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Title: Video on the homepage shows an example of using it and some sample drawings. This blew my mind when I first saw it.
Upvote: | 76 |
Title: So many news posts, so few people talking about what they are doing. What website are you working right now?
Upvote: | 46 |
Title: When someone has obviously put effort into contributing to the conversation, it's rude to downvote them to negative scores. Most recently, there some major offenders here:<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720779<p>and here:<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720215<p>and here:<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720569
Upvote: | 174 |
Title: It includes every job that a computer is not (or almost) used.
Upvote: | 43 |
Title: First of all, I apologize for using HN as a venting outlet, but I suspect that other people may be feeling somewhat like me on this topic.<p>Ever since Dustin Curtis produced his article (http://dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html) I've noticed that many people have been taking up his results and using his call to action verbatim. His article is an excellent piece on user behavior research, and his results quite interesting, but it really bugs me that lots of articles now close with the words "you should follow me on twitter here."<p>You may ask why I get upset over this. The reason is that it sheds some light on the intentions of the writers. Seeing the call to action tells me "this person will do anything to get followers." I may be naive, but I would like people to follow me due to my interesting insights, and not because of some cognitive hack.<p>Articles that are otherwise inspiring then come crumbling to pieces once I get to the bottom of the page and see this blatant attempt at getting followers. In fact, it produces the opposite reaction in me, I quickly close the tab and forget the contents of the article or why I thought it was insightful in the first place.<p>I'd much rather see people trying other approaches, or even better, not try to persuade me with anything else than the content they produced. If what they're saying is insightful, I'll crave for more and will bookmark them, follow them, and tell my friends about it.<p>Dustin did a great job at finding this hack, and I expect to see "follow me on twitter here" at the end of his articles. He earned it. Everyone else, please find your own hacks.
Upvote: | 68 |
Title: India's school for the poor but gifted<p>By Anuj Chopra,
Foreign Correspondent<p>PATNA, INDIA // On a recent evening, a gaggle of students huddled together on wobbly wooden benches in a spartan classroom under a tin-shed, celebrating their new-found achievement with milk cakes.<p>“If I hadn’t made it,” remarked 17-year-old Vishwaraj Anand, one the students, “I would have to toil all my life in my father’s paddy farm. Now I’m a step closer to going to Nasa to study about the worlds beyond.”<p>Their teacher, a short, slightly stout, man called Anand Kumar, stood before the dusty blackboard, wearing a beaming smile.<p>These students recently passed an undergraduate entrance test. But not just any ordinary test.<p>For a whole year, they slogged with a singular obsession of gaining admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), a string of 15 top-notch engineering colleges – the Indian equivalent of Ivy League schools – which, since India’s independence, have created some of the world’s brightest tech wizards and engineering geniuses.<p>IITs are notoriously selective in their admission procedure. About 384,977 students took their Joint Entrance Test (IIT-JEE) this year, hankering after 8,295 seats, indicating an admission rate of around two per cent, the most competitive in the world. (That at Princeton, Yale, and Harvard hovers around nine per cent).<p>Only 10,035 cracked the test this year. Thirty of them sat in this ramshackle classroom.<p>They belong to Super-30, a batch of meritorious students, all from cripplingly poor backgrounds, some from the rural interiors of Bihar, one of India’s most backward states. They study under the tutelage of Mr Kumar, an avid mathematician, who since 2002 has run a private IIT-coaching academy in Patna.<p>Every year, Mr Kumar, 36, hand picks his batch of 30 meritorious students. His motto: to coach the most talented among Bihar’s neediest.<p>This year, for the second consecutive year, all 30 from Mr Kumar’s Super-30 batch cracked IIT-JEE.<p>“I couldn’t be more proud,” Mr Kumar said.<p>In many ways, for Mr Kumar’s students, the do-or-die obsession to gain admission into IIT is emblematic of a Dickensian struggle against all odds for a place in the world. Getting in is a tooth and nail struggle to escape the trap of grinding poverty they grew up in.<p>It is a mission that Mr Kumar closely identifies with.<p>In the mid 1990s, Mr Kumar could not realise his dream of studying at Cambridge in the UK even after he gained admission, because of a lack of funds. After his father died of illness while he was still a student, Mr Kumar funded his studies going door-to-door selling poppadums prepared by his mother. On the side, he privately tutored students in a subject he loved: mathematics.<p>For a long time, Mr Kumar had been toying with an inchoate idea of helping other students achieve what he could not.<p>One day, one of his students sidled up to him and wept. He could not afford Mr Kumar’s annual fee of US$30 as his father had not yet harvested the potato crop.<p>Mr Kumar was so stirred by his plea he decided to create a separate batch of 30 in 2002 for the most deserving students who had no means of paying. He supported them from the income generated from students from affluent families who can afford to pay.<p>He coached them for free and paid for their lodging. His mother cooked all their meals. For months, he stoically toiled with their books till 2am every night. On the big day, he dropped them at their test centre, and waited.<p>That year, 18 from Super-30 cracked IIT. It was a stupendous start.<p>Mr Kumar was buoyed to keep going. The following year, the number climbed to 22.<p>The list of successful candidates grew longer every year. It included the kin of rickshaw pullers, brick kiln labourers and landless farmers. Mr Kumar was altering destinies and reshaping their lives.<p>“Basically, all poor lack confidence even if they have the brains,” Mr Kumar said. “You instil confidence in them, and the world is their oyster.”<p>A tangle of narrow lanes snake through a labyrinth of old, decaying buildings to a brick-and-stucco home on the outskirts of Patna, where Nirmala Devi lives with her son, Satish, on a widow’s pension of 400 rupees per month.<p>“Poverty is a curse we are born into,” she said. “For a long time it appeared there would be no escape.”<p>But Mr Kumar had a hand in changing that.<p>Last year, Satish, 18, gained 5,712 on IIT-JEE’s merit list, a decent rank to get him a seat in chemical engineering at IIT in Guwahati.<p>Ms Devi is proud that her son has achieved what many in the neighbourhood can only dream of.<p>“If you’re a high school graduate you are looked up to in this area,” she said. “My son is going to IIT.”<p>It was not an easy time. Surviving on a meagre pension, she often could not afford to pay Satish’s school fees.<p>“She’d offer me a kilo of rice or lentils, pleading with me not to take her son off the school roster,” remembers Baldev Prasad, the school principal of Modern Children’s Academy, the school Satish attended before joining Super-30.<p>“I saw how she could only afford to feed her son salt and bread. I didn’t have the heart to turn her down.”<p>The school, next to a putrescent rubbish dump, is symptomatic of Bihar’s decaying education system. The musty, mould-infested two-storey school building had broken chairs, graffiti-plastered tables, and its algae-green walls were covered by cobwebs.<p>The experience of learning under Mr Kumar was unique, Satish said.<p>“He taught me how to think.”<p>For the entire year, Super-30s students are subjected to a rigorous schedule.<p>“For a year, you walk, eat, sleep, and dream IIT,” he said. “There’s no room for anything else.”<p>A series of mock tests are conducted every day. And Mr Kumar’s unique teaching methods helped him hone analytical skills.<p>“To solve differential equation problems, for example, he taught us that the only rule is that there are no rules,” he said.<p>Students were encouraged, he remembers, to think like a private eye investigating a neighbourhood robbery.<p>“Keep picking up clues, eliminating suspects step by step, until the thief is caught,” Satish said.<p>To explain arduous algebra theorems, Mr Kumar often employed stories as a teaching aid. He invented Rikki and Bholu, two apocryphal characters that all students can closely identified with.<p>Rikki is a suave, bike-riding, cola-guzzling young boy with average intelligence. Bholu, on the other hand, is a clumsy-looking, pyjama-clad village bumpkin, also with average intelligence.<p>But Rikki takes the long, conventional approach to solving maths problems. And Bholu reflects, contemplates, and comes up with smart, elegant solutions in a shorter period of time.<p>“For every maths problem, I make them realise that Rikki takes approach A which is longer and a waste of time, and Bholu takes approach B which is smarter and quicker,” Mr Kumar said. “In every story, I make Bholu emerge as the hero. I encourage them to think – and win – like Bholu.”<p>With time, Super-30s popularity has grown with its success. Thousands of students every year yearn to be a part of the dream batch. Mr Kumar selects the students through a written entrance test he conducts around Bihar state.<p>“The general perception is that if you can crack Super-30s entrance test, you’ll crack IIT-JEE,” Satish said.<p>But passing his written test is not enough. Mr Kumar personally screens the financial background of each student, and selects the most deserving.<p>A couple of years ago, a young student fibbed about his economic background to wriggle his way in.<p>“He was clad in tattered banyan, portraying he was poor,” Mr Kumar said.<p>“But when I looked at his feet, I noticed he was wearing expensive Nike trainers.” The candidate’s lie was nailed – he turned out to be the son of an influential bureaucrat in the Bihar government.<p>“While leaving, the boy said something that touched my heart,” Mr Kumar said. “‘I wish I were poor.’”<p>Super-30s popularity has come at a price: a slew of Fake Super 30s who claim to have Mr Kumar on their faculty boards.<p>And in recent years, Mr Kumar has received death threats from notorious criminals like Bindu Singh, who is currently lodged in Bihar’s Beur jail.<p>“He made calls from prison through a cell phone,” he said. “I know he did it at the behest of Bihar’s coaching institutes – the state’s education mafia – who feel threatened Super-30 will hurt their business.”<p>In 2004, one of Mr Kumar’s non-teaching staff was stabbed at his residence by an unidentified visitor. He had a narrow escape months later when a crude bomb hurled at him on the streets of Patna.<p>Mr Kumar is guarded around the clock by three policemen carrying AK-47 rifles. He also keeps a personal licensed gun with him when he steps out.<p>But he is in no way deterred by thethreats. This year, buoyed by Super-30s success, Mr Kumar will treble his intake, admitting students from neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh as well.<p>He has been flooded with offers of funding from private and international donors. But he does not want to accept aid at the cost of compromising his institute’s autonomy.<p>“I want to prove that you can help make a difference with or without outside funding,” he said. “Only your intentions need to be noble.”
