Quite a harsh tone, but I agree with all you say. It is telling that after reading their retrospective you (and I, and probably others) still don't know what their product does.
Admittedly I have trouble channeling my thoughts :) I think the part that pushed me over the edge is that the product has been in development for ~2 years now, and they still cannot explain it.
Agreed, enthusiastically. Reading the original article, I went from knowing nothing at all about Rocketr to hating them on principle in no time at all. So much marketing crap, so little content. PG was right to avoid them.
Your comment makes HN a worse place to be, in two articles you know enough to hate them?
What should actually be happening is constructive criticism and lessons for all of us to learn from. At least they tried, at least they put it out there for others to see. So they got it wrong, that's no reason to hate.
You know a better way to do what they did? Good, tell them, and us.
I guess all kind of publicity is good publicity, but I would count as early adapters and after reading 2 blog posts(this one and the one posted by them) and exploring their site, I have no idea what they do.
I still don't see how "collaborative note taking"(whatever it means) is different, or more importantly, better than a wiki.
The marketing copy is making some wide claims and I am unable to follow.
> how we capture information (using personal tools),
That's as open ended as it gets. Notebook, bookmarks, wikis, emails, cms, reminders, calendar, todo...
> how we get work done (using team-based tools).
Team based tools: Git, Issue tracker, IRC, some wiki, basecamp style messaging
Non team based tools: Vim, some programming language, some framework, some libraries, browser to look up things, ebooks...
Now, I can see where the worlds collide(todos and issue trackers, emails and basecamp messaging), but I don't see where does the collaborative note taking come into action. If I need a discussion, I will use a threaded message board. If I am accumulating input, I will use a wiki.
Bottomline: If after much deliberation(much longer than 10 minutes), Rocketr's purpose is lost on me, I am not surprised it were lost on YC in a 10 minute assessment.
A resounding "me too". I'm only about 75% sure I understand the pain points they're trying to address - and I have no freaking clue what the product actually does.
(and if I'm right about my understanding of the pain points then it's really bad - since I suffer from 'em and would like a solution :-)
After all this time and so many words, they still failed to get it right[1].
And the part where they fantasize about how pg communicates with YC startups and the problems he has is amazing. Maybe they should have asked someone, anyone, in the ecosystem to learn a little bit about how it works and if there's any issue to be solved?
If you can't describe in concrete terms what makes your product special, it's likely that you simply don't have a special product. What drove you to create it in the first place? What unfulfilled need did you see?
I know not everyone is good at marketing or communication, but this shouldn't be a difficult question to answer directly and without fluff.
I know and understand webapps, however, I find it really hard to understand what they are building.
My take is that they are afraid to be seen as something that exists therefore their marketing is geared towards making it seem they are building something that has never existed.
I would suggest configuring their pitch to something that exists (even if it is not in the exact same domain. e.g we are the X of Y), then explain how they are different or better.
Better still, create a demo/description for one use case.
> Better still, create a demo/description for one use case.
This. Lately I've found the best way to describe an undeveloped (and potentially abstract) idea to someone is to give a single concrete use case - define the problem for that specific use case and explain how your product can fix it. Rocketr attempted to do this (YC as the use case - a stretch), but didn't at all explain their solution.
I get quoted in an article on HN linking back to my comment, and all I see is how I should have taken a moment to revise and edit. I sound like a blubbering idiot.
I hope all their efforts pan out to some form of success, but in terms of this analysis as to why they didn't get accepted into YC, they really need to be a bit more honest with themselves. It's less likely due to a few poorly chosen words, and more likely due to a not-strong idea, and a not-strong team.
The original blog post reminds me of the song "Pictures of You" by the Cure. The best lines in the song are:
"If only I'd thought of the right words
I could have held on to your heart
If only I'd thought of the right words
I wouldn't be breaking apart all my pictures of you"
What makes this song so pathetic, and the brilliance of those lyrics, is that the person singing it really believes that changing their words would have kept their relationship intact. But really, it's ridiculous to think that a doomed relationship can be saved with a few "right" words. The relationship was destined to fail because of who the singer is, not because they couldn't think of the right words to say.
