Services Worth Paying For as a Startup | Hacker News Reader

Services Worth Paying For as a Startup

emadibrahim.com

51 pointseibrahim74 comments

Us: OneBox virtual PBX, Basecamp, Campfire, bit of GitHub, Slicehost for one-off servers, a managed colo.

I'm not sure Animoto was such a win for this guy; looks like a video just for the sake of having a video.

I'm not sure AngelSoft was a win at all; this seems even less effective than resume blasting services are for getting jobs.

If Basecamp was working well for him, I'm surprised he also needed RTM and "Joe's Goals".

Would really like a solid recommendation on a mailing list hosting provider (something like StreamSend); it is surprisingly hard to run even a private mailing list without landing in the Yahoo and Gmail spam folders now.

re mailing lists / newsletters:

I've had good luck with campaignmonitor.com. You can pre-test your send against ISP loopbacks for both spam filtering and final rendering checks. API for list mgmt, plays well with design staff. And one hopes their email standards project gains traction: http://www.email-standards.org/ .

Campaign Monitor looks awesome, but, like SendStream, it's for 1-to-many email broadcasting. I need something more like a listserv.

    apt-get install mailman ?

It's not that hard to set up, especially if it's just some sort of internal thing and you don't have to worry about things like clients. Even in that case, with a bit of fiddling it should work just fine.

Running mailing list software is trivial (I'm a qmail person, FWIW).

Running a mailing list that consistently delivers to Gmail and Ymail without landing in spam boxes is a different story.

Tried implementing DKIM+DomainKeys and SPF? Haven't had problems since I did that. (Though I don't run a big list via qmail -- only outgoing user notifies, signup, etc.) I'm using a qmail-remote wrapper for dk computation.

Great suggestions. I use RTM for personal TODO and basecamp for project management and collaborating with my team.

Like StreaSend is OK, I just chose them because they are cheap. But they do the job.

Ya but at least with StreamSend you get your own private IP address to use, and not a shared IP.

This guy would have more credibility if the post wasn't filled with affiliate links. The truth is that the right combination services will be unique to every business.

The recommendation of Dreamhost was a dead giveaway. They've had tons of uptime issues lately. They're cheap, for sure, but you get what you pay for.

Read the disclaimer on my article. Here it is again:

Disclaimer: I am sure you noticed that most of the links have a referral code. Don’t worry, that didn’t affect my recommendations or integrity (what is that?). I actually use all the services mentioned above. Plus we are bootstrapped and the economy is in the crapper so give me a break and use these links.

eibrahim,

your comments are getting down voted pretty bad. you're probably a nice guy, and i hate seeing so many downvotes because, you know, that can feel bad.

i have to admit that i downvoted some of your comments, too. hopefully there won't be a trainload of down votes.

anyway, i'd like to at least explain what i think is going on: i bet most of us went to your blog post with an open mind about services that are worth paying for. it's definitely a topic of conversation my partner and i have pondered before. some aspects of the blog post are a little...vacuous. the angelsoft one sounded particularly ridiculous to me. where's the meat of the advice? the affiliate links makes things seem even more slimey.

ok, so those comments are made here, hopefully not to harshly (critical is good, mean is not so good). your responses are defensive and, IMHO, unthoughtful.

for example, this disclaimer doesn't address my concerns of bias at all. in fact, it makes them worse!

> "Don't worry, that didn't affect my recommendations or integrity (what is that?)"

ok...you don't value integrity and don't have a reason for why your recommendations have substance, which is bad in itself but somewhat insulting in your view of readers.

i'm not sure i've communicated my point very well. ultimately, good luck, and i hope by thinking about your comments they'll fair better in the future.

Thanks for the constructive criticism. Actually, I am not offended the slightest bit. I was just being sarcastic and funny but I guess I didn't do a good job.

cool. my experience with other cultures--which may or may not be relevant to our exchange--is that humor and expected attitude vary wildly. i live with 8 other people, some for whom english is a second language, and humor is one of those areas where it feels like we're always miscommunicating. the web only exasperates this problem unless the site is obviously intended for hilarious entertainment. at any rate, i think the hacker community at large responds well to sincerity. remember that most of come here expecting intellectually interesting problems and solutions, rather than entertainment.

I don't mean to be a word nazi, but I think you mean "exacerbates."

It is a super cool word, and while it sounds like "exasperates," they are actually totally different. :)

haha. doh! i seem to mix those up a lot when writing. not on porpoise, of course.