Upvote: | 43 |
Title: The first civilization started in Mesopotamia around 5000 BCE (more or less), which is 7,000 years ago. If you live until age 80, that's more than 1% of the history of civilization.<p>Just throwing it out there for anyone else who'd never thought about it before. Certainly changed my perspective a bit.
Upvote: | 86 |
Title: Timothy "Four-Hour Work Week" Ferriss has a concept he calls a "cash-flow muse". That's a little business that generates some monthly cash without taking up too much of your time. I think the idea is that with a couple of these running, you're pretty much free to do as you please most of the time.<p>Some desirable attributes of a cash-flow muse:<p>- You own it.<p>- The value proposition is simple enough to explain in one sentence.<p>- High margin: 4x to 50x.<p>- Easy to automate or outsource the selling, record-keeping, and whatever other businessy stuff is needed.<p>- Low capital investment.<p>- Takes no more than about 4 weeks to manufacture the product.<p>Ferriss often casually mentioned that generating this sort of cash flow is easy to do. It might take a month of real work to set one up, and you'll likely have to market-test a few ideas before you find one that's solid enough to commit to, but once it's up, it should pay your living expenses.<p>That sounds really good--when talked about abstractly. The main idea is really not that a cash-flow muse can free up your time, it's that cash-flow-muse opportunities are abundant and easy to find. I myself have little concrete idea of what sort of tiny product you could turn into a tiny business like this, and scarcely any idea how to begin searching for one.<p>My question: Has anyone actually done one of these?
Upvote: | 71 |
Title: Starting in May, the hardware startup I work for has been having some money problems. They've deferred payroll a couple times, including the most recent pay period.<p>A couple days after the last missed payroll, I indicated I would be working from home but not in a full time manner. Since then, everyone else appears to continue going into the office and working full days even though they have not been paid. Am I wrong in my actions?<p>The most upsetting part for me is that on payday, no one in management mentioned we would not be getting paychecks. It seemed like they figured we wouldn't mind/notice and we would just continue working.<p>I have updated my resume, but have not sent it out yet. They keep saying money is right around the corner and I'd like for that to be true. So I've basically been waiting that out while keeping my eyes open for opportunities (which are sparse).<p>Does anyone who has been through this before have any advice? Or how would you have handled it if you could go back and do it again?<p>EDIT:
Thank you all for your insightful comments.<p>After hearing how often this thing doesn't turn itself around, I am going to start sending my resume out immediately. I guess I just needed a community kick in the ass to get me going!
Upvote: | 70 |
Title: I count 3 job ads from this company on the homepage now. Worse, for some reason there is no "comments" link on those items, so they can't be flagged.<p>They also all have the same number of upvotes, which strikes one as a bit eerie.<p>What's the story?
Upvote: | 70 |
Title: Colombian entrepreneur Alex Torrenegra hired a small team of developers and for 90 days, they worked every waking moment, and except for one family weekend break, they did not leave the house. Food and other logistics was taken care of by another company. Here he tells how productive the experience was.
Upvote: | 66 |
Title: You know you weren't suppose to do it. It was a immoral and sinful hack or tweak, but you did it anyways. A goto? A linked list of function pointers? Even committed it? What nasty hacks have you do lately?
Upvote: | 55 |
Title: This might be old news, but did anything more come of this?
Upvote: | 60 |
Title: http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/27/video-life-altering-3d-projection-splashed-on-german-building/
Upvote: | 44 |
Title: Use annotations to automatically generate code at compile time. This greatly reduces java's verbosity, while maintaining tools like code completion & type safety.
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: Wherever you are, if you have a thought you want to record, how do you do it? What if it includes illustrations as well as text? What devices are ideal for this? Is dictation software good?<p>Some of my own ideas as far as devices:<p>* Pencil and paper - Pros: Lightweight, flexible. Supports illustrations and complex layouts. Cons: Hard to edit or search retrospectively. Low bandwidth text entry. Requires space to store. Easier to lose/damage than well-backed-up digital content.<p>* Laptop (e.g. MacBook Air, MacBookPro, or EeePC) - Pros: Fast text entry. Searchable and editable content. Cons: Unpleasant to carry around everywhere. Illustrations and complex layouts are awkward.<p>* Tablet - Pros: Fast text entry. Supports illustrations and complex layouts. Searchable and editable content. Cons: Unpleasant to carry around everywhere. No Mac tablets.<p>* iPhone (or G-1, etc.) - Pros: I've always got it with me anyways. Content in searchable and editable form. Cons: Low bandwidth text entry. Very small display area. Illustrations and complex layouts are awkward.
Upvote: | 44 |
Title: One week (or even a day) with comment and article points hidden from view to see what that does for the quality of the site ?<p>I'm very curious about this because I suspect that the visibility of the points is what is starting to create a negative undercurrent.<p>Or maybe leave them on articles but drop them on comments...
Upvote: | 46 |
Title: Of note for HN: "I am interested in working for a funded startup that has about 5-20 employees and is growing or would like to grow."
Upvote: | 108 |
Title: Something odd seems to be going on with twitter. Accounts are posting a message that says "Today was so exciting! Made $124 in 20 minutes! if ur interested, go read: [spam link]"<p>http://twitter.com/#search?q=%22today%20was%20so%22<p>The posts started a few hours ago, stopped for a while, and just recently started again. It may be that a 3rd party service was compromised, so if you've given your twitter credentials to another web site, it's worth the time to change your password. The volume (many thousands of accounts, including people I know who would not be inclined to sell posts) and nature of the posts seems to rule out the possibility of a paid posting service.
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: I'm trying to always keep size of images I publish on the web at a minimum. I have been using the smush.it service a lot, but after Y! took over the service, it hasn't been working too well -- for example I can't smush images stored locally any more.<p>Also, minifying and merging JS and CSS is a good trick to keep loading times down.<p>Now I'm interested to know -- which webapps, tools or tricks do you use to optimize your web content?
Upvote: | 41 |
Title: I'm hiring a senior developer right now. Our first interview has a 4-question screen, where I ask them to implement a simple function, implement a recursive function, write a simple SQL select (join across two tables), and create a simple object model (how would you represent a car as an object).<p>~70% of the "senior developer" applicants fail<p>We're extremely happy with our process--this is only step 1--and it's been amazing at yielding a great set of candidates for each hire, but two weeks of administering the tech screen to applicants leaves me a bit depressed. (sigh)
Upvote: | 41 |
Title: What's some of your favorite innovative startups lately?<p>I like the approach that RethinkDB is taking with their SSD DB technology.<p>* = Doesn't have to be YC
Upvote: | 58 |
Title: There are companies in YC portfolio that have been around for a while and those that received external funding.
When should founders start paying themselves a salary?
Especially in these cases:
1) when the revenues are not substantial to cover everyones pay and there are always things to reinvest.
2) When VC or Angel money is invested in the company.<p>Thanks
Upvote: | 46 |
Title: I'm curious if anyone here has moved from an expensive city in the U.S. to a city in Panama, Costa Rica, or somewhere else with a lower cost of living. What was your experience like? Is it worthwhile? What are your rent/internet costs? Are there any sites dedicated to starting up this way?
Upvote: | 56 |
Title: It would be interesting to hear your specific financial goals, such as: "I would sell my startup if the net proceeds of the sale would exceed n." I'm more interested, however, in knowing what factors you considered to come up with your number.<p>I am asking because I run a profitable internet business that has doubled each of the last three years; our metrics indicate that we can maintain that growth rate for the foreseeable future. As with any business, there are major risks but the likelihood of them actually threatening us is relatively low; unfortunately, precisely quantifying the risks is impossible.<p>Since a significant chunk of my net worth is tied up in the business, I worry that a "rogue wave" could endanger our prospects. We have been approached multiple times by serious acquirers offering favorable terms and a 5x revenue multiple; so far, have I rejected their offers. We have no outside investors so the decision to sell would be entirely mine.<p>Since the M&A market is beginning to show signs of life again, I am considering a sale. The question is, how does one decide when to step off the train, and take a huge amount of risk off of the table? Thanks!
Upvote: | 60 |
Title: I live in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I'd like to know where you live? :)
Upvote: | 112 |
Title: The Notorious BIG's classic track "Ten Crack Commandments" is decomposed to reveal ten useful tips for startup founders.
Upvote: | 84 |
Title: Here's the story, I have never been very good at maths in school and to be honest, any other subjects really. I could get by, but never pushed myself. School was never the best environment for me to learn, but when I'm studying at home, I like it.<p>So over the past few weeks I have been thinking about trying to learn mathematics again at my own pace (starting at the basics), what books would you recommend?
Upvote: | 78 |
Title: As far as I know, this is the very first album release on Hacker News. :-)
Upvote: | 54 |
Title: Hi everyone. I'd like to know....are you a founder of startup? if so, which one? what's your role?
Upvote: | 47 |
Title: Hi Hacker News, I'm going to college* in two weeks. I've read <http://paulgraham.com/college.html> and right now my two main goals are: get really good at hacking, and do well enough academically that grad school is an option.<p>What's your advice for college freshmen, HN? "What do you wish you'd known?" I'm particularly interested in surprising, non-obvious things that I am unlikely to hear from others or think of myself.<p>Thanks!<p>__
* Olin College, for what it's worth.
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: One of the question from the YC application is "Please tell us in one or two sentences about something impressive that each founder has built or achieved".<p>This might be a good question to ask everyone by posting it here because there are a lot of people in this community that have achieved or built impressive thing.<p>What is something impressive you have built or achieved?
