instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
|---|---|
What to do after selling startup? | jasonlbaptiste: I've already said I plan on setting aside a certain percentage of my net worth to angel invest back into startups. I want to help people who were like me when I first got started at 18 (clueless but relentlessly passionate on building things that can change the world).I'd most likely do a startup again... |
What to do after selling startup? | ALee: You usually have 3 stages (based on the successful guys I've met before):A) Vesting period- after the initial sale, you take on the day job of either (a) doing what you were doing before, if you were properly aligned in incentive structure, or (b) doing something different that they bought your team for. For some... |
What to do after selling startup? | FredSource: Having sold my startup, the money gives me flexibility to do what I want!Personally, I am
i. managing an open source project
ii. picking up/tasking the kids to school (generally spending time with the kids)
iii. biking regularly to get/stay fit
iv. lunches with friends
v. looking for the next "thing" I wan... |
Webspace/server tips for startups | derwiki: I'd look into Slicehost for a web server, and using it in conjunction with Amazon S3 if you're planning on serving a lot of files. |
Webspace/server tips for startups | run4yourlives: I certainly hope people that are buying their own servers aren't stashing them under their beds.You should really consider VPS if your needs out way shared services, which I would seriously question if you are brand new. If VPS in all its forms, including slicehost or linode is still holding you back (I... |
How to handle a large collection of tags? | spoiledtechie: I have taken the ASP.NET approach to how I count and figure out Tags. Quite genious when you have millions of tags where each item has about 20 tags.I create one table that contains all 20 million tags with a Unique ID which is 99% a integer just counting up. I also add a column sometimes for a counter ... |
Mbps How much do you pay and where (city)? | quellhorst: Less than $10/Mbps Colo4dallas with cogent bandwidth. |
You're a recent grad that's working full time on your startup. How? | marram: We are two cofounders. We both had full time jobs. We worked nights and weekends for a year and got something out the door. Now that it is going well, I made a deal with my employer to switch to part-time. I consolidated my fixed costs (aka sold the car, got rid of cable) to be able to live on a part-time salar... |
Joint venture negotiation advice..? | medianama: Based on my experience - Never do "exclusivity in a revenue sharing deal" unless they offer a significantly large minimum guarantee.We had a joke in our company - 50% of zero revenue is zero. %age share doesn't matter in these deals... |
What to do after selling startup? | akmedia: actually seriously already the last one. |
Please review our site FourthBranch.us | noodle: imo, just right off the top of my head, the design and presentation needs work. what exactly does the site do? what is it for? how do i use it? etc..i can't really tell just looking at the first page, so, you're probably going to have a high bounce rate (especially since its such a crowded-with-information,... |
How do you stave off food comatose after lunch? | racerboy: Take whatever you are eating for lunch and immediately cut it in half. Eat the first half and save the rest for as long as you can, eating it ideally 3 hours later. For instance, I eat 1/2 at about 10:30-11am and half at around 1-1:30. You will no longer get the food coma and over the long run it will help... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | noodle: just want to point out that this would be the plot to the movie "idiocracy"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1597642154209383351 (naughty language warning). |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | bprater: I guess it depends on what "good" evolution looks like. Should evolution be humans that can procreate most efficiently?In general, I think the question is 'yes'. Because all humans can "connect" with all other humans in society, it doesn't leave pockets of evolution to take hold.I suspect that in the next few ... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | ericwaller: It's not possible (by definition) to "short-circuit" or undermine evolution. Modern medicine is our species acting within the process of evolution. Just as we consider early humans to have "evolved" the ability to use crude tools, we have "evolved" the ability to use penicillin, brain surgery, etc."Survival... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | biohacker42: We are long past the point of evolution as it applies to all other life.And I don't mean that in some crazy pseudo science way.Consider the human brain. Did you know human infants fall intellectually behind chimpanzees of the same age.Eventually humans overtake but it's several years late, how come?It's be... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | tokenadult: A lot of people talk about dysgenic trends that they imagine must be happening because the weak are being protected from having their genes eliminated from the human gene pool. But few notice that the data show improvements in phenotype that are so large in effect size that they can't even be explained by E... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | conanite: Evolution often occurs when due to changes in the environment (climate change, new diseases, new predators) vast numbers of the species die off. The marvels of modern medicine are a less traumatic alternative.For example, if evolution were to have its way, HIV should kill off those humans who lack the CCR5 ge... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | russell: I think not. Darwin had a second theory of evolution by sexual selection, and it may be the more important. It's selection, not by the jungle, tooth and claw, but intraspecies mate selection. I think a lot of human activity is driven, directly or indirectly, by mate selection: Wall Street Money, superstars,... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | triplefox: We are cyborgs. Our technology is not orthogonal to our biology. |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | arram: It's irrelevant. We'll have perfect control over our bodies and genes within 500 years, which in evolutionary terms is a very short time. We don't need natural selection anymore. |
Please review our site FourthBranch.us | il: I can see this being a useful and popular niche app, but what's your exit strategy? You're applying to YC with this, who's likely to acquire you? How will you monetize?Not necessarily a critique of the site, just some questions YC or investors will certainly ask during the application process. |
Anyone use GoGrid? Cloud Competitor Cheaper than Amazon? | donna: GoGrid is a great company to work with. Here's a link to another AWS posting.