You're doing it wrong man.

1. Keep the aff links out 2. Push it on social news sites 3. Get links 4. Get ranked in Google for a decent keyword 5. Insert aff links 6. Profit

Oh, you said "Don't worry," it's OK then.

As another data point, here's what we pay for at TicketStumbler headquarters:

GitHub, Light House, Amazon Prime, ATT's Usb Connect (back up internet), Comcast, Softlayer, The Week (magazine), Wired, Quickbooks Online Edition, Vonage

a super cool startup uses super cool services.

We're kind of forced to use Comcast :(, but they've actually been excellent. They were awful for me when I lived in DC.

Thanks. I really wish people would comment on the actual blog, so that others can benefit.

People do here.

Fred Wilson often says the same thing as if the Hacker News community should comment on his blog instead of on HN.

You could always provide a link to the Hacker News discussion :).

Done. I added a link to the HN comments in the post.

You know, someone should really, really make a widget that a blogger could add to the bottom of their posts that automatically picks up the HN submission link for that post and displays the current number of comments on HN.

HN is "stealing" the conversation. And that's just the way it is. But surely someone could create a little JS that would help bloggers point readers over to where the conversation's actually happening.

I don't think blog comments and the discussion here are equivalent. When you comment here, you're talking to the same people every time. People you "know", people with reputations and existing viewpoints you're already familiar with. There's a context greater than the article.

When you comment on a blog, you're talking to who knows who, who knows when. Conversations here also last. Commenting on a blog is hit and run, check it if your diligent. I follow up on my HN threads throughout the day and beyond.

Or just syncs them. It's funny how many times a person will manually leave the same comment both here and on my blog.

That would be an awesome feature for Disqus.

HN isn't stealing the conversation, nor is there any reason for the OP to request, expect, or wish that the comments here are actually posted there.

If this was a YouTube video, man, you'd want nothing to do with those comments. In either case, the comments originate from whatever place hosts the discussion. It's like thinking window should go into the store. But that's not what they're doing -- they're window shopping.

We've got trackbacks and tweetbacks.

This widget would give you "hack backs."

People write stuff for a variety of reasons, but often because they want to say stuff and have people respond to it. This guy wrote something and people are responding to it someplace other than the forum he created for the discussion. That's fine and all, but it sucks for him. I get that.

A little widget that at least says the post's on HN and has 14 comments, would be really useful. I send my journalism buddies over here all the time to read what you guys have to say about media/industry news. Would be neat to be able to branch that out a bit.

It doesn't suck for him. He should be happy people are responding AT ALL and that he's aware of where it is so he can participate.

The list:

  FreshBooks
  Basecamp
  DreamHost
  WooThemes
  Animoto
  Angelsoft.net
  StreamSend
  Remember The Milk
  Amazon Prime
  Amazon Web Services
  Joe’s Goals

The article also recommends the free Google services:

  Docs
  Calendar
  Mail
  Analytics
  Reader

Thanks for the summary, but you will be missing all the humor - it takes a lot of energy, coffee and cigarettes to add humor. And no, I don't feel bad that I spent an hour writing it :).

PS: No refund offered if article not found humorous

I wouldn't pay for angelsoft. If you think fundraising is done by submitting an online application to hundreds of angels and paying $250 to do so... all I can say is a fool and his money are easily parted.

I have never raised money before but I thought reaching so many investors for $250 is definitely worth it. It would cost me $250 to fly somewhere and meet ONE investor.

But like I said in my post, I don't know how effective it is. I will update my post in a couple of weeks with more information on its effectiveness.

So how the heck can you recommend something that may be just throwing away $250 bucks?

Take it off the list until you know.

Do you guys even read or do you just skim the list? Personally, I just skim the list but if you read it, I say: "It has only been 3 days, so I don’t know how effective it is, but so far, I really like it."

What do you like about it? If you paid $250 for something other than getting in touch with investors if not actually securing investment, I'd definitely like to know. Otherwise, it seems that "liking it" is not a useful evaluation of their service.

I have a 1-yr startup and we fight tooth and nail to go to career fairs and conferences for free. $250 is not something we spend lightly, especially on something that doesn't give us a good chance of meeting people in person. It all depends on your situation, though. Ours could be quite different.

> "I signed up and paid $250 to have my application submitted to thousands of potential investors and investor groups. It has only been 3 days, so I don’t know how effective it is, but so far, I really like it."

