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dshah
2007-04-05T14:49:52
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This is a reasonably fair characterization (though candidly, I have not worked out all the details yet).<p>I considered simply making an equity investment (like YC does), but don't have the bandwidth to do something like that at this time.<p>One of the reasons I didn't post this article until after the YC deadline is that I wanted to make sure people didn't confuse this as an alternative to YC. As you noted, the role is very different.<p>Not for everyone, but might make sense for some.
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BrandonM
2007-04-05T14:50:07
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I agree, thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I find the complete lack of syntax to make it even harder to read than Lisp macros (which I don't personally find difficult, but some do). Additionally, having to use numbers to indicate operator precedence seems a bit strange. Of course, Lisp solves this by always using parentheses, but I would be curious to see if there is a more elegant way of handling this than the numeric approach (or even the approach suggested in their proposed changes to Logix).
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veritas
2007-04-05T14:50:25
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Very interesting proposal. If someone isn't already working on a startup, this would be a great way to get some experience (working for a startup is the next best thing to starting one). Who knows, it might serve as preparation for the winter round of YC.
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joshwa
2007-04-05T14:52:19
Has anyone taken any good OCW courses related to startups?
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http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of-Management/index.htm
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entrepreneur
2007-04-05T14:52:44
Read Your Way to Business Success
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http://mindfulentrepreneur.com/blog/2007/04/05/read-your-way-to-business-success/
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zkinion
2007-04-05T14:54:19
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I'm guessing he did, though I may be wrong. The thread title was "...YC app..." something like that. <p>I don't see how after that video and that post how he wouldn't be accepted unless the YC people have some pre-existing opinions about the future of online storage.
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jganetsk
2007-04-05T14:54:47
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That is a very interesting idea. User-driven broadcasts would have to compete in the "P2P marketplace".<p>Consider this scenario. Joost is P2P. If I start my own Joost broadcast, I notify my peers of its existence. Those people who tune to my channel then transmit a notification to their peers, with the possibility of their rebroadcasting it.<p>There would have to be some smoothing out of the protocol, but it could work. It would basically be P2P realtime YouTube.
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carefreeliving
2007-04-05T14:55:47
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Agreed, not appealing for everyone.
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aquarin
2007-04-05T14:55:48
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"central authority is necessary for money to work" - No I don't mean "central authority" just some authority that is responsible for "following the rules" in given market. This can be a company that issued virtual money in online game for example. If participants in virtual world do not trust in the fact that the company will play fair game (e.g. that all participants in the virtual game will have equal power to trade, and that the quantity of money and quantity of virtual goods will grow by some known way.), then the virtual money value will decrease.
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mattculbreth
2007-04-05T14:56:27
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Howdy Dharmesh. I think it's a cool idea--good luck with it. I like the <a href="http://www.websitegrader.com/">http://www.websitegrader.com/</a> app. I ran it on a couple sites I'm involved with and got some good suggestions.
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sethjohn
2007-04-05T14:57:56
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I'm excited by what seems to be a boom in micro-seed startup financing...what could less charitably be referred to as the YC-app knockoffs.<p>This guys seems to have a good approach, though, in defining a slightly different niche for what he wants to do. While I would be willing to concede that nobody can implement the YC model as well as YC, I hope there is room for more micro-seed startups^2 with different focuses and different approaches.
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BrandonM
2007-04-05T14:58:11
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I think their overarching hypothesis was that sensory overload decreases learning. Supposedly, by requiring students to listen to a lecture and view Powerpoint slides at the same time, the information actually gets shoved into short term memory and forgotten, because it is too much to remember all at once.<p>By the same token, apparently, asking students to solve the problem forces them to focus on a specific problem, and it makes learning the concepts (or even remembering what methods went into solving the problem) more difficult, because of the same brain overload.<p>At least that's what I took from the article. I personally find that I learn best in a class when I listen closely to the professor and take very minimal notes. In doing so, I can focus on remembering what's being said instead of trying to read slides or write quickly. That's why I appreciate professors who put their notes online; I can listen closely in class and then review the notes later on to reiterate what I learned.
