Damien Katz

You know, I think he might have a point.. :-)

Good luck for tomorrow. Various appendages are crossed..

---* Bill

High praise, indeed. Congratulations.

You have all night to find a Steve Jobs. It's not like your gonna be sleeping ;-)

Maybe Apple would be interested, they already have a Jobs and they're down one Wozniak.

I hope Paul and Company 'see the light'.

I'll leave my appendages out of this.

CONGRATS!!

two books that changed our software company:

The Beermat Entrepeneur
The Beermat Salesman.

Get both. Now.

:-)

---* Bill

Bill, why am I not surprised you recommend business books with "beer" in the title? ;)

Actually, having seen you in action I'll definitely take your advice, you've definitely mastered what I need to work on most. Aw hell maybe you should be my Jobs? Too bad we're on different continents!

well Damien, you are on the right track. I believe Ozzie, Jobs, and a few others (except Gates) started out with a dream, and a bunch of tuna fish sandwiches (until at least the next funding session).

Glad to see you're holding on...

What the heck is CouchDB anyway? :)

"What the heck is CouchDB anyway?"

That's the key question! I've been thinking a lot about the best way to answer that question, I really need to work on a focused and polished answer.

And as far as holding on, yes, all the long thankless months of designing, planning and coding are finally coming to a head. The most exciting part of the project is just starting!

Okay good. I've been reading your blog on and off (like every 6 months or so :) ) and have seen the reference to CouchDB, but could never figure it out. since your answering questions- so is this a full time job or do you do this part-time-full-time (i.e. other stuff to pay the bills). Or are you independently wealthy :)

Sorry I didnt see the original post in time. Given what you stated in your '15 Minutes' post, my guess is you never talked about what is most important to Y Combinator. How are you planning to make money from Couch DB. They are not in the business of giving out research grants , but rather venture capital (albeit small amounts) which they expect a return on. I would have said your pitch should have looked like.

1. This is the problem Couch DB solves
2. These are the people with that problem
3. Reasons they will pay me to solve this problem (business model)
4. This is how much money I think I can get them to pay me to help them solve this problem (Profit!!!!)

Also I would guess that anything pitched at Y Combinator should probably have the potential to at least break even in 6-12 months.

I reckon what he meant by the 'woz in search of steve' comment, is that you had a lot of cool tech, but no obvious plan to monetize it.

Mike, I've been working full time on this now for about a year and a half. I'm completely self funded, but by no means am I independently wealthy.

It sounds a bit crazy, but if you knew what I know, you'd believe too. So I really haven't done a very good job explaining CouchDb and what it can do for you, explaining its real impact on *you*. Partially this is intentional, as in I intentionally slacked in this area because I wanted to wait until CouchDb was "ready". Most people will give you only one chance with your project, and if you promote it before its ready you'll lose credibility.

CouchDb is just about feature complete. Now we've got start making the case as to why you'd want to actually use this for real development work (demos, documentation and tutorials are a big part of that).

And then eventually we'll be making the case to Joe Enduser why they would want to use it. That will mean creating real applications on CouchDb that solve real problems.

Honestly Sean, Y Combinator made it pretty clear in the interview process they were mostly interested in the technology. Really the biggest sticking point for Paul was the lack of a co-founder, mistake #1 on his 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups (http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html). But I already knew that going in, so I'm not surprised it was a deciding factor.

The more I think about it though, the more I think he's probably right. That's not to say it's mandatory to have a co-founder to fill that role, but it would be a big boost for the project and the right person in that position could really turn this thing absolutely huge and become a Steve Jobs figure. But it will require someone special, no doubt about it.

Damien,

Let's get on Skype on of these days and talk. I may be able to help.

What questions did they ask? Why did you think you answered them not terrribly well?

Interesting project -- did you consider P2P implications of this? I think it's pretty decent as a framework, but needs specific applications as examples.

Damien,

As a fellow YC applicant, congratulations on getting invited up to Cambridge for the interview (we got dinged at the email submission phase).

What can you share with us about your original application?

I'd be curious to know if it was CouchDB specifically, or the way you answered those questions that got you the invite.

Also, it seems you applied as one person, without a co-founder, is that right?

I'm unemployed. I need a Jobs, too.

Two words: "monocle, cigar"

You could just play to your strengths and stay the Woz. Find someone who knows how to present the actions and end result, the Jobs character that will do that part exceptionally well.

Sorry Damien -- Paul Graham's right, and you and you friends (bless them for their support) are wrong. Fifteen minutes (or less) is exactly the right amount of time, and the fact you don't get that (plus you didn't recognize the thumbs down before the meeting ended) *really* means you're over your head on the business side of things.

Having a great tech idea is not enough; having coding talent is not enough. Find a "Jobs" or "Gates" and try again, or sell your IP to IBM.

Cool article. And come back to ?off (now crazyontap dot com).

I will be following this blog a little more now.

Damien, do you want CouchDB to be a success?
If you want to improve your pitch, contact me.
I advise startup founders how to improve pitches.

Good luck with it.

---
Sorry Damien -- Paul Graham's right, and you and you friends (bless them for their support) are wrong. Fifteen minutes (or less) is exactly the right amount of time, and the fact you don't get that (plus you didn't recognize the thumbs down before the meeting ended) *really* means you're over your head on the business side of things.