http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=422225 |
You're a recent grad that's working full time on your startup. How? | monological: I just graduated and got a full time job. I leave work around 5ish, I hit up a cafe and usually work until 8-10. I get home relax a bit, I go to the gym around 11 and then bedtime for me. Lather, rinse, repeat...I've learned what I need to do to not burn myself. I've fine tuned it to the point where it's b... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | pasbesoin: I'd just point out that it depends in part on the time scale you apply. If things get "dumber" for a while, a compensating circumstance is likely to arise. Whether you view it as positive or negative is subjective; it will occur.I don't take that on faith. Rather, it's my prediction based on all the histo... |
Are we undermining our own evolution? | raquo: Not only medicine undermines biological evolution. Evolution works in such a way that those who make more children become dominant. 'Many children' is not one of the values of our society, so people whom our society values most do not drive the evolution. |
How do you deal with irrationality? | noodle: basically, never forget that you're a part of the society that you wish to instill the change in. its a problem the second you think things are so bad that you don't want any part of it anymore. as long as you think that change is possible and worth working for, you're doing fine. |
Please take a survey to help my startup | pj: That survey is so biased. Where in the list of languages is Java, C#, VB, C or C++, Pascal? Haskell? Django isn't even a language! |
Please take a survey to help my startup | johns: Why are there default options selected for the radio boxes? This could taint the results.<3 years encapsulates the other results for that question as well. |
Please take a survey to help my startup | aditya: Taken but don't know what you mean by online investment platform... like Etrade or like Kiva? |
Please take a survey to help my startup | vaksel: How much would you be looking to borrow to launch your
business? >$50,000 $25,000-$50,000 <$10,000, $10,000-$25,000
the order is pretty wrong here...and you should either add "none" option or rephrase the question to something like "How much would it cost you to launch your business"also: If you were ... |
Review My Web App - OnMyMission.com - LDS Missionary Profiles | vyrotek: Clickable Link - http://www.OnMyMission.com |
Please take a survey to help my startup | volida: i went on to fill the form and at the end I face this question: What features would you want in an online investment platform?you give me a blank textarea to fill in a survey? i wouldn't sit to fill in an empty box and for what in return?
instead you should at least give some options to tick |
Review My Web App - OnMyMission.com - LDS Missionary Profiles | omnivore: Really good niche to target, especially for missionaries in places with bad mail service. I think the design fits the target audience well and it should be interesting to see how well it takes off for you. |
Review My Web App - OnMyMission.com - LDS Missionary Profiles | timothychung: It is a good tool. Why don't you rename it to be a trip sharing app?More general will give you larger market and you will get more feedback. :-) |
How do you deal with irrationality? | inerte: With humor.If I can't, I just tell myself: Wow, the world is an amazing place. All these different people. I just hope that we can co-exist peacefully.Once I was drinking beer with a philosophist and two writers, plus a history student (my friend). Another philosophist, friend of the first philosophist, came to... |
Please take a survey to help my startup | quizbiz: I was interested in the website you used to create the form but I closed out and don't want to falsify your data. Mind sharing the form generator? |
What to do after selling startup? | eob: Buy a house at the beach. Start going to more conferences. Read a few books. Then start working on the next idea. |
How do you deal with irrationality? | rg123: One very positive thing about the Internet is that, even if your outlook is not common in your physical community or society in general, you can find virtual communities where you do fit in. This can definitely help avoid that alienated feeling.One way I can relate to what you're saying is that I am not religio... |
Review My Web App - OnMyMission.com - LDS Missionary Profiles | patio11: I strongly suggest you replace your screenshots which hotlink to pngs with a lightbox style effect. A shocking percentage of the Internet, especially non-technical users, does not understand how to use the back button. This makes screenshots into a roach motel -- click in, can't click out, bounce.Incidentall... |
How do you deal with irrationality? | paulgb: I often find it useful to remind myself that we're doing pretty damn well for a bunch of monkeys. |
Should I block HughesNet satellite provider? | SwellJoe: Why are you asking us?Contact Hughes network administrator. They probably have a prefetching web caching server, that may be misconfigured or have a bug when interacting with your particular web server with your particular configuration...or your site may have some cache-control data botched. Or a little of... |
How do you deal with irrationality? | systemtrigger: > Or am I crazy?
