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YC W15 invites will be sent out today
58 points by mamoriamohit on Oct 28, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 147 comments
As the invites (or rejections) will land in 1000s of inboxes today, 3% will be seen packing their bags for the interview and others will get back to building their startups.

Let's do one thing - the 97% who won't get the chance of interview will post their product's homepage and demo URL in this thread so that we all can provide crowd-feedback to them.

The happier 3% are also invited to share their products/demo as well.

Let's do it, then?



Sure! Let me preempt the thread by sharing a product that most likely did not even get to Mr. Graham's desk:

PyEDA is a Python library for electronic design automation.

PyEDA is another option that we could work on but I had to send the idea over to Mr. Graham's public email address just a few days ago. Since it was not mentioned on our application but briefly talked about (by me and most likely to myself), is PyEDA still a legitimate candidate for this forum?


Of course, sharing the beautiful things you have put hard work in deserves this thread.


Great!! The docs are very well written. Lots of time and care spent on presenting the information effectively to benefit the users.

Python EDA Documentation Release: 0.25.0 Date: October 21, 2014

http://pyeda.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

I know it's hard to focus on anything right now on what seems like the judgement day... Maybe reading PyEDA will help make time fly faster? Anything feedback is greatly appreciated.

This round is not over. We can help each other!!


I have written EDA software, including some stuff that your library has. One thing that is key for EDA: tool performance. I can't imagine using Python for any of the intensive stuff like synthesis. What is your view on this?


PyEDA author here. I agree.


It's written in c.


DraftingSPACE is a website that can automatically design your next home renovation http://draftingspace.com/. We're currently running a private beta of our bathroom designer, you can sign up on our homepage.

Good luck everyone :).


MemGrid - https://www.memgrid.com/

CDN for web developers --- process and host static assets the easiest and fastest way possible.

Just keep the files in your Dropbox folder and we automatically receive, version and invoke any file generators in the pipeline. Builds CoffeeScript, LESS, SASS, compressed JavaScript, CSS, image manipulations etc. There's also handlebars templating for full-blown static website generation.

All assets are hosted at either your custom domain or at ultra-short //yourname.m7.io

CDN meets real-time upload meets asset pipeline meets git meets devops :)


Nice idea, I could see myself using the compressed javascript / css feature. Wouldn't this be better done by focusing on git commits rather than dropbox, though?

Edit: I'd rather it just minified and gzipped the files, and uploaded them to my existing storage (e.g S3) rather than setup a new CDN.


Batatuá - We created a mathematical model to calculate human perception and we use it to allow people to rate companies and persons without human emotion, also we can calculate the true intelligent profile based on how (humane, innovator, directive and producer) they are and the objectivity of the ratings, with this information intelligent people will have more importance in decision making in every level. It is impossible to falsify ratings, defame, or try to favor someone, everything is real.

We have a prototype/demo at www.batatua.com, registration needed.

(Working in a new version a lot more easier.. haha)


another social network.... like no other network use mathematical model lol

how will you solve chicken\egg problem, hah? lol


We got the rejection letter, but our strong side is solve problems, well we now know another way how to not to do a lightbulb.


VirtKick - a simple, open source cloud panel: https://www.virtkick.io/

Virtual machines and Docker containers made easy. 1-click install on a desktop or server, auto-configure hypervisors, super-usable interface. This week we're releasing a standalone alpha (almost one-click). https://github.com/virtkick/virtkick-starter

tl;dr DigitalOcean for open source.


Sproute: a platform for crowd-sourcing travel recommendations. First core functionality allows users to create trips and share them with friends to get input on their itinerary. So I'd send you a link like this http://sprouteit.herokuapp.com/trips/545035162f65db0800bd28a... and you can tell me where I should go. No interview, but would love to hear any feedback.


Tried to login with Twitter and got an error.