Having a great tech idea is not enough; having coding talent is not enough. Find a "Jobs" or "Gates" and try again, or sell your IP to IBM.
- Anonymous
---

Always nice to see another snarky, pompous, armchair quarterback proved wrong!

Good luck.

(I think the most important part of presentations is figuring out what your audience wants to/can get out of it, and making sure you deliver that. Too many presenters concentrate on themselves, or their topic.)

Damien, you need a "JOBS", simply because you need his knowledge of customers if you haven't it by yourself. If you haven't knowledge about the market and real companies, then you will spend a lot of time learning from failures and you will burn your time or money.

I dislike many points of view of Paul Graham's philosophy. I were in the first Startup School, and I can tell you that most of people that went there were looking for an idea or a JOBS, and all of them were WOZNIAKS.

To create a company is not only about creating great products but about creating a living form. You need your organs as much as you need your brain or your senses. I suggest you to read Startups Tips, and the history of Ars Digita, before trying to create a startup.

To create a successful company is more about trying it hard than about technology. Don't try it by creating a product that need so much money to get the first customer that you need VC or too much Business Angel money.

If Paul Graham dislikes your idea, it's his problem, not yours. He is just someone who has made money with computing, but he hasn't the last word. Great ideas always were so big or impresive that people reject them at first sight.

And don't forget this: Paul Graham got it wrong. He funded startups of young people, and now he says that it was the wrong way to do it. Now he wants people with a degree. In a few years he will want at least one person with a degree in business administration involved in the project. One thing is trying to destroy the traditional process of creating a startup, as Paul Graham is trying to do, and other thing is to actually get it! By the moment, Paul is losing the war.

If you believe in you idea, if you really believe in it, try to get more people involved. If your idea is so secret that you can't tell it to anyone, then your first competitor will destroy you. Because he will be a person with business experience and maybe he will have access to more capital than you.

Good Luck!

I also got rejected from YC this funding round after the interview.

15 minutes isn't enough. But, they can afford to make snap decisions like that. We, the losers, are the ones getting screwed.

I was talking with another YC reject... look at Paul Graham's investment portfolio. They fund niche applications with niche markets. Not big picture applications, like CouchDB and granmos. I'm not even sure why; the economics of applications with large markets should be especially attractive to them.

Having glanced at CouchOS, it seems obvious... bringing the Google style of database management to the masses. There's obviously money in it. I don't know why Paul Graham doesn't just throw money at such a big idea and hope it sticks. It's better than throwing money at slightly more thought-out small ideas.

If I had money, I'd give you $100,000. But, I don't. Get in touch if you want to talk.

I'm sorry, but I don't get the funded by YCombinator obsession.

Yes - I'm as big of a PG fanboy as they come.

But $6k to live for a Summer in Cambridge while you work on your startup? Gimme a break. Without the name recognition of PG/YCombinator, that kind of deal would be laughed off the table by any sensible entrepreneur. (on second thought, for kids in school $6k isn't *that* bad for a summer's worth of work)

About two years ago, I took off work for about 6 months to pursue my own projects full-time and figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

During that time (I was only 23 so I could live at home and not spend too much dough), I built out some websites / webapps with the goal of being profitable within a few months. (i.e. not just going big, being unprofitable & getting bought out)

Since then I've gone back to working full-time, but my web projects (or my "startup") now gross over $5k per month now. (80%+ profit margins)

You don't need YCombinator's $6k for a summer in Cambridge to get your startup off the ground.

ps. I highly recommend the book "Winning Angels" - traditionally, angel investors will give projects $50 - $100k for a 5-10% stake in a company, valuing it at $500k to $1M. This can be at the prototype or even b-plan level stage. (YCombinator values companies more at $100k, from what it sounds like)

Sorry it didn't work out with Y/C. You should still look into some other "lightwight" funding approachs like the Convertable Debt seed rounds from Charles River.

However, I'd just advise to remove any emotion from the experience and try to derive a couple of things to consider from their feedback.

It's a common mistake to simply say "I/he/she is right, and they are wrong". It's just simply someone's perspective and decision, but there may be something to be gained long-term from the feedback.

I do agree that it's pretty important to be able to discuss the product problem definition, who it benefits, and how that potential can be realized in terms of sales and marketing.

The trick here is that your product is really a platform, so it's hard to describe application benefits since you'd basically be "underneath" (so to speak) any end-user facing code.

Maybe you should develop a few samples of "real-world" applications on top of your product. Then you can describe the problem domain in terms of these samples.

Probably the best advice is seek out the advice of those who've done what you are trying to do, figure out what they did and emulate it. Oh and disregard the opinions of those who haven't done it. If you want to learn to swim, talk to someone whos' been in the water, not someone who watched a lot of jeac cousteau

Paul Graham wants people with degrees for economic reasons. People that can't turn back to college will work at lot harding at making money from your startup. It still sucks that he wouldn't fund me because I'm in college, against his principles.

I can tell you from my facebook friendships that a number of the companies PG claims as successes aren't going anywhere because their founders returned to school.