If you're crazy then I'm crazy too because what you have described I have felt in some form or another for a long time. You're definitely not alone and I think you're posing smart questions and yeah if I had some more time I would want to suggest to you that there are ways to channel you... |
Please take a survey to help my startup | jlees: "Ideall Microfinance is a start-up aimed at making it simple for small businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs to raise capital."And yet we can't classify ourselves as an entrepreneur? I mean, I develop software, but that's not how I primarily think of myself these days. I ticked the 'Other' box out of confusio... |
Review My Web App - OnMyMission.com - LDS Missionary Profiles | fefzero: I think the purpose is pretty clear, but it would be nice to have an actual demo instead of just screen shots. One thing that seemed a bit off to me was inconsistent capitalization: "missionary" is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not (I would suggest that it not be capitalized) and the sentence at the top ... |
Does anyone else use "and" and "or" in C (iso646.h)? | unwind: Wow ... I consider myself reasonably well-versed with C, and I had never heard of that header.I would of course, bias and all, consider any programmers deciding to use it to be well out of touch with reality.I don't see a real-world benefit either, all it does is make those guys feel macho and elite for knowing... |
Does anyone else use "and" and "or" in C (iso646.h)? | pmarin: Amazing. the wikipedia says:
"which, without the header file, cannot be quickly or easily typed on some international and non-QWERTY keyboards"Anyone have one of those keyboards? |
How do you deal with irrationality? | Tangurena: People learn at their own rates, and if you're a parent, you'll learn (extremely uncomfortably) that your children have to - must - make their own mistakes. And poking folks, rubbing their noses in their mistakes is a good way to get a black eye - not a friend. |
How do you deal with irrationality? | pj: Thanks everyone. |
is there a startup school 2009? | pg: Yes. It will be in the fall this year. |
Does anyone else use "and" and "or" in C (iso646.h)? | lhorie: I'd think using those forms would be analogous to using different variable naming conventions in the same codebase or having no conventions for "{" placement.That in itself is not so bad, but it can possibly lead to the sort of environment where everyone has their own little version of common helper macros / fu... |
Would you consider polling your users for the right monetization method? | pclark: you think users will be honest when you ask them how are you going to give me money? |
Would you consider polling your users for the right monetization method? | jasonlbaptiste: Polling your users is probably a very smart thing to do, as long as it's worded right and not obtrusive. The best monetization features have some sort of utility built in for the user. ie- Google paid search ads show you items that are relevant to what you're searching for, a freemium account on dropbox... |
Would you consider polling your users for the right monetization method? | ScottWhigham: I've done a lot of polling of my users and one thing I've noticed is that authenticated users provide much more useful feedback than "guests". Also, expect to get a very different response from people in poorer economic climates than others. Perhaps you could set up IP filters so you only poll users in yo... |
Would you consider polling your users for the right monetization method? | patio11: wouldn't it make sense to just poll your users directly?People are very poor judges of what they are willing to pay for things, and are especially poor judges when "free to me" is one of the options on the table. |
can you summarize OO for me in 64 words or less? | sana22: • Imperialism is a business policy, in it; it has produced small, bad, unsafe increase of market, and has jeopardized the entire wealth of the nation. It is irrational from the standpoint of the whole nation, and it is rational enough from the standpoint of certain classes in the nation. A state which kept good... |
Applying the wiki-model to reviews | triplefox: Meatball Wiki is a good general source of wiki advice: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.plI recall reading on it somewhere the point that there are several possible formats of wiki - namely, the "discussion" format and the "document" format, and that Wikipedia has has made familiar the concept of cleanly div... |
How to hire sales people | tocomment: That's a great question. I'd love to hear some answers.I'd also like to know how to decide between hiring sales people and selling a product online (self serve), or can both be done simultaineously?A product we're considering could really be sold either way. |
How to hire sales people | russell: A salesman once told me, "Any salesman, no matter how bad, can sell himself to an engineer." You really need someone you trust to evaluate the candidates. Find successful entrepreneurs in your area and have their VP of sales help. Exercise your network. Enlist your SO, neighbors. VC's might help. I'm not... |
What to do after selling startup? | Stubbs: Golf, lots and lots of golf. |
