Cue has been acquired by Apple, various sources have reported.  Cue was “a free service that helps people make the most of their day.”  The genesis of Cue was Greplin, funded in YC W10 as a personal web search engine that indexes information stored in online services.  In September 2012, Cue co-founder Daniel Gross and Robert Scoble did […]

Y Combinator Universe published more than a hundred blog posts in 2013.   Topics covered everything from relationship apps for couples to in-memory relational databases.  I wrote about fashion startups and wearable devices.  The acquisition of a dozen companies were mentioned.  And Demo Day for two new batches were detailed, YC W13 and YC S13.  Here’s a […]

Airware provides a complete platform for commercial unmanned aerial systems, commonly known as drones.  Regulation of commercial drones into U.S. airspace by 2015 is required through the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 signed into law this past February.  The initial economic benefit of commercial drones has been estimated at more than $13 billion dollars. […]

Codecademy is user-contributed tutorials for HTML/CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Python, and Ruby.  There’s a gallery of specific projects, including Build a Cash Register and A Night at the Movies.  Despite some issues, Codecademy has legitimate potential.  Zach Sims, Codecademy co-founder, was recently interviewed by Stephen Colbert on ‘Colbert Report’ (embedded below).

If your startup idea is so great, then why would you sell 7% of your startup for $20,000 dollars and some advice?  You probably wouldn’t.  Y Combinator has obviously thought of this question.  That’s why their first advice after investing is to avoid anyone else’s “lowball offers”.  That advice seems to be working so far: Valuations […]