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abbasmehdion Dear Google, Thanks For Copying My Startup But You’re Doing It All Wrong

Agreed. Also, Google's weakness that a startup can exploit is their almost non-existent Customer Service. Google wants to scale massively from day one, so manual, 1-on-1 support can never be part of the plan (unless they go meta and create a Helpouts for Helpouts, probable actually). If Google entered my space, I'd just up the customer hand-holding game and start posting testimonials about it.

Kevin Hale of Wufoo comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBWFfxE2658

abbasmehdion Flutter (YC W12) acquired by Google

Congrats Mehul and Navneet! Very happy to see such a positive outcome. Can't wait to see what you do with Google's firepower behind you.

abbasmehdion Luma (YC W12) acquired by Facebook and integrated into Instagram video

The technology is fantastic, love how good the videos come out. Really looking forward to what Instagram does with it. Congrats to the brothers.

abbasmehdion Why we're building Loom

Yes, Clariso is still very much around. In fact, I introduced their product to an organization that is used by large hospital chains to outsource radiology reports to, these guys have tens of full-time, in-house radiologists looking at hundreds of reports all day, every day. Their immediate reaction after checking out the product? Blown away! The best alternative costs them over $100k/year and it feels like Windows95. Their CTO could not believe such a solution was even possible. The CEO (a radiologist with >25 years of report-reading experience) said to me that this could be "revolutionary".

abbasmehdion Why I'm quitting Facebook

You know, you're probably right. I was one of those FB users who ended up with a large number of connections on FB, and then it felt like a runaway train. I tried to adjust the privacy settings but they seemed to be designed to trip users up every step of the way. Finally last week I deactivated my account. For me it has been wonderful, I don't waste time on long "quick breaks" any more. FB might be our generation's TV - a huge time-sink and a major productivity black hole.

abbasmehdion Cube (YC W12) Goes Deeper Than Your Standard iPad Register

You would think that for non-enterprise customers, they would charge more.

You mean charge less? In my limited experience enterprise customers are less price sensitive and more "how do I not get fired for choosing this vendor over the status quo" sensitive.

abbasmehdion Instacart stops selling alcohol for compliance reasons

Couldn't agree more. When you are a startup founder you are often times inventing a new way of doing something. Often there are no pre-written rules, you make them up as you go along and you find yourself doing things previously thought to be unthinkable. Most problems do have a work-around. I will not be surprised if in 2 weeks this founder solves this trivial problem by going to locally owned stores and working out a cash-flow arrangement (independently owned stores will be delighted by the lead-gen).

abbasmehdion Why First Round Capital funded a lawsuit

I wonder what role an NDA played. Any ideas? I know in startup-land NDAs are non-existent, but in my past life as a product manager for a medium sized company, the biz dev guys would always have an NDA signed before letting the company get too close with a new partner. Maybe new-world startups should have NDAs when working with old-world big cos (where NDAs are common and prevalent, and maybe even respected)? No idea here, just hoping to hear some enlightened thoughts.

Edit: clarity.

abbasmehdion University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

Are there details about how others did etc.?

Regards, Bitter UBC grad...

abbasmehdion How to Get Startup Ideas

I feel your pain. It's hard to find the balance between saying what problem you're solving vs how you're solving it.

This is what I suggest you do. It might cost you ~$50 or so. Go to a coffee shop like Starbucks and offer someone to buy them their coffee in exchange for some feedback on the "new website you're building". Try to find normals (not super technical folks, unless that's your target audience). Explain to them what you're building, let them play with the site (hey this is also a nice UX test), take your notes whatever but in the end, ask them to explain to you what your site does. Maybe if you do this with 10 or so people you might see a pattern emerging (bonus: get pretty good feedback on product too).

I am not saying this will work, but this will not be a waste if the people you talk to are anything close to your target audience.

P.S. What Emmett is saying above is to give him a one sentence description that brings him as close as possible to cloning your site. Also, do you really need "externalize opinions"?

abbasmehdion Ask HN: In the beginning, should I improve growth or improve the experience?

It's better to have a few people love you than lots of people kinda like you.

abbasmehdion My entire entrepreneurship story in 10 minutes

Though I've only talked to Justin a few times, he is one of my favorite people to get advice from. Between his five startups and entire adult life spent building them, he has not only seen most problems founders face, he has actually experienced them multiple times. This means not only do you get excellent advice, but also that he has a lot of compassion and empathy for founders because he knows exactly what it feels like to go through them.

Here is a follow up email I sent to Justin after discussing a problem we were struggling with at the time (his advice was great as always, even better was how optimistic we felt after speaking with him - that IMO comes from him being in the same place as you in the past and being able to relate to what you might be going through).

Justin I know you're a busy guy and have no time for fluff emails, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and tell you how awesome your advice was and how great we feel after office hours with you today. As you know, startups run on morale and I wanted to thank you for topping off our tank.

abbasmehdion Exec launches professional cleaning service

Pathjoy seems to specialize in cleaning only. I really loved using them. The whole before, during, and after experience was seamless and great. The lady they sent over was extra sweet and stayed out of our way while she cleaned. She even left a note on her way out that really showed how much pride she took in her work and how hard she was willing to try to meet her own standards (which beat my standards of "clean" ;-) ).

abbasmehdion Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

Death is inevitable, these mistakes aren't.

abbasmehdion Free Online Education Is Now Illegal in Minnesota

I'd love to learn which government official and department is responsible for this action so we can direct our dislike of this decision towards them.