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danielha
2007-04-05T15:00:33
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I always thought ArsDigita and Six Apart sounded pretty good.
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dshah
2007-04-05T15:01:34
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That's the hope. <p>Though I'm a big PG fan, I'm no PG. My thinking is that my experiment can extract a few more people into the startup mindset (and clearly, there's some upside for me too). In my experience, simply resisting the temptation to jump into big company land is a huge step. If possible, I'd like to make it really hard for great hackepreneurs to revert to a big company job simply because they didn't make it in to YC.
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dshah
2007-04-05T15:02:39
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Thanks. This is a pet project of mine (amongst others). Response so far has been pretty good. We haven't officially "launched" it yet, but about 9,500 URLs have been processed by the tool so far. It's a fun little tool to work on.
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neurokinetikz
2007-04-05T15:03:43
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<a href="http://neurokinetikz.com">http://neurokinetikz.com</a><p>:)
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BrandonM
2007-04-05T15:03:46
null
I think the reason that I like to check it a lot is to see what intelligent people think about the things that I say. So the first important component, in my mind, is that the majority of the members are smart. Secondly, by allowing people to reply to replies and assign karma points (admittedly not a novel idea), smart people can reinforce the parts of my replies that they find smart and ignore the parts that don't interest them.<p>I think the inability to vote topics down avoids some of the problems that Reddit has encountered, where people camp out and vote submissions down in order to make their own appear higher. I think a more mature (on average) user base helps to accomplish that as well.<p>Finally, I think that most people must have heard of YC news through either pg's site or through YCombinator itself. Anyone interested in those two things are cool in my book, and should produce good discussions.
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jganetsk
2007-04-05T15:04:06
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There's a recent research project called Farsite which tries to answer these questions.<p><a href="http://research.microsoft.com/~adya/pubs/osdi2002.pdf">http://research.microsoft.com/~adya/pubs/osdi2002.pdf</a>
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zkinion
2007-04-05T15:05:12
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MIT's OCW is indeed awesome, but most mba stuff in my opinion is aimed at working in management for already established companies (middle managers), and less for startups. <p>A stats course might be nice.
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BrandonM
2007-04-05T15:06:31
null
I see what you did there :)
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zkinion
2007-04-05T15:07:13
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You need to kill more boars to get to the next level, then you can wear plate mail and get your mount. (World of Warcraft) ;)
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dshah
2007-04-05T15:08:14
null
I would liken this more to Google's summer of code or Joel Spolsky's paid summer internship program.<p>I think it's really hard to compete with Paul and what he's built with YC. Strong following, great set of people and a very difficult set of benefits to match. If you fit the YC profile, I think that's a great path for lots of hackepreneur types. <p>But, I think there are still "gaps" in the market between YC and other early-stage investment vehicles (angel groups, VCs, etc.) <p>
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jganetsk
2007-04-05T15:09:58
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These are fairly restrictive languages. What about ML languages, like SML or OCaml, which are not purely functional? Anyone using those?
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jganetsk
2007-04-05T15:13:15
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Are you kidding? Moral gray areas are part of the fun of startups!
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BrandonM
2007-04-05T15:16:54
null
I have a few qualms with this app:<p>1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.<p>2. It doesn't actually replace a USB drive. Most people I know e-mail files to themselves or host them somewhere online to be able to perform presentations, but they still carry a USB drive in case there are connectivity problems. This does not solve the connectivity issue.<p>3. It does not seem very "viral" or income-generating. I know this is premature at this point, but without charging users for the service, is it reasonable to expect to make money off of this?
