Young entrepreneurs turn a Tweet from Richard Branson into $1 Million | Hacker News Reader

Young entrepreneurs turn a Tweet from Richard Branson into $1 Million

smallbusiness.yahoo.com

66 pointsahlemk62 comments

From their security page:

We are very secure and make sure to cover many angles to insure your data can never be compromised. Many often ask what exactly we do to make the data so secure. Unfortunately, one of the things that makes the site so secure is that we do not disclose the exact encryption practices.

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

It's also a bit weird that it's apparently two unrelated products in one. Pinterest and LastPass: two great tastes that taste great together?

Translation: We know nothing about security, but we still want you to use our site. Look at this padlock. Security.

This is quite an eye-opener too...

"How secure is MySocialCloud.com? From day one, it has been our goal to provide the best security on the web. While we don't expose how we keep MySocialCloud secure (if we told you, it would be unsecured!), we do ensure that not even our employees are able to see any of your sensitive data."

One of their videos shows a bookmarket so I'm going to presume they're using that for somekind of encryption clientside with AES???

"if we told you, it would be unsecured!" doesn't sound like AES... It sounds like they're using _entirely_ security through obscurity.

Psst...they are using ROT13 (but don't tell anybody).

Wow, that's either cool or the worst word choice ever.

"insure": Provide insurance coverage. Arrange for compensation in the event of damage to or loss of (property), or injury to or the death of (someone), in exchange for...: "the car is insured for loss or damage"

"ensure": Make certain that (something) shall occur or be the case.

"Insure" can also take the latter meaning; I think it's an American/British thing. The New Yorker uses "insure" for both meanings, and it trips me up every time.

Americans don't use "ensure" and use "insure" for both meanings. As a Brit living in the US it really winds me up!

What part of the US are you living in where ensure is not used? As an American living in the US, this would wind me up too! But for all "intensive purposes" some just don't know any better and don't have the "gaul" to "care less."

California. I even corrected Malcolm Gladwell once (which he thanked me for!)

I think I have found an explanation in http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jun/17/food/fo-60599 "and forget the fact that "insure" was nearly always spelled "ensure" in the 18th century."

It is probably one of these things where Americans swung one way and Brits the other. Another example is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology where Americans use the original British spelling and the Brits use the original American spelling!

But insure and ensure mean different things - they can't be interchanged!

Interestingly enough, as a California native, I got hung up on "insure" as well. I'm not sure I've ever used that spelling.

Not sure if it's something unique to my upbringing however.

The New Yorker uses "insure" for both meanings, and it trips me up every time.

Holy mackerel, you're right:

https://www.google.com/#q=site:newyorker.com+insure

At first I thought, "Well, but the New Yorker does have a few quirks" - but the analogous search for the NYT shows that they do it too.

I always assumed "insure" for "ensure" was a sign of illiteracy. What's that thing called in psychology where the brain edits out incongruent things and just doesn't see them? I must have been doing that with "insure" for years.

They use both "insure" and "ensure" on the site

"https://mysocialcloud.com/aboutus In addition, our site utilizes advanced encryption to ensure your information is always secure"

The small link "About SSL Certificates" points to Symantecs sale page for certs. Definitely know what SSL certificates are after reading that... /s

They're just getting started, give them a break. Maybe shoot them an email and set up a Skype call to give them some advice.

THIS is exactly what people on HN should be doing. Embrace and extend. Call these people up - say "Hey! I saw this and I was a little concerned. I am an [expertise goes here] who has done [experience ges here] - I'd like to either give you some advice or connect you with people who are masters of solving this problem.

Mentor them and who knows, you may get to meet Sir. Richard someday and gain his interest in your own projects! (but dont make this the goal of reaching out to them)

> Embrace and extend.

That's not what "embrace and extend" means. To give a hint, it typically has a third part: "... and extinguish."

> THIS is exactly what people on HN should be doing.

I don't think so. If you start a business and you neither have a clue about your core product - i.e. security - nor care about asking someone who does, you better fail soon and the world will be a better place. There are too many wannabes already, don't you think?

While I agree, I was commenting more about the HN community than I was their competency.

True on the advice. False on the break.

You don't just "start" on passwords/usernames - seriously it's not a game (but I suppose consumers ask for it if they trust a bunch of kids).

Look at all the password leaks over the last couple of years and you'll realise it's not a damn game - you really need to know what you're doing. Especially if that's your core value proposition.

