aberman

"Mudge submitted an early version of AtD to Y Combinator Demo Day, Spring '09 and was promptly rejected."

I imagine that YC rejects EVERYBODY that applies to YC DEMO DAY.

What you describe sounds more like a small business than a startup. YC only funds startups (i.e. scalable and disruptive). The two are not synonymous. YC primarily funds software and web-based companies because you can create a scalable and disruptive web-based company on $20k.

No, but obviously better if you have one.

"other than as an indicator of the aforementioned smarts & personality"

Shouldn't that be enough? Having an idea gives you a starting point from which to iterate.

I am getting tired of all these articles analyzing twitter's userbase and the nature of tweets. Yes, there are a lot of spammers and "marketing gurus" on twitter. Yes, people tweet about nauseatingly stupid shit.

Use twitter how you want to use it, and how you get the most value out of it. Follow people whose tweets you enjoy reading. Can't we just leave it at that? Leave the rest of the twitter over-analyzing to TC, they certainly do enough of it.

This augmented reality thing is crazy. I was skeptical when I first heard about it, but every demo I have seen has blown my mind. This is by far the coolest application of AR that I have seen.

If an actual rockstar ever becomes a programmer, they are going to be in very high demand.

I hear really good things about Mixpanel

Can somebody please explain to me what a "business coach" really does, and how one qualifies for that position?

Not trying to be smug, i'm genuinely curious...

Yes, and I couldn't even tweet about it!

"Different organization sizes are appropriate for different tasks."

Yes, if you are making chairs or cars, it makes sense to have more people (up to a point of inflection where the diminishing returns would make adding new workers grossly inefficient).

HOWEVER, if we are talking about startups -- disruptive, scalable businesses -- they are, by definition, more efficient than big companies. I would make this argument myself, but it has already been made pretty well by PG:

http://paulgraham.com/boss.html Startup founders seem to be working in a way that's more natural for humans...each species thrives in groups of a certain size...groups of 8 work well; by 20 they're getting hard to manage; and a group of 50 is really unwieldy.

http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html You could probably work twice as many hours as a corporate employee, and if you focus you can probably get three times as much done in an hour. You should get another multiple of two, at least, by eliminating the drag of the pointy-haired middle manager who would be your boss in a big company. Then there is one more multiple: how much smarter are you than your job description expects you to be?

http://paulgraham.com/avg.html In a big company, you can do what all the other big companies are doing. But a startup can't do what all the other startups do [this is why/how startups can beat the average].

It's hard to argue that startups are not more efficient than big businesses.

I could not believe dropbox was left off that list. It's the first one I thought of when I saw the post title.

Reed Hastings tried this experiment in 1997 with DVDs. It worked, and he founded Netflix.

Billionth app downloaded, and now this?!

When are you guys gonna be invited on stage after Jobs's keynote, Loopt style?

I totally thought this was going to be an article about the Morris Worm. Damn!

These guys are really awesome.

Here is why he is wrong

1. You won't be your own boss. Yes, your customers will tell you what they want, but ultimately YOU decide the direction of your product/company. In this sense, you most certainly are your own boss.

2. You won't like your personal life. Unless you are passionate about what your business, and you love what you are building. Also, this is empirically and anecdotally wrong.

3. You won't succeed. Every startup fails for one reason: the founders quit before they build something people like. There is no other reason for failure (esp. in the case of software). I will defend this point separately, if need be.

4. You'll hate the problems. By definition, problems are problematic. But the problems you are trying to solve in YOUR business will be a lot more engaging than the trivial problems you are working on in a large company.

5. You'll be a jerk.

I don't even know how to respond to this one. Have you ever worked in a big office? Go to passiveaggressivenotes.com -- I bet that 99% of the content on that site comes from cubicle-style offices.

6. You'll hate your lifestyle.

Empirically wrong. It's a challenging lifestyle, but whether you hate it or not depends more on your personality type than on the lifestyle itself.

7. Again, you'll fail. c.f. 3

This isn't advice insomuch as it's a warning. Advice implies that the OP is recommending some course of action.

Congrats guys. Good article by TC.

You guys are gonna kill it. You deserve it. Great concept.

I totally agree with this. Get some good analytics tools. Mixpanel launched today, and I am a big fan. Maybe its worth trying out.

I checked out your site--your non-spam post motivated me to find it :)

I think you guys have a pretty cool product. Maybe you should concentrate on one specific vertical. Right now you are trying to market to everybody, which may be tough. But if you can pick one particular use case, it might be easier to develop a marketing strategy.

Also, make everything free for the first X users. That will really motivate people to sign up. Right now $75/month seems pretty expensive.

I have seen Mixpanel in action, and I think it's by far the best solution out there.

Congrats on the official launch.

Agree, but it depends on what you mean by "idea guy." Is this guy going to make sure that the lights stay on? Is he going to market the company, make the sales calls?

If he just came up with the idea, I would give him a few percentage points and say "thanks." If he is going to be the mastermind behind the execution and the driving force of the company, then I think he is tremendously more valuable, and his equity stake should reflect that.

"The first thing I notice when I look at an application is the username it was submitted under. If it's one I recognize for making thoughtful comments on Hacker News, I give the application extra attention."

I was actually surprised by this. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense, but I would never have even thought of this.

If design is tantamount to usability, it is the second most important aspect of your site (behind functionality, in my opinion). If design = drop shadows and rounded corners, I would put it on the bottom of my priority list.

I use dropbox for everything. I can't imagine a better solution.

In two weeks, Ev and Biz will be calling Arrington to offer him an exclusive on some new twitter feature. TC did nothing wrong in releasing the documents. If anything, Arrington was incredibly transparent over the past few days (albeit, in his usual abrasive manner).

I think 100 years from now, we will look back at this current lack of interest in space exploration as one of the biggest missed opportunities in human history.

I think it's free for now.