Sole Founders - <AUTHOR> It is clear that YC prefers founder teams and I get that (it definitely makes sense), however as the fellowship allows for idea-stage entries, doesn't it make more sense to apply alone than find what might be the wrong tech-co-founder? I don't want blatantly to ignore the signs about co-founders but I think my idea is worth applying with even if I am currently the sole founder.... anyone with some insight? <comment><USER2> I think it depends...

I also applied as a solo founder, however I have a technical background and know that I can build and ship my product (already pushed out an MVP after t<2weeks).

Assuming there is a technical component to your project which you alone can't provide, then in my opinion you'll have a much harder time benefitting from the 8 week fellowship program than I would...

This is simply because while I'm building, recruiting users and (assuming my project keeps growing) fending off 'marketing experts' & business types who want to join the team, you can't really do much of anything until you find a technical cofounder.

Bearing in mind that most successful cofounding teams knew each other previously, you'll either need a long time to find your cofounder, you'll choose poorly and it won't work out or you'll be one of those lucky few who get it right (but the risk in accepting you is still much higher than for a technical founder/cofounding team doing the same project)

That said, if your project requires little technical input and you can do sales/marketing/growth before even finding a cofounder (eg by faking it 'til you make it on some non-tech product), then there's no real reason I can think of that you would be at a disadvantage, except perhaps that it might be viewed as a negative confidence in your abilities if you haven't been able to convince a technical cofounder to join your team...

Either way, I wish you the best of luck :)

<comment><AUTHOR> All sensible.... and yes I need tech input.... but 8 weeks could help consolidate the idea, focus, provide good connections etc... still I appreciate the risk (and hence the q)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _...doesn 't it make more sense to apply alone than find what might be the > wrong tech-co-founder?_

It does, but it doesn't make as much sense as applying with the _right_ co- founder(s).

See also e.g. [https://twitter.com/paulg/status/615949374317723648](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/615949374317723648) for a recent statement from pg on this. (Aside: holy steaming pile of crap, Twitter search really sucks.)

YC is generally looking for really solid teams -- people that know eachother well, get along well, have a history together, hopefully have been through difficult times together. Because a startup can be extraordinarily difficult and the odds of a home-run success will fall quite a lot if cofounders can't weather the challenges.

If you happen to be the rare true one-man-team, then by all means, apply anyway. (Or, apply even if you're not sure if you are; what do you have to lose?)

But ... maybe YC isn't the right thing for you anyway. There are a lot of different ways to start and run a business, and the startup model has some distinct disadvantages, not least of which is that it's difficult to spend much time away from the startup up until it has grown to its full size. Do you really want to spend the next, say, 10 years of your life dealing almost exclusively with growing a business? Because I get the sense that that's what investors are looking for.

Contrast this with a regular plain ol' lifestyle business. You gather a small amount of capital together, put together an early prototype product, find your customers, get the business to start making ends meet, pay off debt, and then go visit a beach somewhere in the world and have a beer and stare at the waves and think about how to grow the business a little bit more so that you can afford to stay at a nicer beach.

<comment><AUTHOR> All that is true and I get it (really, I do)... but I guess my point and the thread came about trying to understand what it means to be open to idea-stage because surely by definition an idea-stage venture is that- only an idea?

<comment><USER3> What YC earnestly wants you to believe is that if you just have a really good idea and nothing else, you should apply because they might be able to help you get started.

What it means in practice is that they'll receive probably tens of thousands of applications but only be able to accept 20 ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9917491](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9917491)), so your competition will be fierce.

(BTW, see also this note from sama: "We will be slightly more open to solo founders because we think at this stage you still have a good chance of finding a cofounder. But the bar will still remain higher for solo founders given all of our historical data.: -- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9917470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9917470))

<comment><AUTHOR> THIS is the answer I was looking for. Thanks. I do, of course, still get the inherrent risks (especially as a non-tech founder) and the intense competition, but the crux is that idea-stage is therefore open (even if limited in liklihood) to less traditional "winning applications" :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good luck.

As someone who tried starting something as a solo founder, it's tough work! I did begin with an idea on my own but eventually brought in another guy and thinking of bringing more help on board. There's just way too much to do.

That said, at the idea stage, it seems alright. I once asked for advice on which channels I should focus on to get my first customers and a mentor just said to do whatever it takes. At the end of the day, try everything and see what works. Cold call, reach out to networks, ads, etc. I think the same applies - if your idea is a great one, solo founder or co-founder, you're the one in charge of making it happen.

However, having a co-founder means you've managed to sell your idea to at least 1 person. And you have a team to get going right from the start instead of having to go look for someone.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've thought about this one, too. I think the answer is that you don't need YC at all. If you have no money, just bootstrap.

On the other hand, applying costs nothing but a little bit of time and it pushes you to clarify your thinking about your venture. So, I think you might as well apply, but I wouldn't invest that much time or effort into it. Spend your time building your business instead. If you make your customers happy, investors will find you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I applied and agree with what you said except that I think YC adds a ton of value: advice, experience, great connections, the reputational association with YC etc.... That's what differentiates YC from just getting any investment from any investor. It is not that EVERY YC company is worth the same thing (yet they all get $10k for 7%).... it is that YC says, we add value in many ways and this is our price for it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think there is a fallacy in being a "tech co-founder".

If your idea is simple enough that you can package it and sell it (because you are adding some type of value), then you could just hack away at some pre- existing solution and live with that.

Granted, it may not be very exciting to say you built a decent 7-figure business by using some bland CMS and excel spreadsheets, but who cares at the end of the day?

For every unicorn that comes out of Silicon Valley, there are thousands of smaller enterprises making due with some pre-existing solution that they modify and resell.

Perhaps as a solo founder, YC is not for you.

I _think_ if analysis were to be done on founder happiness, non-investor lifestyle founders would say that they are generally more happy than a founder who has just raised $600 million and lives on lifes edge with a "sink or sail the world" mantra that his investors have placed om him.

Try forging your own path without their $12,000 and "fellowship" see where that takes you (there will always be next year).

</comment><comment><USER7> Everyone has ideas, its the execution thta matters. If you get accepted, how will you turn your idea into a product and business? If you don't know, you're probably not ready.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree entirely... I know HOW to get the business running, I just haven't (yet) found the right person to help me do it. My advantage is that my tech needs largely already exist in other contexts so I know the tech exists and can be re-applied with some tweaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So you're a tech founder?

<comment><AUTHOR> No.... sadly not. I think a sole tech founder is easier than a sole non-tech founder but again, as this is idea-stage, I'm wondering if there is room for a good idea without the tech side (yet)

<comment><USER9> Do you have experience guiding development relating to the idea you'd apply with?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not this specific idea (which is new)....

<comment><USER10> Where are you located?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tel Aviv - lots of tech guys... just need to find the right one :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Beijing orders new controls on 'Weibo' microblogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16212578 <comment><USER2> Demanding people give their real names to reduce behaviour deemed unacceptable. I've heard that somewhere else recently. Trolling and protesting are two sides of the same die.

<comment><USER3> > Trolling and protesting are two sides of the same die.

This is true. However the difference with our conversations in the west recently regarding g+ is it is a private company requiring your details on their own property, there are many alternative places to discuss that don't require your personal details and governments are not likely to require such a thing.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Buttons - A CSS button library built with Sass and Compass - <AUTHOR> http://alexwolfe.github.io/Buttons/

<comment><USER2> (disclosure: I work with Alex and he showed this to me before)

I think the page doesn't emphasize enough the easy customization of these buttons: you can set the class names and base colors in one file and Sass will create the CSS for what _you_ want. "Base" colors because the gradients, highlights and glows are then derived from only one color.

See this file in particular: [https://github.com/alexwolfe/Buttons/blob/master/scss/_optio...](https://github.com/alexwolfe/Buttons/blob/master/scss/_options.scss)

The defaults look pretty yummy but the customization is key for your own use IMO.

</comment><comment><USER3> they look really good.

        $namespace: '.button'; //prefix for all classes

you made my day, sir. was just about to complain that .button may collide with Zurb Foundation's styles (unless buttons not included), and I saw this. +1

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yah wanted to make it easy to integrate in any existing project. Glad you like it.

<comment><USER3> good approach. 'x for bootstrap' always makes me sad.</comment></comment></comment>


College Tuition Cost Rising Again This Fall - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/20/us/AP-US-College-Costs.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Continued increases in college expense should open up opportunities for hackers to make start-ups that disrupt the higher education system. There are several HN participants building businesses in this market.

