Back of a napkin | Hacker News Reader

Back of a napkin

backofanapkin.co.nz

90 pointsjmduke21 comments

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I had no idea what I was going to get at the end, or why I was answering the questions.

"Answering five questions will help sort out some basics that are crucial to your future success."

Should probably read "and get a boilerplate legal agreement outlining..."

Annoying how the site creates history entries when scrolling -- would be nice if it used replaceState instead.

Pet peeve: crippling my back button

There's got to be a better way

I was going to write the same thing, why would you hijack the back button for something as simple as scrolling a webpage?

Maybe they fixed it, but it works fine on Chrome and Safari for me.

It's still broken for me.

Will the agreement be legally tenable? Also, it is NZ centric, can we adjust country settings?

In NZ, yes.

Given how different contract and company law varies between countries, I doubt it's portable. Someone could adapt the idea though.

This is my project, and you're correct. It's governed by NZ law. You'd need to get lawyers in other countries to check for you to be sure it would work there.

Very interesting concept, but I was sort of hoping it was a Fermi Problem estimator.

Even if it's not 100% legally binding, you wouldn't imagine how useful having something like this is. I am having exactly those kind of disputes in some personal project where it was 100% obvious what holds. People lie or misinterpret their place in a team.

Get something like this signed and then get a proper contract too before anyone decides to piss on the others work.

Slick, although I found it a bit simplistic. Funny how these things work, just a few days ago I uploaded a mockup for a similar idea (but with lots more options). It doesn't "work" but you can see all the steps in it if you want: http://cofounderagreement.com

It's definitely simplistic. It's designed to deal with collaborators coming together to work on a project where some IP may be created, but there's no company yet. Works best for groups like app developers, and it's no replacement for a proper shareholders agreement like your tool contemplates, but for a quick agreement so you can get started without confusion, it works pretty well.

That makes sense.

Also related is the ShipIt Journal developed by Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/freeprize/2012/05/the-shipit-jo...

Off-topic, but: Why "back" of a napkin? What's wrong with the front and did we run out of envelopes?

back of the napkin is a saying, you're at the bar having a drink with your friends, you've used the front of the napkin you wipe food off your mouth, then someone mentions some interesting problem and you turn your napkin over and scribble on it to explore the details.

A synonym for informal, "off the cuff", or "in the moment".

I think you missed the parent's critique. The saying is not 'back of the napkin', it's 'back of the envelope', or 'on a napkin'. No one uses an old wadded up napkin that had a drink on it - but plenty of ideas have come from, 'get me that napkin over there, I've got an idea' (a clean napkin...).

Exactly.

Front/back of an envelope makes sense, but not so much on a napkin.

Is "revenue" clear enough of a term for defining a split?

Similar and incredibly handy. Free too: https://openforbusinessplans.herokuapp.com/

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