Hacking ability related to teaching language? | Prikrutil: It would be very tempting for me just to answer "yes, it's very important" or "not, it doesn't matter at all" with appropriate arguments, but I don't think any of those answers could reflect in full what I actually think.It's very important. Your effectiveness as a programmer depends on which languages you c... |
Applying the wiki-model to reviews | inerte: Some users think some game features are great, but others think it sucks. I think a lot of content will be shifted to the "other side" constantly.You'll also have to deal with "fact". An article on Wikipedia about Gears of War shouldn't contain opinions, as in "the chainsaw effect is really cool!", but it can c... |
How many Lines of Code do You Write Every Day? | run4yourlives: Being a productive coder has nothing to do with the amount of lines you write.Don't focus on this. |
How many Lines of Code do You Write Every Day? | satyajit: (I don't mean to disparage your coding ability or Prolog). If you have written 800 lines of ruby, you have earned yourself a 6-pack beer, go chill! If it was 800 lines of Prolog, go buy a bottle of Nyquil - you need to rest your mind and body! |
How many Lines of Code do You Write Every Day? | henning: I only wrote 2500 LOC yesterday, I was disappointed in myself. Normally I do at least 4000.Also, my dad is 12 feet tall and he can beat up your dad.In all seriousness, LOC will always be an almost-meaningless metric.Sustainable productivity comes from good teams working on products that have user/customer feed... |
How many Lines of Code do You Write Every Day? | SwellJoe: I've never counted. But I'd guess not more than 300 or 400, and by the end of the week, if I've been thinking clearly, I'll have shaved the code written down to less than that. Probably my most productive week ever ended with ripping almost all of my code out, and replacing it with an SQLite module from CPA... |
Should I Keep Going? | monological: You can always do the graphics yourself. Grab a copy of Gimp if you don't have photoshop and start designing. What exactly is holding you back from doing it yourself? |
Is there a way to define classes at runtime in any language? | inklesspen: Certainly you can define classes at runtime. But I think this is the wrong way to go about logical reasoning. What happens when you want to express that Socrates is a dead Greek philosopher? Do you have DeadMortal (subclass of Mortal with isDead() returning true), GreekMortal, PhilosopherMortal (subclass of... |
How many Lines of Code do You Write Every Day? | cperciva: This question has been asked many times before, but to summarize my past answers briefly: It depends on what sort of code I'm writing (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36784), but my long-term average is about 1000 LOC/month (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=105410). |
Is there a way to define classes at runtime in any language? | paulgb: You would probably want to implement your own concept of classes to do this, in which case you wouldn't have to restrict yourself to languages where classes could be declared at runtime.But if you really wanted to use the language's classes, there are languages that support it. Javascript is one. I think Ruby l... |
How many Lines of Code do You Write Every Day? | inklesspen: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...Or, if you prefer Dijkstra:"In this respect a program is like a poem: you cannot write a poem without writing it. Yet people talk about programming as if it were a production process and measure 'programmer productivity' in terms of 'number of lines... |
Why did Google release their mapReduce algorithm/cluster setup? | inklesspen: Or maybe, like many scientists, they were truly interested in advancing the sum of human knowledge and the state of the art. |
Why did Google release their mapReduce algorithm/cluster setup? | SwellJoe: To engender the feeling that Google is a factory for big new ideas, making it the place every top-flight developer wants to work, and the tech company that everyone talks about when innovation is the subject. I'd say it's paid for itself, and I'd also suggest that it hasn't hurt them. Google has as much of ... |
Is there a way to define classes at runtime in any language? | benhoyt: In Python you can create a class at "runtime" using "type(name, bases, dict)" as per http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html#typeYou can also use "new.classobj(name, bases, dict)" -- not quite sure what the difference is. |
Should I Keep Going? | prospero: Your business is doomed to fail without a graphic designer? Unless you're selling graphic design, I'm not sure how that's possible.But if it really is that crucial, maybe you should revisit the business idea you're pursuing. If your team doesn't have one of the core competencies you need to succeed, there se... |
Should I Keep Going? | cmos: Don't let this be your roadblock! Start working on tutorials for gimp and you'll be surprised how good you can make things look (my 'goto' in graphics has always been to add a gradient and/or a shadow).When you have something working you might be able to attract more interest from graphic designers.