Upvote: | 52 |
Title: If you've ever done pager/on-call duty, you're probably familiar with a tool like PagerDuty. PagerDuty collects email alerts from your monitoring tools and sends out automated phone calls and SMS messages to the person currently on-call. The app supports many of the usual amenities in an alerting system, such as retry of unanswered alerts, on-call rotations, and automatic escalation of unanswered alarms.<p>Many large tech companies like Google and Amazon have sophisticated in-house on-call management and alerting systems. We have tried to build something similar for small and medium-sized businesses running critical systems.<p>One of the big challenges in building PagerDuty was making it simple and intuitive to use. If you find the setup process (or any other part of the system) confusing please let us know.<p>http://www.pagerduty.com
Upvote: | 83 |
Title: The original "Who's Hiring?" thread was one of the most active threads ever at HN, and I know it did a lot of good for a number of companies and individuals. I think we are due once again for such an opportunity to connect these people.<p>So, as LukeG put it "Are you hiring? Does your company (or your friend's) have openings? Let HN know!!! Let's get some good people good jobs."<p>Notes:<p>* I got my current job from the previous thread. It has been a pleasure.<p>* Original: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375410" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=375410</a>
Upvote: | 202 |
Title: Please first excuse my liberal arts sensibilities in a technical forum; but I figure out there might be some like-minded people out there who feel the same way I do ... that the hacker culture is dying out.<p>Before anyone jumps in to say that I've jumped the shark, let me quickly jump to elaborate:<p>The ideal of the hacker a la early 90's, Ghost in the Shell, Hacker and Cyberpunk; a cowboy on the electronic frontier typing silently the night away to a CRT monitor but the internals (of man and machine) is intense full of drama. Better yet, a reclusive vampire in the cyberworld, dialing up the BBS where people went by handles and the text file on packet sniffing taught me the hacking techniques and text file called "subverting American lower-education" taught me the hacking ethos and attitude. Hacking was punk-rock (a la the Ramones, pre-Blink182 and Sum41): marginal and subversive, exploiting buffer overflow vulnerabilities on remote servers, warez, BIOS viruses, and automatic credit card number generators in Visual Basic 3.0 to get free Internet access via AOL/Prodigy/Compuserve, pirated Turbo C++ with DJGPP writing a 2D DOS sidescroller. But I do not really do justice to the description of hacker, pre the dot-com boom - but I think you know what I mean.<p>Fast forward to the 2009, a hacker has become the anti-thesis to the hacker of early 90's. The new "hacker" go to websites such as YCombinator and have snazzy wordpress blogs with rounded corner designers with full names and locations and snazzy job titles, and geek-chic photo of the said hacker in yuppie dress-shirts smiling, "Software Visionaire/Ruby Ninja; come hit me up on Facebook, let's meet up and talk about business ideas!" The big ideas of the day is a PHP database CRUD application that displays everyone's colleges and geographical networks, with full names and whose purpose essentially, is a repository for pictures of inebriated hot chicks. Apparently, the new new thing is now this CRUD forum database application that has a character-limit of 120 words per post, but get this, it's written in a really cool language called Ruby on Rails, a la AutoTune in Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak.<p>Everywhere in the IT/engineering department, no one gets to write anything from scratch but have to write plugins/patches for a legacy platform, uses third party libraries that have ten plus layers abstraction between the meta-code and the actual code. Does anyone really understand the internal's of Ruby on Rails, the Linux kernel or know what YCombinator mean? The worst insult to an engineer is to tell her that she isn't technical enough. But in the designation of "frontend engineer," "backend enginner," "overseas team," I feel more like working on an Henry Ford's assembly-line, efficient and cheap, an assembly-line worker bolting nuts not an craftsman working on the engine, the suspension, the dashboard, the big picture.<p>Like hip hop/punk rock/grunge, hacking has been overran by marketing guru's (Seth Godin), overzealous self-promoters (Timonthy Ferris), business executives driven by the bottom line (Steve Ballmer/Carol Bartz) and its own narcissism (TechCrunch). It has devolved to become a caricature of its former self. Worst of it all, it has become mainstream - it's no longer subversive.
Upvote: | 176 |
Title: After John Dvorak accused Vivek Kundra of being a phony, Tim Oreilly shortly afterward tweeted a link to a youtube video of John "explaining how he lies to get controversy" http://twitter.com/timoreilly/status/3271565056 and later stating that he is "trolling for traffic" http://twitter.com/timoreilly/status/3272103221 Dvorak responded that this was an ad hominem attack http://twitter.com/THErealDVORAK/status/3280289449 The question is still bugging me, Is he a professional troll?<p>Some virology podcasters were recently irked that he uses a podcast with a big audience to spread H1N1 hysteria.<p>Full podcast episode: http://www.twiv.tv/2009/08/09/twiv-44-no-hysteria/<p>Dvorak clip: snippet: http://susdomestica.posterous.com/no-agenda-equals-no-knowledge<p>(I debated whether this is Hacker News worthy but decided to submit for discussion either way as up/down votes will answer this question)
Upvote: | 54 |
Title: Here's the (relatively brief) story:<p>I went to university at a top 20 school in physics and mathematics, and paid my own way by working part-time doing web development. After being in a few research internship positions (CDF-FNAL and some biophysics work), I realized that, while I thoroughly enjoyed higher level physics, I had developed a passion for web application development. Consequently, when I was presented with a very enticing offer in July 2008, I decided to start working full time and do my last four classes (I only had non-science related electives remaining) over the next year or so.<p>As it turns out, the decision I made was a fortuitous one, due to the economic meltdown that occurred only a few months after I went from part-time work/full-time school to full-time work/part-time school. Moreover, I do enjoy my job, and the ego boost of knowing that every day my hard work is put to use by tens of thousands of people (which is, in all honesty, one of the reasons I became so passionate about web applications in the first place).<p>But I've started realizing that my mind isn't as sharp as it used to be. As someone who was consistently challenged and put to the test in academia, I'm finding that I don't actually have any day-to-day challenges to push me and keep my scientific mind exercised. With my day job, regular open source contributions, girlfriend and social life, I don't have too much free time either.<p>My question is then: How do my fellow HN'ers keep their minds sharp? Should I read more publications & papers? Should I try and do more scientifically oriented open source work? Or is this just something I'm going to have to accept and deal with?<p>An insatiable appetite for learning sure is a hard thing to satisfy. Any advice would be highly appreciated.
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: Coworkers often touch my laptop screen, jabbing at some interesting item. I don't like it. Actually, I think it is rude, but I feel bad about requesting that they don't do it, or even quietly getting out my eyeglass polishing cloth and removing the mark in front of them.<p>Is it OK to touch someone's laptop screen?<p>Or am I being over-sensitive?<p>As a freelancer, I have my own (expensive) laptop, whereas many co-workers have company-bought ones, but I felt that way even when I had a company one.
Upvote: | 62 |
Title: Seems like there are a whole bunch of features that a lot of people don't know about. So I'd like to get a list of everything in one place.
Upvote: | 88 |
Title: I'm not a charting guy, but flow charts sure are versatile.
Upvote: | 66 |
Title: I've been slowly working on http://www.webticketing.net in between projects for the past 6 months. And its now at the point I'm ready to get feedback and open up the site.<p>We launched our first event today, a charity hack event for paypal.<p>http://www.webticketing.net/charityhack/<p>The idea is a simple cheap ticketing solution, with a low flat rate fee.<p>Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: (I'm reposting this as I guess the initial timing of posting did not give any results. Here is the old post - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=774508)<p>Hi HN,<p>This is similar to "Who is hiring" post. I'm personally actively looking for co-founders, so thought it will be useful to start this discussion, and see if we can meet our next co-founders via HN.<p>Please submit your details if you're looking for a co-founder. (My details are posted in comment below.)
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: Prakash and I help moderate nickb's NewMogul.com, which has been down for a day or so. We haven't heard from him for over 40 days, and cannot reach him by phone or email. Does anyone have any information on his whereabouts? (For those who are new to Hacker News, nickb is one of its oldest members: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nickb )
Upvote: | 63 |
Title: Wait, no, I'm right here.
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: For the past two months, I have been lurking in and about the HN community as a "noobie," making a few submissions and a fair number of comments on topics to which I felt I could contribute, even as a non-technical person.<p>I am now constrained to "sign off" for the time being. I did not want to do so without saying thanks to you all for your graciousness. I have felt most welcomed here, even as one who is not strictly a hacker, though I have concluded on my own that I am misplaced as a general contributor to the site.<p>I do hope to contribute or comment occasionally in the future on startup law-related items, as time may permit. Thanks again and bye for now.
Upvote: | 54 |
Title: My two business partners and I have been running our startup for about 14 months, we're ramen profitable, we have a small user base and we're growing steadily. (We've posted to YC a few times before, you can check out our website at www.skritter.com.) By all accounts things are looking very good for us, but we have a somewhat persistant problem that is hurting morale: simply put, I feel underutilized and we all three decided we should ask YC what other startups do about this situation.<p>To give you a little background, Nick, Scott and I were all three best friends in college. Nick and Scott were CS majors (among other majors) and I was an economics major. When we first started the business we all three decided together that we didn't want to seek venture capital or anything big, we wanted to raise as little money as possible, get to market, and then live (or die) off of the profit. We raised two rounds of philanthropic funding, one for $30k and one for $25k, it was literally free money.<p>After that the problems started. We didn't yet have any revenue and our service wasn't going to have high margins, so a lot of traditional marketing just wasn't going to have positive ROI (I know, I ran a LOT of numbers). I focused on doing some menial labor, and I also did a lot of design work, but even that wasn't a lot of work. At the same time I was having trouble feeling productive at 40 hours a week, Nick and Scott were working 60 hour weeks consistently and were still behind. To their credit, they were extraordinarily graceful about the problem, always downplaying the inequality in work, trying to find me new productive tasks and the like.<p>So here's my question: do other small startups have this problem? And if so, what have you done to mitigate the workload inequality and give the businesser meaningful stuff to work on? Put another way, if you're a three person startup or you have a full time business person or designer, how do they spend their time?
Upvote: | 152 |
Title: <p><pre><code> Reply in haiku.
See one you like? Upvote it!
