adityakothadiya

Agree with edw519 on many points, but those suggestions are not a long-term solution. Take his advice as "hope" medicine for your current situation. But I wouldn't say keep waiting for green card and keep running your startup in the part-time.

I'm in the same boat. And I completely understand how frustrating it is. So take this thread's advice to come out of frustration, but don't stop to find a real solution.

I'm also working to find a solution for this problem. Talked to few people who have done this before, reading some info on http://lawbench.com regarding similar cases, talked to lawyers and will be talking more lawyers for specific personal situation. Everyone's situation is different so general advice won't apply in such cases.

At the end, don't give up. Find a solution. Don't settle down for the part-time. I'm not going to settle for part-time either. Worst case, I'll have to take extreme steps once I know that I knew all possible solutions, and tried all of them, but there is just a solution that fits my situation. At that stage, Teddy Roosevelt's situation won't look similar to ours - and it will make sense to quit Green Card trap and take a leap.

What's up with these types of news lately where Founders are leaving their baby before taking it to the final destination or continuing the amazing journey?

Few days ago it was RescueTime's founder, and now today it's Xobni.

I'm more interested in understanding the true psychology/thought-process of these founders leaving their companies in someone's hands when it's already on a good path. Do they get tired or bored of working on their idea? Or do they get more excited about new opportunities.

The main concern is, what about their persistence and "don't give up" attitude as an entrepreneur? When they will go for starting new business, will investors, partners and employees will trust these guys again that they will stay in that new business until it reaches to successful destination?

Just curious to know what goes in the minds of these founders when they take such decisions...

I think the most important part is - "but the bigger benefit is you know how the entire system is architected and the code you’ve written impacts millions of people".

Seriously, you feel empowered when you know why the system is architected this way and not that way. Its immense satisfaction when you can see through how the entire flow works, how a new feature fits into the bigger product vision, how to debug complex issues by traversing through bunch of different code hierarchies/directories, etc.

You get this kind of wisdom only when you're in the those first few.

On the side note, it would be great to hear first-hand stories from her about how she got hired, how much salary + equity (in approx. range) she received, how was the performance rewards system for an early engineer.

I think the correct title would have been - "Why I won't work at Microsoft, again.".

I don't think it's a valid argument against Google without having any data-points. I've seen many Startups also don't finish their features/products and throw away when they realize this is not the right thing to do.

Overall, don't generalize too much. Experiences are different for different people at different places.

Great. Thanks for the recommendation.

How does a startup approach/contact you if it's looking to raise funds? I understand you don't lead the rounds, but you might potentially introduce a startup to lead investors.

Fair enough. I totally believe that don't judge startups from where they are now, but judge them based on where they will be after few years.

I just had a different experience when I met you the other day at Chirp and demoed our app. It was a 4 month app developed in the part-time, has a decent traction, and growing at decent rate, but with great potential in future. I was more interested in explaining you my vision and getting your feedback on it, but it seemed like you gave lot of emphasis on its current usefulness and didn't seem to imagine how great and useful the app would be in few months.

So I was just curious, how your thought process works. But I'm glad that you seem to believe in the approach of what we potentially can achieve based on what we have achieved so far.

Thanks for your reply!

Sometimes I'm more interested in knowing the thought process of PG and YC about why they decided to invest in such idea. What they see this as a business opportunity? Or technology opportunity? Or just big market opportunity? What is it that made PG and YC to invest in this?

And this is just out of curiosity - to learn what they have seen that I'm missing and cannot see.

The title is so incorrect. Knowing maxklein is author of this blog, I thought it's his story when he has "My" in the title. He should say - "Someone's co-founder took his company and his girlfriend."

Why people skew the titles so much, keep it vague, and sometimes even incorrect to just get the eyeballs?

I'm a EE in a day job. I design processors. I write programs in hardware descriptive languages such as Verilog and Object Oriented languages such as SystemVerilog. I write Perl, Shell scripts too.

Every day, I write code.

I build websites in the part-time too. I write all PHP, CSS, MySQL, Javascript on my own, and build beautiful websites like http://shopalize.com.

Every night, I write code too.

So trust me, we're competent.

Liked the idea. Very useful concept. Will try for my prep now.

Generally it goes to YC startups by default.

This sounds reasonable, but wouldn't I look like another "idea guy" if I keep bouncing off a list of different ideas to other entrepreneurs or VCs?