Security is not a "move fast and break things" start-up.

It's a "don't screw up or you'll get sued into the ground" start-up.

According to the terms page because it is a beta product they state that it is not fully secure.

He stores your information on a spreadsheet, but the spreadsheet is in the cloud, so it can't crash.

Of course you mean paper spreadsheet? Because it is secure and can't crash.

Only managed the first paragraph before the bubble-o-meter went off the fucking scale.

- Crap buzzword filled domain name. Check.

- All encompassing vague idea. Check.

- Young computer whizzkids. Check.

- 1 millllion dollars. Check.

Don't forget the obligatory leave-of-absence from NYU.

Drop out of college to make a combo Delicious/LastPass!

Why the hell would anyone want such thing? The fact that people might use both things doesn't mean they can go together.

Hell, there is a lot of things you can glue together, but these aren't ones.

I'm sick of this social frenzy in web already. Every goddamn website wants me to share, discover, connect, cloud, blah blah blah...share friends boom revolutionary idea...why don't we share photos? wow! here...take all my billions...what if we mix your cloud crap with your passwords? sweet jesus take all my money. Don't get me wrong, it's good to see people innovate, but it feels like most (at least those who are being seen) have forgotten about the true problem solving and innovation and are just mixing services and APIs together and selling it as yet another revolutionary idea.

Sure, some of that is true - but holy shit, we sit here on HN constantly pontificating about how we need to fail often, pivot, iterate and that investors invest in teams - not ideas.

Then these kids come along and did a msterful job at getting the ear of Richard and others and you guys shit all over them.

The name sucks - the idea, I cant comment on as I havent even looked at their site - but I am sure, being 19 and 20, they have a LONG career ahead of them and lets hope they continue to think up new things and with having a connection with Richard at this early phase of their lives that is fantastic.

This is ridiculous. I actually started reading with a really positive mind, but Richard Branson is never going to see any of that $1M.

- Scott... got the idea when his computer crashed and he lost a spreadsheet containing all his usernames and passwords.

Using this as a story to explain his startup is awful. So, you are running a tool to manage passwords, where you previously stored everything in a spreadsheet? This guy obviously knows a lot about security. Where can I sign up?

As far as moments of inspiration go, I don't think this one would rank very highly in the tech community.

It'd be a great story if it ended with "and that's why I decided to use 1Pass!"

I agree, but I don't think the product is aimed at us. I would imagine it's aimed at people who e.g. are currently storing their passwords in a spreadsheet.

And how long do you expect the company to last after it loses its first million passwords?

"Unfortunately, one of the things that makes the site so secure is that we do not disclose the exact encryption practices."

I don't know dude, sounds super secure to me.

It will probably fold just as fast as Sony's PSN, or LinkedIn, or Yahoo did, after their breaches.

Those are clearly not the same. This is a password management service; PSN, LinkedIn, and Yahoo are not. They were also well established companies with large user bases.

My point was rather that if they provide a convenient enough service, a lot of people may continue using it after a breach. As PSN, LinkedIn, and others have illustrated, most people actually don't care about passwords and security all that much, especially their target audience currently storing all their password in a spreadsheet.

That's harsh. I have to say, his pitch resonates with the common man more than you think. How many people keep their passwords in spreadsheets or other haphazard ways? Zillions. How many stop and think "mh, what's gonna happen if I lose this spreadsheet"? Not many -- otherwise they wouldn't store passwords in spreadsheets to begin with. Scott just reminded them that they'll be screwed at some point, and he's here to help. I expect part of the reasoning behind Branson's investment is that the man himself (or some of his minions) must have had the occasional lost-password-crisis here or there.

Clearly, with a bland but fairly descriptive name like MySocialCloud, they are not targeting paranoid geeks (the ones who worry about details like "who's running this service?", and would rather use services going by dorky names with random missing vowels), they are targeting the common man who stores passwords in spreadsheets. They are scratching an itch they themselves had, which is often how you validate your own business plan. I don't see why they should be ridiculed for it.

(This said, the whole post is just planted marketing of the lowest quality. Hardly HN-worthy, if you ask me.)

> Scott just reminded them that they'll be screwed at some point, and he's here to help.

Problem is: he doesn't know how to help, yet people are going to trust him because they don't know better. I'd bet they are going to store their users' password on an Excel spreadsheet, but they will take care to backup it often ;-)

There is LastPass already, and they are doing a great job. Competition is good, but why should we support clueless competitors?

