This is how startups should be made. | Hacker News Reader

This is how startups should be made.

scottvdp.com

21 pointsharper9 comments

Ah, you learned your first lesson of web typography: line spacing should not be 1.0.

But you have not yet learned the second lesson: line spacing should not be 2.0, and certainly should not be even larger.

Keep it in [1.2, 1.5] for body text, and you will die a happy man.

Adjusted. Better?

Great advice.

http://www.israd.com/21oe4 <- I must confess, I have a weakness for your landing page. Very evocative of Bill Watterson's later dinosaur illustrations (if slightly bloodier).

i love those illustrations

ex: http://bulk.destructoid.com/ul/user/9/9346-103247-111195jpg-...

I'm going to apologize in advance for you guys being the straw that broke that camels back, but in general it's absurd that projects are requesting emails based solely on hype. I'm not going to give away my email address to a place called "IsRad" that offers 0 explanation as to what they're offering. I could "try hard" and guess what you're offering, but that is the least compelling reason for me to get on board and offer up my email. I mean are people seriously drinking the startup kool-aid and reinforcing we're headed for a bubble by giving away our emails? I sincerely believe you're good enough guys that I won't be spammed, but it has come to the point where people are offering up private information so that they can be early adopters for ANYTHING, regardless of the value it brings to themselves, the end users. Really?? Perhaps I'm a angered pragmatist, but I would love for you to tell me what I'm buying into before I give away my email.

You are 100% correct. I honestly think the problem is the speed at which we are throwing this together right now. This is an exercise for us in rapid implementation. The team that put this together is the same team that launched chicago2011.org, an app that took 72 hours from conception to development to implementation. I consider this a massive accomplishment, especially considering we were working with government. Coming off of that success, we were pumped to push out potentially a real startup under similar time pressure. You are now seeing some of the sloppiness that exists at the edges of a project like that, and I too shared your sentiment when usehipster went back into stealth/hype mode. Using launchrock certainly doesn't help that since it is works really well as a vague hype machine.

I promise you that I will put more detail up to the public within 48 hours, and I would love to personally speak with you to explain exactly what we're doing. You can email me at scottv@gmail.com if want, I would love to hear more of your feedback.

Digression discussion: What lesser forms of login would be acceptable in this day and age? Malinator-type temporary accounts? Facebook logins? Logins from a less-used social network?

By hipsters for hipsters?

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