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jsjenkins168
2007-04-05T15:17:08
null
Thats a cool proposition, something to consider for those of us who dont get accepted YC. However, I think 99% of the experience founding a startup is from the fact that it is based on YOUR idea, not someone elses. From that comes the insane relentless drive to push the limits. I would have a hard time programming 20 hours a day for weeks on end for an idea I was not involved in creating.<p>I do think its cool he would be willing to fund your personal idea after the work period. But then you lack the mentoring/community/networking aspect of YC which I think is more important than the actual funding (at least in the very early stages). Best of luck to him though on recruiting some quality hackers.
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Readmore
2007-04-05T15:19:28
null
If you follow Cringley you might have already heard about NeoKast, they are basically trying to do just that. Create a P2P tech for user streamed TV. It could be huge if it has a unified interface and isn't regulated to embedded players on websites.
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danielha
2007-04-05T15:19:41
null
Check out Jessica Livingston's book. The interview with pg reveals a lot about their early days in forming the company.
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Alex3917
2007-04-05T15:20:15
null
I hadn't seen the site before, very cool. My only suggestion would be to offer the necessary syntax when relevant, e.g. for adding meta keywords. Granted, it only takes thirty seconds to lookup, but people are more likely to make the changes immediately before they forget if it's right there.
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brlewis
2007-04-05T15:21:04
Techcrunch offers prizes for valid strong criticism
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http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/04/trash-techcrunch-and-win-a-free-pass-to-the-web-20-expo/
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zkinion
2007-04-05T15:22:51
null
Why don't you "flesh" it out here? Maybe it'll help solidify your idea in your mind, or more than likely, evolve it. <p>Just throw it out there, even if it sounds stupid in your own mind.
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floozyspeak
2007-04-05T15:26:17
null
its also simple<p>in todays el-explosion'ary 2.0 scene simple is usually left out<p>there are no tags, avatars, profiles, subgroups, contacts, thingamwhos and fake promises
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brlewis
2007-04-05T15:28:44
null
yahoo google del.icio.us
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JMiao
2007-04-05T15:44:22
null
But now you have to ask yourself a few more questions:<p>- Channel Life: having a buttload of Joost channels that aren't well-maintained with new content is as annoying as amassing RSS feeds that are updated sporadically, sometimes month-to-month (which is why I don't like the idea of "channels," alas the folks at Joost do)<p>- Attention Deficit: Joost ultimately aims to replace television. Could you realistically picture yourself watching YouTube clips separated into content creator channels for more than 30 minutes?<p>- Community: One of Joost's best features is the interactive chat that brings content communities closer together. How does this happen with highly fragmented user content?<p>These are just some of the things that immediately come to mind. I'm not saying that a Joost P2P TV system doesn't make sense, it just requires a lot of consideration.
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JMiao
2007-04-05T15:46:18
null
Word.
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JMiao
2007-04-05T15:50:06
null
"Your Drop Box is a File Cabinet that Follows You Around Everywhere You Want to Go, Across Your Computers, or Across The Country."<p>Ladies & Gentlemen, the WORLD'S LIGHTEST FILE CABINET. Great for cross-country roadtrips! =)
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pg
2007-04-05T15:50:15
null
It would have to have some notation for parse trees, and if that wasn't s-expressions, it would probably be something less convenient, not more.
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chapster
2007-04-05T15:51:46
null
Good idea. The most important thing YC provides is an effective social network. You're connected to piers going through the same process, so you have people that understand what you're going through. In addition, YC provides advise/access to people who have been where you're attempting to go and facilitates interactions with investors that would be difficult to arrange on your own. You probably couldn't offer the same networking opportunities, but if someone is having a hard time finding a cofounder, being Cambridge at MIT would probably help.
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yaacovtp
2007-04-05T15:53:01
null
Boycott link bait.
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story
usablecontent
2007-04-05T15:58:22
Google Launches MyMaps-Kills Google Maps Eco System
null
http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/05/google-launches-mymaps-kills-google-maps-eco-system/
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dshah
2007-04-05T16:02:57
null
I agree with all your points. That's why my offer doesn't really compete with YC. In fact, you have to have applied to YC and been turned down in order to be considered for this option.<p>I can't provide the peer-group support and advice that PG does. But, I can hopefully start you down the process (I'm involved with half a dozen local startups, not including my own, and have decent contacts on both the entrepreneurial side and the investment side of the community).
