Congrats on getting accepted and thanks for being so candid about your application.
I have a couple of questions however:
Did you face any problems having disclosed you scrapped a competitors site for potential clients/leads? Did all the founders think that was an acceptable method for building a base?
How did you derive the potential turnover figures and was the model and revenue discussed in depth at the interview?
Finally, how did you guys decide that FamilyLeaf was the right direction?
No problem, it was our pleasure! Let me address your questions one-on-one.
1. We didn't have any problems disclosing that. In fact, (as you can tell by this little stunt) we are very open about it. We thought it was acceptable. But we also are fallible.
2. Turnover figures? We talked about it at the interview, definitely.
3. We were extremely passionate about it. And less so about AthleteNet. That was the number 1 thing. The other smaller but still very valuable factors included the market size, social impact, and potential for faster scaling.
Feel free to email me if you have any more questions! wesley@familyleaf.com
Thanks for putting up the application. I could clearly see how you guys aren't afraid to "break some laws" i.e. data scrapping, getting free food, and even weed selling!
"Animals? We're a freaking zoo.
Andy: When Paul described the type of person whom he
believes is an animal at his "How to Start a Startup"
talk, Andy was the first person of whom I (Steve) thought.
Steve: Steve regularly works extra hours at his current
programming job, even when over-time isn't an option (i.e.
working for free) to fix nagging bugs. At school, Steve
often works late nights with Computer Science friends
helping them get assignments working.
Alexis: See current schedule. When it comes to design,
Alexis literally won't rest until every pixel is aligned--
sleep deprivation is the status quo and when it comes to
working in general, coffee makes sure he's the last one to
go to sleep at night and the first one up in the morning."
Not that I care, but now the whole world know you got suspended for selling weed. This information cannot be good for you or your company, considering your family-oriented userbase
Hi Wisp. This is Wesley - you might be right. It's something I did a long time ago and in the past. I have changed and people that know me know that. It may be something that will turn some heads, but I like to live very honestly and transparently. I hope people won't read too much in to it and only see how much I've grown.
I'm glad to see people being more frank about this. As more people like you come forward, hopefully the stigma around it will fade. I've admitted it when appropriate, but been very hesitant to do so, even though I think the experience was incredibly valuable and shaped who I am.
As someone w/ drug use in my past, I believe very strongly that the stigma around it is deserved.
I would think very hard about hiring or investing in someone who used marijuana, or who decided to sell marijuana (a bet with a big risk for very little reward), or who thought that using drugs was cool enough to include it on an application. Speaking from experience, marijuana is addictive, saps ambition, and makes it difficult to think hard and think logically. Anyone who has tried to code or do math while high knows exactly what I am talking about.
Wesley, obviously you have grown and been very successful since. I wish you only more success, and you are already far ahead of where I was at 19 (still smoking too much pot).
If you refused to hire even occasional pot smokers (or take investment from them, or invest in them) in the Bay Area, you'd have a really hard time. (This comes up with federal government related contracts and staffing.)
I am not saying that there should be hard rules. Just that there is a stigma there, and that it is there for a reason. Would you invest in a company with technical founders who got high every day?
Pot wouldn't be a factor in my investment decision; it would depend on the quality of work they did.
I don't think drugs are incompatible with being a responsible and productive person. There would be downsides to high profile drug use, like what happened to Sean Parker at Facebook, where presumably there was fear that the LPs in various investors would raise issues.
People can be useless fucktards with or without drugs; people can be productive with or without drugs.
I don't think drugs are incompatible with being a responsible and productive person either. I think that they are negatively correlated with being a responsible and productive person. I think a search will turn up a lot of evidence to support that.
Pot isn't the worst thing ever, but it isn't going to help you start a business or become a great programmer. While you are high, you will be worse at reasoning and your working memory won't be great. This makes it harder to write code. There is also a legal risk, justified or not.
Drugs are a frustrating topic to debate. On one side there is a huge amount of misinformation intended to scare people away from drug use. Then, in reaction to that and coming out of the cognitive dissonance of millions of people doing something that they know isn't good for them, there is a ton of 'pot is good for you because it comes from the earth' bs on the other side. I think people on the internet (and apparently on HN) tend to be in the latter group, and I feel like it is worth pointing out the downsides.
I wrote my mathematics PhD thesis while smoking pot to relieve some terrible back pain. Cognitively, it helped me on occassion to break through barriers in abstract reasoning and creativity. You might have had a bad experience with drug use, and I do sympathize, but please spare us the sweeping generalizations.
Weed is not addictive. I'll grant most of your other points about it being difficult to think for some people like me and you. However I have known and know many who are as productive, if not more, because of or despite their substance of choice.
For me, I really don't give a damn what kinds of drugs people take beyond heroin, crack, meth, and others that have a clear history of detrimental effects on the individual. As long as you are rock solid and reliable, that's all that matters.
It IS addictive. It can't cause withdrawal symptoms, but absolutely is addictive, like gambling or sex or any other activity that triggers your reward system. I know I felt addicted to pot, failed to quit smoking many times after making the decision to, and kept smoking daily for a year after I had stopped enjoying it. If not addiction, what would you call that?
If you can be sure that someone is reliable, then you are right, there is no reason to have a problem with their drug use. When you are hiring someone or making the decision to invest money with them, you rarely know enough to be sure. Using drugs is a HUGE red flag there, and should say think twice before hiring this person / giving them money.
I think it's a nice interesting fact and it'll make a great conversation/story. Especially for those that you will work with on a constant basis, since they'll be the ones that will spend the time to know and work with you. But just be wary of the info that you present to the general public and your users.
Congratulations! Your age might give you trouble--people will feel embarrassed to work for such young people, and people in general might not take you seriously. Good luck!
I hear there's this other guy who tried to start a social network... Zuckersomething... was pretty young too. I think things worked out pretty alright for him.
They'll be fine :) If anything, they are best positioned to appreciated exactly how Facebook doesn't work for families.
I hate to be that guy... but I'm not impressed by this application. At all. I am aware that YC is looking for adventurous founders who aren't afraid to bend the rules in their favor - or break them outright. I can appreciate that. These guys were clearly aware of that and it seems like they developed their responses accordingly. They deliberately showed their mischievous side to game the system. And then they released their yc application to further game the (pr) system. I guess this is a big part of what startups are about, so well played. I'm interested to see where this company goes.
Edit : should have said thanks in advance for the downvotes. Criticism is not accepted on hn these days.
I have a couple of questions however:
Did you face any problems having disclosed you scrapped a competitors site for potential clients/leads? Did all the founders think that was an acceptable method for building a base?
How did you derive the potential turnover figures and was the model and revenue discussed in depth at the interview?
Finally, how did you guys decide that FamilyLeaf was the right direction?
Best of luck to you all with the company.