Error: Failed to find request token in session


Those logins are not hooked up while we are on the development server. We will open them up with the launch of our beta. The URL I sent will allow you to post recommendations for that specific trip. I'll post an update here once the beta launches.


http://v001.sportsup.club/

Sportsup - A platform to build sports career and organise sports event. Its like a LinkedIn for athletes, clubs and teams but much more detail of sport, stats and events. API to connect with Wearables and Health Kit. Helps players to discover new teams, matches and clubs. Premium users gets - detailed player statistics, deep search, finding sponsors. Sponsors can use this platform to evaluate a team, player or club.


http://thinkpacifica.com

Pacifica is made up of quick, engaging exercises designed to reduce anxiety over time.


About our own product, we are building something to help web and mobile business grow their revenue.

Horntell - http://horntell.com Demo - http://demo.horntell.com

We allow businesses to automatically engage their users and turn them into champions. I think, demo should give you a fair piece of idea.

What do you think about the demo, guys? Awesome? Good? Or just Eh? :)

TIA


I closed the tab when the demo asked for a name / email. Why should I give my name / email before I know whether or not I want to use something?

Nice design, though.


Oh, we didn't think it that way.

But we need your name to show the personalisation capabilities and email to demonstrate you the off-site engagement.

I know everyone says it, but we truly mean it when we say that we will not spam you. It is the need of demo that it requires some information to personalise the demo your way.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback. We will definitely brainstorm something around it this week.


I agree in that I would rather not give my name and email before even starting the demo. I did take the demo though by quickly putting in fake information. I'd suggest to allow the user to go through the first step or two in the demo first, and then ask for the name and email as part of the demo to demonstrate the personalization capabilities.


This is exactly what we are doing now. Thanks for the feedback though. In case you liked the demo and would like to share the real info about yourself, feel free to mail me about it. hello at horntell dot com. :)


I got rejected. My company, One Society, is a network of socially conscious people focused on living and giving the most they can every day. Think of One Society as the Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter of philanthropy.

http://www.one-society.com

http://www.one-society.com/demo

Any feedback would be most appreciated. :)


Synaptitude: http://synaptitude.me/

Do not know if my team is accepted or not, but either way we are going forward with our idea.

A way to help everyone focus and improve, especially, ADHD, depression, and anxiety without any negative side effects.

Further, we accomplish this via an improved method of reviewing EEG data, which we intend to patent this winter. Hopefully, this can improve medicine overall.


Great initiative!

I tried to do somewhat similar as a hobby project -- connecting Zeo (now bankrypt) product (brain sensor) with a serial port to the computer and processing the real-time feed with python in order to provide feedback guiding to better focus or whatever the expected brainwave frequency was (deeper meditation was the other goal).

In the end it was working quite well so as a technology this can work great! Working well as in being able to transition my brain state easily. In terms of focusing better -- not sure, I'm quite well focused most of the time and I wasn't sure which targets to hit with my brain :)

My real goal with my hobby was more ambitious -- to use brainwave hemisphere sync technology (binaural beats) to guide brain to the expected state while monitoring the actual brain state with the sensors. Unfortunately, as with hobbies, time ran out and currently not working on it.

BUT -- it could be a fun thing to think about --- using brainwave entertainment/binaural beats in sync with your sensors for maximum effect! Thoughts?


I got rejected. The site is a music training site utilizing the WebMidi Api for midi input. http://musicians-u.com

Also launched an indiegogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/musicians-u--2/x/8990541


https://joinpod.com

Pod's a group organization tool -- we're like a more functional Facebook Groups. Users organize teams around Pods and people can create tasks, schedule meetings or events, or post in forums.

Demo http://youtube.com/watch?v=LY2DzXf8WwI


http://hubify.com

Hubify let's you create and manage safe community commerce hubs and list anything for sale, for rent, for hire, and post part-time jobs.

Solo-founder with a pre-launch project that was not invited to interview. Not surprised, but I don't regret applying. 200 days to progress and make a much better case for the next batch.