But note: "More importantly, the estimated net price -- what the average student actually pays after accounting for financial aid -- was much lower, at about $1,620 at public four-year colleges, and under $12,000 at private ones. Both figures are higher than last year but still lower than five years ago, thanks to recent increases in financial aid both from the government and from colleges themselves. The figures do not include room, board and other living expenses." As long as colleges appear to offer out-of-pocket prices that are substantial discounts from list price, many students will continue to think that they are getting good value for their money--as perhaps they are. The challenge for a hacker is to offer plainly better value for even less money.

<comment><USER2> If one were to summarize the potentially fatal flaw in the current American system, it might come down to public subsidization of private institutions. Bailing out Wall Street. Private hospitals and insurers with much of their income coming through government run health programs. Halliburton mercenaries fighting and profiting from our wars. And taxes heavily subsidizing the cost of education at private universities.

In the article, I think the increase in tuition was pretty close to the increase in federal funds available for college education.

This gives us the worst of both worlds. Private entities freed from market pressures, but with none of the oversight or electoral accountability that comes with the public sector. This, in a nutshell, is what the common citizen is really angry about. This is what they elected Obama to change, but it is looking like he is only willing to address this problem at the margins.

<comment><USER3> It's very unsettling to see tuition increase at the same level of federal funds. That has to be addressed.

But I shudder to think how much worse off America and the entire world would be without the U.S. government helping people go to college.

The GI Bill after WWII gave an entire generation of veterans a free college education. Before then, going to college was just a luxury for the rich, pretty much everywhere in the world.

Government aid to college students makes America much stronger because an educated workforce is one of they keys to economic growth. Cut that and we're mortgaging our future.

<comment><USER2> How much of that money is going to fancy dorms, athletic facilities, and administrator salaries?

The problem is that the correlation between cost and quality of education has broken down. The government spends ever more money on education, with little net increase in the amount of educating because universities simply raise prices for the exact same product.

If the money is going to state schools where the government also gets a say in tuition costs, that's one thing. But government money going to private universities simply transfers public money into private endowments with little or no public accounting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This whole situation is funny to me. We get so angry at large financial institutions, insurance companies, and other businesses that have all this money yet raise costs, premiums, and tack on fees. Yet we just sit by and allow these institutions of higher learning to gauge our pocketbooks whenever it suits them. I know things are slow now and its affecting everyone. I admit I don't know the circumstances surrounding public schools, but these private institutions should be ashamed. Schools like Harvard, Yale, Boston College have money in the coffers. Check out the dowries of these schools. I mean billions. And alumni keep adding to it every year. These schools, if they really cared about the financial issues of their graduating, classes would dip into these funds to assist in keeping costs low. This is not the case because these schools are just like the insurance companies and financial institutions..they want to make money. Presidents of educational institutions have the same goals as their counterparts running the financial institutions.

<comment><USER2> "We get so angry at large financial institutions, insurance companies, and other businesses that have all this money yet raise costs, premiums, and tack on fees."

This is because these are the same financial institutions, insurance companies, and other businesses where young people want to get jobs, because they have all the money. And they are only going to hire people going to the same fancy schools they went to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If people are judging based on price, then some good advice is to get the first two years at a community college that has a relationship / automatic credit transfer to the university your are headed to. Getting all the general studies required courses out of the way saves a lot of hassle.

<comment><AUTHOR> _some good advice is to get the first two years at a community college that has a relationship / automatic credit transfer to the university your are headed to_

Upvoted for general agreement and replying to note that this depends on what you are going to your university for. If going to the university is mainly for attending classes and obtaining a college diploma above a floor value of respectability, going to the least expensive college that offers courses toward your major can be a great idea. My childhood best friend, a smart boy from a working-class family, did two years of prerequisites to an electrical engineering degree at a local community college before transferring to the state university to finish his degree. He said he had more personal attention from his calculus and physics professors at the community college than he likely would have had at the university. He also met a start girl who is now his wife of thirty years at the community college. So all around that was a good idea for him.

But if the university offers sufficiently strong networking advantages, and connections with really influential people in your hoped-for occupation, it may be a good idea to go to the university from the beginning, even at greater out of pocket cost. There may be a rationale for choosing a top-however-many nationally known university over one's own state colleges and universities if that university's reputation has economic value for job-seekers, as perhaps it does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another thought...

[http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/19/is-higher- educatio...](http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/19/is-higher-education- the-next-big-bubble/)

Will a college education continue to be considered worth it if prices continue to rise? Especially for majors that don't see huge post-college wage increases. This is an interesting issue as Obama plans to raise college enrollment as a nation

<comment><USER7> My major concern about the push for higher enrollment is that specifically with universities, the percentage that drop out and don't re-enter higher education, about 1/4 of all initial applicants, will on average earn less than high-school drop outs meaning that a sizeable proportion of these drop outs remain unemployed.

It's disturbing that all statistics appear to be gathered after completion and not after enrolment, because the value of universities would drop drastically if people realised that 1/2 of entrants typically fail or drop out, and that half of those (1/4 of initial enrollers) will earn less than high school drop outs, which means that the average ~$3,000 extra earned for a true university graduation over a typical college graduation would all but vanish. Especially when factoring in that a college drop out earns _more_ than a high school drop out, not less like a university graduate.

Essentially College is _always_ good for your income, however university can be truly devastating for 1-in-4 people.

<comment><USER8> That's interesting stuff. What's the source?

Also I apologize for my ignorance here but what's the distinction in this context between a university and a college? Is it still research vs. not-so- much?

<comment><USER7> I read all the statistics when I was applying to university a few years back, it was my high-school careers councillor who actually pointed it out to me. All the open-statistics give the percentages for university drop out rates (they all seem similar throughout the UK, Canada and Australia and many parts of Europe where I've read the statistics). The incomes I've actually only seen for the US, Canada and the UK, which all seem to correlate reasonably well, however nothing offers a _reason_ for the unemployment of university drop outs.

In this context I believe the distinction is between a technical college (1-3 year programs for certifications and diplomas) and a degree- orientated/undergraduate university, where the courses typically grant a bachelors degree instead of certification or a diploma.

I have to note the UK's statistics on this front are _very_ confusing, as there is no physical distinction between a technical college and a university as there is in North America and is based off of course-outcome aims rather than actual institutions attended.

Canada's statistics are rather interesting on university drop outs, in that the Atlantic Provinces have phenomenally low first-year drop out rates (I believe P.E.I. is ~16% versus ~36% in Ontario, note that these don't include first-year failure percentages). So it truly isn't the institution itself that causes the failure, but an artefact of the process present in most schools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> College tuition will continue to rocket upwards for the same reason as health care costs: demand-side subsidies. In this case: scholarships, financial aid, and low-interest loans.

Until these are removed, expect more of the same.

If, say, Bill Gates routinely handed out $10K to every person who has just bought a car, what do you think this would do to the prices of cars?

<comment><AUTHOR> _demand-side subsidies_

Yes, I think that is a major problem in the current patchwork system of financing postsecondary schooling. The people choosing what colleges to attend and what programs to major in are not the same people as the ones bearing the cost of those decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm in California and over a year span, my tuition has increased about 30%. Quite upsetting.

<comment><USER2> Has the quality of instruction also increased by 30%?

<comment><USER10> Personally for me, nothing has changed other than I'm paying several of hard- earned hundred dollars more out of my pocket, for nothing extra. In this case, I'm absolutely sure quality doesn't have a direct relationship with cost. Other students have it worse, especially freshmen. Admissions have plummeted, so less students get admitted, about 1000 or more G.E. classes were cut this semester, so longer graduation waits, professors were laid off, so less classes, and we have furlough days twice a month, which means professors must choose two days to stay home and not get paid. So we're paying more, yet receiving less education, which is nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is another bubble.

