A mini-kerfuffle erupted overnight at Hacker News about the supposed “plagiarism” of the Y Combinator application by the local Founder’s Co-op team of Andy Sack and Chris DeVore.   This morning Chris has apologized for any problems, and writes that he intended to use the YC application as a starting point because “it was great”.  It’s not the first time that the YC crowd has accused someone else of plagiarism – they called out TechStars last year as well.

Frankly, this is more about the cult-like following that YC has in certain quarters, and the knee-jerk reaction those people have to anything that they think threatens YC.  These guys remind me of certain EPL fans, for whom anyone supporting the opposing team is automatically subhuman.

Let’s lighten up and return to doing the important stuff, shall we?

Tony Wright of RescueTime has a wonderful post at FoundRead talking about his lessons learned from his RescueTime / Y Combinator experience. It should be a must read for early-stage tech entrepreneurs. A couple great tidbits:

I think we were the first YC company in our session to launch. Our product now is pretty polished and has a nice long (and accelerating) growth curve… Which nips the, “Does anyone want this?” question in the bud. Launching is an admission that your users are smarter about what they want/need than you are. Or at very least, it’s an admission that you have a lot to learn about your users. Dive in!

This sentiment maps to a mini-thread I’ve been pursuing with regard to speed vs. quality. The moral: fail faster.

Also:

The most common question neophyte entrepreneurs ask is, “Now that I’ve built it, how do I market it?” If you’re asking that question, I think you need to go back to the drawing board. In low-cost / high-distribution markets that we’re all playing in, you need some combination of SEO-fu, viral loops, and tremendous word of mouth. Alternatively, if you actually have a product that you’re SELLING, you need to have some proof that you can bring in buyers without a sales force…

The moral here? Build for customers, not for the ideal product in your head.

Great stuff. Tony is a regular poster on the Seattle Tech Startups listserv and seems like he really has his entreprenurial act together. Go read this post and see if you don’t agree!