#rejected #craigslistkiller


Have you heard of mytag? Many start-ups are one form of craigslist or another with some flaws fixed. How is hubify different?


Hadn't heard of mytag, but just checked it out. Looks like a mobile only solution for selling things.

Hubify is different because you can rent anything and also list services for hire and jobs.

The ability to create and manage public or private hubs is unique and better suited to serve different types of local communities, college campuses, etc.

We have Pinterest-style personal storefronts, user ratings/reviews, and will soon offer criminal background checks to improve safety.

If you know of any other #craigslistkiller competitors, I'd love the tips. It's a real "obvious" problem, so of course there will be other startups trying to solve it in their own way.

Thanks for the feedback!


Cool.

Will you eventually create an app for this? I have intimate knowledge on this subject because I was personally involved in such venture.

I will say this tho... this is such a problem - tons of waste and used goods and people keep on buying. Whoever finds the holy grail to solve this has huge to gain.


https://bluemesh.com/

Platform to map and visualize your software architecture, and see relevant data about your applications in real time in the map. Works well for individuals, but really intended to help teams collaborate.

Early beta version, so please let us know what you think. There's a feedback button in the app at the top right.


Polarr - we try to build machines to understand human's aesthetics in photography.

Polarr Box, https://www.polarr.co/box Also Polarr Editor, https://www.polarr.co/editor

Ya'll Photo startups, where are you?


Jon Oringer, the CEO/founder of Shutterstock, mentioned that the industry is badly in need of "a way to automatically choose visually pleasing photos according to exposure, contrast, shadows, and objects to choose a handful of photos worthy of publishing."

Tried looking for the article but couldn't. Definitely B2B type of product.


It'd be interesting to see a before/after photo to see what your AI can do to a given photo.


There you go http://streetviewphotographs.tumblr.com/ (we manage the account and photos are retouched by the engine)


that seems to be showing the 'after' photos, can you see a before photo somewhere, to see the difference?


the link underneath directs you to the "before".


Ahh, I see.

I'm curious if they're using any learning algorithms here, where the computer 'learns' how to re-touch the photos. Or if its a more simple list of rules, i.e make these colors darker / brighter.


The learning happens on the level of seeing what would a human retoucher does by using the data we gathered from the editor: https://www.polarr.co/editor


That's very clever. Did you get in?


We got an invite. Thanks for asking.


Autosend - http://autosend.io

Behavior-driven lifecycle messaging for SaaS companies. Basically, automatically send personalized SMS, email, or push notifications to users based on what they do in your app.

I'm not sure yet if we've been invited or not but either way we're still full steam ahead!


Here's something that we have been working upon: http://horntell.com.

Looks like there's some overlap over there!


well, that's the first application (finally!) i see that it doesn't have a home page all fancy yet. Nothing's wrong with it of course. Just shocked when all other founders have time and skills to make their WP pages look so nice


We'll get fancy soon, but currently our focus is making the admin panel fancy and the product solid. :) For now... you're looking at developer art.


how do I integrate your service into my app? do I have to use API calls & is there an admin panel that's exposed?


A few different ways: we have no-code integration, as well as a copy & paste JavaScript snippet, and a full fledged API.

There is an exposed admin panel. We are currently rebuilding the service to make it even more easier to use and robust than our previous iteration. We are just a few weeks out from reopening the doors but we'll be letting a bunch of folks use it while we build it.

Our first iteration, while somewhat successful, left a lot on the table as far as the potential for the product. So we went back to the drawing board to make it even better.


can I obtain user responses trough sms? in which countries?


http://inbound.li - find and share better content, faster.


FlikNote for iOS: an app that recreates the passing notes in class experience. Quite simply the most fun and creative messaging app. Multiple photos, colored text and website links, and self-drawing received doodles! FlikNote is The Social Notework®

http://fliknote.com/


I wonder all those startups have 90% the same website. Are you guys using WP themes you customize? Or does anyone try to style home page very well? I am curious why all those startups even without 2 cofounders being technical always look so smooth and styled properly. I didn't see ugly wp home page in a while..