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story
pg
2007-04-05T16:03:46
InfoTangle :: Information Design for the New Web
null
http://infotangle.blogsome.com/2007/04/02/information-design-for-the-new-web/
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budu3
2007-04-05T16:03:58
null
Wow this summer will be very interesting. I'd like to see the outcome of the Techstars.org, YC and onstartups. I'm sure we should get a good crop of startups.
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Readmore
2007-04-05T16:04:18
The Truth about the Lone Startup Founder
null
http://www.scrapages.com/scraps/show/172
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jganetsk
2007-04-05T16:09:00
null
Let them roll out Joost as planned, and build a following (assuming that Joost is interesting). Then, watch them release a patch, which enables Joost to optionally function as I described. It would come at marginal cost to Joost.<p>Some people will turn on the feature and experiment with it. Should somebody manage to put together an interesting channel, then it will spread throughout the system. For example, Joost could be the platform that drives Justin.tv.
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budu3
2007-04-05T16:10:34
null
Well, the fact that GDrive is not materialising makes this idea a great aquisition target. Then again Google might squash it like it did Kiko if/when it rolls out GDrive.
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zaidf
2007-04-05T16:11:34
null
I don't think anyone is arguing that lone founder startups can NEVER succeed; the argument is lone founder startups have a lesser success rate, probably. <p>And in a game of numbers, it easy to see why YC would want to focus on multi-partner startups over single when there is no shortage of them. <p>-Zaid
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dhouston
2007-04-05T16:12:48
null
nope. informally came up with and tossed around 6 or 7 ideas at the same time -- not so much coding as investigating/talking to potential customers and bouncing them off other friends and entrepreneurs. this was crucial -- ideas don't really fall out of the sky, they evolve.<p>there were several times where i'd get really excited about one idea -- like pacing in my living room at 5:30am excited -- and then 5 days later find out (via a different set of search terms or something) there were 3 other people doing the same thing, with a head start and more money.<p>ultimately they say scratch your own itch -- this was a problem (syncing a 3gb file across several computers efficiently) i routinely had working on a prior company i had started and i was frustrated that no one had solved it well, and it turned out to be more promising than my original company :)
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pg
2007-04-05T16:13:01
null
Of his reasons, 1 and 2 are mistaken. If a startup with a single founder looks especially promising, we don't simply reject them; we get them to find one. And we have no bias toward consumer apps. Two of the most successful startups we've funded (neither is launched yet) are doing stuff for businesses. The reason we fund more consumer apps is simply that more apply.<p>BTW, we're soon going to announce a third plan B, which we hope will be a better alternative to this or Techstars: to work for a YC "alumni" company. While some (e.g. Loopt) are quite established, others are so new that you could be the first hire, which is very much like being a founder.
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jkush
2007-04-05T16:14:10
null
I don't know if it's sexy but I like buxfer. I have this notion that it's a shortened version of "more bucks fer you"
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farmer
2007-04-05T16:16:28
GigaOM: Google MyMaps Smashes Mash-ups
null
http://gigaom.com/2007/04/04/google-mymaps/
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dshah
2007-04-05T16:19:07
null
I tried to be careful on point #1 and stated it as "leans heavily towards startups with 2 or more co-founders". I think this was a reasonably fair characterization, as I don't think you reject applicants purely on the fact that they are a sole founder.<p>Point taken on #2 (since I don't know what the applicant pool looks like, it was easy to guess that you have a bias towards consumer internet based on past selections).<p>I think it rocks that you're going to make another path available for folks to join existing YC alumni. This is a great idea. Yet one more reason for folks to consider applying to YC in the first place (i.e. it can be a channel to find more great people for the company).<p>I'm continually impressed.