In the same way, I can't believe changing the answers to their pitch during the 10 min interview would have made a difference. I don't think the person from rocketr can say so confidently that they would have gotten in "if they knew their business well enough". Their entire pitch got unraveled by the 3 most basic questions that anyone could have expected: "What do you do?", "Are you like X or Y?", "Who are your customers?" I think they need to come to the conclusion that their product doesn't pass the smell test for PG, as well as many others on HN, and that is probably the reason why they weren't accepted by YC.
I'm wondering what it was about this team that got them an interview? I would have assumed that anybody full of so much marketing speak would automatically be culled.
A hint to Rocketr. Listen to how you describe your product to a friend. Don't sell it, tell somebody what you do. Listen to the words you use. Then listen to somebody else pitch your business. Listen to how they describe it. That's your pitch.
You may think you know your business, but listening to somebody else pitch your business lets you hear what they caught and what they thought was important and how it will affect them. If they are your customer, that's the most important thing.
And remember, google isn't "a mathematical system for capturing and extracting meaning from electronically stored data", "it's a search engine". What will people do with your product? It might not matter what it does.
Make your product simpler, there is already too much complexity in the world.
But, this is from a guy that didn't get an interview... so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
I agree with the thesis of this article, but I think it is needlessly harsh and confrontational. "You don't get it", ok, maybe he doesn't but is he a 30 year old who should get it by now, or is he a whiz bang 16 year old whose hitting way above his handicap? I don't know, but how... personal... a response should be should depend on how obnoxious the other party is being. Yeah, his article was total HN link bait, but it isn't even in the bottom %25 of articles I don't like on HN.
I think your article would have been stronger if you'd provided some clear elevator statements that fit your mold for other companies, or even your own.
I have trouble finding good examples myself as we work on ours. I troll angel list for hours seeing crap. "We're TWA for food!"
I think your article would have been stronger if you'd provided some clear elevator statements that fit your mold for other companies, or even your own.
Seconded. We could all benefit from honing our short pitches.
> What are the tools that are currently being used? Why are they so horrible? Do people wake agonize over these treacherous solutions, ripping their hair out and wishing there was something better?
Does every new product really need to solve a problem people are ripping their hair out about? I wake up pretty comfortably every morning, yet I could still use a jetpack - and I don't even own a car.
I'm not sure what motivated this blog post; it's a comment on the original, rehashing much of what the rest of us (me included) already said, but with a few cusses added in.
It's disappointing to see this kind of content; especially to see it upvoted. There is no value here. Loren, maybe next time post this as a comment, that seems a more appropriate form factor.
Seems more like a lesson in how to get attention by pandering to the lowest common denominator. This blog post is contentless, arrogant and confrontational sludge.
I am still searching for the additional insight I am supposed to gleam from your blog post, relative to the comment thread attached to the original.
Despite my best efforts, all I see is a deliberate attempt to be malicious for the purpose of increasing your HN cred.
You've asked 7 rhetorical questions. Assuming your post (and this is a generous assumption) was to ask these questions in earnest, here is my best attempt at answering them:
1. What are you solving?
>> We are trying to create a "better than email" environment for ideas and insights, shared within teams. Email is great at task management, but orders content by recency, which means that important thoughts (that aren't time-sensitive) get lost in archives.
2. What are the tools that are currently being used?
>> Email. Google Docs. And sometimes teams use the writeboard within their project management application.
3. Why are they so horrible?
>> I've explained email above. Google Docs doesn't give you attribution and ownership over your ideas. It's also very poor at allowing you to organize your docs. Finally, it's also incredibly hard to add to a doc quickly from a mobile device.
4. Do people wake agonize over these treacherous solutions, ripping their hair out and wishing there was something better?