<comment><AUTHOR> _This is another bubble._

What do you think the bursting of this bubble will look like?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Tools you use for remote working? - <AUTHOR> Hi, as remote working is becoming more and more common, I'm curious about tools/services startups are using. (Features management, bug tracker, video conferences, chat, tasks, knowledge center, etc.) <comment><USER2> We use a bunch of tools at Zapier but some of our favorite are:

\- P2 WordPress theme from Automatic: [http://p2theme.com/](http://p2theme.com/)

\- Sqwiggle: [https://www.sqwiggle.com/](https://www.sqwiggle.com/)

\- Trello: [https://trello.com/](https://trello.com/)

\- GitHub: [https://github.com/](https://github.com/)

\- Campfire: [https://campfirenow.com/](https://campfirenow.com/)

\- Zapier: [https://zapier.com/](https://zapier.com/)

\- GTalk

\- Dropbox/Box

\- RelateIQ: [http://relateiq.com/](http://relateiq.com/)

\- Help Scout: [https://www.helpscout.net/](https://www.helpscout.net/)

\- HelloSign: [https://www.hellosign.com/](https://www.hellosign.com/)

We wrote a lot more about how we use them here: [https://zapier.com/blog/how- manage-remote-team/](https://zapier.com/blog/how-manage-remote-team/)

<comment><USER3> I hope you are using Zapier to ties those APIs together ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At Heroku, we are quite distributed and typically use the following. Some teams might have a slightly divergent set of tools or workflow, but engineering-wide this is more or less the baseline:

* HipChat (sync and async chat with a variety of ChatOps functionality)

* Documentation: Google Drive for non-technical documentaton that might need feedback and some dynamic spreadsheets backed with dataclips: [https://postgres.heroku.com/blog/past/2012/1/31/simple_data_...](https://postgres.heroku.com/blog/past/2012/1/31/simple_data_sharing_with_data_clips/)

* Video conferencing: Every single meeting has a corresponding Google Hangout. For some meetings we might use Fuze

* DCVS: git. Our repos are hosted on Github and we use all the usual stuff there: Pull Requests, Issues, in-line commenting, etc

* Project/task management: Trello trello trello - If it's not in Trello, it doesn't exist. This works great when you're widely distributed across geography and timezones. With the right workflow, we can at-a-glance know the status of all of our work-in-progress.

* Mailing lists! Every team has its mailing list and nearly every other thing of interest has its own mailing list. Interested in an upcoming project? There's a mailing list for that. Are you remote or based out of the SF bay area? There's a mailing list for that. Are you into Golang, functional programming, or want to chat about Linux? We have those covered too. Are you into biking or photography? Mailing lists!

P.S. - If you're interested in remote work, we're hiring! [http://jobs.heroku.com/](http://jobs.heroku.com/)

<comment><USER5> Can you share any of your Trello workflow? We still have trouble sometimes making everyone happy with our current Trello workflow, I'd be really interested in hearing how you organize your cards!

<comment><USER4> Sure! The basics are that each team has their own board and chooses a Trello board layout that most closely matches their workflow.

Generally, we'll start with new work on the left side of the board and completed work at the right side of the board; this roughly resembles a kanban board. The standard columns are:

Ready/Next (backlog) -> Doing -> Done

* Ready/Next are the top items from the backlog (usually a separate Trello board just so only active items are on the primary board) that are next in the queue

* Doing is work-in-progress

* Done is completed work (of course :))

Some teams also use additional columns for:

* Blocked - Work that is blocked on something else. In planning meetings and standups these are called out so we can unblock the items as quickly as possible

* Shepherding - Work that is mostly coordinating cross-team efforts. These items generally don't take up alot of active cycles of the "Shepherd" but they are an additional context switch throughout their work

* Interrupts - Usually this is called something else, but the gist is that some teams track operational items separately. For example, if support escalates a support ticket to an engineering team, the trello card referencing the ticket and any troubleshooting info will end up in one of these columns

As for ensuring that the Trello boards are up-to-date, many teams have standups and walk through their Trello board and confirm that it's consistent with reality.

<comment><USER5> Thanks! I guess we're not too far off, I think it's the last step we've been doing poorly -- team-specific checkins to make sure the board is accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a tendency to slap together a suite of freebie tools form various providers and hope it all sticks. However this doesn't scale. Multiple logins. Different UIs. Flaky integration between the tools.. Nightmare. I went through this exercise myself and in the end decided to centralize it all with Atlassian's OnDemand suite. Cheap and chips for small teams!

We use Jira w/ Agile for tickets & project management, Confluence for knowledge base, HipChat for communication, Bitbucket for code repository et al. Wrote about this and how we use it here: [http://www.theroadtosiliconvalley.com/engineering/medlert- ca...](http://www.theroadtosiliconvalley.com/engineering/medlert-case-study- atlassian-ondemand-tools-gsdfaster/) Hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER7> I have been running a remote team for a year now.

Communication:

\- chat during the day (hipchat)

\- skype for voice calls, usually to quickly discuss something

\- Google hangout (highest bandwidth communication, I run my daily standups on google hangout and sporadically for "crisis" moments or "clarification" moments)

Project management:

\- trello

Product management:

\- prodpad

So the trick is to have a daily scrum meetup on google hangout every morning so that you can explain tasks, check how far everybody got the previous day and update the trello board to reflect the new state. It's the only moment in the day that communication is cheap and high bandwidth.

Knowledge center: Google docs and github wiki

There are other auxiliaries like github, airbrake, circleCI and papertrail that report into hipchat so you can get a sense of the work being done.

<comment><USER8> Interesting, why do you use hipchat AND Skype AND Hangouts? Those all seem to overlap quite a bit. Our team meets and chats in Skype, I didn't see the need for hipchat while we're all using Skype.

Totally agree with the morning meetings though, plus we have one longer scheduled weekly.

<comment><USER9> HipChat provides a couple things that I don't think you can get from Skype:

1\. Searchable backlog for _all_ discussions.

2\. API for connecting bots (which can be used for C&C).

3\. Web-based and native clients.

4\. Public and private rooms chat rooms.

HipChat is more like IRC than like IM, which, for distributed teams, is often very useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I work in a very large distributed enterprise so this list is a little off topic, but maybe it'll be useful for someone and maybe it will awaken a few ideas for how incredibly rich an opportunity the enterprise space is. I write code and help the rest of the team write code. We use Windows. These tools have been helpful.

\- Microsoft Lync (excellent product! Love it. Seriously it's only serious flaw is it needs Windows.)

\- Microsoft Outlook

\- Microsoft Sharepoint (meh, it's better than nothing)

\- Trello (useful for ad-hoc teams)

\- GitBlit ('cause outside the Firewall GitHub/BitBucket isn't allowed)

\- HP's Agile Manager (expensive, but a very good Agile/Scrum product)

\- Rally (before HP Agile Manager, a very good Scurm product)

\- Adobe Captivate (decent for screencasts; save time sharing your ideas inside your firewall)

\- TechSmith's Snagit (the best screen capture tool I've used; great for quick-and-dirty 'do this' email or doc)

\- IntelliJ IDEA (great IDE, we don't use it collaboratively or anything but it got into our Enterprise because individual DEVs could buy it at a reasonable price for themselves, then other DEVs wanted it and mgmt started signing POs... smart tactic).

Sum it up. Lync is awesome (friends in smaller/not-so-MS-focused shops use Skype w/ success). A good asynchronous communication tool like Captivate/Snagit is useful. Some shared space to manage the work is necessary (Trello, HP Agile Manager, Rally, numerous other good products). I wish I had Campfire or something like it.

edit: formatting

<comment><USER11> (disclaimer: I'm a MS employee blah blah)

You'd be surprised how good many MS tools make remote development/communication. I don't work at MS HQ in Redmond (I'm in Boston) so my whole team does tons of work with people remotely every single day.

For example, Lync on the Windows Phone is really great: you can join a meeting from your calendar/meeting reminder and instantly get video or a PowerPoint slide deck. I am frequently running late to a meeting in the morning so I just dial-in on my phone while I walk to work.

Remote desktop performance is good enough to actually code on, which I never found to be the case with VNC (even TightVNC which was darn good and I was happy to rely on for everything but coding). This is huge for me since all of my development machines can be headless (no kb/mouse), for use remotely or in my office.

Outlook makes starting an online meeting/conference call one click.

I don't think Roundtable devices are for sale anymore, and they don't always work which is really annoying, but they work most of the time and make conference calls with video and lots of people _really_ good.

Screen sharing over Lync isn't super amazing (I don't even think you can go full screen) but it's so convenient I use it frequently.

Presence is baked into everything really well, so if you're actually using MS for everything you will get presence everywhere. It's also pretty good about being more than just presence, so you get pictures/avatars, online status, location, out-of-office messages/status, quick links to start an email/IM/etc.

As for non-MS software, I really like using Sublime Text as a code navigator. It has _AMAZING_ performance when browsing code on a network share. I can load all the MS Office code from a remote development machine, over the network, into Sublime Text and the file-search works within seconds. I have no idea how it indexes all the files so quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the most surprising things I have seen at Mozilla is the use of Bugzilla, its still mostly black magic and its terrible as a tool for non familiar people to file and find bugs, but as a company wide source of truth for most issues from event relations, it issues to plain bugs and project management its actually ... good.

And its usually pretty hard to say anything nice about Bugzilla.

