Hacker News Reader

Looks great but where is the catch? Are all those perks free or do startups need to give away equity or something like that? (I'm not a native speaker so I maybe miss something here.)

View on HN

Doesn't look like there's any equity involved. I suspect this is a way for Facebook to spot "the next big thing" as early as possible..?

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, which roughly means "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

One doesn't build a multi-billion company by giving things away.

Exactly, FBStart is no charity, so why do they do it? You don't even need to integrate your product with FB. I would love to apply but the offer is too good to be true.

Maybe a modern version: beware of geeks bearing gifts?

The saying is almost 2000 years old [1], so I think if somebody wanted to modernize it they've had the chance :P

[1] First writing appears in a text from AD 49

I work for Transifex, one of the FbStart partners. Startups accepted into the program don't have to give away any equity (neither did we, for that matter). For us, companies simply redeem a code on our site to get 6 or 12 months of the service free, depending on the track. I'd guess other partners have a similar setup.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com