>> This doesn't need an answer. You're mostly just interested in hearing yourself speak here.
5. So who actually needs what you’re building?
>> Creative teams (web design/dev shops, agencies, startups), Freelancers (part of many teams), Students & Educators (project groups and classrooms), Networked organizations (like YC who manage a portfolio of companies).
6. Have you talked to potential customers?
>> We're approaching 300 user interviews.
7. Have you reached out and gathered honest opinions?
>> Again. No answer required here.
The interesting thing about this experience (aside from the tremendously helpful feedback provided by some HN users), is that there seems to be this widely held assumption that branding and positioning a product are the "easy" parts.
People look at the fact that we've been at this for a year and a bit, and judge our progress, yet there is an endless amount of literature that's been created about how to do it well. If it was such a simple task, would you expect there to be such a large body of work around it?
Who are the customers? Give us a concrete example of someone outside silicon valley using this. Stop trying to think of some clever way to spin it, just tell the world who finds this worth paying for and why.
Their blog, is about startup life, is that meant to be their target market startups? If so they really should be able to say hey you guys you have all startups, comes use Rocketr for X.
It's better than trello because of X.
The problem you have at the moment is X, it's painful because of X.
Seems like they are trying to communicate what their product does, without actually knowing who will pay for it/find it useful.
Which is cool, just if that is the case focus less on how you pitch YC and blogging about startups and more on selling this thing to people. Or maybe they just totally over thinking the whole thing, use plain language.
What exactly is the point of this post? If it is truly to help the people at Rocketr better position their product, then I would think the 100+ comments in the original thread provided more than enough feedback. In fact, this article adds nothing, and I suspect you did this to help boost your 'web presence'.
I'm done with HN and this 'scene' for a while. Everyone seems to be more concerned with flailing their e-dicks around to establish their personal brand, without actually giving a genuine fuck about helping out others. Plus, this whole "I'm passionate about startups and I'm just blunt with my advice" attitude is getting really tiring.
More and more frequently I think about people actually doing meaningful stuff out there, and very rarely are they blogging, publicly critiquing others, trying to get their name out there online. I think I'm going to follow in their footsteps.
Rocketr: I think you guys received all the feedback and more that you asked for yesterday. I'm sure you guys were taken aback by the response to your article, but you seemed rather accepting of the advice. Ignore this fluff piece and don't take it personally. This guy really doesn't care about helping.
This is the equivalent of "Original title [fixed]" we see on Reddit. The attempt to generate publicity by submitting a new item instead of contributing to the original discussion. I think this highlights a problem with sites like these: They are terrible for discussion. Discussions are practically dead after a couple of hours. The deeper a discussion tree goes, the fewer people (the contributors) have a useful way to noticing new posts. I have no idea how to do it better, just thought I would share this thought.
If only there was some other means of social collaboration. Threads tend to enforce a hierarchy that is not enforced in normal social situations. If several root level comments all present the same idea, maybe it would make sense to respond to all of them with a single well structured response. The only way to do that with threads is via copy/paste. If only there was less structure. Maybe a collaborative note-taking technology is the solution?
I can't help but wonder that perhaps the point of giving feedback on their own blog is not just about responding to Rocketr, but giving that same advice to all their readers too.
Leaving the equivalent of that post as a comment on the original Rocketr article would have meant that their own readers wouldn't have seen it.
Similarly, a post was submitted yesterday entitled "Why You Can't Admit Personal Mistakes on the Internet" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4220074) regarding this whole fiasco, basically going against a lot of great posts on honesty and transparency. My reply to it is pretty aligned with your response to this one.
The tone of the blog post seemed to suggest that the author already had launched a few startups and nailed how its done. The bravado maybe even implied he has successfully pitched his company to PG. But it was weird to find out that he has done none of this.
I was uneasy about this blog post. It was just to conviently fast after rocketrs original one. What mostly uneased me was the tone of it, quite nasty and hard on the rocketr guys.