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veritas
2007-04-05T16:19:58
Ignore please... thanks
null
http://www.ip2country.net/ip2country/ip_number.html
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aston
2007-04-05T16:20:45
Who does graphic design for YC companies?
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comment
richcollins
2007-04-05T16:20:54
null
If you really need to be told a plan B you shouldn't start a startup.<p>Plan B is just start building something and stop worrying about getting other people's approval! If you make something cool, then you will be able to find other founders, money ... etc.
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Readmore
2007-04-05T16:21:32
null
I'm not trying to downplay the importance of co-founders so much as try to show people what they need to be looking for in cofounders as well as what they need themselves. YC has every right to want multiple founders, but for someone who doesn't get in, or doesn't apply, this information could help them know where to focus their time.
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aston
2007-04-05T16:23:11
null
I've noticed that a number of the recent YC companies have some pretty slick web 2.0-style graphic design (loopt, Wufoo, i'm in like with you, and Scribd, just to name a few).<p>I'm guessing folks aren't doing the design themselves? If not who is?
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jganetsk
2007-04-05T16:23:28
null
Just so everyone is aware, S3 guarantees only 4 nines of relability (99.99% uptime), not 5 nines.<p>5 nines means the service is down, on average, 5 minutes out of a year.<p>4 nines would be almost an hour.<p>That's still pretty damn good.
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eli
2007-04-05T16:24:16
null
news.com.com
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floozyspeak
2007-04-05T16:24:26
Understanding the stages of 2.0 Startup Hype
null
http://voicethread.com/view.php?b=1150
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farmer
2007-04-05T16:24:35
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farmer
2007-04-05T16:25:43
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epall
2007-04-05T16:28:28
null
The intellectual feeling I get here is something I really miss from Reddit's early days. Granted, YC News doesn't cover everything I care about, but like startupguy said, the signal to noise ratio is amazing. I just dropped Reddit from my bookmarks bar because I only have so much time and the S/R ratio is falling for me.
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pg
2007-04-05T16:29:27
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It was $10,000. Julian was the model for YC. He incorporated us, gave us $10k, and taught us how to raise more. We know that's enough, because it was for us.
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usablecontent
2007-04-05T16:30:06
Technorati Says Japanese Is the Language of Blogosphere
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http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/05/technorati-says-japanese-is-the-language-of-blogosphere/
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jkush
2007-04-05T16:33:05
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That's a GREAT question!
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jkush
2007-04-05T16:34:50
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I didn't see that in the FAQ - I assumed 4/10 meant 4/10. What I'm curious about is if everybody gets notified all at once or as they make the decision about a particular application.
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brlewis
2007-04-05T16:38:21
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Could you give an example that's more powerful? From the 60-second intro you linked to, these look no more powerful than C's macros.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_preprocessor#Macro_definition_and_expansion">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_preprocessor#Macro_definition_and_expansion</a>
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eli
2007-04-05T16:39:18
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Yeah, but saying you have "unlimited" internet access, and then saying you can ONLY use it for email and browsing the web kinda sucks. And that the only way you can use more than 5gb/month is if you're doing something illegal is worse.<p>But read between the lines: Carriers like Verizon still make their money in high-margin voice calls and text messaging fees. They would lose that revenue if you could use IM and Skype over their data network. Same for streaming video: Verizon really just doesn't want you using a competitor's IPTV product instead of their own. <p>They think they deserve a cut of the revenue for content sent over their network, even though all they're doing is giving you Internet access. This is what Net Neutrality is all about.
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jamongkad
2007-04-05T16:40:04
User Interface Design for Programmers
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http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html
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brlewis
2007-04-05T16:41:15
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That's definitely true in terms of defmacro and syntax-case. However, I do think with some effort the scripting-language community could come up with something almost as powerful as syntax-rules from R5RS, thus catching up to where the Scheme community was in 1991. With syntax-rules the person writing the macro does not have to explicitly deal with the parse tree.