P.S. The ML class Andrew Ng is teaching on Coursera is phenomenal by the way.

abbasmehdion Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing the risky innovative companies that America is.

This could also be a culture thing. When I was in Canada until 5.5 years ago the golden ticket was to work for a big co. I was an ECE major and the top employer of choice was, even for me, BC Hydro (power company). I have no idea anymore why I'd have thought like that, but maybe now I am brainwashed this way. :-)

abbasmehdion Why Startups Are Helping The Economy More Than You Think

I think "people who just say "technology is destroying jobs"" should just be ignored, like their predecessors were when they decried plant robotics replacing assembly line workers.

This is the circle of life, just like the newest wave of immigrants takes the shittiest jobs in the economy, the shittiest (mindless) jobs in the economy are eaten up by technology. This has been going on in this country (US) since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

P.S. Great article btw.

abbasmehdion Startup Economics

Just for quick and dirty calculations, not betting the farm on it. Thanks for the cautionary message though.

abbasmehdion Startup Economics

Thank god for this (coming from Excel)

abbasmehdion Ask HN: Help me find a lost opportunity.

cognitive health innovations?

abbasmehdion Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

For all those applying, this blog post was really helpful when we applied. We were in the W12 batch.

http://www.giftrocket.com/yc-application-checklist

abbasmehdion YourMechanic (YC W12) launches in South Bay (at TC Disrupt)

Royalty check, please! ;-)

abbasmehdion YourMechanic (YC W12) launches in South Bay (at TC Disrupt)

Another happy customer here. What really surprised me about YM was they told me upfront how much a service would cost and while getting the service came the most pleasent surprise of all, the mechanic said I did not need front brakes, just the rear, and the quote YM gave originally was chopped in half! And finally, the guy was so nice and friendly, it felt like you were dealing with the owner.

And before I got the YM service I did call the dealer and a few other shops. The dealer would not quote me a price until I brought the car in, had the wheels taken off and "inspected", this despite the fact that I told him I need a quote for replacing all four brakes and rotors on car type x - it was such a turn-off. Especially when I asked what the inspection would cost - $150 if I don't get it serviced there.

Really glad to see a company improving my experience, saving me time, and saving me money on a chore I don't enjoy.

abbasmehdion Entrepreneurship Flourishes for 54 Hours in Iran

You're absolutely right. On a global scale Iran is isolated. My issue was how using the word "entrepreneurship" instead of "web entrepreneurship of global scale" mis-positions Iran as having no civilian economy.

A friend's friend has made a fortune by cloning eBay for Iran seven years ago.

abbasmehdion Entrepreneurship Flourishes for 54 Hours in Iran

The title will mislead you into thinking that Iran is a communist (economically) country. I doubt that's the case because, though I am not Iranian and have never been to Iran, I have hundreds of Iranian friends whose families in Iran own big and small businesses. Some examples that come to mind immediately are a friend whose dad runs a medical diagnostic lab in Tehran, another whose family (brothers) runs an advertising agency, and one whose family manufactures household cleaning agents. Web entrepreneurship might not be thriving like in the US, but that is not the only kind of entrepreneurship and this title can lead one into believing that there are no successful entrepreneurs in Iran.

PS Mad props to Startup Weekend.

abbasmehdion Black Swan Farming

Then why aren't you a billionaire yet and why do you need Paul?

abbasmehdion Black Swan Farming

I think you might have not been down voted as much if you had written less sarcastically and with more practical solutions (versus ideological). The solutions you are offering are so general that by following this high-level point of view we can solve world peace, world energy and world poverty and still make the evening tea.

You see HN is mostly a community of "doers", and though the ideas you presented might have merit among circles of people who.. discuss big ideas (for the lack of a better description), a community of doers says and does things they can actually attempt doing today, tomorrow, or in a week with a reasonable probability of success. I am not attacking you, just trying to explain why I think you're being down-voted.

These might be helpful, specifically the comments section: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

abbasmehdion Black Swan Farming

I have once met Benioff (never have met MZ), and what really struck me as odd about him was how unfazed he was by occurrences that would really shake a regular person up and throw them in a spiral of self-doubt.

He seemed to never lose an ounce of morale from anyone telling him "no", he seemed to be doing this pretty naturally by never faulting or doubting himself but rather placing the blame on the nay-sayer. The take-away for me was someone whose morale cannot be broken is an unstoppable train. I have to be honest, it seemed full-fledged delusional to see someone never question them self based on other people (and some very important/influential people's) judgement. But that seemed to be him.

abbasmehdion Black Swan Farming

Interesting to observe from that really big successes are better executed versions of ideas/products that exist on the market in a big way already (e.g. airbnb, facebook, dropbox, google) and the reason they seem like a bad idea (to investors) is not because they offer something nobody wants, but because they already exist in a too-big-to-challenge of a way? And that they might also seem bad because their starting point might seem like a niche (facebook).

abbasmehdion JFK's Application to Harvard

I'd be curious to see Obama's application as well to compare the difference in quality when you don't have a brand name behind you, like Kennedy did.