To give a decent look for the outside look, we usually buy some HTML template and customize it our way, and keep focussing on the real product that lies behind the curtain.

Of course, with time the homepage evolves and changes accordingly.


do you have examples?


well, even in this thread all people have smooth made websites, and they didn't even apply for YC yet. Also all those companies from YC14 batch(http://yclist.com/) - they all have websites well done even for the mobile apps. I wonder why\how. Not a single team has an ugly home page


There are a bunch of beautiful landing page/single page Wordpress templates specifically gear toward this stuff. http://themeforest.net has a bunch among many other places


CSS frameworks like Zurb Foundation's and Twitter Bootstrap are pretty popular now and make it tougher to make your site look ugly. I bet that has some influence.


Majority use http://www.squarespace.com if not that, then very similar templates.


Today is easier to get a beautiful template and customize it than building something ugly from scratch.


http://bleepmic.com A social voice network. Gives people the ability to literally talk to each other in a townhall-like manner. Didn't get the interview but will have app out in 2 weeks. Looking forward to everyone's feedback!


http://bunkr.me/

Bunkr is the best tool on the web to present your ideas in seconds. We believe that data is the core of any presentation and that you should not waste time on the layout/design.

Any feedback would be most appreciated. Good luck for the 3%!


Do we know if application messages correlate to having a higher probability of being accepted or declined?


Why don't you tell us your result and whether you got application messages, and may be we'll have a better idea?


https://cryptrader.com

CryptoCurrency Trading Platform... Guess they aren't really as interested in Bitcoin start-ups as much as they said they were. This site is one of the top charting and trading sites in the game :/


If it's any consolation, I like your site.

Crypto-finance aside, I've only seen one financial technology company advertise for jobs on YC. On the surface, it just looks like YC doesn't have that much of a FinTech presence. (Outside of payments, anyway.)

Since they had that "RFS" for financial services, I'm curious to see what they present from this space on demo day.


Thank you... appreciated. Will be curious to see as well.


they were interested.. but nowadays bitcoin is an old story that might never come back


Tambero.com - http://www.tambero.com

Helping farmers worldwide to improve their production yields based on best practices, data analytics and science information with a free cloud SaaS app.


Looks like a promising product. I think you'll get the invite. Good luck!


Thank you! I received the invitation! :)


I'd be surprised if you don't get an interview. Nice product.


Thank you! I received it!


StudyBoard - "Stackoverflow for Education"

Prototype - http://test.studyboard.com/studyboard/app/#/questions


stuck on loading for me, a few 404s for js files in console.


Any luck trying again? Can you please forward 404s for js files you saw? Which browser/OS were you using?


I will take a look. Did you try refreshing the page?


Paywhirl - https://www.paywhirl.com/

Start a subscription service on your website in less than 5 minutes without needing to code. Powered by Stripe.


Great idea, but seems like there's a bug on your demo page - if I click "Add Extras" before selecting a plan, I can't go back to "Select Your Plan" (clicking it doesn't work)


Thanks for spotting that! Its fixed now!


From what I understand X-cart and Magento already address this with PayPal and quite possibly Stripe. And if you're coding your own website you might as well use Stripe's API.


Got rejected. Am a lone founder. They watched my video for the full time so I have that going for me. My website's front page wasn't pretty at all so that probably worked against me.


but... what is your project about? regards


[deleted]


Bulk responses using templates.


https://unravelapp.com - Create custom content interaction using Bluetooth Low Energy beacons.


Splore - P2P forum that emphasizes users' interests and locations. On the front of Facebook's Rooms or Reddit.