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samb
2007-04-05T16:43:35
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do you think that a virtual YC environment could be designed to provide the same rich experience that you get in person? or is it simply impossible? just a point of curiosity on my part.
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dhouston
2007-04-05T16:47:01
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1. re: the first part, many people want something plug and play. and even if they were plug and play, the problem is that the user experience (on windows at least) with online drives generally sucks, and you don't have disconnected access.<p>windows for sure doesn't hide latency well (CIFS is bad, webdav etc. are worse), and most apps are written as if the disk was local, and assume, for example, accessing a file only takes a few ms. if the server is 80ms away, and you do 100 accesses (e.g. the open file common dialog listing a directory and poking files for various attributes or icons) serially, suddenly your UI locks up for _seconds_ (joel spolsky summarizes this well in his article on leaky abstractions.) ditto saving any file; you change one character in your 20mb word file and hit save, and your upstream-capped 40k/sec comcast connection is hosed for 8 minutes. sure for docs of a few hundred k it's fine, but doing work on large docs on an online drive feels like walking around with cinder blocks tied to your feet. anyway, the point of that rant was that dropbox uses a _local_ folder with efficient sync in the background, which is an important difference :)<p>2. true, if you're both not at your computer and on another computer without net access, this won't replace a usb drive :) but the case i'm worried about is being, for example, on a plane, and dropbox will let you get to the most recent version of your docs at the time you were last connected, and will sync everything up when you get back online (without you having to copy anything or really do anything.)<p>3. there are some unannounced viral parts i didn't get to show in there :) it'll be a freemium model. up to x gb free, tiered plans above that.
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zaidf
2007-04-05T16:49:28
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I wouldn't put Scribd on that list personally. But from what I hear they're working on bettering what they have. Plus with all that traffic I doubt they'd be too worried.<p>Wufoo as far as I know was designed by one of their team members who came from a design/usability background. They started a magazine called ParticleTree(<a href="http://particletree.com/)">http://particletree.com/)</a> before launching Wufoo.<p>-Zaid<p><p>
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rfrey
2007-04-05T16:50:24
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This falls into the category of "someone should have told them..." Run by some new arrivals to the US, I think. Somebody, their lawyer, or accountant... somebody should have told them.<p>I was cruising around an outdoor mall in Bellevue WA. There was a restaurant that... um... caught my eye. Looking in the window, I saw it was a perfectly ordinary BBQ place - bright lights, lots of people just having lunch, families, etc.<p>Restaurant's name? The Flaming Porker.<p>
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pg
2007-04-05T16:50:37
Great graphs about blog trends from Technorati
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http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html
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jganetsk
2007-04-05T16:51:48
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Ar the YC founders having this kind of experience? This sounds like a traumatic experience to me, but pg claims a 100% satisfaction rate.
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ced
2007-04-05T16:51:55
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A startup has a lot in common with a garage band making pop songs. I.e.:<p>"A couple of young, talented people, working out of their garage, create a product in the hope that a big company will buy their effort, and make them a lot of money."<p>Make Something People Want is not fun. The alternative is to go Indy. I'm considering moving to a low-cost country, living a student life, and working on my own projects for a while. If I happen to make Something I Can Make Money From, great. But that's not the point. I'll get to pursue my own ideas, 100% of the time. I'll see just how far I can go.
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floozyspeak
2007-04-05T16:53:44
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names are boring without witty promise enabling tag lines...<p>Fondle, We Make it Simple<p>oh oh.. current names.. lame.. my bad..