Gather points to win!</code></pre>
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: Rails Rumble 2009 (railsrumble.com) ended this weekend. Since I'm a contestant (alertme.tv), I've been able to browse all the 157 teams who were able to get deployed. Here's an sneak peek at 11 amazing entries that I think could easily be successful as startups if they are given a chance after the competition ends. All of these apps were built by a team in 48 hours.<p>#1 LowDown - http://mcp.r09.railsrumble.com
If you are into cucumber (cukes.info), you'll love this app. It enables you to build specs, and share them them with your clients before implementation. Amazing interface, and huge SaaS potential. I would for this pay right now.<p>#2 Hi, I'm - http://hi.im
Cool way to build a landing page for yourself. This is what google profiles should be. Landing page urls look like http://hi.im/jacques<p>#3 Omnominator - http://omnominator.com
Cute & useful site to choose restaurants among groups. This would be huge as a google wave widget, or integrated into an existing communications platform. The site is incredibly useful on its own though.<p>#4 Thingivore - http://thingivore.com
If you've used delicious library on the mac, this is basically the web version of that. Insanely nice ui and interactivity. This app could make a fortune off amazon's affiliate program.<p>#5 Neighborhood Watch - http://neighborhoodwat.ch
A new peer 2 peer way to monitor web site uptime. You install it on your server and everyone checks everyones websites. Tons of additional data and alerts you could with all the additional servers checking up on you.<p>#6 Techmeets - http://techmeets.com
Nice looking alternative to meetup.com - focused on technical meetups. Crowded market, but this is a decent niche and easy its especially easy to monetize developer eyeballs (job boards, dev tools, etc).<p>#7 Straightlist - http://husohuso.r09.railsrumble.com
Allows you to post and browse installation / deployment steps. Every linux blog on the planet could integrate with this site. Some sort of simple website integration widget is needed.<p>#8 SmackSale - http://smacksale.com
Reddit like tool for tech bargains. Lots of sites already like this, but this one is nicely built and could easily compete among the others. Obvious affiliate potential if they can get traffic.<p>#9 Nybbl - http://nybblme.r09.railsrumble.com
A way to publish small bits of knowledge, with micropayments. Any good hacker comes up with tidbits of useful knowledge every week that he runs across. This could be a neat way to try to monetize that knowledge by getting paid subscribers to these tidbits.<p>#10 Last Percent - http://lastpercent.com
Nice and simple tool to check a website. Looks for broken image links, html validation errors, and css errors. Every developer should use something like this.<p>#11 Table Surfing - http://tablesurfing.com
Cool way to meet new people by setting up dinners with strangers. Would be tough to get enough people on the site to make it useful for finding random dinners, but the site's well designed and looks like it would work well just using it amongst friends<p>Some awesomely ridiculous apps that deserve mention:
- lazeroids.com (online massively multiplayer asteroids). Seriously.<p>- stomachly.com (restaurant ratings based on bowels)<p>- celebritypassage.com (tribute site to dead celebs)
Upvote: | 80 |
Title: "I work with Ruby every single day, and over time have come to really enjoy using it. Here’s a list of some specific things that I really like about Ruby. Some of them are obvious, and some are shared with other languages. The purpose is to share things I like about Ruby, not to compare and contrast with any specific language."
Upvote: | 42 |
Title: Yesterday, I jumped on dcurtis in his hn post "30-day flight" here...<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782512<p>I said it was foolish and selfish. I was wrong. It's neither. A little over the top, but that's all.<p>As a frequent flyer, I'm always concerned about being able to get the seats I need and not getting bumped, so maybe I was a little sensitive. Also, sometimes I double book, then cancel, to keep flexible plans and feel guilty about it. (So who am I to criticize?)<p>I talked with alaskamiller last night and he reminded me that this was a great chance for the 2 of them to have an adventure, learn a few things, and share their experience in their blog.<p>I just didn't read that it yesterday's post. I should have known better.<p>I look forward to seeing dcurtis and alaskamiller in Pittsburgh if we're there the same time. Other hn'ers may want to coordinate their schedules with them too. Who knows, buy them a drink or dinner and you may be the subject of a blog post.<p>Have fun and keep us posted.
Upvote: | 50 |
Title: I thought I'd try out feedback army on my new marketing website. To ensure that what I'd written was in line with what users understood it as.<p>For $10 you get 10 people to anonymously browse your site.<p>You give it a URL, and you can ask the users upto six questions, the default questions are pretty great. Along the lines of "what is the site about? how does it work? how do you get it?" etc.<p>I expected them to give one liners - but holy cow, I got entire paragraphs. They left comments on blog posts, they clicked and interacted with every element.<p>I guess the "negatives" to this is you can't guarantee quality testers - do I know if they even checked my site?" I used clicktale to track where they clicked, and you can even reject reviews that are nonsense.<p>I've only got 8/10 "reviews" so far, and they're really excellent. I'll be doing it again before we post it on Hacker News :)<p>http://feedbackarmy.com<p>I'm not affiliated in anyway... maybe this was the startup I inspired, thinking about it, I'll have to check Hacker News archives, I just thought you guys would appreciate this service.<p>too lazy to read: for $10 you get 10 users to beta test your site, and they answer your questions about your site.
Upvote: | 47 |
Title: I am using an anonymous account for this post. Indeed, I registered this account solely for the purpose of this post. Sorry, pg.<p>I have been freelancing for almost a decade, and I still never know what to say when a prospective client asks me this question.<p>Given that I have always worked alone, and given that I have never talked to anyone about this topic openly, my response has always been based on personal intuition. Now I wonder if I am underselling myself.<p>I am not sure if this is a taboo topic among hackers, but my impression is that such a thing does not really exist. But given that I don't know any hackers who freelance personally, I have a real need for getting some more datapoints. If I don't know what others are billing, and I therefore bill significantly less out of my own ignorance and misestimation of effort, I reduce the average price at which others are able to charge. The compound effect of this is tha we are all running like hamsters on wheels for very little money.<p>Between 16 and 21, I made 5 to 10 HTML-only websites for between $2,000 and $5,000. I also made 3 to 5 flash-based intros/websites for between $5,000 and $20,000.<p>At 21, I made a .NET-based windows desktop app for $50,000.<p>At 24, I wrote a RoR web-based app for $100,000.<p>These were all freelance projects built by me from scratch while doing HS and Uni.<p>Does anyone else feel like sharing what they billed for contract projects (not subcontracting gigs, client-direct only -- before any type of broker takes their cut)? It doesn't have to be something you did personally. Maybe you know what the company you worked for billed for developing a specific type of app. The results will only be interesting if we get numerous data points, and the best way to motivate more responses is to respond yourself.
Upvote: | 63 |
Title: http://www.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/default.mspx<p>vs.<p>http://www.microsoft.com/poland/businessproductivity/default.mspx
Upvote: | 97 |
Title: Twitter XSS exploit from yesterday still works. They haven't done a very good job of fixing it.
You only need to see an exploited tweet to be affected!
Upvote: | 63 |
Title: Hello HN,
I've been kicking around a couple of ideas for startups that I'd like to share with you. I'm having trouble deciding which one I like best. PG and others speak about changing ideas often in a Startup, so you shouldn't worry too much about the initial idea. Companies like Paypal are often referred to. However, I see this more as evolution rather than full out change. It is much harder to completely shift focus. Justin.tv did it, but it took them more than a year to go from one idea from the next. I'd like to avoid this if possible. First, I'll probably run out of money. Second, the opportunity cost is rather large.
With that in mind, here are some idea's I’ve been thinking about. Let me know what you think of them. Please start building them if you like, or let me know if you'd like to try and work together on any of them.<p>-------------------------------------------------------<p>1) Online golf tee time systems that courses use suck! They are so bad that calling to get tee times is still the default method. The vast majority of existing software is practically unusable. It should not be hard to build software that kills everyone else. Features include:<p>-- Support all browsers (many do not)<p>-- Fix the broken login system. Most software requires you to login. No one can remember there login because the actual software is not the brand the consumer remembers, it’s the golf course. So I end up making a new account every time I want to get a tee time. That sucks, I usually stop at this point. Instead use open-id<p>-- All existing software uses the same broken UI. Currently there is a date picker and you enter the date and time you are interested in. This makes sense for airlines, but golf courses typical only let you get tee times 10-14 days in advance. I would rather see each day lined up, with the weather, price, and how busy the course was included. Clicking a day would show the day's list of all tee times. This would allow you to do things like find the least busy time, or find two tee-times back to back.<p>-- Edit reservations. Most existing software makes you go through the whole account hassle, then you can't even make changes to your reservation without calling.<p>--The killer feature, beyond building a usable website, would be a mobile website version and native mobile applications.<p>I’d charge per transaction. I like this product because the software is directly responsible for revenue (or making stuff golf courses want). Also golf courses want to minimize the time they are spending answering the phone.<p>-------------------------------------------------------<p>2) Mobile applications for students to get info about their colleges. This already exists for ~10 schools and the company who built these was actually just bought by Blackboard. Nonetheless, I think there is a lot of space in this market. In 5 years, students will be getting this info in a better format than they are now. Features would include:<p>-- News<p>-- Athletic Events<p>-- Interactive directory, with one touch calling/emailing<p>-- Calendar of events<p>-- Pushing emergency security notifications<p>-- Big CALL SECURITY button, since most students do not have security's phone number in their phone<p>-- Dining Menus<p>-- Interactive Map of campus/local attractions<p>-- Possibly some social networking thing where students could post where they are hanging out.<p>To start, I've tried to only include features that wouldn't require integrating into a schools internal network. This would keep the friction of installation much lower. At some point it would probably be worth looking into integrating though. I’d focus specifically on smaller schools that don’t have the IT infrastructure to build anything like this. High Schools could also be targeted.
