1) Something we've heard a lot from PG: Is this your biggest problem?
2) What prevents random Hacker McHack from reproducing your company in a couple of weeks and releasing it as open source?
3) You don't want to mention your monetization plans, but are you sure the income from something like this can support a company? I can see why people goes for companies like Tumblr/Posterous (huge, huge, huge audience), but your service by comparison looks like something too "nichey" (not bad, but again, not the scale YC is looking for).
I'm sorry if I sound blunt, but as it stands right now, compare this to Heroku, Justin.tv or Greplin and tell me again if this is something you think fits their idea of a good startup.
Without reading your application it's hard to see what plans you have for this, maybe I'm just blinded by what's only in this post. Your ebooks idea sounds like it could be _super_ interesting.
I hope this feedback helps you :)
Edit: As a geek, I'd love to use this once you support custom themes :)
First, let me say I really appreciate the feedback. This really started as us trying to scratch an itch we've been having for a long time. We've always been of the opinion that plain text is how people should write, and so this is an attempt to make that a bit more accessible. Clearly we have a lot of work to do.
On to your questions:
1. Like I said, delivery of prettified plain text was a problem we were having. The process of going from Markdown'ed text to something you can send to, say, a client, is a complete PITA (read: I want to punch LaTeX in the face). On a macro scale, it's still way too hard for people who are good writers to focus on writing when there's all this other stuff they need to do to just get their words out there (find a publisher, set up their own site, etc).
2. Absolutely nothing, but that's true of just about anything. We built the app in a matter of weeks and I suppose someone could release an open source version. If some intrepid writer is able to set up their own server, install the software, and configure everything themselves, well they're not really our target market anyways. There's not a lot of magic here; you can probably figure out the basics of how this works fairly easily. By that logic, why use Dropbox if SparkleShare is like right there.
3. The sale of content and additional features for people that take the service seriously will be our main revenue drivers. We're taking the eBook thing very seriously and are imagining a marketplace where you could buy access to content and have it available, in different formats, on all your devices. The content on your Dropbox will be considered the canonical source; we simply would create optimized experiences and provide the transactional marketplace on top of that. We've run the numbers and even if we capture a statistically insignificant marketshare, we're living a pretty good life doing interesting work. You might be absolutely right, that's probably not the scale YC was looking for.
I appreciate the bluntness and the time you took to put together your thoughts. They are incredibly appreciated. We're actively working on development and want to make sure things like themes are properly implemented in a way that is a.) flexible for our future plans and b.) geek friendly.
Again, thanks a bunch. We're just trying to build something cool and your thoughts are very welcome.
Comments
A couple of questions/comments:
1) Something we've heard a lot from PG: Is this your biggest problem?
2) What prevents random Hacker McHack from reproducing your company in a couple of weeks and releasing it as open source?
3) You don't want to mention your monetization plans, but are you sure the income from something like this can support a company? I can see why people goes for companies like Tumblr/Posterous (huge, huge, huge audience), but your service by comparison looks like something too "nichey" (not bad, but again, not the scale YC is looking for).
I'm sorry if I sound blunt, but as it stands right now, compare this to Heroku, Justin.tv or Greplin and tell me again if this is something you think fits their idea of a good startup.
Without reading your application it's hard to see what plans you have for this, maybe I'm just blinded by what's only in this post. Your ebooks idea sounds like it could be _super_ interesting.
I hope this feedback helps you :)
Edit: As a geek, I'd love to use this once you support custom themes :)
First, let me say I really appreciate the feedback. This really started as us trying to scratch an itch we've been having for a long time. We've always been of the opinion that plain text is how people should write, and so this is an attempt to make that a bit more accessible. Clearly we have a lot of work to do.
On to your questions:
1. Like I said, delivery of prettified plain text was a problem we were having. The process of going from Markdown'ed text to something you can send to, say, a client, is a complete PITA (read: I want to punch LaTeX in the face). On a macro scale, it's still way too hard for people who are good writers to focus on writing when there's all this other stuff they need to do to just get their words out there (find a publisher, set up their own site, etc).
2. Absolutely nothing, but that's true of just about anything. We built the app in a matter of weeks and I suppose someone could release an open source version. If some intrepid writer is able to set up their own server, install the software, and configure everything themselves, well they're not really our target market anyways. There's not a lot of magic here; you can probably figure out the basics of how this works fairly easily. By that logic, why use Dropbox if SparkleShare is like right there.
3. The sale of content and additional features for people that take the service seriously will be our main revenue drivers. We're taking the eBook thing very seriously and are imagining a marketplace where you could buy access to content and have it available, in different formats, on all your devices. The content on your Dropbox will be considered the canonical source; we simply would create optimized experiences and provide the transactional marketplace on top of that. We've run the numbers and even if we capture a statistically insignificant marketshare, we're living a pretty good life doing interesting work. You might be absolutely right, that's probably not the scale YC was looking for.
I appreciate the bluntness and the time you took to put together your thoughts. They are incredibly appreciated. We're actively working on development and want to make sure things like themes are properly implemented in a way that is a.) flexible for our future plans and b.) geek friendly.
Again, thanks a bunch. We're just trying to build something cool and your thoughts are very welcome.