Sploreapp.com

Beta should be out Late 2014/Early 2015


result?


https://whathaveidone.today

Automated time tracking for Google Drive. (rejected)


[deleted]


Very cool! I've been interested in this area for quite some time. Here's one guy to built a hedge fund around the quantification of investor sentiment using online data (http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-02/money-minded-h...)

"MarketPsych ran an audited hedge fund (MarketPsy Long-Short Fund LP) from 2008 through 2010, which beat the S&P benchmark by 25% during its lifetime."


Thanks so much!

I know the MarketPsych founder Richard. Great guy, super forward thinking and definitely someone we respect. He sells exclusively through TR now I believe.

Under the hood we are very different cos in terms of our data and what we aim to do with it. Time will tell ;-)


Did you get accepted? I liked your product concept and am working on something similar.

I'd like to see you succeed, one way or another.


We didn't get an invite.


Wow. I'm honestly surprised. If I had been a YC guy, I'd have wanted to at least speak with you.

On the surface, I think you guys look awesome. We should network somehow.


Sure... would love to. Shoot me an email. james@psychsignal.com


Any idea when they would send out invites?


It is my understanding that everyone gets an email, whether it is an invite or decline. Is that correct, or do they just send invites?


They send out emails with both invitations and rejections. Based on previous batches around 1AM GMT time ?

At least that's what I found.


Yes, about around 6pm PDT. That means, around 8 hours from now.


Okay thanks mamoriamohit


thanks!!


Looks like the emails have been sent. Come one guys, keep hitting the refresh button on your inbox.

Good luck everyone!


Best of luck to all! BTW, I think ~10% get interview invites, then ~30% of those are selected for W15


where did you get your stats from?


I think I heard it at startup school, but here's another source http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Y-Combinator-applica...

We just got our interview email btw!! Good luck guys!!


Congrats yousifa! What's your product?


OP what is your startup? curious!


I commented about it too. In case you cannot find, it's called Horntell. You can find more about it here: http://horntell.com and see the demo here: http://demo.horntell.com.


Sounds good. I'll come back with results later. Good luck to everyone!


Everyone will wait for you! We wish you all the best. :)


Does anyone know what time the invites/rejections are usually sent out?


If we go by the time for last several invites, you shiuld expect it to reach in your inbox at about 6pm PDT.

Please convert the time to your timezone accordingly.


Thanks!


www.goodaudience.com — curate and grow the right followers on social media.


Looks cool. I'll try it out


Thanks! I'd appreciate any brutal and honest feedback :)


I keep seeing that template where the header stays fixed and the page animates as you scroll. What's it called? Is it part of foundation?


May the odds be ever in your favor...or whatever that quote is. Good luck!


Just got an interview invite! Super excited! Anyone else got one yet?


Awesome man! Not yet, though. How does the email look like? Copy paste here?


Would you like to share your product here? We would love to see it.


oh my god! congratulations! what was your idea? did you submit early or late?


Even i would like to know answer to this.


Got a rejection. :(


Don't feel bad, sometimes they reject people to see how much they have progressed until next application. Keep on it!


Yes, we will grow otherwise too. Thanks for the kind words. :)


Don't feel bad, man.


Thanks. May be that was the impulsive reaction. Next time, then! How about you?


No reply yet. I wonder if its sending them out in the order of who applied first. Around when did you submit? Mine was in mid September or so.

Also, http://youtu.be/12DAjoONx9E?t=35s


Mine was around 10th September as well.


Rejected!


Just got one too!


Nice one. What's your product?


We're making a monitoring system for fish farms to monitor the conditions of their water in real time and analyze it. www.reliablereef.com


I have no knowledge about fish farming, but the product looks promising.


brb refreshing inbox 1000 times.


Good luck brother.


i'm right there with you


congrats big time!


I got my rejection letter! It's a template.


What was your product? Link? Demo?


Best of luck to everyone...


have they sent out all the invitations/rejections already?


Good luck, everybody.


Good luck everyone!


guys are all the results out?!


compulsively refreshing


same, the anticipation is killing me.




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