[HN Gopher] Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9
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Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #9
This is most likely the last batch thread of S21 startups. The
previous thread was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28233916.
The original description is at
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27877280. There are 4
startups in this thread. The initial order is random: Snowboard
Software (YC S21) - Fast and automated data catalog for Snowflake -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28315047 Jovian (YC S21) -
Online data science school for professionals -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28315045 Chari (YC S21) -
Ecommerce and fintech app for mom and pop shops in North Africa -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28315043 Tuli Health (YC S21)
- Turning UK pharmacies into diagnostic centres -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28315046
Author : dang
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-08-26 14:00 UTC (9 hours ago)
| samiur1204 wrote:
| Curious how YC decided to order these threads of companies. My
| guess is it's quite a bit worse to be in thread #9 than #1.
| dang wrote:
| There's a queue based on when the founders get in touch with
| us.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| What happened with Mentum? The link is dead and there's no
| founder comment on this thread.
|
| Edit: here's their YC company profile
| https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/mentum
| jacquesm wrote:
| Apparently they deleted the founder comment.
| dang wrote:
| They couldn't do it today. It was my fault--I've been setting
| these up at the last minute and guessed wrong in this case.
| Sorry for the misunderstanding!
| kappabot wrote:
| How far along in the program are they in? It'd be cool to hear
| about the journey
| ismaelbelk wrote:
| Hey, we are Ismael and Sophia, co-founders of Chari
| (https://www.chari.co/). Chari is an ecommerce and fintech app
| for proximity stores in North Africa. It allows them to order
| anything they resell in their store, get delivered in less than
| 24h and benefit from payment facilities.
|
| 80% of the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) consumption in North
| Africa, and in developing countries in general, goes through
| small mom and pop stores (Vs 20% in the modern trade, such as
| Supermarkets). We are husband and wife and have two kids. We live
| together and go to the same mom and pop shop next to our place.
| Many times, while we were buying our groceries, we were left
| waiting because the truck of Coca Cola (or any other supplier)
| came by and the shop owner needed to deal with the supplier
| instead of his clients. When we ask the shop to serve us first,
| he replies that he can't because the supplier vans companies
| can't wait. Indeed the streets are narrow in North Africa, the
| vans usually create traffic jams and they have to sell and unload
| very quickly while the cars waiting behind are horning.
|
| With Chari, they don't need to let their clients wait. When they
| run out of stock of a specific SKU, they add it to the app during
| their spare time between two clients. At the end of the day, they
| have the list of the SKUs that are missing in their shop. They
| then make the order to be delivered the day after.
|
| We launched 18 months ago in Casablanca Morocco and have been
| growing at a 40% monthly rate on average. Last month, we opened
| our second warehouse in Morocco and our first one in Tunisia.
| Here's a promotional video if you're curious:
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HEZla3KvtWYM06PO94igppL95ea....
| vijaykiran wrote:
| FYI - For some reason clicking on England flag still redirects
| to French version.
| arunnanda wrote:
| Some people might interpret that as taking a stand in the
| politics of language.
| ismaelbelk wrote:
| Weird. Works for me. Could you plz retry. Thanks
| 1billionstories wrote:
| it seems the only companies from MENA getting funding are
| delivery based.
| aakashns wrote:
| Congrats on the launch and great progress you've made so far!
| Setting up a warehouse must be a lot of work, how do you plan
| to scale this to multiple cities and countries?
| coderintherye wrote:
| When you say "free delivery" do you mean the distributor is
| delivering the products to the merchant for free? Is there a
| minimum order size?
|
| You note the idea of them ordering every day, are the goods
| moving that fast that it makes financial sense for daily
| orders? Normally these shops are ordering weekly or biweekly.
|
| Do you work with the Principals at all (e.g. Coca Cola) or just
| directly with the Distributors?
|
| Did the merchants already have smart phones and digital
| literacy to be able to easily download and leverage your app or
| was it a process of teaching them how to use it?
| ismaelbelk wrote:
| We are not a marketplace. We buy goods, stock them, and then
| deliver. So we are the ones delivering the goods, and we
| don't charge for it .
|
| We are using a transport management system to optimize our
| daily delivery routing. Shops are really close to each others
| , so it makes financial sense to daily deliver the same
| shops. There is no minimum order , however some elementary
| SKUs can't be bought only by themselves .
|
| We get our supplies from both the Principals and some
| exclusive distributors.
|
| We start first by sending salesrep on the ground to train the
| users on how to use the app. Usually the first orders are
| made through our customer care team. It can take up to 3
| months for a client to become autonomous and use the app by
| himself.