Wouldn't they would like to see me being passionate about one market, one idea, have detailed research about it, being committed about it?

It's very easy to bounce of bunch off ideas with VCs or entrepreneurs - if they are your friends. But it doesn't seem to be very logical approach for first time entrepreneurs.

This is what I follow -

1. I create "Today's list". This is little different than "To-do" list. Today's list contains tasks that I want to finish today - with each task assigned some deadline. Tasks are quite detail tasks - which takes 1-2 hrs. Like breakdown to features, bugs, reading chapter, etc.

2. I don't sit for long in front of computer in one stretch. I drink lot of water, so generally have to take breaks quite often. During that break (from computer) I talk to myself 2 things - "1. You're doing good - push more. 2. Now the next thing I want to do is _______."

3. Keep the browser/chat window closed if it's not required.

4. Even if I start reading HN/Twitter - I don't read everything. I know my time limits, I know things I want to build, so I know I cannot spend lot of time in consuming information. So just browse headlines, don't click every link. If headline is compelling, or source is trusted, then click it.

5. Keep deadlines - have pressure, and tell your deadlines to someone - friend, wife, colleague. Be answerable to someone. This trick worked quite often for me.

What is interesting to note - the date of the article is "Feb 1, 2010". :) I guess Inc. released the article earlier than planned.

There is one more - http://tipd.com/ It's based on Pligg.com.

If the pie is big enough, then you'll have your share. It's unreasonable to expect you to own 100% of your market. So if the market is big, there can be many players. Even the idea/product is same, you can still have your own presence.

Having competition just makes you work even smarter and harder than before. So go for it.

As a matter of fact, I'm in the same boat as yours, and I'm not giving up!

Clickable - http://www.socialblazeapp.com

Ideally it's not. But I've seen all YC alumni and founders upvote all other YC company related posts within very short amount of time. Just add (YC Year) in subject line, and it gets an upvote from other YC fellow.

I guess everything is fair in love, war and marketing (your startup or you). :)

Startup conference event. But we met 2-3 times in different conferences, recognized each other every time, updated our progress about what we did from last conference, and eventually decided to meet for coffee.

After 3-4 coffee meetings, we decided to join the hands.

And I'm very happy with the results. Its been 2-3 weeks only we started working together, but I already started seeing huge benefits.

What about privacy? So looks like this isn't useful for sending private and serious mails.

Immigration processing is one, atleast in US.

I've still not understood why it takes 4-5 years to USCIS office to grant or deny residency of an applicant. How can that process be so slow? All papers and evidences are submitted on day one. Then why it takes 4-5 years to process back-log applications and then process yours.

I know there is quota per country for per year. But not all quotas are full by all countries. Why can't they do shuffling and do dynamic quota management?

This inefficiency is frustrating to many individuals, so definitely need some technical innovation to process things efficiently.

curious to know what's their business model, or will be?

Nice UI and features, but I have basic problem - what does Qwanz mean? I'm not able to correlate to its idea. Its very hard to remember...so very unlikely to come back... Just my $0.02!

The post is really great! Very practical advice. But this is not really new advice. I've read this before at different places, may be in bits and pieces. But unfortunately I'm not very successful at it.

I think not looking within your close friends is probably a good advice. So I tried attending different events, met different people, but the problem is building that trust in few meetings that you have with friends.

I completely understand that it's not the right strategy to do it alone, and I'm actively looking for a co-founder, but still not getting luck.

I think I'll try to follow this advice again, and will see if I find any luck.

Your advice is welcome too...

If you're an iPhone user, then try NatureSpace app with sounds of natural resources. It's really pleasant, effective, and free too.

motorcycles are not covered, not self balanced, and not useful for all weather conditions. something like car - a covered one.

To manufacture single-seater cars for daily commute. Saves fuel, traffic conjunction, parking space, maintainence, etc.

Too bad that there was no URL of StraighterLine on the first page of article. In a quick glance, it was hard to find which site/service they are talking about. Here is it for your convenience - http://StraighterLine.com

I've written extensively about this topic on my blog under title "What Makes Them Entrepreneurial?" - http://adityakothadiya.com/category/what-makes-them-entrepre...

Sorry for the shameless plug, but thought this is a relevant discussion.

I've almost covered 35 different traits of entrepreneurial people. I hope you will find them useful.