As a student I was always running around, and I would have loved to be able to get this information easily. As it was, loading up the website and navigating just takes too long. Also, I think schools are very interested in security these days, so focusing on fleshing out new ideas surrounding that would be important. Also, Students are early adopters with new tech.<p>-------------------------------------------------------<p>3) Completely Digital Tickets. This idea actually came out of #2 as I was thinking about possible features. At school, I hated having to go to the student union between 10 am and 12 am with 7.50 in cash to buy a ticket to whatever event. The basic usage would be as follows:<p>-- Event coordinator sets up event tickets on a website. Coordinator chooses how many tickets, price, etc.<p>-- Student gets push notification on their phone that tickets for event are on sale.<p>-- Student buys ticket using ITunes account or similarly easy payment option. The goal is to be frictionless.<p>-- Student goes to event with his/her phone and redeems ticket in one of four ways. The different ways differ in security, but also in infrastructure needs. Event coordinators could choose which option they prefer.<p>a) student shows flashing ticket on phone. This could obviously be counterfeited, but with sufficient animation could possibly work for small events. It would still be harder than counterfeiting most paper tickets used.<p>b) student presses a button which tells a server to send ticket redeemer a text msg with the name of the student and how many tickets he had. The txt would always come from my phone number, so txt spoofing would be required for counterfeiting. From some basic research txt spoofing looks tough in the US.<p>c) Mimic Bump Technologies, student bumps phone with ticket redeemer. This requires all ticket redeemers to have “smart” phones, but would be the most secure.<p>d) display a bar code that could be scanned. This would require barcode scanners as well as an API to exchange bar code info with the event coordinator.<p>-------------------------------------------------------<p>4) Real Time Shopping. This is my least formulated idea, so bear with me a bit. Basically, I think there are a certain class of transactions that could be possible, but aren’t yet. These transactions are extremely time sensitive. They occur when the buyer is interested in getting good deals more than getting the product at an exact time. I was thinking about what happens to pizza’s that are ordered, but never claimed or can’t be delivered. Obviously, the pizza places would like to sell this pizza, but they have a very limited time before it goes bad. I think there are a lot of potential industries where this could work, but the three that stick out are the food industry, ticket industry, and coupon/deals from consumer companies.
I think it is just becoming possible to start trying to solve this problem. Consumers need to be able to subscribe to different types of products in geographic areas they choose. Subscribing could be done in a variety of ways including twitter, mobile app, txt msg. The actual transaction mechanism may need to be specific to different products.<p>-------------------------------------------------------<p>Each Idea gets progressively less conservative and more “futuristic”. I’m having trouble deciding whether it’s worth trying to solve one of the harder problems or going for the relatively more concrete ideas.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be great!
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: I am the co-founder of a company that provides software to established and rapidly developing organisations that wish to introduce modern web working-practices. Think e-commerce apps, large Joomla-based sites, social media features, clean and functional design etc.<p>We are just getting started but have managed to find some leads mainly through our professional contacts. We’ve also tried websites such as http://www.supply2.gov.uk/ but I’ve found these to be of limited use. Getting clients at this stage is critical to us as we need to increase our portfolio of work.<p>My question is for those that do web development for a similar audience; where do you look for potential clients, RFPs etc? Do you hit the streets? Hold workshops? Attend ‘networking’ events? Search online?<p>Note that I am based in London - although it would also be interesting to know how this works internationally. Thanks all.
Upvote: | 54 |
Title: Jefft Bar already got AWS hosting for them
Upvote: | 43 |
Title: A bunch of people have been emailing me asking to have their IP unblocked after using this script<p>http://github.com/brainkarma/hnreputation/tree/master<p>which apparently hits the server so hard that it gets their IP ignored.
Upvote: | 199 |
Title: This thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=790800 prompted me to go and do something that may be a technical violation of the adsense tos.<p>So, here it is (the month of July):<p><pre><code> impressions clicks ctr ecpm total pay
6,798,064 13,694 0.20% €0.13 €882.30
</code></pre>
This is a minor drop in the bucket on our sites income, we are not exactly advertising driven but since it is 0 work we figured we might as well take it.<p>The sites these ads run on are mostly music oriented.<p>Without knowing more about these sites I'm sure that you'll have a hard time using those numbers directly, but it may help somebody that is considering an advertising supported startup to determine the bandwidth of income that could be generated using google advertising.<p>Anybody else feels like sharing ?
Upvote: | 42 |
Title: A little over 2 years ago, I quit my full-time job and began freelancing. The vast majority of my work has come from one particular group of customers at a University. I've been paid 10-20k dollars on 3 separate occasions to develop a web application for this niche, I have another customer who will be paying me a similar amount in the fall when I work with him, and there is another customer who wants something similar but doesn't have the funds yet.<p>This niche is academic in nature and as far as I know the money comes from grants. I have never signed any paperwork, I have simply built what they wanted and been paid. I have a great relationship with these customers and have already discussed the fact that I might try to sell a product like this to other institutions, which they are fine with. I am confident that I can extract some core components that are useful in this niche, rewrite the app (there are things I want to improve), and create a product that would be useful to other similar institutions. However, I don't actually have many connections in other cities yet, nor do I have any experience in selling a piece of already-developed software for tens of thousands of dollars to people I don't know. All of my business has come through referrals. What I _have_ done is spent a few years talking to the customers, answering emails of the users of the app, developed several different versions of it, and been able to successfully charge money by the hour for development. So I feel like if I only connect a few more dots, there is a great business here. So now I'm trying to decide where to go with this, and could use some help.<p>So I have a few questions:<p>1) If a piece of software would cost tens of thousands of dollars to develop from scratch (possibly more when considering the development has required the time of many highly paid individuals), would it be reasonable to charge someone five figures for a packaged solution, and also charge a high consulting rate for customizations and integration with the customer's data? Note that this software isn't being sold to mom and dad or your friends, it's being sold to large, state and federal funded organizations, and there aren't many solutions out there.<p>2) How does one go about learning to sell? Especially a software product that is expensive, but probably wouldn't sell that many copies, maybe a thousand copies. Any books you recommend? Do I just find the proper contact at the institution and call them up? Tell them about what I have and show them a demo? Do I need to get a sales guy? Do I need to fly all over the country and show the software in person? Would someone be willing to buy an expensive piece of software based on a screencast and examples of a couple of other customers that use it?<p>So there you have it. I'm trying to make the transition from consulting to selling a product, have a couple years living expenses in the bank, and have someone willing to pay me while I work on it for the next few months. But now I just need to figure out where to go next. Obviously I will sell the first copy to the client I am planning to do work for in the Fall. But what should the next step be? My first thought would be to just start cold calling potential customers, which I have never done. Any help you can offer would be appreciated.
Upvote: | 49 |
Title: Hi,<p>I've saved up 6 months worth of money and am taking time off to try and start a software company.<p>I have just released a new version of my app QueryCell and would love any feedback people have.<p>QueryCell is an add-in for Microsoft Excel that allows you to query Excel data using SQL, Generate SQL Insert statements, generate test data and mark rows.<p>http://www.querycell.com/
http://www.querycell.com/welcome.html
(welcome is going to be the landing page for ads)<p>Thanks
Upvote: | 45 |
Title: anyone know why a url is structured that way?
Upvote: | 58 |
Title: I don't ever see this discussed here. The level and focus of discourse here should make for great recommendations.<p><edit> Should this be restricted to "on topic" material? </edit><p>Me, recently and currently:<p>http://www.amazon.com/About-Face-2-0-Essentials-Interaction/dp/0764526413/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251767831&sr=8-12<p>http://www.amazon.com/Matter-Great-Design-People-Company/dp/0137142447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251767882&sr=8-1<p>http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Mind-Anniversary/dp/0071359168/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251767926&sr=1-1
Upvote: | 72 |
Title: Here's an idea that I'm never going to get time to follow up. Maybe it has merit, maybe not. If you want it, it's yours. If it makes billions, remember me.<p>A colleague who is a hobbyist aerobatics pilot says that aviation has become as safe as it is through the ubiquitous use of checklists. Everything has a checklist, and said checklist goes into the smallest detail. I've taken that on-board and we're starting to use explicit checklists when we deploy new systems, run through tests, diagnose problems, etc., and it's starting to make a real difference.<p>But building the checklists was a pain.<p>Recently I had a new boiler installed at home. No problems, great hot water, great heating, everything seemed fine. Now I find that some of the hot water taps are leaking. They were installed with the older, lower pressure system in place, and they need upgrading to cope with mains pressure hot water. Similarly, sometimes the kitchen hot water tap makes loud, ugly noises.<p>If I'd had a checklist of things to confirm before signing off, the plumbers would never have left the building without dealing with them. They're being great, but it's costing them time and money, and me hassle, to get these things put straight.<p>A checklist would save time, money and hassle.<p>How about a web site where I type in "Hot water" and it gives me a checklist. Or "New ISP" and it gives me a checklist. Perhaps the checklist can then be refined further, or perhaps it allows me to mark things as done or pending.<p>I think I'd pay money to be registered with a site like that.<p>Comments?
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: So I just graduated college in the spring and I have about $1500 in savings that I could spend on the deposit + rent/moving expenses for an apartment somewhere and continue looking for a job, but something in me is telling me there's a better way. I have a plan, but I want to see if you guys think I'm crazy (If HN thinks it's too out there, then I know I'm off-base) or if I'm going to need more money or what.<p>I have known for some time that there's something different in the brain of an entrepreneur that changes the way they see the world, and I want to find out what that is.<p>So I want to set out to find entrepreneurs, either through appointment or serendipity, and spend a little time with them. Just get to know how they decided to do what they do, what keeps them going, what their hopes and dreams are, etc. I posit that there's commonalities to be found there and a lot of insight to be gained from those commonalities. My contacts are somewhat slim, and it would probably be reasonable to spend a few years building up more, but something tells me now is the time to do this and it's getting harder and harder to ignore.<p>I spent some time as a freelance writer, so I believe I can make the result compelling and interesting. But there's a lot of things I need to work out, and this is where I need your help:
- Do I have enough money to do this long enough to produce anything of substance? (numbers at the end of the post)
- How should I publish this? It could be a blog that I update regularly, an ebook that I put together as I go, a physical book (leaning away from this for many reasons) or some combination thereof?
- Can I somehow monetize this as I'm working on it so as to extend my trip?
- How should I pitch the project to potential subjects? Free publicity? Altruism?<p>Numbers:
A trip from Chicago(where I live) to NY, boston, New Orleans, Austin, SF, Seattle, back to chicago is 7695 miles. I'm thinking $700 for gas, oil changes, and some other tune-up stuff before I leave/along the way. If I eliminate the west coast, this drops to around 4000 miles, If I just do SF and Seattle (this is probably what I'll end up doing) I end up with around 5000 miles.<p>I have no aversion to couch surfing, sleeping in my car or camping, all of which I've done plenty of. With around 5 days of pure driving, I can spend a month doing this at just over $20/day to spend on food/bribery.<p>My hope would be to get around 15-20 case studies of at least an hour or so interview time, plus maybe shadowing and secondary interviews. Though this is flexible. I think this would be enough for a worthwhile product.<p>So. Am I crazy? Should I do it? Suggestions? Volunteers? Donations...?<p>Also, you can email me at alex |at| mohrslaws.com
Upvote: | 89 |
Title: Just spent two hours writing a 25line Python script. First real script, totally happy and pleased with myself. But what do I do with it?<p>I am planning on storing it in my personal Dropbox so I can edit it or create more on which-ever computer I own, but my question is: would it be worth it to learn Git/SVN now, in the early stages of programmer-hood, or later down the road. Would I benefit from learning/using Git/SVN now? Or would I benefit more from ignoring Git/SVN and just focus on writing code. Thanks.
