MixPanel is amazing. I'm using it for a client; and the info and stats generated are extremely useful. It's a great compliment to Google Analytics; and something I would pay for.
The usefulness of MixPanel (for me) is in the ability to track custom javascript events. Things like changing an advertisement iris (no page refresh) can get tracked without me having to write the tracking code. As far as I can tell, haveamint doesn't do that (in fact, I don't see haveamint doing anything that google analytics doesn't already do).
> HighlightCam, which we covered last month, is a service that can look through hours of video footage and identify when something happens. The company’s first product involves security cameras — it can take many hours of security footage and then identify the few moments when things out of the ordinary are happening, cutting down the footage to only a few minutes of important content. Soon the company will be releasing its API, which will allow developers to tap into the software to shorten a variety of different kinds of content (including things like wedding videos). The software can produce 20-30 second trailers automatically for any kind of video.
This is actually an interesting one, I think: one of the knocks against [lifelogging](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog) is that it will be too hard to search all the hours of video, but condensed videos would be much easier to search.
The group is very substantial this time around. Developing things like a database optimized for solid-state drives involves non-trivial technology. I'm impressed.
I wonder what kind of background these guys had to convince YCombinator that they could pull it off? Many of them aimed quite a bit higher than yet another web app.
It certainly depends on who's listening. The catch-22 is the Dunning and Kruger effect. If a person sounds like they know what they're talking about, it's either because (1) they know what they're talking about or (2) you're an idiot. But there's a range of ignorance in which the more confident you are in (1), the more likely (2) is.
It's great to see a technology-based startup like RethinkDB. It is a wonderful opportunity they are targeting, and their marketing looks great. I can see them getting bought out for $100 millions by Oracle etc.
It sounds like a sustaining technology because it sells into existing infrastructure; but because the initial uses of SSD are in devices like iPhones (rather than data centers), that might make it disruptive.
But I agree that actually solving this problem is the difficult part! OTOH, all they need do is achieve some of the potential benefits in a product that actually works, to be wildly successful. Oh, and be the first. One problem is that everyone else is aware of this opportunity, so it comes down to execution... One advantage they have over Oracle and so on is they don't have to worry about existing customers.
Funny how the 3rd biggest mistake that kills startups is targeting a marginal niche (http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html). I know the key is whether its marginal or not. Still funny.
I think only a few in our batch were not launched by demo day. This seems high to me too, tho only PG and JL know for sure. Paul pushed REALLY hard to get people launched.
A year is too long to wait for funding, specially for a tech startup. If you have something working, don't hesitate to unleash it into the wild, you might be surprised at what you find.
I thought that Demo Day was held at the end of each YC cycle (i.e. there would be another one around March)?
I've applied to Springboard as well though, as it starts much sooner (in about a month), and I'm pretty close to a working alpha of my software. I hope that I can get into Springboard or YC so that I can share my project with all of you!
Go for it then! I didn't know about the March one.
FWIW, my project was a demo when I sold the first license and now I work on it full time, hired by the client to customize it and maintain it for them.
I like a lot of the startups I've read about in this batch. So many address clear needs that people have, and almost all of them have at least one obvious business model (with presumably some good non-obvious ones too.)
Demo day was never about first look or press. It has always been about investors.
It is unlike TC50 and DEMO in that respect. Though it does give some marginal press.
Edit: I half think press should be banned from the event. I always found it annoying giving details that only investors should hear with press present.
YCombinator compete among themselves for the attention of the investors to which they present. Launching early and gaining users gives you an edge up on the competition. I would imagine this batch of YC companies (24, bigger than ever before) has learned from past groups and are responding as such.
This is merely a guess -- PG or a current YCer could comment more accurately.
