need to make it clear that the student's time is valued. Equity is perfectly fine compensation, especially if it's clear that the student is going to be considered for a full-time job.
Just put it into the ad next time, and it might look less like you're trying to screw the students over.
That was very thorough, thank you. I wish people thought more about the context within which the chose to apply words.
Shall I put out a request asking for someone with very little experience and no previous proven application of that knowledge and skill? Then maybe you will apply.
'day jobs and their stupid managers' This says a lot about your maturity and attitude dude. Your manager is your manager for a reason, one day you'll work it out, I'm not going to help turn the bulb on, you'll find the switch one day. I also note, it's normally people in 'day jobs' that has as negative an attitude in life as you. We're offering the chance to join our dream not to work as a slave!
You missed my point entirely, so I'll spell it out. Some of the hacker types on this site like to complain about silly-sounding job postings, clueless MBA's, etc. It turns out, however, that writing a job posting, and being a good manager in general, is very difficult.
If you want to criticize something, you should do so with the experience of having done a better job at it. (Yes, I have written job postings, and I take great care and pride in crafting them.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/3p0y2x/crowdfun...
https://www.123-reg.co.uk/order/domain?X-CSRF-Token=45b50019...
That doesn't seem very trustworthy