"Petya is resting in the summer, Sasha and Masha make a startup!" - 10 latest projects from Y Combinator

My most beloved and respected foundation Y Combinator presented fourteen startups that he grew up during the last summer session. Although, according to various sources, I have come across references to 10 or even 20 startups, in fact there are 21 of them, although not all were shown publicly or there is any information about them. Therefore, we will tell only about those that have publicly revealed themselves.




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TicketStumbler is a search engine for tickets to various events, mainly sports. The system integrates data about tickets from other sites and combines them into one tape, allowing you to select interesting ones by price, place or type of competition. Being, in fact, an aggregator of data, it allows you to get already known information but in a more convenient and fast way, having a much simpler interface than the portals that provide it with information. Therefore, I think it will stay on the market - being very simple and even, I would say, uncomplicated, it simply satisfies the specific need of users, and having chosen a relatively large and loyal consumer group as an audience. This will, if desired, further significantly expand the range of services or launch third-party businesses, developing an audience. The startup received 15 thousand investments and, I am sure, absolutely not in vain. Although the project does not set itself the task of conquering the world (and killing Google), it is quite indicative - our startups have something to learn from their western colleagues.

People and Pages - a startup to facilitate the management of groups and mailing lists. Google with its Google Groups project, in fact, in the era of web 2.0, revived the interest in communicating via e-mail mailing lists (namely, for the general public, of course, geeks like Linux kernel developers, and so they have been using it for a long time), and this startup has been called give this way of communication an even more human face. While the project is not open for public use, so it is difficult for me to say something about its implementation. This project also chose its own way - to take what others are already doing and it is in demand, and to provide improved service, helping people use what they have not done yet, or continue their work, but at a higher level, more convenient or easier. A very correct approach, and most importantly, it fits perfectly on a startup - without requiring many millions of investments, not laborious, you just have to look around and think, and how can we simplify something that they do every day to millions of people, but would like to do with more convenience? If you think it up and do it - people will be grateful to you, and investors will carry their money straight into your pockets ...

MeetCast is a service that works in the online video conferencing market, yes, exactly where leaders like WebEx and GoToMeeting settled. However, there is a place for beginners here (not for nothing is this area that many investors call very interesting and are ready to invest in all projects that can offer this market that is gaining momentum). If in other cases you need to do a lot of actions to start a conference (download software or plug-ins, do something or customize), then Meetcast offers to refuse any additional actions, but simply to communicate. All conferences are stored on the server and indexed, so that you can search and revise them in the future. This is relevant for the business sector, especially for small and medium businesses, so I think that if the project is really successful and simple, then it will gain popularity in the market. And we are still waiting for his public discovery.

CO2stats - the most ... um, strange and at the same time innovative service operating in the market of ecology and nature conservation. It allows you to get statistics on your web project, based on a variety of parameters (where the server is located, its type, attendance, fuel and electricity prices, etc.) - that is, you can find out how much carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere for providing your project with electricity (although I’m not sure what visitors might think so). The second step is the purchase of an energy saving certificate by you - as I understand it, you can buy a certain amount of energy produced from an environmentally friendly source and, thus, neutralize the impact of the project on the world. The project is academic, developed by scientists from Harvard and Yale universities, but already designed as a startup, while it is already working and probably making a profit - about 2,500 projects have already been registered, including well-known companies like IBM and CNN. Of all the projects, it is the most original and useful, although it is difficult to understand (at least in our country, in the west, the attitude towards everything "green" is different). PS I'm not sure that I figured out correctly about this project, so I will, because of any comments, clarifications and additions.

Youlicit is a service for the information search market, but it’s not quite the “Google Killer”, although it’s likely that the creators thought about such a move (and the project was based quite a long time ago, in September 2006). The service will automatically generate search results for a specific topic, while complementing traditional search results with a sample from other sources, grouping information and accompanying text with other types of information. Similarly, there is a service Mahalo, I must say, nice and well working, but Youlicit wants to implement its own search model without the participation of people as editors, but automatically forming a complete and overall picture of the entered word or search term. Without a doubt, the future is precisely behind such a search, and even the giants of conventional search are aware of this, trying to dilute the results with additional information such as news, videos or pictures. First of all, this is done by search engines-portals, or having many of their own but independent services (for example, Google), so the competition in this market is very, very high. However, as the prize for not only the first place, but even for getting into the top ten or twenty.

Job Alchemis is not really a startup, but rather a “dad” for two projects in the field of recruiting.



Startuply is a specialized resource for finding work and employees in startups - this is exactly what the founder of Y Combinator said a while ago, a “startup for startups”. The scheme is simple - there is a huge market and need, both from employers (yes, we constantly think about how and where to attract employees to a startup), and from people who are tired of working for ordinary companies or corporations and who are intoxicated with the spirit of a startup and They want to try their hand at work on something unique and possibly profitable like Google. This need is successfully implemented by Startply.



JobSyndicate is a kind of recommender network (it was written in one of the reviews, although I did not find it on the site), owners can post widgets with vacancies on their sites and get paid if their visitors follow the link and get a job. This is beneficial to projects that have a well-established community and which is precisely on the topic of vacancies.

This startup demonstrates a slightly different approach - one company operating in one large market produces small companies that narrowly specialize in one aspect of another, satisfying the narrow market demand. And, it seems, quite a successful strategy.

Frogmetrics is a more traditional startup, and not only online. It involves the placement of special feedback devices with consumers in places where people serve, for example, in restaurants, cafes, cinemas or shops. Using the touchscreen terminal, users answer a few questions about service, and can also leave contact information for communication. All data is collected and then analyzed, giving a clear picture that characterizes the outlet from the perspective of consumers. It seems to me a good enough idea and I would love to leave feedback where I love to be. And how many prospects - from the integration with social networks, ending with the integration with advisory services and, for example, mobile services to find the best places to stay around.

Snipd - against the background of other projects is quite traditional. It is designed to conveniently “cut out” any page elements and then memorize this piece or share it among other users. Now it is easy enough to show or pay attention to any one section of the page, but not to the whole, forget about how you used to say - “on this page about the middle left of the picture under the oak”, but simply cut this piece and show it to others . This is a further promotion of the ideas of "snippets", which were previously individual, and now seem to have moved to the Internet and become social. Let's see what happens, in my opinion, a great tool for designers and researchers, journalists, etc. professionals who collect and process large amounts of information online.

And the last startup is BackType . It is a search engine that searches and indexes user comments on various blogs and other sites, and allows not only to search for keywords using the usual way, but also to build lists of comments by author, tracking the behavior of a particular user (of course, if he subscribes the same way). It seems to me that such a service, for all its usefulness and interestingness, will in itself be difficult to move forward. The most logical is to combine with related systems, such as the Intensedebate commenting system or even with blog engines or services (like Wordpress and Gvatar).

Here is such a list. As you can see, among the projects there are confident newcomers, who not only passed the start stage, but also entered the market, or even formed it for themselves. Now to say who will be the leader or just make a profit, of course, difficult. But all projects are interesting in their own way, solve the pressing problems of users and are not afraid to do something that no one else has done before, or, on the contrary, they are trying to do the same thing that many other companies are already doing.

PS Original material on my blog - Alpha-Beta-Release Blog