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Benja
2007-04-05T16:54:19
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But, of course, you don't have to have code files full of parens in order to have s-expressions. Alternative syntaxes have never taken hold in the Lisp world, which <i>may</i> mean they just offer nothing to an experienced Lisp hacker, but they're certainly not impossible.<p>You can have user-definable infix operators; Haskell has them and uses them to good effect. (The way Haskell does it, you can't have identifiers composed of both letters and operator characters, which Lisp people like to do, but I think we can safely treat that as a matter of taste.) You pick a symbol, say ~, and assign it a precedence and left- or right-associativity:<p>infixr 3 ~<p>infixl 7 .!.<p>Now (x ~ y .!. z) is parsed as ((~) x ((.!.) y z)), where (~) is the Haskell way of making the ~ operator as a prefix function. Haskell also lets you use a prefix function as an infix operator, by putting backquotes around it.<p>If you want to apply this in Lisp, there is the issue that (foo) means something else than foo; I would like to allow (foo x + bar y) to mean ((+) (foo x) (bar y)), but I wouldn't want (x + y) to mean ((+) (x) (y)). My solution would be that a single value is parsed as just a value, but multiple values next to each other is a function call: (foo x + y) is ((+) (foo x) y), to call y without parameters you have to write (foo x + (y)).<p>This leaves you with the parantheses for control structures and the like. If you like layout-based languages, you can adopt the rule that "expression + colon + newline + indented expression 1 + indented expression 2 + ..." is parsed as "expression (indented expression 1) (indented expression 2) ...".<p>Some examples of code from On Lisp formatted like this:<p><a href="http://himalia.it.jyu.fi/~benja/2007/layoutedlisp.txt">http://himalia.it.jyu.fi/~benja/2007/layoutedlisp.txt</a><p>Of course, it still looks like Lisp, with less parens.
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pg
2007-04-05T16:54:26
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Though the number of blogs is still growing, the volume of blog <i>posts</i> may have peaked in mid 2006. Hard to say for sure; maybe just a temporary plateau; but definitely not clear upward growth.
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mukund
2007-04-05T16:56:44
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I dont know if there are more than 2 plans. Its either YC or go alone. Reason for sticking with YC is free access to paul graham :D and his suggestions. I think this is something priceless and if at all we are out of YC, I hope i have a face to face meet up with PG and convince/beg to be our mentor :) Just like George Bush quoted "You are either with us or against us", i would go ahead and quote, its either YC or alone :)
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kevinxray
2007-04-05T16:58:37
Now, You CAN be in Two Places at the Same Time!
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http://www.collaborati.org/kevins/weblog/15.html
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pg
2007-04-05T17:05:29
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Wufoo and Likewithyou are doing it themselves. They have design backgrounds. Loopt is now a big co and presumably paid a good design firm. I think Scribd has an outside designer too.
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mukund
2007-04-05T17:05:53
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The author has been bang on target. Its quite possible to be one man army and still pull off with a great company but it would take time and this lone guy must work 3 to 5 people's work. Second thing is, having more people who match the same level of thinking helps hammering out loop holes and building better products.
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domp
2007-04-05T17:13:17
How to get the attention of a Venture Capitalist (dupe)
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http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/04/how_to_get_the_.html
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true
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python_kiss
2007-04-05T17:23:34
Google Launches MyMaps - Platial Gets Screwed
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http://mashable.com/2007/04/05/google-mymaps/
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[ 9552, 9306, 9296, 9305, 9309 ]
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usablecontent
2007-04-05T17:26:32
Yahoo RealEstate Launches Foreclosure Resource Center With RealityTrac
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http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/05/yahoo-realestate-launches-foreclosure-resource-center-with-realitytrac/
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ryantmulligan
2007-04-05T17:26:42
null
My friend keeps telling me that my company has a name that is too hard to spell. "www.campusassassins.com" What you think?
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dawie
2007-04-05T17:34:29
null
Haliburtun
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brett
2007-04-05T17:37:40
Example list of the info a VC would request during due diligence
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http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2007/04/kicking_the_tir.html
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[ 9367, 9319, 9291, 9572, 9316 ]
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brett
2007-04-05T17:42:12
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It's hopping around fulfilling requests like this that's not on the radar when I'm underestimating how much work a startup's really going to be.