I like the fact that I can reach 1000s of investors instantly. I know this isn't a substitute for a real relationship and networking but the cost/benefit IMHO is pretty good.

It's like posting your resume on monster.com. Sure, you will have a better chance getting a job from people you already know and have a relationship with or by going to job fairs but does that mean you should post on monster.com?

FYI: As of right now, 16 investors have looked at my application on angelsoft and I got 3 thumbs up and 0 thumbs down. Whether all this translate into actual investments or not, I don't know. But stay tuned, I will report back. I will even come back and post the results here, so you don't have to visit my blog :)

I've experienced this firsthand (last startup I worked for did the angel cartel thing). Don't get your hopes up.

These angel cartels work in phases -- you start with a big pool of hopefuls, then if they "like" you, they start to require that you give more presentations, and attend more parties and whatnot. At each phase, the time investments get larger and larger, and ultimately, you have to put in a lot of effort for a relatively small amount of money.

Meanwhile, you'll find that you're competing with "startups" that aren't startups, or that are in completely different fields (some of the top-rated presentations at our sessions were for real-estate investors!) Very few people get funded by these things, relative to the starting pool, and those that do get funded tend to be "startups" that have relatively conventional business models (like the aforementioned real-estate people).

My impression is that angel cartels are gathering places for modestly rich people who want to get their feet wet in angel investing. Given that you really want your first investors to be experienced and helpful, these things probably aren't a good match for an early-phase tech company.

They mention on angelsoft that only 5% get funded. Take a look at these stats http://angelsoft.net/industry/index.seam

Hello fellow business man. I have a very interesting and time sensitive officer for you. We will connect you with 10,000 investors with millions of USA dollars $$$. We guarantee 100% funding. They have too much money LOL! This is legit.

Friend, email me as soon as possible so you can get the money to be rich! You only need to pay $1000 USA dollars before you get 100000 time that back LOL!

It is so easy. millions@investorsglobalsoft.co.ng

They have no companies list to show for.

I agree with others. Putting a service you don't know is worth paying for on a list called "services worth paying for" is misleading - and yes, most people skim long lists.

I changed the words around to make it a little clearer. And btw, I have no affiliation with them.

where are you based?

if you don't know any investors (if only by name) you're not networking hard enough.

It sounds like you have experience here. Do you have more networking advice or information referrals.

My startup is based in Boston. We have some MIT and Harvard professors on our board of advisors, but we don't have other connections to networks and investors, and our advisor board hasn't been able to give us good leads. We've engaged in fund-raising efforts through letters and applications, as well as by going to relevant conferences, sometimes on the schedule, sometimes just passing out stickers on the side (or the street when they kick us out). We talk to a lot of people and have a vibrant but fluxful volunteer community. How do we find investors? (or grants; we're currently a non-profit, but we have revenue models and would be ok with employing a for-profit partner model) thx (diN0bot @t bilumi org)

I'm no expert on this - I'm in Cambridge, UK and seeking investment. Just my experiences on what I'm doing :)

There's a few guys and girls, three or four - that I'm actively seeking. I found them from networking with cool startups and seeing who they recommended. [If you're curious, I'm looking for some guys at Index and Cambridge Angels]

I think then you have to really get "out there" and go to every business/startup/investment meetup/conference with a fistful of business cards. I've met some really interesting people who have offered various introductions.

I dont want to make it sound like you should "use" people for their contacts. Meet awesome people who are interesting and help them out - and just hope they'll repay you the favour. :)

Linkedin & YouNoodle are really great for this stuff - just be as sociable as possible.

I am in the DC metro area (specifically Arlington). Yes, I am not networking enough - it takes too much time and is not as fun as coding.

Seriously though, I just started this whole raising money thing a few days ago. So I am learning.

Speaking of networking, I am going to a happy hour tonight in DC.

I"m trying to pick the best investor for my project. I've got three lined up already - am I being too picky?

I'm in Manila, business plans are set, know-how is embedded (;)), but I'm trying to learn how to best protect my ass around this corrupt gov. and middle-gov officials.

Why pay for basecamp when unfuddle has a great free version?

I strongly recommend avoiding dreamhost. A Small Orange .com are far better, and only a little more money - its a balance.

I read advice, and agree, that you should never have to pay to apply for angel investment. Seems bizarre - If I were an investor and someone had just spent $250 to ask for more money ... Angel Investors try to make themselves as accessible as possible - go network! :)

Just my thoughts.

Thanks for the advice.