| aakashns wrote:
| Hi HN, we're Aakash and Siddhant of Jovian
| (https://www.jovian.ai/). We run a 6-month program that helps
| working professionals with a background in programming,
| statistics or analytics land their first data science job.
|
| Four years ago, we quit our jobs and spent several months
| learning data science and deep learning. We completed several
| online courses, read some books, and participated in some Kaggle
| competitions. We were finally able to make a career transition to
| data science, but looking back at the journey, we felt "It
| shouldn't be this hard!"
|
| While there are various platforms offering data science
| education, most learners don't feel confident while approaching
| real-world projects even after completing multiple courses and
| earning certifications. They find it hard to clear interviews to
| land their first job, and often require several months of
| training on the job.
|
| Jovian is the platform we wished we had access to when we started
| learning. There are three things we focus on: (1) we teach
| practical skills that students use to build real-world projects,
| (2) we offer 24x7 support & detailed feedback on every project,
| (3) students learn together with a community of like-minded
| learners in a university-like environment. We've taken
| inspiration from courses like fast.ai and mlcourse.ai.
|
| Our 6-month program consists of 7 courses, 14 coding assignments
| and 4 portfolio projects. Every week, students watch 5-6 hrs
| video lectures and work on assignments for 15-20 hrs. Students
| can ask questions and get help 24x7 from our TAs over Slack and
| Zoom. Every 5 weeks, they complete a unique guided real-world
| project and publish a blog post. We offer 1:1 resume review,
| interview practice, and job search support for 12 months. We make
| money by charging a flat fee for the course, which students can
| pay up-front or monthly.
|
| One thing we discovered and found surprising is that most of the
| math used in data science can be explained through code. Many
| people find math intimidating not because the concepts themselves
| are tough, but because they aren't used to mathematical symbols
| and equations.
|
| We look forward to your comments!
| amrrs wrote:
| Hey Aakash, Fan of Jovian and your content on YT especially
| published on FreeCodeCamp. I'm just wondering what does this
| access to YC mean to Jovian and also wondering what would the
| money be used for?
|
| I always thought of Jovian as a lean business but this
| surprised me. Also are you planning to build the Notebook-like
| platform (that it was before) more or the future is only data
| science bootcamp?
| tapeless_tunic wrote:
| Love it! Almost every professional could benefit from improved
| data literacy.
|
| Have you thought about selling courses into large
| organizations? e.g. "SQL + Statistics for marketers", I would
| love to see something like this.
| aakashns wrote:
| Thanks, we agree! Our program is currently targeted towards
| individuals, but we definitely think similar programs for
| companies are a great idea too.
| calderarrow wrote:
| I am always in favor of programs which make education more
| accessible and straightforward. I've never used your platform,
| but it seems like it's a move in that direction.
|
| I know that YC has also funded Lambda School, which offers a
| data science course, but their payment model is based primarily
| on ISAs. Did you consider ISA payment plans, and if so, why did
| you go with the flat fee? If not, do you think you would want
| to move to an ISA payment system as you scale?
|
| Congratulations on the launch and best of luck!
| aakashns wrote:
| Thanks for your support! We also offer several free courses,
| so do check them out if you're curious: https://www.jovian.ai
|
| Our program is designed primarily for working professionals
| with some background in programming, analytics or statistics.
| We've found that most of them are comfortable with paying
| program fees upfront or monthly.
|
| However, we do also offer an ISA option in cases where
| students are unable to pay upfront.
| jiaweicli wrote:
| We're Jiawei and Jialu of Tuli Health (https://tuli.health/). We
| let people get medical diagnostics quickly and safely in a
| pharmacy close to home, instead of going to a hospital. We're
| based in the UK.
|
| I have a MD PhD from University College London, and Jialu has
| been a software engineer for the past 10 years. We've lived in
| London for a decade and while we appreciate the NHS, we also
| wished for a world where we could walk down the street to get
| healthcare. This is what we're building.
|
| Instead of travelling a long distance and waiting a long time to
| receive diagnostic tests, customers can now receive diagnostic
| tests from their local pharmacies, just around the corner from
| where they live.
|
| There are 11,000 independent pharmacies in the UK. Our software
| makes it easy for them to sell and fulfill Covid-19 tests. These
| same pharmacies have just started selling allergy tests as well.
|
| We offer easy-to-use software for the pharmacies to register and
| manage patients for diagnostic tests. We are currently used by
| over 150 pharmacies. The link to the dashboard is
| https://portal.tuli.health. A user can sign up as an end customer
| or a pharmacy.