Upvote: | 70 |
Title: If I read it correctly, the leader of the scoreboard submitted the solution for problem A in 7 minutes, problem B 11 minutes later, problem C 7 minutes later. (see http://code.google.com/codejam/contest/scoreboard?c=90101#)<p>I was expecting some people to be way, way faster than me, but that seems stunning. Can't wait to see what programming language they used.<p>Me, I tried to solve the problems in Ruby. I am not that experienced with Ruby, so I lost a lot of time debugging. My solution for problem A was too slow in Ruby 1.8 (only 8 minutes are allowed for computation) and only barely made it with Ruby 1.9 - Google Q&A claimed it should be doable in less 8 minutes with Ruby 1.8, though.<p>In general I had no problems thinking of an algorithm (except maybe some really clever optimization), but I can't imagine coding them in 7 minutes. My solution for problem B is 93 lines long - even just typing it might take longer than 7 minutes...<p>I did not practice at all - perhaps with more practice of the typical class of problems for such competitions, it becomes more of a copy+paste thing?
Upvote: | 40 |
Title: Based off this post 7 months ago, where PG compared TicketStumbler ($15k in funding) to FanSnap ($10.5 mil): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458925<p>This is not a criticism of PG's submission OR of TicketStumbler, just an interesting observation that I hope will generate some debate.
Upvote: | 61 |
Title: I saw my first computer in 1978. It was a Tandy TRS-80, and it was running what today we'd call a slide show. It was, however, entirely in text and very, very simple graphics.<p>It had 16KB of RAM, and permanent storage was sound on a fairly standard external cassette tape drive. I can still draw the waveform of a bit, and the start/stop patterns. You could program it in a simple BASIC that had limited variables, and no subroutine parameters.<p>No parameters in subroutines!<p>But I was hooked. I wrote two BASIC programs, then ran out of patience. It had to run faster! A 1.77 MHz Z80 running interpreted BASIC wasn't fast enough.<p>So I smashed the stack. I won't go into the details, but I bootstrapped into assembler (the BASIC did have PEEK and POKE) and wrote a compiler. The BASIC version, two copies of the machine code version, and the variables, all fitted into the 16KB memory. Two copies because it wasn't relocatable, so I compiled to copy 1, used that to compile to copy 2, then machine-code saved copy 2 to cassette.<p>It was cool writing different variants of sort, then sorting the data that was in the memory mapped screen. You could see the heavier items fall to the bottom in quicksort, or migrate one at a time to the top in a bubble sort. It was pretty raw, and enormous fun.<p>Why do I tell you this?<p>Today at work I took a subroutine that was taking 171ms per call and making the GUI run as slow as a snail on valium, and re-wrote it to take less than 10ms per call. The methods I used were straight out of the techniques I learned in that first 3 months of machine code programming (not assembler -machine code), and my colleagues couldn't really understand it.<p>There followed an impromtu "training session" in which I explained how CPU cores work, how machine code can be mapped to them, how assembly code matches machine code, and the way the instructions actually match the hardware, in some sense.<p>A lot of what I talked about is now outdated, it is, after all, 30 years old. But the techniques are still applicable on occasion. They were amazed that they didn't know this stuff, and intrigued as to how I do.<p>It's just what I grew up with.<p>Should programmers in C++, Haskell, Lisp, Python, <i>etc,</i> know these things? Or are they really mostly irrelevant, becoming more so, and soon to be known only by true specialists and dinosaurs like me?
Upvote: | 45 |
Title: I've been trying to be more productive by taking small, concrete steps. What systems have you set up for yourself?<p>Here's what I have.<p>1. Whiteboard tasks for the week, w. daily assignments<p>2. Check emails once an hour<p>3. Set default page in FF as a blank page(as opposed to Gmail, Reader, etc.)<p>4. Tea, not coffee. Cup of water on hand at all times.<p>5. 7 pull ups each time I use the bathroom.<p>Equipment-wise, multiple screens tend to help. A good chair too.
Upvote: | 58 |
Title: HN, what are your killer Unix tips? I've been using and learning about Unix both at university and at home for almost a year, and I was wondering -- what are the things that, when some wizard showed them to you, you wrote down as soon as you could so you wouldn't forget them? Is there some trick that saves you a buttload of time? Some script that makes your job way easier? Some command that made you smack your forehead in frustration when you found out it could <i>be</i> that simple?<p>Note: I'm personally looking for tips for working in bash (specifically OS X stuff if that makes any difference), but if there's some amazing thing that only works in zsh under Debian or something, feel free to suggest those too -- it's sure to be useful for someone.<p>I had a quick search for previous topics on this, but all I found was http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=103725 which had a couple of badass things in the discussion.
Upvote: | 83 |
Title: (Read the last bit to skip the story)<p>I'm planning on going to grad school to study AI because I think it is very interesting. For a very long time it has just seemed natural to me that computer scientists would eventually discover a way to make computers appear as intelligent as humans. Since it wasn't done yet, I wanted to work on this problem. I had no thoughts of solving it, but perhaps help it along.<p>However, I recently had the scary idea that machine consciousness may not be possible. I've thought this before, however this time it really hit me and scared me some. Considering I'd like to devote much of my resources to the problem, I'm now a little concerned that it may all be a waste. I'd prefer not to waste my life on something that turns out like the phlogiston theory.<p>Therefore, because it may bring good discussion and for my own benefit I'm asking:<p>Do you think machine consciousness (or at least something that looks like it) is possible? If not on current computer architecture, which "new lead" in computation do you think will allow it?<p>For extra credit:
Do you think the Church-Turing thesis (anything that is computable is computable by a Turing machine) indicates that machine consciousness is possible?
Upvote: | 71 |
Title: I'm decided that the current tarsnap website (http://www.tarsnap.com/) is overly minimalist (this shouldn't come as a great surprise to anyone who has seen it!) so I'm replacing it with a new site which is both more informative and somewhat less ugly.<p>Before I "go live" with the new website, I'd like to hear if anyone has any constructive feedback; in particular, I'd like to know if there are any informational gaps (either because I haven't put something important onto the site, or if some information I've put onto the site needs to be more easily found) or if the site doesn't render sanely in some web browser(s).<p>The new site is currently at http://newwww.tarsnap.com/ and if there are no major problems I'll be moving it to www.tarsnap.com later this week.
Upvote: | 43 |
Title: Alpha-geeks usually don't (want to) make a difference between their job and their hobby.
In reality I have almost never met a passionate developer, that is really happy with his job.
Why is that?
Upvote: | 69 |
Title: new distributed systems primitive?
Upvote: | 50 |
Title: Hello HN. Yesterday two posts of mine have been changed by HN moderators in such a way that I can't support neither of them anymore.<p>With one of them the source has been changed to an URL that only remotely has something to do with what I posted. Also the new URL is a wacky blog post with sparse information and almost no value while my original submission contained a huge report on the same topic.
See:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=827719<p>The headline of the other submission has been changed in such a way that now it's basically a lie. It does not reflect the post anymore.
See:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=827821<p>I don't want to be responsible for such low quality and low value or even misleading submissions. I can't delete them though. Why can't I?
Upvote: | 42 |
Title: I think everyone has at least one of these projects: something that seemed like an awesome idea when you started it, then mid-way through you realize how bad it was for such-and-such reason.<p>Going through my old files this afternoon in an effort to reclaim some HDD space reminded me of some of the crazier ideas I've had. It's always great to follow up your ideas, but it's even better to realize when they're totally crazy!<p>I'm sure that all of you have some great stories, and who knows, maybe our crazy ideas will inspire someone else to write their own crazy, and possibly great, app!
Upvote: | 64 |
Title: I've noticed that many of the hackers I've spoken to create their own music. I myself dabble in digital music, hip hop beats and what not, and know that others in this community do as well. I thought it'd be interesting to see the musical productions of hackers here. Maybe we'll see some patterns, who knows. So if you're a musician, pro or amateur, let's hear it.<p>Also, please specify what software you use, if any, in creating your music, for recording/mixing/mastering/etc.<p>I'll start with myself - http://www.virb.com/kyro - nothing terribly impressive. I have gotten much better since, I will tell you! I use Logic Pro 8 mainly now, but have also used Reason 4. Notes are entered in using a MIDI keyboard.
Upvote: | 89 |
Title: As far as where the title reference comes from - Norman Borlaug on Penn and Teller: BS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIvNopv9Pa8
Upvote: | 186 |
Title: How much does it make sense to decompose your javascript routines into separate files? Do you have .js for related classes and methods and one page wide .js to call everything else?<p>EDIT: The above was just an example, I'm looking for most things related to JS.
Upvote: | 51 |
Title: - async I/O using epoll on Linux
- for Python 2.6
- uses Python's generators
- is not Twisted nor a twister or a Tornado
Upvote: | 44 |
Title: I know I can't be the only person who uses their iPhone in bed, specifically to read news, books, and various social networks; because of this I end up using applications that allow me to disable landscape mode because if you have tried this you know how frustrating it is to turn over to your side and suddenly the screen flips and it's impossible to read.<p>Certain wonderful apps like Stanza (e-reader), Byline (RSS Reader / Google Reader Sync), and Tweetie provide this option. I love them for it.<p>Some apps do not provide this functionality however (Facebook, NetNewsWire, and even Safari) and I hate them for it. I absolutely can't stand using an application which frustrates me in bed. Maybe I'm crazy.<p>or<p>Maybe developers should offer this simple switch in their options to turn this off. It may just be that I'm the only person yelling about this but I know other users get frustrated by this as well, it's simply overlooked at times.<p>So, join me in asking developers to kindly provide this option for us. I'm looking at Apple as well, Safari is a huge pain in the ass while laying in bed.