That said, you can't actually blame someone for not being accepted into YC. First, YCs acceptance ratio is pretty low. 2. 10 min is quite short to recover after a bad start that everyone can have and 3. even pg himself knows he isn't always right.
One thing rocketr achieved that I asume a lot of around here didn't is being INVITED in the first place, so there has to something about the idea and the team. At first I didn't get it neither, but after a more thorough explanaition further down in this discussion, I can see potential here. And that explanation did get better in the course of this day.
Again, nothing in the original post did merrit the tone no matter how much truth lies in Lorens post. And yes, it seems like link bait to me, too.
One especially interesting line to me: "> maybe they do use email, and maybe it works flawlessly".
Paul Graham has commented about his email use: "Email was not designed to be used the way we use it now. Email is not a messaging protocol. It's a todo list. Or rather, my inbox is a todo list, and email is the way things get onto it. But it is a disastrously bad todo list."
PG's Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas has #2 "Replace Email". Rocketr could have riffed on this idea, ideally researched ahead of time more about what PG wants and needs, and made the pitch more compelling.
A related suggestion is to show how Rocketr may relate to other companies that Y Combinator knows well, such as their own investment portfolio. If I recall correctly Siasto/Taskforce is doing productivity tools and combines emails, tasks, notes, and projects quite well.
This speaks to the problem we're trying to solve. Siasto is in the space. Wunderkit too. In a lot of ways, Posterous (YC company) tried pivoting into this space from a truly social angle as well.
At the beginning of a project it's easy to fantasize about how it could grow in a million different directions and really take over the world. As you develop it, the scope constricts until you have a well-defined thing. I think the Rocketr guys are still in the early phase, before what it is they're doing has really collapsed into one realized thing. That they don't have anything online you can actually see, combined with their overly expansive description suggests this.
The hate is excessive, but as hacker types, we're sensitive to excess verbiage without much to see. We distrust programmers that talk the talk but can't do FizzBuzz, and we distrust companies that tell us their product is amazing without letting us use it or at least see some screenshots and maybe a screencast. Steve8918 below really hits the nail on the head: we don't need more better words now, we need to see something.
I think PG was probably right not to invest now. But maybe in a year, they'll have figured out what it is they're building, and maybe it will be fantastic.
46 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 92.1 ms ] threadWhat should actually be happening is constructive criticism and lessons for all of us to learn from. At least they tried, at least they put it out there for others to see. So they got it wrong, that's no reason to hate.
You know a better way to do what they did? Good, tell them, and us.
I still don't see how "collaborative note taking"(whatever it means) is different, or more importantly, better than a wiki.
The marketing copy is making some wide claims and I am unable to follow.
> how we capture information (using personal tools),
That's as open ended as it gets. Notebook, bookmarks, wikis, emails, cms, reminders, calendar, todo...
> how we get work done (using team-based tools).
Team based tools: Git, Issue tracker, IRC, some wiki, basecamp style messaging
Non team based tools: Vim, some programming language, some framework, some libraries, browser to look up things, ebooks...
Now, I can see where the worlds collide(todos and issue trackers, emails and basecamp messaging), but I don't see where does the collaborative note taking come into action. If I need a discussion, I will use a threaded message board. If I am accumulating input, I will use a wiki.
Bottomline: If after much deliberation(much longer than 10 minutes), Rocketr's purpose is lost on me, I am not surprised it were lost on YC in a 10 minute assessment.
We've re-built the product recently and as such, don't have demos of the new application yet.
(and if I'm right about my understanding of the pain points then it's really bad - since I suffer from 'em and would like a solution :-)
And the part where they fantasize about how pg communicates with YC startups and the problems he has is amazing. Maybe they should have asked someone, anyone, in the ecosystem to learn a little bit about how it works and if there's any issue to be solved?
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4218716
I know not everyone is good at marketing or communication, but this shouldn't be a difficult question to answer directly and without fluff.