<comment><USER13> I started contributing to Mozilla lately and I'm amazed how good Bugzilla has become compared to when I last tried to use it (around 5 years ago). I'm also amazed at how effective Mozilla works with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> At Stack Overflow we use

* google docs

* google mail

* google hangouts (with perma-rooms)

* our own awesome chat ([http://chat.stackoverflow.com](http://chat.stackoverflow.com))

* trello from everything from shopping lists to kanban boards

* our own hosted git and hg, with a kiln "skin" for the looks (plus pretty much any public repo for the myriad open source projects we maintain)

* our own live status ([https://github.com/opserver/Opserver](https://github.com/opserver/Opserver))

* team city for CI/CD

* vydio for large whole company meetings

<comment><USER15> Perma-rooms?

<comment><USER14> Yeah, we create a hangout and keep on using the same for a few months, then it expires. We have a redirect in place so everybody goes to the same place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Screenhero is nice for remote pair programming, remote tmux/pssh sessions as well when both devs use vim/emacs, also: [https://github.com/portly/pssh](https://github.com/portly/pssh).

Campfire for chats, dumbot as a minimalistic task manager in campfire [https://github.com/tadast/dumbot#tasks](https://github.com/tadast/dumbot#tasks)

Github issues for technical/code problems.

Google hangouts for standups

</comment><comment><USER17> \- MS Lync for IM

\- New Relic for LAMP stack monitoring [http://www.newrelic.com](http://www.newrelic.com)

\- Zabbix for infrastructure monitoring [https://www.zabbix.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://www.zabbix.org/wiki/Main_Page)

\- Splunk for storing all syslog [http://www.splunk.com](http://www.splunk.com)

\- TargetProcess for agile pm [http://www.targetprocess.com](http://www.targetprocess.com)

\- burndown chart generation [http://www.conceptuel.co.uk/burnDown](http://www.conceptuel.co.uk/burnDown) (one of mine actually)

\- reviewboard for code review [http://www.reviewboard.org](http://www.reviewboard.org)

</comment><comment><USER18> In job #1 (5+ years remote): features and bugs have no formal platform, mostly wiki and sprint planning in spreadsheets. Ocassional phone calls but mostly Skype meetings. Knowledge base: dokuwiki. Code hosted on Bitbucket. Cisco compatible VPN (on Ubuntu: network-manager-vpnc-gnome), Virtualbox, Windows Remote Desktop for accessing servers. Trello (soon) and we used Pivotal Tracker with little success. Server monitoring with New Relic.

In job #2 (remote, almost 4 months in): Features, bugs, release planning, code and some documentation, all in Github. Chat: IRC Cloud or Skype. Calls and screen sharing: Skype or Google Hangouts. No VPN but lots of SSHing into machines on Digital Ocean. Some other documentation in Google docs.

</comment><comment><USER19> Draft [https://draftin.com/](https://draftin.com/) :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Floobits. It's somewhat difficult to get setup, but once it works it's great.

</comment><comment><USER13> At Eyeo (8 developers, no two in the same place), we use:

\- IRC (most of us use IRCCloud)

\- Discourse (a forum, I can really recommend this even if you have chat, and Discourse is particularly good)

\- Skype (only used for one on one meetings)

\- Oovoo (like Skype, but has free video conferencing, we use it for meetings with more than two people)

\- Rietveld (a review system, we have mandatory reviews for all changes, really really important for distributed teams IMO)

\- Trello (we're in the middle of migrating to a real bug tracker (Roundup, what bugs.python.org uses) though)

\- Google Drive (mostly as a wiki replacement)

<comment><USER21> Have you considered hackpad.com for a wiki replacement?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> At Benbria we use this arsenal:

* Google Mail & Calendar

* Hipchat. Main communication method, water cooler and catch-all for any new activity for our deployments and GitHub repos

* GitHub. We use everything it has to offer and have actually migrated to Issues from Trello for task management

* Google Docs. For feature specs and anything that needs to be in sync outside the development team

* Dropbox. Mainly used by the design team right now, as a single source for assets and putting mocks in

* Skype. Usually for one-on-ones and interviewing candidates

* Salesforce

</comment><comment><USER23> We've been using a free trial of Slack ([https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/)) for about a month now and I can't imagine working without it. It's great for war rooms centered around solving a problem. It's great for team members in different timezones, they can catch up on the days events without asking. The mobile apps and thick clients are fantastic.

<comment><USER24> Slack is great. I run a few teams of freelancers who are in various timezones; we have a room per team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://jitsi.org/](https://jitsi.org/) is the best chat/cam software I've found. It works perfectly on Linux, and I've not heard of Mac/Win problems either. Skype has never worked well for me on Linux.

I like Hamster for time tracking, [https://projecthamster.wordpress.com/](https://projecthamster.wordpress.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Google Docs + Google Mail + Google Calendar + Google Hangouts

Duet ([http://www.duetapp.com/](http://www.duetapp.com/))

Cloud9 IDE ([https://github.com/ajaxorg/cloud9/](https://github.com/ajaxorg/cloud9/))

Timer Tab ([http://www.timer-tab.com/](http://www.timer-tab.com/))

Skype

Bitbucket and Github

VirtualBox (running Ubuntu with all the usual stuff)

Photoshop

Notepad++

Calculator

That's pretty much my entire toolbelt.

<comment><USER27> ssh and a vpn client seem glaringly absent from that list.

Photoshop for remote working? I fail to see how it relates.

<comment><USER26> > ssh and a vpn client seem glaringly absent from that list.

"VirtualBox (running Ubuntu with all the usual stuff)"

All my terminal stuff is in there. I also use Secure Shell for Chrome for SSH.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Suprised nobody mentioned teamviewer. Teamviewer meetings are totally awesome for multi platform high performance screen sharing

</comment><comment><USER29> I've join a new company few days ago, this is the first time I'm working remotely and full time. Basicaly we use:

\- Github for source code mostly (I've made some pull requests since I'm new on the project)

\- Hipchat, since I've join, Skype before that.

\- Dropbox for file sharing and design.

\- Google Apps

\- Basecamp for project managment

and I may not know the full stack yet but we use cloud services for everything!

</comment><comment><USER30> Git(hub), Goplanapp, Hangouts, Google docs, Dropbox, Webex. Still haven't found a good alternative for Skype, but for me Skype these days hogs so much CPU that I removed it. Webex is much better anyway IMHO (compression works so well that it works on slow connections as well), but it's not for the same purpose as Skype.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hangouts - for voice/video (standups) Hipchat - for chat Trello - Tasks Google Docs - Knowledge, collaborative editing Github - code versioning

Has anyone tried sqwiggle.com, we tried it, but we get the same thing from impromptu google hangouts for free. A truely native sqwiggle app that integrates more into what we are doing makes sense.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for trying out Sqwiggle! Solid feedback, we're working hard to make the experience more seamless with the OS. Would love to hear if you have any other thoughts or ideas. Let us know at howdy at sqwiggle dot com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> We're not a start up but we use

* JIRA - issue tracking and feature management

* Agile - scrum management

* Confluence - documentation, mockups, feedback

* Bitbucket/Git - code repository

* Facetime or Google Hangout for video chat

* Salesforce chatter for IM though Hipchat is a better solution. We're a small company so we need to be able to answer questions from marketing, sales, operations throughout the day

</comment><comment><USER8> We're using Producteev, Skype, Google Docs. Nothing fancy really, nothing very expensive either. Tried (and loved) Basecamp, but it was really just too expensive. All the real "work" is done via SSH on one Ubuntu server or another at various hosts. Ansible makes things way easier as well.

</comment><comment><USER34> Our remote stack is based on: gitlab/github, skype, trello, google docs (we shifted from dropbox) and that's it. We don't need persistent chat because we're not big and we have a habit to use trello A LOT (we have like ~20 boards) :)

</comment><comment><USER35> Small team of <5 developers \- Jira \- Confluence \- Gmail \- Hangouts (chat and video) \- Gyazo (just started using) for quickly posting images \- Beanstalk App (source control)

Pretty short list when i think about it.

</comment><comment><USER36> We're a small remote-only shop (5 programmers), we use redmine, email and google hangouts for short weekly meetings. IM is usually via jabber.

Also basecamp for communication with the managers and between them.

</comment><comment><USER37> For my remote work, I use Google Docs (tracking things) and Sqwiggle (video conferencing). Everything else is just normal stuff I use in my regular job and regular life.

</comment><comment><USER38> Trello, Skype, Github, VirtualBox, [http://www.getharvest.com/](http://www.getharvest.com/), Dropbox, Browserstack, Google Docs

</comment><comment><USER39> I've used a combination of terminal, ssh, vim, tmux, Skype, Hipchat, and Google Hangouts. Those do basically everything I need.