Upvote: | 164 |
Title: Over the years several people have suggested not displaying comment scores. I finally decided to try it. There are so many users now that voting is starting to have a bit of a mob feel to it. We'll see if this makes the site feel better.<p>Voting still has all the same effects (on karma, and on position on the page), so I encourage users to keep doing it. The only difference is that comment scores aren't displayed in threads.
Upvote: | 289 |
Title: What is this little orange dot I keep seeing around the comments?<p>Is it related to the now-missing comment ratings?
Upvote: | 63 |
Title: I can see the points again. I take it that I'm not alone (or seeing things due to lack of sleep :) ) ?
Upvote: | 41 |
Title: There is a dark side to most of the current NoSQL databases. People rarely talk about it. They talk about performance, about how easy schemaless databases are to use. About nice APIs. They are mostly developers and not operation and system administrators. No-one asks those. But it’s there where rubber hits the road.
Upvote: | 67 |
Title: Hi everyone,<p>About a year ago I created a web site to help people stay organized when looking for a job. Since then I've refined it to the point where I feel like it's now a viable product. I'm lacking two important things, however: a) a business model and b) time to market it.<p>My preference is to sell it, and I would greatly appreciate advice on selling a niche site like this. In the meantime I want to try and get some traffic to it, so advice on optimizing the 30 minutes a day I have to do marketing would be awesome.<p>Incidentally, I've been using the site to keep track of some of my marketing efforts. As I search for people to contact regarding the site, I'm storing their information and keeping track of the "next action" - review their site, email, etc. Do any of you feel you'd benefit from using a site like happyjobsearch to keep track of your marketing efforts?<p>A little more about the site: Its main benefit is providing a tool to approach job searching systematically. I got laid off twice in three months last year, and I found that it was very demotivating to approach job seeking in a sloppy, reactive manner. So I tried to take a GTD approach and do things in stages: collect, review, and respond. The idea with the site is to spend some time collecting job listings each day without spending a lot of time reviewing them, and definitely not spending time responding. Then, to spend time reviewing listings further and taking the time to send a proper cover letter and resume.<p>Separating these different processes and being able to keep track of which stage each job opportunity was in really helped me feel more in control and made me feel like I was actually making progress, because I could see what I'd gotten done. In the end that's what I hope it does for other people - help them with their job search on a practical level, but also help in some way to keep people motivated, because looking for jobs can really suck :D
Upvote: | 80 |
Title: <i><edit2></i><p>This post may be premature. If that is the case, I will atone for my mistake by collecting the email addresses from this thread and throwing up a simple invite sharing site for use later on.<p><i></edit2></i><p><i><edit1></i><p>from Google: “We’ll ask some of these early users to nominate people they know also to receive early invitations — Google Wave is a lot more useful if your friends, family and colleagues have it too. This, of course, will just be the beginning. If all goes well we will soon be inviting many more to try out Google Wave.”<p>for more information read http://mashable.com/2009/09/29/google-wave-invites-2/<p><i></edit1></i><p>Requesters:<p>Leave a note and your email address (you can protect it from bots with reCAPTCHA mailhide http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/)<p>Share the love after you get your invite<p>Donors:<p>To prevent waste, leave a reply to a requester's message before you dispatch the invite<p>Also: thanks for sharing
Upvote: | 57 |
Title: We are small, self-funded, profitable startup located in a sunny loft in Manhattan and we are hiring. About you:<p>- Smart, gets things done<p>- Knows usual CS trivia<p>- Comfortable with Linux/UNIX<p>- Languages don't matter. We process lots of data and pick whatever works best.<p>About the company:<p>- Profitable. No VCs involved.<p>- Founded and ran by engineers<p>- Great product. Actually, it's quite awesome.<p>- <i>Meaningful</i> stock option plan<p>- Competitive salary, even in NYC.<p>See my profile for contact info and/or forward this to someone you know who may be interested. We may offer relocation assistance for a right candidate.
Upvote: | 42 |
Title: Dear Hacker News community,<p>I recently co-founded a tech startup in NYC. My co-founder and I just rented some great space in soho and we're looking to turn it into a vibrant, thriving startup hub. Sorry if this is ad-like, but I feel like the benefit of this place to startups in New York outweighs the spaminess of the submission.<p>The space is an entire fully furnished loft that is currently divided up into bays that can easily fit 3 to 4 people each. The price is $875 for each 150 (actual) sq ft. bay. I've been looking around at prices for desk space in the city, and this package is definitely one of the best deals in NY. Great for startups because of the month to month lease and all inclusive amenities. My co-founder and I will also be working out of the space. Here are the details:<p>-Exact location is 447 Broadway (Broadway and Grand) in soho (supposedly "Silicon Alley") which is extremely close to the 1, 6, N, R, Q, W, J, M, Z subways
-Each bay is 150 (actual) sq feet and are $875 each. There are two smaller bays at half of a full bay ($437.50)
-Month to month lease. You would need to pay 1st and last month up front with 1 month security
-Really cool soho loft with a great vibe, 16 ft. ceilings, 2 bathrooms, elevator access
-All utilities (including free internet) included, free use of communal conference room
-Great deli right down stairs that has everything, and great food close by (chinatown and little italy)
-24 hour access
-Free cleaning and trash removal 3 times per week
-Use of kitchen with sink, microwave, fridge, tea/coffee<p>I think the benefits of this place go beyond the cost if we can fill it up with tech startups... it would have a great motivating community aspect that everyone would benefit from.<p>Please get in touch if interested and tell your friends!<p>Chris Dickson
[email protected]
Upvote: | 47 |
Title: I'm in The Bahamas, at a semester abroad school and research institute. Our campus is largely powered by renewables and we try to practice responsible living. You can see more at http://islandschool.org and http://ceibahamas.org<p>One of my many hats is maintaining our network and data across our 18-acre campus. This is something I do because I can, not because I'm an expert. We recently had a fiber link go bad that took several days to locate (because it propagated as many different things), and the result was a real wake up call.<p>So, here's the pitch:
You're a network guru that needs a break from the looming winter. We're in a beautiful remote spot in The Bahamas with gorgeous beaches, great diving, snorkeling, fishing, you name it.
We'll fly you down (and a guest?), put you up and feed you (we'll even pick you up in a van running biodiesel we made from waste cooking oil). All we ask in return is some sound advice on how to move forward and what tools we should add to our belts.
If this sounds too good to pass up, email me: gsiener at ceibahamas.org<p>Thanks!
Upvote: | 108 |
Title: I recently accidentally lost my .emacs file which I'd tweaked and put together over the last 5 years. I though this would be a good chance to ask you, what's in your .emacs file?
Upvote: | 121 |
Title: Other than the default stuff of course. As you can see, my additions are quite pathetic so far (only been into vim for a few months):<p><pre><code> set expandtab
set sts=2
if v:progname =~? "gvim"
colorscheme twilight
endif</code></pre>
Upvote: | 123 |
Title: Ask HN - What's your best startup idea?
Upvote: | 47 |
Title: How do you pick the colors that you use in logos and sites? I've been using Photoshop's color libraries for years to find attractive color combos, but I wanted to see how others have approached the task.
Upvote: | 69 |
Title: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/california-failing-state-debt<p>i dont live in US, i wonder how a place like california got into such mess.
Upvote: | 53 |
Title: I've been cycling for a couple of years now on a daily basis but find that most of my hacker friends tend to stick to the redbull+snacks+coffee+ramen diet. What sort of routines do you guys use to stay in shape?