My take is that they are afraid to be seen as something that exists therefore their marketing is geared towards making it seem they are building something that has never existed.
I would suggest configuring their pitch to something that exists (even if it is not in the exact same domain. e.g we are the X of Y), then explain how they are different or better.
Better still, create a demo/description for one use case.
Dear Rocktrs, do read this post if you have the time http://www.jasonshen.com/2012/eleven-compelling-startup-pitc...
They are getting so much attention, I hope they use it.
This. Lately I've found the best way to describe an undeveloped (and potentially abstract) idea to someone is to give a single concrete use case - define the problem for that specific use case and explain how your product can fix it. Rocketr attempted to do this (YC as the use case - a stretch), but didn't at all explain their solution.
He should explain at the very least how they use it. or better still how one of their customers uses it.
The original blog post reminds me of the song "Pictures of You" by the Cure. The best lines in the song are:
What makes this song so pathetic, and the brilliance of those lyrics, is that the person singing it really believes that changing their words would have kept their relationship intact. But really, it's ridiculous to think that a doomed relationship can be saved with a few "right" words. The relationship was destined to fail because of who the singer is, not because they couldn't think of the right words to say.In the same way, I can't believe changing the answers to their pitch during the 10 min interview would have made a difference. I don't think the person from rocketr can say so confidently that they would have gotten in "if they knew their business well enough". Their entire pitch got unraveled by the 3 most basic questions that anyone could have expected: "What do you do?", "Are you like X or Y?", "Who are your customers?" I think they need to come to the conclusion that their product doesn't pass the smell test for PG, as well as many others on HN, and that is probably the reason why they weren't accepted by YC.
P.S: words do matter ;)
A hint to Rocketr. Listen to how you describe your product to a friend. Don't sell it, tell somebody what you do. Listen to the words you use. Then listen to somebody else pitch your business. Listen to how they describe it. That's your pitch.
You may think you know your business, but listening to somebody else pitch your business lets you hear what they caught and what they thought was important and how it will affect them. If they are your customer, that's the most important thing.
And remember, google isn't "a mathematical system for capturing and extracting meaning from electronically stored data", "it's a search engine". What will people do with your product? It might not matter what it does.
Make your product simpler, there is already too much complexity in the world.
But, this is from a guy that didn't get an interview... so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
I think your article would have been stronger if you'd provided some clear elevator statements that fit your mold for other companies, or even your own.
I have trouble finding good examples myself as we work on ours. I troll angel list for hours seeing crap. "We're TWA for food!"
Seconded. We could all benefit from honing our short pitches.
Does every new product really need to solve a problem people are ripping their hair out about? I wake up pretty comfortably every morning, yet I could still use a jetpack - and I don't even own a car.
Tell me, if you're unwilling to spend money on a car why would you spend it on a jet pack?
I'm not sure what motivated this blog post; it's a comment on the original, rehashing much of what the rest of us (me included) already said, but with a few cusses added in.
It's disappointing to see this kind of content; especially to see it upvoted. There is no value here. Loren, maybe next time post this as a comment, that seems a more appropriate form factor.
Despite my best efforts, all I see is a deliberate attempt to be malicious for the purpose of increasing your HN cred.
You've asked 7 rhetorical questions. Assuming your post (and this is a generous assumption) was to ask these questions in earnest, here is my best attempt at answering them:
1. What are you solving?
>> We are trying to create a "better than email" environment for ideas and insights, shared within teams. Email is great at task management, but orders content by recency, which means that important thoughts (that aren't time-sensitive) get lost in archives.
2. What are the tools that are currently being used?
>> Email. Google Docs. And sometimes teams use the writeboard within their project management application.
3. Why are they so horrible?
>> I've explained email above. Google Docs doesn't give you attribution and ownership over your ideas. It's also very poor at allowing you to organize your docs. Finally, it's also incredibly hard to add to a doc quickly from a mobile device.
