[MatthewB]

I'd rather not call out specific companies but most of the recent launch announcements have been uninteresting to say the least. They are either slight variations of products that are already out there or their market is extremely niche.

Maybe PG just expects these startups to build a quick product and sell off to a Google, Facebook, Zynga etc. I know he chooses startups by their founders, maybe that is because he expects them to be acq-hired.

The most exciting thing I've seen announced on hackernews lately is codecademy and they aren't even part of YC.

[webwright]

"Maybe PG just expects these startups to build a quick product and sell off to a Google, Facebook, Zynga etc."

YC makes very little on quick-flip startups.

Count the number of YC partners and the number of LPs they have, do some napkin math on their expenses (weekly dinners for 150+, funding 120 startups per year, presumably moderate salaries for partners and staff, legal bills, flying hundreds of people to SV for interviews every 6 months, etc), and tell me how needle-moving it is for them to turn a $20k investment into $240k (before taxes)... Which is exactly what they'd get for a $4M exit.

AFAIK, YC always advises founders who have an early flip opportunity to stick it out (though it's supportive if the founders don't want to do so).

[mlinsey]

YC has always preached launching as soon as possible, which means that upon launch you'll only get a tiny hint of a startup's future ambitions.

I actually think the way forward is a little bit more obvious for this one. Without even talking to the founders or seeing their pitch, you should be able to think of a number of interesting directions. To pick the most obvious one, wouldn't being the IMDB of the mobile/social era be pretty cool? Is that even really "niche"?

[emmett]

Hm, I don't understand what you mean by "niche"...codeacademy is much MORE niche than Can't Wait, at least right now...a lot more people watch movies than program.

Remember, what the startup does when it begins is not what it will grow into. Facebook was a place you could make a simple profile as a Harvard student. Microsoft made a Basic compiler (talk about niche at that time!).