aberman

Ivan, I genuinely respect your ability to keep a cool head. With a post like that, my first instinct would be to show the same lack of impatience and respect as the OP.

Anyways, welcome (back) to CA. I hope to run into you in Mountain View.

It would be WAY to arbitrary, and the harder you tried to make it work, the more it would look like what we have today.

Ultimately, a human (or multiple humans) would have to decide what was true, and what was false. I would almost be amused to see somebody ATTEMPT to do this job.

I think it's just because there are not as many teenage social media gurus.

Students hate paying for things. I think it will be very hard to make a paid model work on a scale that would see any kind of real revenue. The problem is only exacerbated by the fact that there are already a lot of similar free services out there.

You should ask the 12 Polish people injured in the collision.

Right, exactly my point. Luckily they DID get a "long run" --which might not be the case next time.

Sadly, he probably did them a favor in the long run. Gaping hole in transit security.

Well done. Looks cool.

Wow...first time I have seen the HN community more critical than the TC community.

Point taken. I can also see how my comment reads -- I certainly did not intend to suggest that you were not a good entrepreneur. I was trying to be tongue and cheek.

A startup is disruptive and highly scalable.

A good entrepreneur is concise.

Open Coffee. I think it is every Wednesday morning at Andala Cafe in Cambridge. It was started by Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital and Nabeel Hyatt of Conduit labs. I think somebody created a meetup for it.

Some weeks are better than others, but there is usually a good crowd (although, I have not been there since May, so it might have changed).

Kevin Rose of Digg spent his last $6,000 (which him and his gf were saving to buy a house together) on Digg. A few weeks later his gf broke up with him. A few months later, he was on the cover of business week. I think he is a hero, but for what it's worth, he has been known to say that he will never put business over his personal life again.

My only question: why would Betaspring NOT offer funding? If the founders have done such a great job raising money in the past (30 million, was it?), why not raise some more money now, and invest 20 grand in each of the young startups that they accept into the program? It's such a small amount of money, but when you ask a bunch of 20-somethings to move to RI for the summer (and give up equity), you should at least give them enough money to pay rent.

Betaspring offers to "line up investors who want to fund you" -- really? In this environment, that is a pretty ambitious claim. How many YC companies get the "immediate follow-on funding," that Betaspring refers to? Some...but we are talking Silicon Valley (and formerly Boston, the second largest entrepreneurial hub), and a really strong reputation.

I think these firms are generally a good idea, and a value add for young entrepreneurs. Look at the companies that have come out of YC, and see what they are saying about their experiences. I just think some firms are better than others...

3,000 #moonfruit tweets in a row.

Tweets about how many followers you have (i.e. just reached 8,000 followers)

Move to Silicon Valley. Take a job that pays decently. Live frugally. Network your ass off. Look into a variety of different opportunities and startups -- maybe even start a few small projects, or help others start their's -- and the minute you find something that really excites you, quit your job and work on it full time (with a bunch of capital to get you started).

Hmmm....startups should take on inefficient businesses, not the MOST EFFICIENT BUSINESS EVER (Walmart).

I actually like it a lot. At first I thought it looked stupid because it was too simple -- but then I realized that was the whole point. It's really simple and really easy to use.

The other comments are a bit harsh, but they are also accurate. The problem with all the other sites that do exactly the same thing is that they have no liquidity. You have/will have the same problem. Pound the pavement.

Two, short English words, followed by .com

I could not agree more with the above post. Really well put.

I think a video tour or screen cast, if done right, would answer a lot of these questions.

I could not disagree more.

"Attendees looking to invest in new companies probably like DEMO because the presenters are convinced enough they have a great product that they'll come up with the funds to go there."

Or they are desperate enough to pay $20,000 for some attention from the tech blogs and one month of hype with the VCs. All those online networks with "over X many angels and VC's" prey on the same kind of startups. Pay to pitch some angel network.

"At TechCrunch50, investors can see a different sort of startup. One who has a lot of potential, but may not have had the drive/opportunity to gather any real money in the first place."

Empirically incorrect. A lot of them have raised quite a bit of money before TC50.

"From a purely investment risk perspective, companies that are already finding capital with a good idea and a good demo have more going for them than startups that merely have an idea and a good demo."

True. But if your first two premises are wrong, this one is moot.

Definitely appreciate the playing devil's advocate -- this is not a personal attack.

What is unusual is the frequency with which AOL pulls this shit. Yes, other companies have been known to hit their customers with bogus charges, but nowhere near the extent to which AOL has. It's basically their business model. You simply can't cancel an account.

When are these people going to learn? AOL has reached the point where their original product does NOTHING except detract value. Just drop it AOL because the fourteen 85-year-olds that are still using it are going to be dead soon anyways.

People still use AIM (still not sure why), and sometimes frequent some of your other media outlets. Focus on those, and stop charging (former) customers for services they don't use or want.

"In 1879, Henry George...published Progress and Poverty, a scathing polemic that blamed all economic ills on the private ownership of land.[he] found it perverse that we tax productive activities like work and innovative investment while letting landowners grow rich simply because they scooped up property at the right time. "

People don't really get rich simply by owning land -- well, not since the Industrial Revolution in early 1800s. One tax on land would have made sense then, but it would not make sense now. People now make money on land by buying and selling it -- as an investment. By taxing land now, you would be doing what you are trying to prevent, namely, taxing productive behavior.

I can't think of a modern day equivalent to land 200 years ago. The closest I can get is inheritance -- tax people for winning the lucky sperm club.

Well, if he is still using myspace, at least he is not a racist :)

I was 9 when the Lion King CD came out. My parents did give it to me on Christmas, and they tried to play it for me on a new computer.

It was my first experience desperately trying to hack a computer system. If that had never happened, I may never have acquired an interest in computers.

Thank you Disney, for sucking so much.

Is the article attributing a racist agenda? Or is it talking about an empirical reality. If the average facebook user is indeed more educated than the average myspace user, it's certainly worth talking about. Even if it is not the case, it certainly seems to be the general perception--as a friend of mine recently said: "myspace if for pedophiles and dropouts, facebook is for everybody else."

How did you build it in the first place?

I second the comment below. Release it, and hope that somebody likes it enough to take you to the next level.

Ideas are not worth much-- all that matters is execution (your predicament is a case-in-point). If all you bring to the table is the idea, then you should give it away to somebody that can do something with it. Anybody capable of stealing your idea and making it a reality without your help is already working on something else.

A piece of advice I hear often: "if you are not embarrassed by your first release, you have released too late." Post a link to the app, it's your only hope.

If you are actively looking to invest, contact YC and ask about demo day. I'm sure there will be a lot of YC startups looking for more firepower (in the form of a small angel round) at the end of the summer. Added benefit: YC has already done a lot of the vetting for you.