4. Do people wake agonize over these treacherous solutions, ripping their hair out and wishing there was something better?
>> This doesn't need an answer. You're mostly just interested in hearing yourself speak here.
5. So who actually needs what you’re building?
>> Creative teams (web design/dev shops, agencies, startups), Freelancers (part of many teams), Students & Educators (project groups and classrooms), Networked organizations (like YC who manage a portfolio of companies).
6. Have you talked to potential customers?
>> We're approaching 300 user interviews.
7. Have you reached out and gathered honest opinions?
>> Again. No answer required here.
The interesting thing about this experience (aside from the tremendously helpful feedback provided by some HN users), is that there seems to be this widely held assumption that branding and positioning a product are the "easy" parts.
People look at the fact that we've been at this for a year and a bit, and judge our progress, yet there is an endless amount of literature that's been created about how to do it well. If it was such a simple task, would you expect there to be such a large body of work around it?
http://xkcd.com/386/
In other words. Sometimes one should perhaps just let it go.
Their blog, is about startup life, is that meant to be their target market startups? If so they really should be able to say hey you guys you have all startups, comes use Rocketr for X.
It's better than trello because of X.
The problem you have at the moment is X, it's painful because of X.
Seems like they are trying to communicate what their product does, without actually knowing who will pay for it/find it useful.
Which is cool, just if that is the case focus less on how you pitch YC and blogging about startups and more on selling this thing to people. Or maybe they just totally over thinking the whole thing, use plain language.
I'm done with HN and this 'scene' for a while. Everyone seems to be more concerned with flailing their e-dicks around to establish their personal brand, without actually giving a genuine fuck about helping out others. Plus, this whole "I'm passionate about startups and I'm just blunt with my advice" attitude is getting really tiring.
More and more frequently I think about people actually doing meaningful stuff out there, and very rarely are they blogging, publicly critiquing others, trying to get their name out there online. I think I'm going to follow in their footsteps.
Rocketr: I think you guys received all the feedback and more that you asked for yesterday. I'm sure you guys were taken aback by the response to your article, but you seemed rather accepting of the advice. Ignore this fluff piece and don't take it personally. This guy really doesn't care about helping.
So long, HN.
Leaving the equivalent of that post as a comment on the original Rocketr article would have meant that their own readers wouldn't have seen it.
That said, you can't actually blame someone for not being accepted into YC. First, YCs acceptance ratio is pretty low. 2. 10 min is quite short to recover after a bad start that everyone can have and 3. even pg himself knows he isn't always right.
One thing rocketr achieved that I asume a lot of around here didn't is being INVITED in the first place, so there has to something about the idea and the team. At first I didn't get it neither, but after a more thorough explanaition further down in this discussion, I can see potential here. And that explanation did get better in the course of this day.
Again, nothing in the original post did merrit the tone no matter how much truth lies in Lorens post. And yes, it seems like link bait to me, too.
Paul Graham has commented about his email use: "Email was not designed to be used the way we use it now. Email is not a messaging protocol. It's a todo list. Or rather, my inbox is a todo list, and email is the way things get onto it. But it is a disastrously bad todo list."
PG's Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas has #2 "Replace Email". Rocketr could have riffed on this idea, ideally researched ahead of time more about what PG wants and needs, and made the pitch more compelling.
A related suggestion is to show how Rocketr may relate to other companies that Y Combinator knows well, such as their own investment portfolio. If I recall correctly Siasto/Taskforce is doing productivity tools and combines emails, tasks, notes, and projects quite well.
The hate is excessive, but as hacker types, we're sensitive to excess verbiage without much to see. We distrust programmers that talk the talk but can't do FizzBuzz, and we distrust companies that tell us their product is amazing without letting us use it or at least see some screenshots and maybe a screencast. Steve8918 below really hits the nail on the head: we don't need more better words now, we need to see something.
I think PG was probably right not to invest now. But maybe in a year, they'll have figured out what it is they're building, and maybe it will be fantastic.