|
| Covid has led to changes in our user behaviour. Many services
| have now become hyper-localised. Covid tests led to the
| pharmacies delivering the first diagnostic tests. In the future,
| other diagnostic tests will also be available: STI, ,
| biochemistry profile, gluten intolerance... Hopefully things will
| get easier and more accessible. We look forward to your questions
| and feedback!
| betamaxthetape wrote:
| This is an interesting idea. I agree with you that going to get
| a Covid test from a local pharmacy has made me wish that other
| similar diagnosis were available from pharmacies, rather than
| requiring a trip to a hospital.
|
| I'm curious as to how you will integrate into the existing UK
| healthcare system. Will you have access to my NHS records? Will
| the results of these tests appear on my NHS records? Will these
| tests be covered by the NHS?
|
| (I'm not in the healthcare profession so please forgive me if
| these questions are obvious to those that work in the UK
| healthcare!)
| g_p wrote:
| > Will these tests be covered by the NHS?
|
| The marketing copy on the website seems to suggest this is
| for private healthcare ("All your private healthcare needs in
| one app")
|
| I will be interested to see how this goes, because the
| sentiment outlined in the OP can be quite controversial in
| the UK healthcare market ("while we appreciate the NHS, we
| also wished for a world where...") - for international
| context, the NHS employs 1 in 17 people in the UK, and there
| is an almost irrational love for it. The UK's initial covid
| lockdown message even featured it as an imperative - "Stay at
| home. Protect the NHS. Save lives". A push towards private
| healthcare (at point of use) may well be a challenging sell,
| though perhaps a primarily-urban market might accept it more.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Over the last ~3 years I've noticed a lot more private
| healthcare being advertised direct to consumers,
| particularly in London and particularly targeting busy,
| high earning professionals.
|
| I'd have expected this to go down pretty poorly because
| while high earning busy people tend to be more open to
| spending to fix problems, the idea of paying for healthcare
| here is nuts - you either use NHS services, or your
| employer gives you private healthcare.
|
| I wonder if, as London becomes increasingly diverse with
| more workers from overseas, the acceptance will increase as
| there are more people who don't have that cultural blocker
| to paying directly for healthcare (rather than via taxes).
| donnythecroc wrote:
| This is money for convenience trade off. Just like some
| people pay double for food through uber eats. I use both
| the NHS and private healthcare. There is definitely an
| upper limit on this but if I can spend 10 minutes rather
| than an hour that is probably worth PS100 to me.
| g_p wrote:
| Indeed, I have definitely seen an increase in
| "convenience" or "time" driven offerings for private
| healthcare - usually focused around opening hours or
| "avoiding waiting".
|
| Some seemed to be trying to deliver NHS services
| (video/remote consultations available by "gig-working"
| GPs in evenings etc.), but others seemed to be
| increasingly trying to provide testing or other
| preventative/diagnostic services (blood tests, 7-day
| health check-ups booked same-day etc.)
|
| I guess to some extent there likely will (among high
| earning, time-strapped immigrant workers) be an increased
| appetite to pay for healthcare directly, but for those
| who are aware of their immigration NHS access charge,
| they might well come to adopt the "I already pay for
| this" view. There's also a scalability question beyond
| London, where typical incomes mean the only people using
| any kind of private healthcare will be those with
| company-paid schemes.
|
| There are some interesting ethical quandaries around what
| the NHS could do to improve its service (which could
| potentially hurt private sector rivals) - from some
| people's perspectives, the NHS could allow people paying
| privately to get things faster (without compromising on
| clinical need based priority) if it meant the service was
| better funded through revenues from those private
| patients going towards cutting wait times more generally.
| The British pastime of queueing could negatively impact
| on perceptions of anything like this though (even though
| you can already pay a little extra for an expedited next-
| day passport renewal etc.)
|
| I know some hospital trusts have setups with private
| wards where NHS staff deliver private care (without
| bypassing priority by clinical need), and revenues from
| this are reinvested into regular services.
| zurfer wrote:
| Hi everyone, my name is Rick and with my co-founders Sven and
| Theo we are building Snowboard (https://www.snowboard.software/).
| Snowboard is a fast and automated data catalog for the Snowflake
| data cloud. It helps teams find, understand and trust their data
| assets.
|
| In past jobs, I (Rick) rolled out Snowflake at a manufacturer
| with 11000 employees and $2B in revenue, and Theo built the data
| team and infrastructure at a B2B company that raised $200M. My
| experience introducing Snowflake was that after 2 years and more
| than 1000 tables and many more columns, it was hard to find data
| and tedious to understand it, and users would not trust the data
| without a lot of upfront due diligence.