EDIT: I use Asana and Google Docs as well.

</comment><comment><USER40> ssh,screen,vim,skype. simple as that. works like a charm.

<comment><USER41> tmux and emacs for me. but yeah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> My company uses a Cisco VPN and Cisco jabber video chat for remote workers. I run the VPN client in an Ubuntu VM on VMware Workstation.

<comment><USER43> How much is that and what's it like for Linux / hard to install etc? do you need Cisco routers?

was v impressed by Cisco video in contract recently but they were Fortune 500 so I assumed it was beyond us mortals

<comment><USER42> The client side of the VPN is pretty straightforward. It's a closed source program that basically creates a `tun` device. So I run it in a VM so it can't harm my home machine, and just use iptables to route work traffic to it. No idea what is needed on the infrastructure side.

No idea how much the video costs either, but my employer is a Fortune 500 company.

<comment><USER44> There's also "OpenConnect", an open source replacement for Cisco's VPN client. On the infrastructure side, you'll have a Cisco router or firewall providing remote access VPN services.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, the problem with OpenConnect is that every time they bump the 'cstub' binary on the cisco remote end, OpenConnect stops working until you grab the new one somehow.

('cstub' is a wonderful program that is downloaded over HTTP and runs as root. It's supposed to monitor security, or something. I did mention I run this on a VM, right?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Video conferences: Skype & Blackboard Chat: Skype & IRC Productivity: Viscosity, Sublime, Tower, SSH, VirtualBox, Adobe CS6

</comment><comment><USER46> \- Hipchat (ongoing chatroom)

\- Google Hangouts (thrice weekly check-in meetings)

\- Asana (task management)

\- Github (all code is submitted as PR to be reviewed by someone else)

</comment><comment><USER47> Toggl is nice for simple timekeeping.

</comment><comment><USER48> Baiboard (iPad app) is awesome for remote collaborative concept sketching.

</comment><comment><USER49> autossh (sometimes you need a tunnel), ssh (to connect), x11vnc (when I have a running X session remotely), xvncserver (when I haven't), and vinagre (to show the desktop remotely).

</comment><comment><USER50> Skype, Basecamp, Google Docs

</comment><comment><USER51> hipchat, github, google hangout, waffle.io, google docs, chatbot

</comment><comment><USER52> GMail, Google Hangouts

tmux, vim

git, Bitbucket, Github

</comment><comment><USER53> Slack is awesome

</comment><comment><USER28> Suprised</comment>


Centimeters and Points are the best - <AUTHOR> http://www.vandenoever.info/blog/2015/08/24/cm-and-pt-are-the-best.html

<comment><USER2> Nice idea, but implementators beware: there are lots of "points" around [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_%28typography%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_%28typography%29)

<comment><AUTHOR> CSS, SVG, XSL-FO and ODF use a point of 1/72 of an inch. TeX uses a point of 1/72.27 of an inch.</comment></comment>


I will now charge my clients a fee to support open source projects - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/manuelbieh/i-will-now-charge-my-clients-a-fee-to-support-open-source-projects-277 <comment><USER2> The problem is that enterprises have one mechanism to purchase software, and a totally separate mechanism for charitable donations. The two budgets are run by separate groups, and never interact.

The solution? Offer your code under an open source license, but also have a purchase option to buy a commercial license. In many cases, the commercial version is a compiled and validated official executable, available with a support contract. But there is no reason that the came code can't be made available under both licenses, or that the commercial license can't actually be the same GPL (or whatever) license the open source one is offered under.

This way, the technical team that chooses the software has an invoice that they can send to purchasing, to get corporate support dollars to the open source project.

<comment><USER3> Then the bean counters say "why are you buying this software, when you could have gotten it for free."

"what do you mean it's like donating to a charity? we already have a corporate social responsibility budget, and it's spent on XYZ. We don't need to donate anymore".

<comment><USER4> You use a license that's hard for corporate counsel to accept like GPL3.

<comment><USER5> Affero GPL 3 :)

<comment><USER6> If a company can't stomach AGPLv3, then they shouldn't be using software I write.

I seek contributions back, while not leaving a gaping hole for SaaS vendors to extend & close my codebase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like a bad PR move. Having been in consulting everything is about perception of value. Why not just plan to spend some of your money (say 5%) on supporting open source projects and just raise your rates by 5%?

Ticketmaster is the perfect example of this. You buy a concert ticket for $35, but after all of their exorbitant bullshit fees, it's more like $50-55. But if they just told you "$50 is what you pay" then you'd probably not care at all.

So go ahead and charge whatever you want for a fee. Just don't penalize your customers for the things you want to personally support.

<comment><USER3> My guess is that by itemizing the open-source donation, the higher fees (compared to your competition's) is justified.

If you just raised your price by X%, you are now more expensive relative to your competitor's (and they don't donate, so thus out-competing you).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The most amusing thing about companies' technology budgets is their fear of price tags.

Pay for Enterprise support for that open source product? Way too expensive, no way.

Pay for 5 engineers in completely separate teams to badly implement, partially support, and later replace part of the Enterprise features as proprietary extensions over 2-3 years, while company's actual product languishes without the functionality it could have used? Take my money.

Meanwhile, keep paying for SaaS and proprietary software, because there's no alternative, supposedly.

<comment><USER9> It's because the engineers are on staff and you're paying them anyway. Trying to justify a separate purchase, even if would be cheaper on paper, is way harder.

<comment><USER10> That, and NIH. I've literally last week told my project manager that the better business decision would be to buy the very software that I'm developing. There is more than enough work for me to do already. But the broader picture requires us to develop in-house.

I don't mind, I'm learning something new. I suppose that in itself adds value to the company.

<comment><USER8> > I don't mind, I'm learning something new. I suppose that in itself adds > value to the company.

It would if the information got imbued back into the rest of the company, but it most often manifests as domain experts, who when they go away, someone else has to learn the thing all over again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> specifically: "I will ask my clients for an hourly rate that is 1 Euro higher than I originally negotiated or I would usually charge. I will take that money (up to ~160 Euros per month) and support those projects on Open Collective that I'm basing my work upon in my client's project."

</comment><comment><USER12> I've never been to church, except for the occasional funeral. So i'm not really familiar with how collection plates or tithes work. But maybe the church of open source could find a priest to get some advice. Or at the very least, lecture people about how much better a person you can be for supporting open source.

<comment><USER13> ESR is making an attempt: [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8387](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8387)

<comment><USER10> So is the developer of Zig, in response to the whole V language fiasco.

[https://andrewkelley.me/post/why-donating-to-musl-libc- proje...](https://andrewkelley.me/post/why-donating-to-musl-libc-project.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://twitter.com/adamrackis/status/931195056479965185](https://twitter.com/adamrackis/status/931195056479965185)

If you think your software is valuable enough to cost money (instead of offering it for free) then do so.

</comment><comment><USER15> Its not my area of expertise but....

There are so many corrupt non-profits to which one can make tax deductible donations. Would it be possible to reform/tweak/hack the [existing] donations to help their bottom line?

I bet someone out there is already doing this.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if some sort of structure can be used where you split the invoice in two separate invoices. One for the work and a smaller one for the open source donation that can be deducted from taxes as an actual donation. It might not be legal because of tax evasion.

<comment><USER17> If Walmart can ask you for a dollar charity on your bill, so can some independent contractor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The comments on that article are better than the article itself.

</comment><comment> mjl- to which projects do you donate? the ones you used in your paid work? the ones you wish would improve? the ones which need it most?

<comment><USER19> Could you imagine donating to everyone in `node_modules`?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Like the idea !

</comment><comment><USER21> I hope the writer puts some of those proceeds toward a proofreader.

</comment><comment><USER22> Imagine from the beginning of github, you do that, then OSS will die from day 1.

I'm sure it's not the right way to make OSS sustainable.

The only way (which i believe) to make OSS sustainable, is that, you open source the core or toolings, let others fork it, and you make contract to support enterprise clients, to support the open core.

<comment><USER23> FLOSS existed before Github and it will exist long after it is gone. Financial sustainability has always been a problem for the movement but it's independent of a single repository host.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Monitor a Hacker News post over time - <AUTHOR> https://hacker-news-analytics.christianfei.com/ <comment><USER2> Neat! I wonder what happened here:

[https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/Show%20...](https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/Show%20HN%3A%20A%20beetle%20generator%20made%20by%20machine- learning%20zoological%20illustrations)

> #6 (0) 184 (1) 19 (0) Show HN: A beetle generator made by machine-learning > zoological illustrations 2020-01-02T17:08:54.566Z

> #6 (-1) 183 (149) 19 (0) Show HN: A beetle generator made by machine- > learning zoological illustrations 2020-01-02T17:06:55.781Z

> #7 (3) 34 (-148) 19 (0) Show HN: A beetle generator made by machine-learning > zoological illustrations 2020-01-02T17:04:56.732Z

> #4 (0) 182 (1) 19 (0) Show HN: A beetle generator made by machine-learning > zoological illustrations 2020-01-02T17:00:54.504Z

Also, I find myself wishing for a "new comments since your last visit" like Reddit Gold gives you, or some way to "subscribe" to a node of comments and its replies. Anyone have any good solutions for this?

