George from the CodeCombat team here. It was a crazy experience. Nick and I were leaving the stage, I was thinking "okay, that went okay, hope we get an interview!" When they called us back I thought we had biffed a mic transfer to the next team. When we heard we were in this next batch, I couldn't even believe it. Nick and I managed to keep it relatively cool on stage but we got a little silly back stage. Still can't really believe it, and can't wait to be a part of this cohort.
Congrats guys! I really enjoyed your presentation. Obviously the product is the start of something bigger but how you guys worked together on stage to answer questions to what you built is kickass. You peeps are obviously smart, know your market and have the determination to make this big.
Too many startups just deliver educational content digitally. That has been done many times over. But very few look at creative ways to keep the user engaged (focused) while being educated. You guys managed to do both. Superb.
Its interesting that at least one other team (friends of mine) applied previously with a somewhat similar that didn't get in. PG apparently selects teams more than ideas.
I can't imagine what it would have felt like for those guys. I'm wondering, was it an interview for the following two as well but they didn't get selected?
From what I've read elsewhere, sometimes they decide and tell you on the spot, other times you won't hear back for maybe a day or two. Personally, I wasn't feeling it for that 2nd interview group, but the 3rd guy with the customs brokerage business. I want a piece of that action :) That seems like a big money maker. My money is on him getting in.
Correct, the customs brokerage business reminds me of Asseta (YCS13) in that there's less competition, and is an industry that people do not naturally enter for lack of knowledge or sex appeal. Recipe for a money maker.
CodeCombat's novel, and given YC's history with Codecademy and One Month Rails, along with the founder's previous business venture - getting picked up wasn't a surprise.
Yeah; I think the CodeCombat app is actually pretty cool. As a father of 3 I immediately checked it out. I'm always interested in ways to get my kids interested in programming.
PG has already shown an interest in programming education; add to that these guys have a live product it is a bit of a no brainer to "incubate" it a little. Curious to see an actual profit model though; I'm not sold on the weak "recruiter" angle. From what I see it is more of a kid's educational app.
The brokerage business though; whether he gets accepted by YC or not, I expect he is going to make some serious bank on that.
And as pg said in the interview with Mark Zuckerberg, when he talks to people, he always has a process running somewhere in his mind that judges them as he would do in an interview and might shout at any moment "accept him, accept him!". Probably that's what happened :)
I thought the third was extremely solid, and I was surprised he wasn't accepted on the spot. The other 2 were underwhelming imo; I was confused by the first one getting accepted on the spot, but I'm sure pg and sama have info on them that we do not.
I suspect they will do more diligence for ideas in regulatuon-heavy industries. When a single law can destroy your business, you need to be sure that what you are doing is 100% kosher and also that the proper connections are in place to work out issues.
I'm surprised they didn't grill him more on that subject.
Today marks my 1300th day on Hacker News, without ever feeling compelled enough to make a comment. That changes today having just seen the story of Watsi, and the deeply honest, moving talk given by Chase Adam.
Watsi can't fail, you're right Chase. It's impossible. Thank you (and the entire Watsi team) for being such an inspiration.
Thanks, I got hooked either way. It's been a long night but definitely worth it. The interview with Zuckerberg was a bit odd though. Unstructured, if you will.
Balaji Srinivasan lives in the richest, most technological advanced country in the world and he is talking about exit. I am no fan of too much regulation but sometimes it come in to existence for a reason because we live in a society and need some rules in order to function better.
Hilarious how he shows SV eating other places and cites examples of companies who are in existence because of the content created by others (Hollywood, music industry etc).
His use of "exit" was more abstract than physical location, though from his description of the reasons his father left India we see that sometimes you have to do that, too. He mentioned "Hirschmann's Treatise," in passing, which you might find illustrative:
I didn't watch the stream but wait... Qatar and Luxemburg are not the most technologically advanced, but Japan and Finland are not the richest countries. I don't think the country you're talking about exists.
You could argue how you measure it. US has the most worth clearly. On a per person level tiny Luxemburg might have higher rate but clearly not the power the US has/
is it just me or does the "Don't have Flash? Try the HTML 5 version." link goes to just another flash player which doesnt work ? Also the "real" flash player plays just some noise now. Again is it just me ?
We've got a twitter list of attendees - direct links to it don't work apparently, but you can find it from my profile https://twitter.com/austenallred (click on lists - startup school 2013).
So bummed I couldn't make it in. Love that the talks are always live-streamed, but there's something about being in a room with a bunch of awesome individuals. Maybe next year.
----
11:00 (PST) - Phil Libin (Founder, Evernote)
11:30 (PST) - Dan Siroker (Founder, Optimizely)
12:00 (PST) - Ron Conway (Partner, SV Angel)
12:30 (PST) - Office Hours with Paul Graham & Sam Altman
======= LUNCH ===========
02:00 (PST) - Chris Dixon (Partner, Andreessen Horowitz)
02:30 (PST) - Diane Greene (Founder, VMWare)
03:00 (PST) - Balaji Srinivasan (Founder, Counsyl)
03:30 (PST) - Chase Adam (Founder, Watsi)
--------BREAK-------
04:30 (PST) - Jack Dorsey (Founder, Square)
05:00 (PST) - Mark Zuckerberg (Founder, Facebook)
05:30 (PST) - Nathan Blecharczyk (Founder, AirBnb)