I didn't get a chance to read all of them but this was my reasoning on the ones I read:
(note I'm excluding founder background from evaluation as almost none of the posts mention it; but it's generally considered a key factor for angels)
WedWell: Large market, hacking it with initial customers, however no unique insight, no clear customer acquisition strategy in an expensive market, lots of dead startups in this space. Pass.
Pinboard: Has product users love. Not clear if he wants to go “big”. YCF would probably accept him anyway. Pass.
Gresham Dollar: Interesting idea, lacks users validation and idea doesn’t seem to have been fully thought through. Underestimates adoption difficulty of online currencies. Pass.
Siris: Growing middle-class in Africa and adoption of mobile services makes this interesting plus initial traction with hotels. Not clear what the size of the market will be and if they’ll be able to buy discounted capacity. $12k will make a major difference to them. Accept.
Wanderlust: Another space with lots of dead startups, no insight on on why they’ll succeed when others have failed. Pass.
Brightwork: Not clear if there’s enough demand for this product. You can already get wrapper libraries for things like social integrations but people prefer to integrate directly for the flexibility. Segment which did this for analytics are moving away from this space into ETL. Pass.
Hacksplaining: Solves a genuine problem, user interest. Largely a content business though, tough to scale. Not clear there’s a huge market. Pass.
Krewe: As a rule of thumb social sites generally need ~1m+ users to raise a Series A from top-tier investors. Given the inherent lack of viral in this concept and lack of stickiness (after group is formed you never need to come back) seems like a dead-end without a significant rework. Pass.
Utiliz: $30-$50/user/year isn’t enough to build a sustainable business. Would essentially mean a $10-$15 CAC which feels low for this space and expected conversion rates. Pass
(note I'm excluding founder background from evaluation as almost none of the posts mention it; but it's generally considered a key factor for angels)
WedWell: Large market, hacking it with initial customers, however no unique insight, no clear customer acquisition strategy in an expensive market, lots of dead startups in this space. Pass.
Pinboard: Has product users love. Not clear if he wants to go “big”. YCF would probably accept him anyway. Pass.
Gresham Dollar: Interesting idea, lacks users validation and idea doesn’t seem to have been fully thought through. Underestimates adoption difficulty of online currencies. Pass.
Siris: Growing middle-class in Africa and adoption of mobile services makes this interesting plus initial traction with hotels. Not clear what the size of the market will be and if they’ll be able to buy discounted capacity. $12k will make a major difference to them. Accept.
Wanderlust: Another space with lots of dead startups, no insight on on why they’ll succeed when others have failed. Pass.
Brightwork: Not clear if there’s enough demand for this product. You can already get wrapper libraries for things like social integrations but people prefer to integrate directly for the flexibility. Segment which did this for analytics are moving away from this space into ETL. Pass.
Hacksplaining: Solves a genuine problem, user interest. Largely a content business though, tough to scale. Not clear there’s a huge market. Pass.
Krewe: As a rule of thumb social sites generally need ~1m+ users to raise a Series A from top-tier investors. Given the inherent lack of viral in this concept and lack of stickiness (after group is formed you never need to come back) seems like a dead-end without a significant rework. Pass.
Utiliz: $30-$50/user/year isn’t enough to build a sustainable business. Would essentially mean a $10-$15 CAC which feels low for this space and expected conversion rates. Pass