In the meant... |
How to hire sales people | mburnett: Summary: Tricky sales people can sell the fact they are good at a lot of things. How do you figure out what type of people they really are? By tracking the energy that interviewees have around their responses and digging deeper, people will inevitably reveal the behaviors and principles they live by day-to-da... |
Should I Keep Going? | jerf: There are many places where you can grab very liberally-licensed graphics. If those don't do whatever unspecified thing you need them to do, they can probably still serve as a base since it's easier to modify than to start from scratch, especially if you find SVG/Inkscape/whatever source too. A bajillion web desi... |
Should I Keep Going? | vaksel: getting a freelancer is cheaper than you might think. $200-300 bucks can probably get you what you need. |
Is there a way to define classes at runtime in any language? | stonemetal: There are several languages that allow dynamic creation of classes. Any of the dynamically typed scripting languages can do that javascript, python, perl, ruby, etc. |
Should I Keep Going? | something: so, what is it- graphic design or interface design? |
Should I Keep Going? | pg: I was thinking this would be a post about how some startup was facing terrible obstacles. If the only problem is that you can't find someone with design ability, the answer is easy: try harder. They're all over, especially at colleges.Incidentally, as other posters have pointed out, you may be in danger of confus... |
Is there a way to define classes at runtime in any language? | _pius: See this (old) presentation for thinking along these lines:http://www.jroller.com/obie/entry/deep_integration_of_ruby_a... |
Why did Google release their mapReduce algorithm/cluster setup? | jlouis: Probably done to get feedback in the area. If you publish a paper on a better map-reduce strategy, Google benefits. The important thing is to seed the research community with the right idea.Of course, when some researches comes up with a better idea, you headhunt him. |
Should I Keep Going? | Zev: You're in college. Go down to your art department and see if they have an art class you can take. Or at the very least, will let you put up fliers somewhere in the building. |
Can I print and sell custom waterproof Google Maps? | inklesspen: http://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps.htmlSection 2, subsection b and c says no. |
Should I Keep Going? | SingAlong: If you are specifically looking for a college student, You should try at college fests or such events where web design competitions are held. Just participate in some of these (even if you are bad at design, just participate to meet people and also try your luck. You might be good at design yourself) and you... |
Why did Google release their mapReduce algorithm/cluster setup? | geocar: Distributed systems are nothing new (AST's Amoeba goes through some of the mapreduce contortions), but there are very few programmers comfortable thinking that way- you may recall, even SONY had an awful lot of trouble recruiting talent.It's in Google's best interest to increase the market size of "parallel pro... |
Can I print and sell custom waterproof Google Maps? | jmtame: You might want to contact their biz dev and see if you can arrange a license program, where for every x maps you sell, you pay a royalty to them. |
Should I Keep Going? | prateekdayal: Once you raise capital, it may not be possible to do the startup because you can't find the right marketing guy at this budget. There will always be obstacles. Just release something people can start using and then invest resources in whatever brings most returns. Thats the way to go for bootstrapped busi... |
Housing for equity? | chiffonade: For fuck's sake, equity is not cash, stop using and thinking about it like cash.And what kind of landlord would even go for this? Mortgages can't be paid in equity, either. |
Should I Keep Going? | bjplink: I originally wrote an incredibly snarky reply (it even had a link to a simple Google search) but I'm reconsidering now...In any collegiate environment you should be able to find plenty of art students looking for opportunities to build a portfolio. Find them. Use them. Pay them if they insist but I guarantee y... |
Housing for equity? | noodle: if the arrangement works for all parties involved, why not? get it in contract form. |
Housing for equity? | pg: During the Bubble in the late 90s (funny one now has to specify) some commercial landlords used to get paid partially in warrants, which are basically the corporate equivalent of stock options. It's not so common now, though, and it wouldn't be a good plan for a very small startup anyway, because landlords would h... |
Can I print and sell custom waterproof Google Maps? | asmithmd1: Check out http://www.openstreetmap.org/
It is like Wikipedia for maps. Add your trails to their maps and then you can do anything you want with it as long as you credit them. |
Should I Keep Going? | mattjaynes: Others have done it. Remember - be "relentlessly resourceful".Find a designer - offer a code for design trade.Find a few designs you like, then "borrow" their best elements for your own design.Look at freely available creative commons designs on sites like http://www.freecsstemplates.org/ |
Should I Keep Going? | ilaksh: This is YN. He wants to know how to raise capital. Does no one understand that?Rick Harrison: what is your business model? |
Housing for equity? | enduser: It works better the other way around: buy something and rent it out to get free equity. |
How many Lines of Code do You Write Every Day? | cthan323: "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight." - Bill GatesI truly don't understand why counting LOC is some sort of badge of accomplishment. I think once you've coded enough you'll realize that efficiency matters most. Efficiency and elegance is wh... |
Should I Keep Going? | asnyder: I would suggest the following:Spend $25 or whatever it costs in your target region to post an ad on craigslist. This ad should say that you're a small startup, etc. Telecommuting should be ok.Describe the kind of designer you're looking for as well as the work that they'll be doing.You can say that it's an unp... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.