Three exciting startups to watch at the Y-Combinator’s S19 Demo Day
Talented teams are working hard to look in shape for the
Y-Combinator’s demo day of the summer 2019 batch(19th-20th of August).
I’ve seen a lot of exciting projects getting built(some also launched on HN) in the last weeks, backed with help and guidance from the YC partners. I’ve wanted to lighten up some of my favorites companies from this batch!
Even though access to the demo day is minimal, some(hopefully lucky) investors will have the opportunity to invest directly(or indirectly via AngelList syndicates, for example) in these companies.
There are a lot of cool projects out there trying to improve consumer experiences around things like deliveries, waiting in like to get coffee and else. Other notable ones try to build a solution for the housing problems in SF (see — Rent the Backyard). What a diverse batch we got!
I’m mostly interested in the companies building valuable solutions to the big(ger) problems of humanity. These are companies that tackle large-scale problems and tend to have more focus to solve a specific problem for a reason. The risks and challenges they’re facing are coupled with the high potential reward. If these companies would succeed, I believe they are likely to produce meaningful value to our world, and capital returns would be significant.
Some of the commonalities between the three startups I chose to present are:
- The teams look more like product-first teams than company-first teams. Meaning they decided to start a startup to solve a specific problem rather than for the pure sake of financial gains.
- They focus on solving/improving the priorities of our lives. They build solutions for our planet’s, body’s and mind’s health. I can’t really think of anything else that should be more prioritized now.
- Have the potential to be of value to a lot of people.
Quirk 😋
An Open-Source Cognitive Therapy app.
Product and Market: Mental health has become an established niche market for apps, with success stories like Calm and Headspace. Meditation maybe just a single use case there, as many other people going through different kinds of mental treatments than mindfulness. Quirk is made for people who have a mental illness, that causes harmful behaviors.
CBT is already proved to work well as a therapy method. It already has 40 years of research behind it. While the goal here doesn’t seem to be a scientific breakthrough in this form of therapy necessarily, I think the real potential here may be the distribution model.
The targeted users are anyone who suffers from mental difficulties and can’t get access to a therapist. For others, it can also be a more natural first step than seeking a therapist, when there’s no recognition that the problem is “big enough.” It’s also possible they’re not aware of just how effective CBT can be, As Quirk’s founders say.
Team: Co-founders Evan and Koby Conard(brothers) have years of experience in engineering and marketing. They coupled to create Quirk after Evan experienced a successful CBT for a few times and considered it the ‘Gold Standard.’
Project Wren 🌲
A subscription to erase your carbon footprint.
Product and Market: After Pachama’s success(raising capital from investors like Chris Sacca, Paul Graham and more) in the last YC batch(YC W19), It’s fantastic to see more companies building technologies to save our planet. This time, it’s Wren, focused both on B2C and B2B, and aim to help people erase their carbon footprint. It’s already receiving some good feedback from the community:
We need more companies entering the cleantech market with a clear mission to save us and our planet. I think a product like Wren is excellent and has the right direction to educate people about emissions, so we could collectively offset our carbon emissions. Wren offers both consumers and companies a solution to be more proactive about reducing their carbon footprint. That’s by enabling features to get educated, calculate their emissions rate, fund and contribute to a planet-saving project.
Even though their concept is fantastic, it’s isn’t new. Terrapass(founded 2004) had worked on a similar idea to Wren’s and got acquired in 2014 by the Canadian public company Just Energy. That perhaps should encourage more people to fund and found companies of this kind.
Team: Landon, Ben, and Mimi were all thinking about climate change and emissions while studying at USC. They graduated with a clear thought in mind; to make carbon offsets more accessible to people who feel like there’s nothing they can do on a personal level to reduce their carbon footprint.
Hey Healthcare 👋👨⚕️
Modern billing platform for healthcare service providers.
Product and Market: I cannot speak from my own experience, but it seems like the United States healthcare system is broken. Many tweets and stories are describing the negative experiences of people having to face the US healthcare system, making the fact that it must change. One of the specific painful areas in the US healthcare system is dealing with bills, claims, and making sense of how it’s all working. That’s precisely the particular problem HeyHealthcare is trying to solve.
They aim to have their platform as the one place for service providers to manage their servicing at scale.
Like we use platforms and services in administrative areas of life like legal and accounting, perhaps we could benefit from a service that would be in our side when dealing with healthcare. A service that would help us make better decisions, reduce over costs, and improve the service we get. From the other end, service providers could also find value at a platform like HeyHealthcare. That would enable them more order and peace of mind when dealing with patients billing. I see a lot of value in a platform that would be able to provide such a solution in a simple, friendly fashion. Healthcare is relevant for hundreds of millions of people in the US, and billions outside of it. Unlocking value for people there at scale could be translated into a high-growth company. Easing the experience of service providers and patients.
Another YC startup that comes to mind with a similar kind of SaaS product is Clever. There, the ones benefiting from the platform are both clients and their consumers.
Team: Andrew Coyle has impressive design experience. He worked at successful companies like Flexport(served as Director of Design) and Google, which he left to start HeyHealthcare, together with Evie Gillie, previously Director of Engineering at Flexport.
I’m excited to see what comes out of the Demo-Day next week,
Best of luck to all the founders of this batch!