<comment><USER3> I made [http://www.hnreplies.com/](http://www.hnreplies.com/) which will email you when someone replies to one of your comments. It won't help with following specific threads of others' comments however.

<comment><USER4> I've been using HN for years but somehow only found out about HN replies fairly recently - just wanted to say thanks for such a useful tool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Weird to see posts like this that randomly spike in the number of votes

[https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/Exploit...](https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/Exploiting%20Wi- Fi%20Stack%20on%20Tesla%20Model%20S)

<comment><USER6> This even has a plateau:

[https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/Philoso...](https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/Philosophy%20as%20a%20public%20service)

:D

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it should identify posts by ID rather than by post title - it seems that reposts and dupes confuse it (for example, the current top post was posted a total of three times per HN search: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=The%20polygons%20of%20another%20world&sort=byPopularity&type=story), which causes the apparent history in this tool to bounce around a lot: [https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/The%20P...](https://hacker-news- analytics.christianfei.com/stats/The%20Polygons%20of%20Another%20World))

<comment><AUTHOR> i agree, it initially was like that, then i thought the experience would be better by using the title to identify a post.

<comment><USER8> Internally, represent the articles as IDs. This will eliminate duplicate posts, though not necessarily duplicate articles linked in posts. You can periodically fetch and cache the title pretty easily, since the ID is most of the (interesting characters in the) URL for the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Slightly related, but has anyone made an automated fuzzy, dupe detector for posts or topics? I keep thinking it would be nice to browse HN using an explicit graph constructed with some NLP clustering, instead of an implicit graph created by links in the comments.

<comment><USER10> You made me remember about this project: [https://hackernewsbooks.com/](https://hackernewsbooks.com/) Despite it is not related to clustering I think it is a smart idea that offers a complete different view of HN

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've frequently wanted an 'evocative' score that would provide a metric for the ratio of up vs. down votes among the comments.

What's more contentious, 'Tabs vs. Spaces', or, 'No Go, Python'.

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://hnrankings.info/](http://hnrankings.info/) does a pretty good job about this as well, though its individual post viewing capabilities are limited.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting, is there a reason you are sending the data to the client so regularly? Is that being triggered every time something changes?

Also how are you liking SSE? I've played with WS but never SSE.

</comment><comment><USER14> It just crashed, might have to do with being on the front page?

<comment><USER15> Probably. It is still down.

Error 521 Ray ID: 54efe731ff17c7b1 • 2020-01-02 21:42:29 UTC Web server is down

[https://archive.md/nuWkL](https://archive.md/nuWkL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm looking forward to the next Apple or nuclear energy post.</comment>


Ask HN: Critique my minimalist rss app - <AUTHOR>

I never got into using a dedicated rss reader, but the death of Google Reader and iOS7 coming out soon, I feel like the market can handle yet another rss reader.
I decided to take a 3 day break from my usual projects, and wrote my own iOS rss reader powered with a Node.JS backend for parsing users feeds.
What I really like about my implementation is the intuitive swipe gestures for marking read/ favoriting articles, and a ultra fast tap and hold preview mode of articles (no network connection needed).
I would love to hear some critique on the idea/design. The plan is to have my friends play around with it later today, and release it to the store as soon as its approved.
Here is the gallery: http://imgur.com/a/8UIRf
EDIT: Forgot to mention, there is also a Google Chrome extension I am working on as a companion to the app to easily add more feeds, and track new articles on the desktop. <comment><AUTHOR> Quick note: I am still working on the feed manager view, so excuse the messy top bar. Here is the rough app icon concept [http://imgur.com/w0mVhXI](http://imgur.com/w0mVhXI)

</comment><comment><USER2> What's the plan to market this? Why should I use this over feedly?

</comment><comment><USER3> Great!</comment>


Will WhatsApp kill Slack? - <AUTHOR> https://kissflow.com/kissu_kissu/will-whatsapp-kill-slack/

<comment><USER2> So the author hasn't even used Slack but assumes that a web version of WhatsApp will be its equivalent?

Slack is already more expensive than HipChat, Campfire, IRC, yet it is dominating those, why? Because it's worth it. The implementation and UX for company teams (especially technical teams) is so far beyond what other apps offer that the cost is a minor bullet point.

WhatsApp is great as a personal instant messenger, but for them to be better than Slack at what Slack does they would have to design for two radically different use cases, and the result would almost assuredly be mediocrity.

<comment><USER3> We've used Campfire and are now using HipChat. What are the things that Slack offers over these?

<comment><USER4> I use it everyday and it helps a lot when you connect it to various services (github, trello etc.) It offers dozens of them: [https://slack.com/integrations](https://slack.com/integrations)

<comment><USER5> Ditto this, the integrations are really the icing on the cake for Slack.

We've even written notifications from our own applications to push into Slack, so we get notified on everything from continuous integration test results and deployments through to analytics and sales figures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kind of odd seeing a company that charges $3 a month per user being too cheap to pay $6 a month per user. If everybody has their attitude, their business model is in trouble.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, WhatsApp has a massive adoption rate, but it will need to vastly improve its web interface and generally make their service look and feel more professional, as well as more collaborative. When I think of Whatsapp, I think of messages between individuals. Slack, for my company, replaced IRC, which is much more of a chat room aggregator.

</comment><comment><USER8> I know a lot of HN folks are very critical of Telegram, but I've been using it for team (and private) communication for quite a while now and it's great. It has clients for almost all platforms including a nice web client for all browsers.

<comment><USER9> Same here. We use Telegram for team communication while everyone is out of the office. We've integrated it with github and CI, and now thinking about making this service public: [http://telegram.jaconda.im](http://telegram.jaconda.im)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> please see [http://andregarzia.com/posts/en/whatsappdoesntunderstandthew...](http://andregarzia.com/posts/en/whatsappdoesntunderstandtheweb/)

<comment><USER11> Just because the application has huge flaws from a certain developers perspective doesn't mean other people will share the same view.

I use whatsapp regulary along with my team to coordinate driver & share info/media quickly to allow the driver to do his/her job and vice versa. Having a desktop client is a god send for this as switching between computer/phone gets very tiresome.

It won't replace slack but it makes life a whole lot easier. Slack is a lot more business orientated and that definitely shows whereas WhatsApp has the convenience factor for people eg. driving and giving us real time info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> WhatsApp was pretty cool, I disabled the notifications to message at my own accord.

All was good until facebook bought it.

Now it has annoying pop-up telling me to enable my notifications. I refuse!!!

</comment><comment><USER4> WhatsApp and Slack are similar applications with totally different user base, so no, WhatsApp will not kill Slack, nor it will "attack" its user at all.

</comment><comment><USER13> What I really don't get with the new WhatsApp web app and the embedded end-to- end encryption is the following: why on earth are they including 3rd party scripts with DOM access?

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/webfont/1.5.10/webfont.js"></script>

All online banking sites I use do not do this, for a reason.

</comment><comment><USER14> Facebook and Skype have both a big userbase too and the option for group chats, how come they haven't killed Slack yet?

</comment><comment><USER15> Why is the deal breaker a cost that you don't have to pay? Slack works fine for free.

<comment><USER16> The history in Slack's free version is limited to only 10,000 posts. If you have even a moderate number of active users, your history drops off pretty fast. My last job used Slack without paying, and wanting to find something in the history that had cycled out was almost a daily occurance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The exclamation marks made me think this was sarcastic.

</comment><comment><USER18> Betteridge's Law ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines))

strikes again!

</comment><comment><USER19> Slack is a tremendous collaborative tool for teams. WhatsApp is a tremendous tool to send photos to Grandma. I think they both have different target markets in mind.

</comment><comment><USER20> Needs more exclamation marks.

</comment><comment><USER21> No.

<comment><USER22> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Stopped reading this infantile crap.

"super awesome!" "super difficult"

Like reading the diary of a teenage girl.

<comment><USER24> The constant use of the adjective "super" is easily the worst thing to come out of hipsterism. Yuck.