That said, I'd bet MySocialCloud.com will succeed. Worse is better, isn't it? And now they have lots of money.

On their how it works page: "When you enter a password it gets emailed to us where we will manually enter it unencrypted into a massive spreadsheet."

I had to reread your comment a few times. Because I actually thought it was true and you were serious. Because it sounds consistent with the rest of the vibe I was getting about them. They're punching way out of their weight class, especially for their first venture. You can see it in their writing, their decisions, and I'd argue even their faces. Hopefully they pivot early enough over to something wiser and more nichey.

Heh, this story was amusing in many ways. Storing passwords in a spreadsheet is eye brow raising, and I'd venture that the first lesson after losing a passwords file should have been to figure out a better backup strategy. Going to the cloud seemed to be quite a reach, but apparently Richard Branson didn't think so. RB's a smart guy, but I'd agree that $1m is history, more or less.

Although I agree with you entirely, I can't help but play advocate of the devil here...

Dropbox started because of frustration over college documents that kept getting misplaced or lost. This guy obviously knows a lot about backups. Where can I sign up?

Good lord thanks for pointing that out. Kudos to him to have come up this far but that's certainly one team I'd not leave my passwords with.

There's a lot of over-the-top hating from the peanut gallery in this thread. I'll balance it out:

What a ride this must have been so far. They're doing a great job getting their name out there, that's for sure. An investment from Richard Branson and a co-founder of Photobucket, plus this article in Yahoo Small Business that is now trending the HN front page. I hope they're able to take this massive opportunity they've been given and turn it into a successful business.

Regardless of whether this is a good idea or not, to say they "turned a tweet into $1 million" is a bit of a reach.

They saw a tweet advertising an event which Branson would be at, borrowed several thousands of dollars from their parents to attend the event, and used that opportunity to get an email address that was capable of reaching Richard Branson, which they used over a period of time to develop some sort of relationship with him and another (Murdoch), and through a series of pitches both in person and remote, they secured initial funding.

... in a time when investors are desperately seeking anything to throw their money at that will get good returns. And it's hard to find software engineers. And, especially to less sophisticated investors, they just know "social" and "cloud" are the hot hot thing so they want to park some bets in something with those words involved. Thus... MySocialCloud.com

I just checked out the service and I don't understand what's with the hate?

It's a Pinterest/Delicious/LastPass mashup, and while I would not trust them with my passwords (they really should rephrase that explanation, or give a real overview of their security measures), there are plenty of people who will (my parents still store their passwords in simple text files :-)).

If they add RSS-reader functionality, I can actually see myself using the site as a home page!

I believe it's got potential - they'll have to work hard on the marketing and keeping even or ahead of the competition, though...

...and so we told Richard, "Hey, just sign up for LastPass!" He was so grateful, he gave us a million dollars.

This reads like there is something missing from the story. They already had an office and a 9 person team, but they needed to borrow $4k from their parents to meet Branson?

What a ridiculous country. It is OK to lend them $1M but illegal to offer them a cocktail?

Wow. This has both bubble and disaster written all over it. May things go much better than that for them, though, of course. But it reads more like a parody or a list of warning signs than an article about a real new business.

Here's a better venture idea based on the experience, "Scott... got the idea when his computer crashed and he lost a spreadsheet containing all his usernames and passwords."

How about designing computers that crash when users try to store usernames and passwords on them. Users will eventually learn to stop doing that.

There's nothing wrong with storing usernames and passwords. There is something wrong with storing them in a spreadsheet.

> he got the idea when his computer crashed and he lost a spreadsheet containing all his usernames and passwords.

Sounds like a good idea to entrust him with all your passwords then.

The more I see things like this, the more I believe I have no idea how the world works.

It just reinforces my feeling that it's easier for simple, bad ideas to get funding than complicated, good ones. Modulo the reporting, of course.

Your last sentence is probably the most insightful on the thread. We really have no idea what actually happened.

Indeed - I go forward on this assumption. The world is not consistent, logical or sane. It just exists. Move forward and exploit what you can to survive.

By world I mean human society. Physics/Maths is logical, but the people that inhabit it do not have such restrictive constraints.

Everybody lies. Incentives rule.

Great story

This startup app stores your encrypted passwords on DropBox: http://passboxapp.com/

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