A lot of today's big tech companies looked like "fluff" in the beginning. I assume YC picked the companies based on more than what their current product offering is.
I think if you add the word "profitable" to the first sentence, the "a lot" changes to "some". But I will give you that "some" :)
Fluff was probably the wrong word.
When the perception you want to build around your incubator is about massive, life-improving, world-changing businesses (or at least that's my impression). There are some ideas I would consider leaving on the table for other investors and incubators.
- plush phones for toddlers / really loud speakers (kickstarter).
- Slack or Zapier acquisition targets.
- Chatroulette for phonecalls.
- The next Whisper / Secret / YikYak / Gossup / Babbly / Cloaq
- Yet another live streaming service.
- A meal subscription service which makes me buy an oven to join?
No offense intended to any founders or investors. If I'm wrong that's great!
I wonder if there are sector quotas, or at least sector tick boxes:
Social
Developing World
Middle Class US Consumer
B2B
...and so on.
Of the set, I think the Developing World group is the most interesting. The markets there are huge and largely untapped, and a hit really does have the potential to change the world.
The Middle Class US Consumer group seems the least interesting. Some of the hardware projects wouldn't be out of place in a Sharper Image catalogue.
I think "fluff" is the wrong word. However I find it extremely difficult to imagine some of these companies earning > $1bn, which is what VCs are looking for. If you're not gunning for > $1bn in valuation you're essentially killing your company by giving away equity to VCs.
London is a weird spot for property. I see it as more inline with the gold market. A "safe" investment for people who need to invest. That makes your last point more likely if anything I'm saying is true, but what happens when in London is unlikely to reflect the properly market in general, which is based somehat on fundamentals.
This is an awesome post & I'm excited to see the support from HN.
I like how you're giving yourself a solid goal and plenty of time to achieve it.
Quick question - you mention that you'd like to build an MVP yourself, do you know what product you'd like to build or what market you're interested in serving?
I've just started learning the core web dev fundamentals - HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT. I am also taking a Ruby course on Udemy, and as mentioned, starting The Firehose Project in September. Two ideas so far: a. idea from my job (jail) b. ESL idea I always had even before starting the career as a jail guard.
Things change so fast, so I will see what happens when one of these ideas makes contact with customers.
When you save something on NowVia, you see who else has saved it and what people are saying about it.
So imagine 19 people from around the world save a great design resource - by doing so, they discover each other's channels, and can all discuss that resource in the same place. The 20th person to save that resource also sees that discussion and can join in. The focus on connecting people through interests and trying to encourage discussion is the differentiator.
I apologize for the shameless plug, but we're at the early stages of solving some of the problems you mentioned at http://NowVia.com
It lets you create topic-based "channels" that people can follow. So you could have one for 3-D printing, and when you add to it, you know everyone following it is specifically interested in 3-D printing. I'd love your feedback if you decide to have a play :-)