<comment><USER2> The worst thing to come out of "hipsterism" is the dilution of the term hipster to be utterly meaningless, and frequently used describe any person that one dislikes for any reason.

The word "super" is just a word. People have been using it for a long time.

<comment><USER24> Nope. Wasn't being regularly used to describe anything until recently.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Announcing InversifyJS 2.0.0 Release Candidate - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolksoftware.com/inversifyjs-2-0-0-release-candidate <comment><USER2> InversifyJS is "a powerful and lightweight inversion of control container for JavaScript & Node.js apps powered by TypeScript."

Inversify home: [http://inversify.io/](http://inversify.io/)</comment>


Big list of 2009 tech conferences that every startup should be aware of - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/01/05/2009-conference-schedule-for-the-digital-media-industry/

<comment><USER2> Should startups be going to conferences?

<comment><USER3> Not if you're bootstrapping

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> good list.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I get investor intros in Berlin? - <AUTHOR> I will be in Berlin on Friday.  How can I get investors to pitch my startup to? We are looking at the seed stage (50-75K) and I realize this is the hardest time to raise money.  I have never raised money before. <comment><USER2> Please don't waste your time pitching to investors in this position in Berlin. If you make X < 100.000 EUR monthly revenue, then any "investor" in Berlin will probably tell you:

"Very interesting. Let's keep in touch and come back when you make 5 * X EUR revenue."

And if make X >= 100.000 EUR revenue per month, then you most likely don't need 50-75K.

One thing in Berlin ist crucial: Social Proof. If you have it, you can raise 5 Mio EUR with basically zero traction and if you don't have it, it will be a long and timeconsuming process to raise any money at a fair valuation.

Are you willing to spend 6 - 9 months to raise 50 K and do you have significant monthly revenue? If so, your approach to meeting random investors should work. Otherwise you might want to apply for an accelerator in Berlin (for 25 K) or just focus in bootstrapping until you can approach international VCs outside Berlin.

EDIT: Spelling

<comment><USER3> > One thing in Berlin ist crucial: Social Proof

Then work on that. Or try to partner with someone who has that

How? Mingle. Go to meetings. Network "horizontally" (in your tech segment) and "vertically" (in your business segment).

One way you're not getting that is by being the foreigner just off the plane (or even there for a couple of years) that can't speak German

There's actually a funny series of bilingual books about "How to be Berliner/How to be German" that are kind of tongue-in-cheek but it gets on the overall mindset

And as someone said below, something like < 100k can be gotten from FFFs, so look onto that.

<comment><USER2> > Then work on that.

I disagree. If you don't already have Social Proof, then it takes a big investment to try getting it. I believe for 99% of all startup teams, the time is better spent by working on your product or acquiring customers.

Networking is not working. I have seen so many startups in Berlin, who had a good shot of making it, but who wasted time in "fundraising" or "networking" and therefore killed their business.

Now obviously to each his own and for some it might work. But I believe only very few people on very few occasions get something out of networking.

EDIT: added a paragraph

<comment><USER3> > Networking is not working. I have seen so many startups in Berlin, who had a > good shot of making it, but who wasted time in "fundraising" or "networking" > and therefore killed their business.

You're right. But even for a technical person, spending "24h" coding is too much

But ideally one person would be dedicated to coding, another, to the business/financial/fundraising side

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't want to sound negative and I might be wrong in my assumptions but 50-75k sounds like something you can get from FFF (family, friends and fools) or supply it with your time. So the question for me is why an investor is going to put money in you if your family and friends don't do it.

A good idea to approach investor is through other startups, people that already know them. You can meet startups entrepreneurs in meetups, I am sure that Berlin is full of meet ups. And if you are not lucky this way you can always try to find them in internet and send them a cold email. A small email with 2-3 lines talking about your product, the money you want and for what it is.

I wish you good luck!

<comment><USER5> This "why an investor is going to put money in you if your family and friends don't do it" question has been around for long in the startup 'hype' lingo, but I'm very curious if this has actually ever worked for founders that don't come from wealthy backgrounds, or from families with sizable savings (something that is a mirage for middle class families).

If you need 50-75K, perhaps it's better to just go for 100K€ (because things will not go as planned, as some investors will tell you) and, if you can build a solid case based on your business' performance, then reach out to angel investors, as 100K€ is an investment exactly in their ball park (unless your granny is sitting on 1M€ and can spare you 100K€).

PS: these things need proper planning, fundraising is a long process based on trust and personal impressions...so, contrary to what you read around the web, it's unlikely you'll have a lot of success (in Europe, at least) if you just show up of the blue to pitch your case and leave a business card behind, unless your revenue/orders are already solid and you have a realistic plan to multiply their volume/value.

<comment><USER6> The question is, what you need 50k for.

For a office? Do it at home. For people? 50k is nothing. You get half an engineere for a year.

50-100k can mean that you have friends working with you, or it can be that you moved back to your parents to work fulltime on it.

It is such a small number in the business world, its strange that someone thinks that 100k can make a real difference.

<comment><USER5> > 50k is nothing. You get half an engineere for a year.

If you think a minute about that sentence, I think you'll realize that that depends on where those engineers live.

100K€ can allow 2-3 people to quit their jobs to work (for a year on low pay) on the features requested by their paying customers, or hiring an offshoring firm to build what they can't, or just having money to apply for government grants or cover real-world business expenses (provisional patents, technical infrastructure, lawyers, accountants, promotion).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been to Berlin twice now and was just there for 2 weeks last year in August. The startup scene in Berlin is very good, with lots of really talented designers and engineers. I'd say #1 or #2 behind Stockholm in terms of producing high quality companies these days.

Unfortunately the investment scene in Berlin is still very conservative. There are some angel investment programs out of Berlin (Google for Project Flying Elephant for example). Howerver I'd echo the sentiment that VC's and even angel's in Berlin operate like typically every other European investor, ultra conservative, little to zero speculation, and more of a bank than investment firm. Can't beat the US where you'll find risk takers with gobs of extra cash willing to bet on longshots, outcasts, and pet projects.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you would like to stay as independent as possible and keep your business in the long term, I would recommend to try with one of the currently ongoing EU investment programs - there is also one fond for smale-scale investment (like single person startups etc.) - definitely it is possible to get "free money" without high risk atm, but you must do the paperwork yourself:

[http://www.berlin.de/sen/europa/europa-in-berlin/eu- foerderu...](http://www.berlin.de/sen/europa/europa-in-berlin/eu-foerderung/)

<comment><USER8> "ERP-Gründerkredit Startgeld" might be what you are looking for.

[https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Unternehmen/Gr%C3%BCnde...](https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Unternehmen/Gr%C3%BCnden- Erweitern/Finanzierungsangebote/ERP-Gr%C3%BCnderkredit-Startgeld-\(067\)/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't know about Berlin, but Munich/Bavaria has a pool of angels and family offices that they could connect you with: [http://www.baystartup.de/finanzierungs- netzwerk/finanzierung...](http://www.baystartup.de/finanzierungs- netzwerk/finanzierung-seedphase.html) I assume there's something like that in Berlin as well?

Disclaimer: have not tried this myself, no idea about the time needed or success probability.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you have enough time, it might be worth going somewhere like Betahaus [0] and meeting some people there. Every Thursday they have a breakfast event where different startups pitch what they're working on. Not always investors present, but certainly someone there could point you in the right direction or give you some ideas.

[0]: [https://www.betahaus.com/berlin/](https://www.betahaus.com/berlin/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's my rule of thumb on fundraising.

1)You are an expert in building companies (you've done it before, can do it again) - this would typically be the case of repeat founders who've raised funds before

2) you are a domain expert, or have an idea which you think you are the right person to execute

For 1) as most people have pointed out things are a lot easier (relatively)

For 2) either you: a) have shown you are on the right track with customers (traction) b) prove you are the right team for the job

Again, a) makes it a bit easier to go to institutional investors. If b) the people who can be convinced of this would be the ones who know you and therefore trust you to do it (hence Friends and Family) Other option is people in the relevant industry who believe you know what you are doing (uncharitably, the Fools portion of FFFs)

From what you've told us so far, you are not seed stage. You are pre-seed as they like calling it in Europe. Institutional investors are a bad fit for this stage. Hence FFFs would be your best bet.

I would recommend accelerators, but very VERY few of them are actually worth it. But that does give you a leg up in the ecosystyem, by allowing your network to expand rapidly

</comment><comment><USER12> Or (and I am not kidding or being sarcastic), think about going to Munich instead. For well-defined startups with a clear strategy, Munich is a decent location. It's not "cool" or "hipsterish" but instead focused, goal-driven and quite approachable in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER13> With (50-75K) you are looking for angel investors. I have seen this going up all the way to 250k in Europe. Having well known angels invested will help you a long way to built that social proof everybody here is talking about.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are Techstars programs in Berlin, if you make it in you get 20K+100K. Plus convenient intros with numerous investors as part of the program and comfy intros to hundreds of investors afterwards. You also learn a few other things about building a scalable business.