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nonrecursive
2007-04-05T17:48:18
null
Here are a few resources for spiffing up your "artist" and "seller" hats:<p> === The Artist ===<p>. <i>The Non-Designer's Design Book</i>, by Robin Williams. This short, easy read details four essential design principles that will help you consciously communicate better visually. It's also available on O'Reilly's safari service.<p>. <i>Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design</i>. This book will help you build your design vocabulary and better understand concepts in design that you likely haven't thought of. It will help you describe the ways in which this page - <a href="http://www.sandstromdesign.com/nav.html">http://www.sandstromdesign.com/nav.html</a> - sucks (it lacks external consistency and it contains interference effects, to begin with). The book has a great format, describing a topic on one page with visual examples on the following page. The descriptions are short of enough that you can read them in about 4 minutes.<p>. <a href="http://www.hallwaytesting.com">http://www.hallwaytesting.com</a> - this is actually my own site. You can post your site for usability feedback and give usability feedback. Live usability tests allow you to get more details, but the users on my site also give valuable feedback, and it doesn't cost you any money or nearly as much time. I try to give feedback for as many sites as possible and am usually pretty thorough about it. Users have told me that the site has helped them a lot.<p> === The Seller ===<p>. <a href="http://www.marketingexperiments.com">http://www.marketingexperiments.com</a> . This site is absolutely the best web development resource I've found, ever. It contains articles on developing a unique value proposition, doing competitive analysis on the Internet, and of course actually marketing your site using PPC, SEO, and other online marketing techniques. Perhaps the most valuable thing I learned from this site is that online marketing <i>is</i> online testing.<p>. <i>How to Win Friends and Influence People</i>, by Dale Carnegie. For a long time I didn't want to read this book because I thought doing so would make me a sleaze ball. Instead it's made me a more effective communicator. When you think about it, honing our skills in most areas involves learning how to communicate with other humans better. As The Tech Wizard it's essential that you communicate the purpose of your code. As The Artist it's essential you communicate the purpose of a site and each of its elements. As The Seller you must know how to communicate value. Dale Carnegie's book will show you how to effectively communicate value.
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dfranke
2007-04-05T17:50:09
null
The amount of spam they've been killing has actually been substantial for the past week. (Mostly the same couple spammers; I don't know why they haven't banned their IPs yet). I've been keeping showdead turned on because I'm curious about seeing how the situation evolves, but once spam reaches about double its current volume I'm going to turn it off because it'll be too annoying.<p>Edit: Maybe they've banned them now; the new queue is currently clean.
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gojomo
2007-04-05T17:50:20
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Re: "rebooting the server gives you a clean state"<p>That's not quite true: the HD contents survive crashes and reboots. Only if you release the node (or lose it otherwise -- it's not guaranteed to stay with you), the HD contents are lost. <p>I suspect lots of startups are finding it "stable enough", and the backup/redundancy planning needed manageable.
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far33d
2007-04-05T17:52:46
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Finally someone is going to try to put the late-night "get all the information you need to buy a forclosure home" informercials out of business.
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zaidf
2007-04-05T17:53:17
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I really don't think most of these mashups INHERENTLY will die. They might take a huge beating in how fast they grow but I think if the current mashups continue to focus on their CURRENT userbase's needs, they can turn it into a modestly profitable venture. Not everything has to return a fortune financially:)<p>I do pity the startups that raised millions and were based off of google maps. It never made sense to me but hopefully they know something I don't about their long-term strategy.<p>-Zaid
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domp
2007-04-05T17:56:39
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<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9161">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9161</a><p>Oops.
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dawie
2007-04-05T17:58:16
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You links at the bottom of the page like FAQ etc is not working. I wonder if its because you are a lone founder... Jokes, I am a lone founder too.
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Readmore
2007-04-05T17:59:12
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Hahah, exactly! I just decided to start using my own product even though it's not completely finished. :)
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