|
| We index all data and visualization assets that are connected,
| making it easy to find them. We profile data continuously to show
| what's inside, how it is changing, and make it easy to document
| and tag information. What helps us surface a lot of context is
| that we parse Snowflake's query history. This lets us provide
| automated data lineage and indicate data freshness and usage.
|
| Most of our customers that see their actual data flows are
| surprised by the complexity they have built. Some see for the
| first time how their data flows work and how many redundant data
| assets they have created from one base table.
|
| For now, we focus on the Snowflake ecosystem and don't support
| the long-tail of other database and analytics solutions. This
| lets us "overfit" to the needs and problems of companies that sit
| on this stack, e.g.: Fivetran > DBT > Snowflake > Tableau. Under
| the hood we leverage the flexibility of ArangoDB to offer a fast
| application that offers great search speed and also graph
| workloads e.g. for data lineage.
|
| Our initial market is 5k Snowflake customers, but the global data
| warehousing market consists of 250k companies. We charge per
| indexed data asset. The number of data assets in companies is
| doubling on average every 2 years, so this market is taking off.
|
| We offer both cloud and self-hosted. Self-hosted means a Docker
| Compose configuration that starts 3 Docker containers. The only
| data that is transmitted to our system is a license check in this
| case.
|
| Your questions and comments are welcome. Thank you!
| tapeless_tunic wrote:
| Working as a data engineer, I can see how big of a problem this
| is. At my company, we waste loads of time cleaning up garbage
| tables, finding the right data, and duplicating work.
|
| Does snowflake have any plans of building a similar cataloging
| infrastructure?
| zurfer wrote:
| Thank you for the data point. :)
|
| To answer your question: there is multiple parts to it, I am
| certain they will tackle some parts like search in the
| future. I don't see them solving lineage or data monitoring
| anytime soon. Also cross-system overview (e.g. with Tableau)
| won't be coming.
| lizen_one wrote:
| That is a very interesting idea. As far as I understand, you
| generate the information purely read only.
|
| Column statistics: Sample data randomly and calculate estimator
| from that.
|
| Data Lineage/usage: From the queries (and 'similar' stuff like
| materialized views. It seems like that currenltly have only
| lineage on table level, i.e. which table depends on which
| tables. Do you plan to implement data lineage on column level,
| i.e. which column depends on which column? This sounds
| challenging and very interesting.
|
| I tried to watch the demo video on your website, but it was too
| small and maximizing the video is disabled (Firefox). So I had
| to click through to youtube. I'm not sure if this is intended.
| zurfer wrote:
| Thanks for your thoughtful comment and pointing out the video
| problem! It should be fixed now.
|
| Column Level Usage is something we are looking into. We also
| have some ideas. It seems like a solvable problem but as you
| said challenging. :)
| bob33212 wrote:
| Are customers able to fix the problems identified by your
| product?
|
| I ask because I built a SaaS product that helped customers
| understand their data inside a legacy accounting product.
| Similarly it looked in the meta data on the back end of that
| accounting product and built visualizations. The problem we had
| was that customers didn't know how to or didn't want to fix the
| problems that our tool found. We had to hire accountants to go
| into the accounting tool and fix their problems. So it ended up
| being more of a tool for our accountants and less of a stand
| alone SaaS tool that customers actually used.
| zurfer wrote:
| Great question. Only because we show technical debt, does not
| mean it gets solved. We are still learning with our first
| users how to approach these things.
|
| Further down the road I can also see that consultants will
| find it useful to help their clients clean up their data
| pipelines and reduce complexity.
| [deleted]
| ecf wrote:
| As with most YC acceptees, most here have "for x
| country/demographic/race/gender"
|
| Is the best path to forming a startup these days to take an
| already existing product and market it to a very specific niche
| while taking investment capital that rivals the revenue of pre-
| existing software?
|
| I don't get it. Really.
| dang wrote:
| That's not true of most YC acceptees. It's more true of these
| "meet the batch" threads but that's a sample bias.
|
| I suppose it's mostly an artifact of YC's growing so more
| internationally in recent years. There are others (e.g.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28257352 and
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309) but these are a
| small minority.
| alexyz12 wrote:
| feels like 1->N rather than 0-1. Which is just as good if not
| better in my book! But different.
| aakashns wrote:
| In many cases, the existing product is not designed to serve
| the needs of all countries/demographies/races/genders etc., so
| there's value in provided a better user experience for a
| specific niche, especially one that's growing.
|
| I like using products that were created keeping me in mind as
| the primary customer. Wouldn't you too?
| kami8845 wrote:
| Something I've noticed as well. Might be related to geographic
| diversification, or that "[App] for [Emerging Market]" better
| answers the "Why now?" question.
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(page generated 2021-08-26 23:01 UTC)