Upvote: | 72 |
Title: There are a bunch of steps to dealing with VCs that you should
be familiar with before stepping in to the fray.<p>My background in this is that I did several pitches to VCs and have worked
for several VCs in the last couple of years, mostly on the technical
side but you get to see a good part of the process as perceived by
the companies pitching. I also helped one company get seed
capital, because I thought they showed great promise.<p>So, the following is from personal experience,
which is limited but it may be useful.<p>Some VC's are more forgiving than others when it comes to following
proper form, but even if they're forgiving they'll appreciate it if you
know your stuff before you apply. Their agendas are almost
always quite full and the amount of time they have to spend on you
is limited, so you should use it wisely to maximize your chances of
success.<p>== before you start pitching ==<p>- First off, let's dispel a popular mistaken belief, getting an investment
is not 'success'. It's a step towards a possible success, and it may
give you a better chance, but it basically comes down to another
party estimating that you have a chance of success and that they
want a piece of that success in return for an investment.<p>- You have to know your stuff. This of course, sounds completely
obvious but it really is surprising how many people will pitch
to a VC (in itself something of an opportunity) and completely
blow it by not having done basic homework. A fairly recent
example, someone wrote a businessplan around a certain
type of person and was pitching for capital. Halfway through
the presentation one of the partners of the company being
pitched interrupted and asked 'And how many of these people
do you know ?'. A sensible question. The answer '0', more or
less ended the interview, even though it went on for a while
beyond that point, for politeness' sake.<p>Not knowing your target market, not having done any basic
research in to the demographic that you intend to sell your
product to is lethal.<p>As is not knowing your competive arena. If you come up with a
brilliant plan that looks like some successful competitor is already executing and
you don't know they exist that's probably the end of the ride for you. You
really need to spend solid time on mapping out the competition. Know their weak points, know your strong points.<p>In short, know your stuff, expect to be challenged.<p>- Make sure you inform your partners about all your moves and get
them on board before approaching a new party. To find out that
someone isn't on board <i>after</i> you approach a VC is a real problem.<p>If there is any problem between the founders get it ironed out
before you start making pitches, and make sure problems
are resolved to all parties satisfaction.<p>- It isn't a must to be incorporated before approaching VCs, but it
can be a problem if you picked the wrong form.<p>- if there are pending lawsuits it is usually a good idea to get
those resolved before pitching as well. This can royally screw
up your timing, a window of opportunity can easily close while
you attend to this.<p>- you have to know what it is that you want that investment for,
no matter how sure you are that you'll be able to spend it
wisely, you need to pretty much lay out how you intend to
use the money an investment will bring. This is where a
businessplan comes in. These are no longer the 90's, so please
no columns with more than 9 0's in it. Keep it realistic and
make sure that it contains realistic estimates for the costs
of the various components of your business. Factor in
market rates for salaries, office space and so on. Get a feel
for what it costs a business of a similar size to operate.<p>- scouting for capital takes time. Sometimes LOTS of time. Make
sure you have that time, and make sure that your business
does not suffer from this. Farm out as much of the work to your
co-founders as you can, spread that load. It will give them more
insight in the process and it will get them more involved.<p>== approaching target VCs ==<p>- when approaching a VC try to find out the names of their 'spotters',
and pitch the spotters first. That way, you essentially get two
chances, the spotters might be able to tell you how to shape
up your presentation in areas where it is perceived as weak.<p>- VCs are busy. Most of them are very busy, you have exactly
one shot at making a first impression. One good way to get
their attention is to send a single sheet executive summary
to one of the junior partners if there are multiple partners,
otherwise to a senior partner. If they're interested they'll
hand it off to one of their underlings who will contact you,
or they might contact you directly. Don't harrass them, but
do mail two weeks or so later if you haven't had a response
to inquire what they thought of it.<p>== a word of warning ==<p>- There are 'middle-men' in the VC world that sell their
services to unsuspecting young companies in order to
get them capital - so they say. The trick is that once they
have your signature on a piece of paper that gives them
exclusivity they no longer have to do anything. If you find
your own capital they will claim their pound of flesh.<p>Selling 'access' is meaningless. For the price of a google
search you can find more VCs than you could possibly hope
to pitch, if your stuff is good and you can present it well
you will most likely succeed in finding funding, even if
you do not have an inside track. Work your network, get
on that phone. It's a lot cheaper than giving some loser
equity for doing nothing.<p>If you can't find anybody to refer you then maybe your
product isn't that good, or maybe your team has a red
flag. Ask why if you won't get a reference.<p>== you've been spotted ==<p>- If a VC approaches you because one of their spotters has
alerted them to your existence then don't panic. They are
simply interested, you've materialized on their radar and
they would probably like to establish some kind of contact
to be kept in the loop. Give them a bit of backstory about
your company, don't gush out anything that you would not
want a competitor to know.<p>If at some point you feel that the time for approaching investors
is ripe then inform them. Until then simply keep them up to
date of major public developments, if you get to know them
a bit better you can ask for advice on business issues.<p>- make sure the VC that is asking you for information has not
invested in a competitor! A bit of googling goes a long way
before you start giving out confidential data. This is
obviously not the normal case, but it does occasionally happen.<p>== pitching ==<p>- get an NDA signed by everybody that you are going to give
confidential information if you think that there is something
non-obvious about what you are going to present. Most people
are over protective in this respect, but every now and then there
is a bit of data that is really crucial. Think about if you
even need to reveal it at this stage.<p>- Don't assume <i>anything</i>. You are pitching to people that are
probably whip smart, but they don't have your background in
your field. They will know business, but they may not know
a thing about what it is that you are doing. So when you use
words that are 'obvious' to the incrowd keep in mind that
you are not talking to the incrowd. Get out of your techie
mindset (unless the VC you're pitching to is extremely
technical) and present your company as though building up
from the ground.<p>- if you're the CEO of your fledgeling company keep in mind that
you are speaking for everyone, not just for yourself, and make
sure that you do not let any conflict of interest arise between
you and the other founders (you really should have at least one
co-founder). One of you should speak for all of you, but that one
person should have the unconditional backing of the others.<p>- You pay your way (and they pay theirs). A VC is not under any
obligation to refund you air-fare, hotel costs, legal, presentational
or any other costs associated with the pitch. Conversely, you
are not obliged to pay for any of their costs, such as legal
and technical due dilligence, transportation and so on.<p>If you're short on cash and you want to pitch to a VC that is
in an out of the way location for you, then the reality is that
you may not be able to afford to pitch to them.<p>A recent weirdness is VCs charging an 'entrance fee', this is
something to stay very far away from, anybody that wants an
entrance fee is making money OF you, not WITH you and that
is why they shouldn't be able to call themselves Venture
Capitalists. Maybe Vulture Capitalists is a better term for
such characters.<p>- know the terminology. If you don't know an NDA from a MOU
then you will have to spend some time on that. Having your
eyes glaze over halfway an interview or agreeing to something
because you do not know what it means and you don't want to
admit your ignorance is simply stupid. It does not mean that
you have to know everything, it simply means that it is a lot
easier to have a conversation with people if everybody is aware
of the meaning of all the terms. It saves time, and makes you
come across more professional, and hence will increase your
chances of success (both to find capital as well as in succeeding
with your venture).<p>- Other than NDA's nobody expects anything to be signed
when it is delivered. So, do not sign stuff that you haven't
had the time to go over, with your partners and your lawyer.<p>- When pitching time comes around: Sleep! Again, dead obvious,
for sure. But the best way to get around being nervous is to
be well rested. If you have to pitch several parties then
try to schedule a break between them. I know that when I
was done with a pitch I would literally be exhausted, unable
to drive back to the office. It takes every bit of concentration
and energy from you in a few hours time.<p>- never go alone. Bring someone along that you can trust and that
will give you a no-holds barred evaluation of how you performed.<p>- if it doesn't work out, don't despair. No angry letters to a VC that
rejected you, instead, thank them for the opportunity and ask them
if it is ok to keep them informed of your further development.<p>Ask them <i>why</i> they rejected you, in as much detail as possible.<p>Not as a way to get the door to open again, but simply because that
is the best you can take away from this pitch, a lesson on what went
wrong or why you did not make the grade.<p>Try again, and do it better next time.<p>== due dilligence ==<p>- Due Dilligence usually consists of several parallel jobs. There
are legal, technical and financial stages.<p>Legal is to make sure that you own what you're selling, that all
the proper procedures and contracts are in place and that
there are no hidden liabilities. Usually this will also look at
intellectual property issues and patents if applicable.<p>Technical is to make sure that what you've built is solid and that
it will not open up the investor to a potential liability because of
technical weaknesses.<p>Financial is to make sure that your books are in order and up to
date and that there are no skeletons in the closet.<p>Due Dilligence is a <i>VERY</i> invasive process, depending on the
quality of the people that the VC hires. My own specialty,
technical due dilligence usually takes the form of a several hour
long grilling of the CTO of a company with anybody they wish
to call on, subsequently they get a long list of follow up questions
via email. I will want to see your code, meet your developers,
look at your documentation, inspect your physical security if
you store private information and so on.<p>The questions range from simple ones to very complicated
ones and I've seen at least one CTO flee the room to fix a SPOF
that became apparent only during the interview. (what do you mean
you run a single database server and you've never tried to restore
a backup ? What if that drive crashes and it turns out that none of
your backups are restorable ?)<p>== getting to a deal ==<p>- You have to get your own legal representation. Remember, in
this phase of the process you are on opposite sides of the table,
and if you are lax and let the VCs handle your legal bill you are
effectively using a lawyer who is not working in your interest.<p>This will cost you dearly.<p>Pay your own lawyer, and pay him out-of-pocket, not out of
a deal that hasn't been done yet, the situation should be the
same if you walk away from it or if you take it. That's important
because otherwise you might have to do a bad deal just to pay
the legal fees.<p>- Nothing is binding until it is signed. Even a LOI isn't as strong
as a real contract, and money in the bank. That goes <i>both</i>
ways, but it is considered very bad form to back out once a
LOI is signed. Still, a letter of intent is not a contract and VCs
have been known to bow out in spite of signing and if anything
major happens to your company between the LOI and a real
deal you will probably be able to back out. But forget about
pitching that VC ever again.<p>- Stay in constant touch with your co-founders during the whole
process, if possible have them there when you're pitching and
discussing the deal. People kept in the dark are usually not
going to be happy with a fait-accompli that is not in their
best interests. By bringing them in on the negotiations you
stand a much better chance of not messing up your internal
affairs.<p>- Feel free to request a better deal! Remember, the VCs will
negotiate what's best for them. You have to be in control of
your side, you have to know what it is that you want and how
much you are willing to give up for it. There is no 'bad' deal
that was not done, the only deals people regret are the ones
that they did do, for too little money or too large a stake in
the company.<p>This phase can take quite a while, don't feel rushed.<p>- be careful, there doesn't seem to be much difference from a
funding perspective between a convertible loan and giving
out equity, but in practice the difference is huge, especially
if there are survival clauses and the company goes bust.<p>== the data room ==<p>- when preparing a larger deal there will usually be a data room
set up, a centralized spot at your lawyers, or their lawyers office
where all the documentation that both parties provide gets
integrated in to a seamless whole<p>- you have the fiduciary obligation to inform the other party of
anything material that you think may influence the deal. If
someone has threatened to sue you recently then state it,
make it part of the record. If you don't and the suit does
happen you are going to be in big trouble.<p>- the VC has the obligation to do their research as thorough as
they can, time permitting.<p>== doing the deal ==<p>- Once all the details are ironed out, there will be a concept investment
contract. Usually this will involve changes to the articles of incorporation
or the shareholder agreements of the company that is being invested in.<p>Unless you are a legal eagle I'd suggest you spend a lot of quality
time ( ;) ) with your lawyer during this phase.<p>- have all your co-founders go over the contract, if they're unsure about
the language get them to bring their lawyers at their expense. Make
sure everybody knows exactly what will happen.<p>Best of luck!<p>thanks to Mahmud for the critique.
Upvote: | 183 |
Title: Was wondering how our little app could see 100 fold increase in uniques just overnight. Simple reason: Google changing logo to depict an ITF bar code - tons of people going to wikipedia articles on bar codes. We have some referral links originating from wikipedia (mostly submitted images of EAN and UPC bar codes).<p>Too bad the bar code logo will go away - these are our Andy Warhol threw a "15 Minutes of Fame".<p>http://barcoderobot.com
Upvote: | 44 |
Title: I'm writing a first draft of an API for Jobpic.com. Mostly just for fun, I have a friend who is going to write an app for us.<p>I love developer friendly APIs.<p>I want to model ours after a great one. What are some of your favorites?
Upvote: | 45 |
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