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Comment by psycho | Hacker News Reader

And what's so cool about AnyVivo?

People buy a lot of pets, Amazon won't touch them (one of the few legal areas of commerce which Amazon can't dominate; guns are another...).

They've been making a lot of money (and 50-60% margin) in the past few weeks selling jellyfish, which I didn't realize was even possible to keep as a pet. Presumably as they move into other more interesting pets, they will make more money.

I guess, it's good business but I never noticed YC backing such "trivial" kind of business.

You're right that they don't solve any open problem in computer science or mathematics, but neither did Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google (I think), etc., and they seem to have done ok. :)

Not to take away from your main point, but Google did need to solve a fundamental computer science problem: how to compute eigenvector centrality efficiently. It would have been impossible to calculate PageRank at web scale without the Power Method (and applying EC to the link structure of the web in the first place involves lots of nontrivial math).

What makes selling live animals trivial?

I think he means the "change the world" vibe we get from a lot of startups. I think its great YC is broadening its scope into more traditional businesses.

Well, you got it right - YC is broadening its scope - that means that this investment is really kind of new type for Graham and co. I guess, I should not ask what was so cool in AnyVivo but try to say in another words that it looks like a turn to traditional spheres to me.

It's probably true that YC companies are more willing to have a physical component (producing hardware hasn't worked out very well, but service, inventory, etc. might) now than in the past, but that is probably true of startups in general (Square is a great example; a tiny loss-leader physical product which is the wedge into a trillion dollar business).

I guess, online shops were kind of innovation when Amazon emerged but now they are rather common phenomenon and making them sell live animals is more about right organizational process than about building strong online product.

Maybe nothing. But they're out there selling $150k in jellyfish a month on 50% margins, and probably having a blast doing it. Their potential market isn't exactly small. Not sure what else you're looking for.

I'm not sure what Paul Graham is looking for that's why I asked. :)

Maybe this is just step 1 for them and they have some kind of world-changing ambition that they plan to implement once they have enough cash and customers.

  1. Sell jellyfish online
  2. Make money, acquire customer base
  3. ???
  4. Take over world!

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