This cant be suprising to anyone in the tech world but it seems that many in the finance sector are amazed at how this could happen. Is there really that much of a disconnect when it comes to valuations?
I dont understand this mentality. There are tons of people that have created great products and are begging for even the smallest amount of funding. The problem is not the funding environment is the attitude of the investors ie: Catarina Fake getting a few mil for pinwheel?
MG, Arringon, Lacey etc... are narcissistic parasites; they cant "do" so they write about those that can. Somewhere along the line they started to believe that they were the story and because of the mainstream popularization of startups a class of less intelligent techie / start up people that support that narrative has been created. Imagine of the sports wold did that. In the sports world they understand that the reporters are irrelevant and simply there to spectate and report on what they see; the moment their BS started to overshadow the game they would be fired but for some reason the startup world does not act that way. We have allowed these people to feel as if they matter when the truth is, they dont, they never did and they never will because if you create a product that solves a real problem for people your audience does need to read TC or pandas daily to find out about it.
I am a patient. Being a patient is why I am so passionate about products in this space. So the thought of someone scraping the web to find information that I might apply to managing my medical condition is scary. I have worked at CPA companies that ran things like Molocure scams, Cure diabetes now sites etc... Perhaps your technology is so advanced that it can tell the difference between valid news and scams and perhaps you will manually review everything and verify the source of the information; but im not willing to bet my health on it.
As someone working in the same space, I am going to give you honest feedback that might seem harsh.
1. There are other sites doing this better and they have far more than just a landing page.
2. Are you holding user data? If so what about hippa compliance?
3. Your differentiating factor: "We scrape medical forums, blogs, twitter, facebook, etc (all the social media avenues) and add a layer of intelligent semantic analysis to bring you the best information relevant to what you have (or just the hottest news if you don't have anything)."
Simply put, I dont believe that you have one single bit of this.
4. Why would I use this and not patients like me or crohnology.com where I can find out about new things and also have them vetted by my friends that have similar conditions.
5. I dont think your newsletter could ever be better than condition specific newsletters like the ones from the CCFA or ADA? How will you deal with that?
I disagree; you do not have to be a negative person to point these things out. IMHO the author was simply trying to help
anyone developing a web app avoid what he sees as a bad tool
Good job, I am working on a similar tool. There are lots of free great recipe managers on the web. What is the main differentiating factor that makes this worth 10 a month?
I have been rejected 4 times and each time I learned things.
socialadmanager.com - 2x it was that my product lacked focus and the value it created was as obvious as I thought it was.
spotted.at - 1x I learned that even if I had been funded I would have failed because the product was simply not something that people would pay for.
i.crowdfunded.it - 1x I learned that I did not understand the customer / market etc... enough to complete the YC App.
The biggest lesson is that I (a single founder) have tunnel vision. If I had a co-founder it would have been easier to see all of these problems because I would have had another perspective.
I am applying this cycle and even though I won't get in I don't see it as a rejection. Instead I see it as a way to ask some of the smartest people around if they would/would not use my product and if I am articulating my value prop in a clear and concise manner.
The product I am applying with this cycle has paying users and is complete VS previous years where I just had working prototypes so the thing I am really looking forward to this time is hearing what they think of my product. I have stopped caring if I get in or not.
One of the things that I have noticed about all of your examples is that they are all tools for developers. Do you have any examples of companies that solve real problems for the general consumer?
One of the reasons that I like stripe more is that they give you much more granular control ove the user experience. Users on your site never need to know that you are using stripe to process payments. Things just work. Also: PayPal customer service is a joke, they will freeze your account etc... etc...
I was diagnosed w/ crohns when I was 16. I struggled with it my whole life; in and out of hospitals and on/off different meds. At 19 I learned about the Macrobiotic Diet and my life was never the same. It was hard to stay on the diet and make it stick so I created a tool that helps me track and balance my diet. Because I like building things I also added 450 or so other diets and it has become by permanent side project. Right now only me and a few friends are using it (web version) and the app will be in the app store in a few weeks then I am thinking about opening it up to the public to see if its something that anyone else would want to use. All of the diets I have seen mentioned on this thread are supported so if anyone would like access let me know email/city and I will try and get things up and running for you.
Not to be a troll but this really irritates me and its hapening more and more in the "start up" community. This is not a startup. Its a landing page. There is no such thing as a 4 hour startup. This is a side project.
Its a good data set. I have been running it against the USDA food data for a new project I am working on. Let me know what they say and I might be able to provide it to you in a more workable format.
Arrogant how? I have no college education and I am currently developing a health application so I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to take these courses. There is nothing arrogant about this and not only do I applaud them for being the first school to do this but I hope that other schools ie: MIT etc... follow suit.
"It's important. It's not enough to just be a bunch of dudes hacking away at stuff."
I Disagree. This is the most productive environment for me. The issue is that people set out to start a company and not solve a problem. A bunch of dudes siting around hacking to start a company might not be the best idea but a bunch of dudes sitting around trying to solve a problem is the best way to start.
LMAO, do you think this is bad in all situations? If I am working for a client I use whatever their preferred methodology is. I really only do this when I am doing things for fun on my own.