Ask YC: Review my Startup (HN with a business/fundraising focus) | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Review my Startup (HN with a business/fundraising focus)

mystartupnews.com

12 pointsadammichaelc18 comments

Alright, so if I understand you guys right, (1) the logo sucks, (2) it's not really a "startup" because it's not very innovative and it's running on open source that took me about an hour to launch, (3) the logo sucks, (4) the logo really could use some work, (5) it's just a website, and it's crappy, & (6) there's no reason for it to exist.

No worries, I agree with all of your comments. You're right, I should have put "Review my website." I think I might have been tempted to say some of the same things that were written, though I hope I would have been a bit more polite. I think I've been so antsy to make something public that I threw this together and it's been a great learning experience. I just learned SQL about 2 months ago & I just started with Java about 6 months ago. PHP is slowly coming into focus as well. Although I'm not writing out SQL queries by hand or anything as I work with this site, it has been cool to see how a database-driven site functions. For most of you, this stuff isn't exciting because you've progressed to a much higher level. But for me, it's awesome! And my wife thinks I'm crazy because it's all I ever talk about. :-)

I don't know. I'm fairly new to open-source software, so when I found out that I could launch this thing in an hour, I got excited -- didn't really have any great ideas, so I just went with something I'm really interested in (startups/venture capital/angel investing, etc.)

I know it will never become the next Google or anything, because (a) at the moment there's no business model -- although Google had no biz model for a couple years -- but they also had an incredibly simple way for solving a really really big problem, and I don't -- not with this site anyway, and (b) it sucks.

But for me it's a way for me to keep track of my favorite articles from the startup community, find articles that come from similarly entrepreneurial people but with a different focus, & organize them so that others can have access also.

P.S. My friends and I are working on a real startup also. When we have a functional prototype I'll post it here and let you guys give a crack at it.

P.P.S. I appreciate the honesty. I look forward to that for next time.

Thats a great attitude! Everything sucks your first 6 months and it's not necessarily your idea. Just keep launching projects, it's the best way to learn.

I may have been a little mean in my other comment - but you're on the right track to having a real startup. I've had probably 5 serious projects that eventually got abandoned because a) no business model, b) no users, and c) stupid idea. But the knowledge I gained by creating these projects? Priceless.

It's better to fail & learn on crappy projects so when you find a great idea you can just knock it out of the park.

_I may have been a little mean in my other comment - but you're on the right track to having a real startup. I've had probably 5 serious projects that eventually got abandoned because a) no business model, b) no users, and c) stupid idea. But the knowledge I gained by creating these projects? Priceless._

No worries Dave. I don't take stuff like that personally. I have appreciated the experience of getting all the feedback. Creating this crappy project makes me super-excited for the next one, and I agree about the learning. I've learned a great deal from this.

_It's better to fail & learn on crappy projects so when you find a great idea you can just knock it out of the park._

Totally agree.

Sorry, but the logo is burning my eyes out. Also, can we please go back to calling them websites?

Since you're calling it a startup, I might as well ask: What's your business plan? Because it looks a lot like a webapp and not a startup ;)

The logo really could use some love from a designer. It doesn't fit into the rest of the page at all.

The FAQ needs some linebreaks.

The site doesn't fail gracefully, so http://mystartupnews.com/live_unpublished.php doesn't work without JavaScript. I just got an empty section with NoScript :)

You're right, not a startup. See my other comments.

Isn't HN an HN with a business/fundraising focus?

Why do so many people insist on labeling their crappy websites as a "startup"

Your website is just another clone of 1000 others out there. I could clone your clone in about 4 hours.

Yes, but Micheal Keaton has shown us that a clone of a clone might not be as sharp as the original, or even as functional as the original clone.

That could have been put a little more politely. ;-)

Posting a site/startup for review means that the user is ready to take the sweet cake "cool stuff!" reviews and even the bad "you built shit" kinda statements right in the face.

P.S: That was just IMO. I don't know what others think of review threads.

100% agree.

No worries.

It wouldn't take 4 hours. The site runs on a CMS (look @ the footer)

So it would take a few minutes. Or even few if you use something like Slinkset

I had the same idea, still just learning PHP

Good Luck, freemium is hard.

Neat idea but I don't think there's a reason it needs to exist.

Way too much whitespace, way too few articles/vertical inch.

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