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American Startup

Posted on August 18, 2008 By Doriano 84 Comments on American Startup

Iamerican startup was asked to guest post again by Sarah Lacy on her blog, this time about the Y Combinator and their Demo Day for summer 2008. She knew that I liked what they did because of this tweet last week. So off I went to cover the semi-annual event and produced a post called “American Startup”. I tried to be as fair and honest as possible but it still generated a firestorm of controversy not only in the comments area on SarahLacy.com but also on TechCrunch because Michael Arrington published this post, “I Don’t Understand Y Combinator Hate”

Talk about a horrible way to start the week! I’ve never experienced so much anger and negative criticisms before so it was a shock to the system. I didn’t know what to do or how to react. I read what I wrote again very carefully and read all the comments again and still didn’t understand how it was all so misunderstood. I did take note of a couple of statistics that weren’t accurate or up to date such as the percentage that the startups give up. I stated that it could be as much as 10% but I was told that the more factual figure was 2 to 10 % so I edited the post and changed that stat.
I did the same for the number of startups they’ve funded from 80 to 100. Again, not a major rewrite or anything like that, just a couple of factual changes to be more accurate. Obviously, I got permission to make the changes from Sarah Lacy herself who agreed that it made sense to do so.

I was feeling down in the dumps from all this until I decided to take a look at the comments on TechCrunch’s site. Why would I do such a thing? Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment? In any event, I was so happy that I did because I was surprised to see so many positive comments. My favorite comment was this one:

2008-08-18_1425

Eventually, I received an email from someone at YCombinator and we had a civil discussion thru a series of cordial emails and I believe we came to a satisfactory conclusion. I learned a valuable lesson thru this experience. I need to remember to double-check every fact and figure and statistic before publishing any article. I also need to make sure that the tone and style of the piece cannot be misunderstood as it was with this one. What was supposed to be a tongue in cheek attempt at being cute and clever with my American Idol analogy backfired big time. Still, in the end, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It truly has taught me a valuable lesson that will help me the rest of my writing career.

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Comments (84) on “American Startup”

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Older comments
  1. livetweetlinks (livetweetlinks) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    RT: Live: Test: This is a test. Real posts to follow. http://tinyurl.com/8yxav6 http://tinyurl.com/9dp9wx

  2. The_Spectator (The_Spectator) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    Live: Test: This is a test. Real posts to follow. http://tinyurl.com/8yxav6

  3. concentrateddon (concentrateddon) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    I asked “This is a test…” at http://tinyurl.com/892j7b

  4. gpstwit (gpstwit) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. This is only a test. http://gpstwit.com/l8e

  5. gpstwit (gpstwit) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. This is only a test. http://gpstwit.com/l85

  6. killbrand (Kill Brand) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  7. ksutin (Kathie Sutin) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    Hi. This is a test.

  8. davetosh (David Tosh) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  9. sporkhead (sporkhead) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. http://twitpic.com/14q0q

  10. digbywesleyan (Jason McCutcheon) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. We’d like to use this to put updates on our church website…quickly and easily.

  11. Natalie043 (Natalie043) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. http://twitpic.com/15xrv

  12. patjenkins (patjenkins) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    just “unprotected” my updates on twitter, is that a good strategy or not. This is a test.

  13. kengermany (kengermany) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test…. http://twitpic.com/15uti

  14. arminizer (Armin Hierstetter) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. Please ignore.

  15. Ashyukun (Ashyukun) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. ZOMG working c/p on the iPhone. Has some issues, but really slick. LiveTime is also really

  16. derekasaurus (derekasaurus) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    “This is a test.”

  17. Chezedog (Chezedog) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    Post Everywhere : This is a test.

  18. jruga (James Ruga) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    Testing posting:

    This is a test… if this is public… please ignore 🙂 Hmmm… does this photo end up with a.. http://tinyurl.com/by74b2

  19. rorypeacock (Rory Peacock) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  20. suvudu (suvudu) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  21. Rogue07 (Paul Burrola) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  22. AtomicNinja (Stephen Jagla) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    @atomicninja This is a test.

  23. ejackman27 (ejackman27) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. A what?

  24. LauraRParks (Laura Parks) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    Why won’t my phone receive twitter updates? This is infuriating. Also. Ignore this. This is a test.

  25. allanschoenberg (Allan Schoenberg) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    I think I’ve fixed friendfeed. This is a test…. http://ff.im/Q3i2

  26. allanschoenberg (Allan Schoenberg) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    I think I’ve fixed friendfeed. This is a test….

  27. WKropps (WKropps) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test… Only a test, if this was a real emergancy I wouldn’t be on my phone… DUH!

  28. bbtweet_tester1 (bbtweet_tester1) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  29. matthewtkelly (Matt Kelly) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. @fionakellydesign said nothing, but I just want to see what happens when I quote her with the @ thing.

  30. KTAsq (Kerry) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  31. SteeveP (Steeve Pomerleau) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  32. JesseMartin (Jesse Martin) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

  33. CAtaxboy (Brian) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test. I’m new to Twitter and trying to figure things out. Please ignore. I apologize in advance. Thank you

  34. stepchild46 (Mike) says:
    December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm

    This is a test.

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