Check [http://www.techstars.com/programs/berlin- program/](http://www.techstars.com/programs/berlin-program/) and [https://www.metroaccelerator.com/](https://www.metroaccelerator.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Where are you actually located? I don't think there is anything happening in Berlin on Friday. I suggest getting involved in your local startup community and heading to wherever the events are, when they are actually there. You wont have abny problem with investors if you actually get involved. What is your startup by the way?

</comment><comment><USER16> There are a lot of people on here telling you it's not going to happen, but I'm going to assume you have a fundable idea and a track record in the domain needed to deliver your idea.

Submit your deck to angel syndicates. If it's good, they'll invite you to a pitch event. You can find plenty of advice online about what you need to cover in your deck.

A decent angel syndicate could easily do 50K-75K EUR and be able to follow on up to 1M EUR or so.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you be more specific than "angel syndicate"? Thank you.

We do have a track record of shipping in this domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Silly question: Are you German? Do you have an academic degree? I ask because then you have some options for a state sponsored fellowship.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, we are not German. We are a distributed team and would like to make connections in Germany "the startup capital of Europe" but if this is impossible we will just bootstrap and then later raise money in America like everyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have read through this thread and I have concluded that it is unlikely for me to make meaningful connections at our stage, or any stage, in Europe.

For the people wondering, we are building a connected device that users want and which poops money for us and for users. Based on my research this is not a value proposition that is of interest to venture capitalists.

</comment><comment><USER18> One way is to ask this question on HN with a great deal of information. We don't know who you are, what you do, why you want money, or anything else that would convince someone to gift you their time.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hanging out at co-working spaces, incubators, startup meetups/tech meetups can often be a good place to start, regardless of local.

<comment><USER20> I found that a huge waste of time. Most of the time you'll meet people with the same problems as you have (not having the capacity nor the network to help you out). I would try to network directly through people and get as much warm intros as possible. If you can't get an intro to business angels, start with intros to CEOs, if you can't get that, start by climbing up the tree. If that means to start with "cold calls/mails"... then this is how you have to start. Just make it happen.

EDIT: I spent my last year on Berlin meetups and i consider myself as pretty outgoing, eloquent and we've traction. But it simply was not worth my time.

<comment><USER19> Fair enough, I found it worked pretty well in the US and London, however they are obviously not Berlin. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you can avoid it, I would not raise this kind of amount in Berlin. Not worth the troubles.

</comment><comment><USER22> You will probably find people to give you better advices at Betahaus in Kreuzberg.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hello, please send the pitch to me on e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Seed stage -- have you considered applying to Y Combinator?

<comment><AUTHOR> Our team is distributed and we are not at the right stage for such a massively competitive application. Very few of the most promising startups are able to be accepted to YCombinator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Whats the product?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a high-end, connected, smart-home type hardware product that slowly poops bars of gold for its users while giving them great utility (which outsiders may or may not appreciate), and also poops bars of gold for us, and for our partners (without ad impressions or selling the information of our users). You could draw some parallels with Nest, but we would not like to leave our users stranded following an acquisition/sunsetting, so it is designed to continue indefinitely in such a scenario.</comment></comment>


On Leadership and Culture - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/on-leadership-and-culture-ca4d6f2a9bb0 <comment><USER2> imho leadership and culture is overrated; the product itself matters more</comment>


Ask HN: What important career choices did you make in 2016? - <AUTHOR> What important career choices did you make in 2016? <comment><AUTHOR> Quit job where it wasn't clear what my role was and took up another focused as a front-end developer (remote), decided I didn't want to work as a remote developer any more and took up another full-time job as a front-end engineer for a big Co in Europe.

Never been to Europe before lived all my life in west-africa so I'm very excited.

</comment><comment><USER2> Quit my job to work on my own stuff. stuff i actually care about

<comment><USER3> That's great. I hope it will be rewarding. It probably will be.

I've quit most of what I was doing to dedicate myself as a stay at home dad to our newborn son. Best thing ever, it's a great kid. And frankly I'm doing a pretty damn good job, better than I imagined beforehand. I know it's socially unacceptable to toot your own horn, but I just did it anyway, so ner.

<comment><USER2> nah man thats cool. I think every kid deserves a dad almost always at home. At least for the first time.

And sure it is rewarding, even if i dont manage to build a successfull business. I also digitalnomad what is more experience than i ever asked for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> moved to US from London. Instant 100% pay rise for same role. Yeah yeah US has its problems but more money always helps. Until UK gets its head around paying devs properly it's a waste of time there.</comment>


Give Your Nudes to Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/give-your-nudes-to-facebook-1826545511 <comment><USER2> Unless they are doing PhotoID / PhotoIQ that can learn photos without using basic hashes, then does this really make sense?

Example: I can validate if a file has been uploaded to virustotal.com without actually uploading the file, since the site uses javascript to calculate the hash of the file. Hashes are easy to change in photos, so I can always make a new version of the file. Hashes are useless for this.

Have Facebook documented what software is being used with the nudes, how many people can view them and are these people in a clean room that does not allow copying data to other systems? Are cell phones allowed in the clean room? What happens to an employee if they are caught copying a photo?</comment>


Show HN: A visual search engine using keyword hashes - <AUTHOR> Https://gorillafind.com <comment><AUTHOR> Features: "map" of how keywords appear in results, screenshots, exact keyword matching using local hashes for greater confidentiality, not built on an existing index (doesn't use Google/Bing).</comment>


Google Meet's new background blur feature is Chrome on Windows and Mac only - <AUTHOR> https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2020/09/blur-your-background-in-google-meet.html <comment><AUTHOR> Isn't one goal of the web to have features implemented regardless of underlying platform?

</comment><comment><USER2> It works on linux</comment>


42% of Americans Oppose Private Drone Ownership; 28% "Not Sure" - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/us-usa-drones-poll-idUSKBN0L91EE20150205

<comment><USER2> It was an online poll, not a real poll with a uniform sample of the population. The "poll" was attached to a new of a moron that crashed a drone into the White House. I'm really surprised that only a 42% of the votes were against private drones.

If we can't have a serious poll, I'd like to see the result if they repeat the same "poll" but attached to this news:

* "Mom with broken leg found 3 years old kid lost in the forest using drone"

* "RC airport cafeterias drop the price to 1/3 using drones to distribute the burritos"

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're misreading the article. The poll wasn't "attached" to any news story, a portion of the polling was conducted after the story broke.

It is also completely possible to carry out representative polling over the internet; this poll executed by Reuters and a prominent market research firm, it wasn't a sidebar in a CNN Online post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what percentage of the american population really knows what drones are?

Reminds me of opinions of cars at the turn of the century (1900): "To the average city dweller, the idea of a city oriented around transportation in cars, and especially privately owned cars carrying one or a few people, would have been incomprehensible. Indeed, the modern idea of a street as an artery, existing primarily to convey vehicles, would have been foreign, says Christopher W. Wells, author of Car Country: An Environmental History" ([http://nautil.us/issue/7/waste/did-cars-save-our-cities- from...](http://nautil.us/issue/7/waste/did-cars-save-our-cities-from-horses))

</comment><comment><USER4> What if they asked the same questions but used "electric toy helicopter" instead?

<comment><USER5> Yes, respondents are almost certainly picturing military strike drones and thinking that people want them for home defense.</comment></comment>


How do you build a public library in the age of Google? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2184927/

<comment><USER2> By embracing technology instead of competing with it. Free WiFi, better seating / accommodations for groups, lots of places to plug in, improved atmosphere. It's not impossible for libraries to get "mainstream" again, there are plenty of students needing places to study / hang out and others that would prefer not to have to pay for their WiFi at Starbucks. They should've been capitalizing on the coffeeshop craze, and remodeling themselves to grab some of that market.

<comment><USER2> an example: the design of the Seattle Central Library <http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/49>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=delft+library>

</comment><comment><USER4> "predicts that libraries will disappear in 2019"

You mean just like the movies replaced live performances, TV replaced radio, and email replaced the post office?

</comment><comment><USER5> Piffle.

<http://www.maxlyons.net/locreadingroom.htm>

<comment><USER6> Nice. I'd love to go there to work! (note: that wasn't sarcastic)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They call them "server rooms". Anything less is an intermediate step.</comment>