One thing I don't get is why people comment on hacker news and not at the actual blog post??? Sure it gives the link more points and push it to the top which will generate more traffic, but wouldn't it be more helpful if this comment was at the actual article so others reading it can benefit from it? Just a thought.

Karma whores.

But seriously, mostly we care more about talking to the HN community than we do about adding value to your article. When you say "more helpful," you mean more helpful to you and your readers. "More helpful" to me might mean more accessible to Hacker News.

Get used to this. The more your startup gets covered, the less control you'll have over the conversation.

Don't get me wrong, I love hacker news. I just wish there was a way to integrate this great discussion with my article. Wordpress hacker news plugin anyone?

There are lots of reasons to comment in different places. HN has a more pleasant UI (not as nice as Reddit's, though), I don't have to wait for the blog owner to approve my comment after moderation (or worry that they'll delete it if it's critical), I don't have to worry that it'll be rejected because it's too long or cites too many sources, I don't have to try to figure out what goofy markup the blog expects, and I can go back and see the replies to my recent comments fairly easily. And with the voting system it's easier to find the good comments.

There are advantages to doing it on the blog post itself, too. People who find the blog post a year from now will see comments on the blog post itself, most blog comment software at least supports more markup than just paragraphs and italics, the blog author is more likely to read it, etc.

just habit. I just like commenting on here as its nice and easy to track all my comments, and usually get more replies on here.

That makes sense. That's why I like disqus.com because it lets you track comments across all blogs using it.

I love disqus too :)

not the sense of community sadly. You want some form of aggregator that merges comments on here/digg/reddit with your blog.

Basecamp has a free version too. But unfuddle looks pretty good.

I liked that you used Animoto for a promo video, but I found my interest waning after about a minute and I eventually switched it off (the quick cuts don't work well with longer vids)

I think if you concentrated 1 or 2 ideas into each video and instead created several videos it would have more impact.

Just a thought :)

Great suggestion. I tend to lose interest after a minute or so as well - damn ADD.

We use Google Apps Premier, Salesforce (which is awesome) and Gradwell for VoIP (similarly awesome).

We're just about to start using Amazon S3 with some encryption for secondary backup.

What do you like about Salesforce?

please answer what you like about salesforce, vs. a nice customized installation of vtiger or sugar?

Our quick list...

github, lighthouse, AWS, Broadband, wireless broadband, Vonage, 1 server off amazon...

that is about it for us.

our list was:

Google Apps Premier Edition for mail/calendar/docs Google Analytics Godaddy as registrar Slicehost Callcentric for VOIP + Snom phones Flow Jamaica for internet (15 Mbps cable) + local phones Yousendit (paid) Constant Contact

Wow... I thought I was posting something useful for other startups and entrepreneurs, but for some reason, I am getting crucified in here :) Whew!!! tough crowd.

Yea, that's life on the internet for ya.

The article seems to be based on the premise that "we're bootstrapped, here's the essentials" ... but you're paying to submit to angel investors. Why? If you're able to bootstrap your company, you don't need angel funding (a later vc round, maybe).

I do like your writing style though.

Excellent observation. I think the problem is that I am currently at the crossroads of being bootstrapped and also considering funding. We have a ton of things that need to be done and can't really do them while bootstrapped. For example, we need an iPhone app and unfortunately, I don't develop for the iPhone. I can probably pick it up pretty quick but I don't have the time (resources) to invest in learning it and would rather pay someone to do it - hence the need for funding.

Thanks for the compliment.

" It is so low, I want to pay extra with my bill (but I won’t)."

Saying this for the only service you're actually paying for say much about what you truly believe about paying for startup services.

Don't forget Clicky Analytics.

Personal experience: Dreamhost is the suck. What I saved in hosting fees, I lost due to downtime ("oops, our bad") and absolutely no customer support to call and wonder what the hell is going on. I did some research into hosting, so did an Information Architect friend of mine, and Slicehost has got a good blend of price/reliability. Dreamhost, if you're doing anything with a decent margin or lifetime value of a customer, is a big no-no. Really big.

Important business mantra: "Always pay well for money." Hosting that's up falls into this category.

I'm a huge fan of Jott over RTM... I can't understand what's so great about RTM ;-)

I wasn't very sure about RTM either until I read this: http://sheenonline.biz/2008/06/super-charge-remember-the-mil...

There's still some things I'd like to see change about RTM, but discovering how to really get the most out of smart-lists and tags made me appreciate RTM a lot more.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com