badatmath

I for one think that they are "gaming the system," but I don't see that as a bad thing. It's great that these kids are entrepreneurial enough to proactively push their product. It's clearly a very effective way to title a post, and they aren't lying or doing anything unethical, so what's the problem? All I know is, if I was 14, I would definitely post my age, and I sure as hell wouldn't feel guilty about it.

Agree 100%. Also, I think it's a positive, because it means the poster is proactively thinking about how to get attention for his product, as opposed to being the "proud closeted genius".

What's wrong with using every advantage you have? If it helps bring attention to your product, you should use it. Let's do a simple cost-benefit analysis:

Benefit: A lot of users are (cheaply) drawn to the post. Some snobby coders are going to be upset, but still check out your product so that they can complain about it.

Cost: Some really vindictive coders might go out of their way to slander you? (Man, I really hope not...)

Nice analogy. I'm hoping to find a girl that doesn't yet realize she's pretty enough to be a model, and hasn't yet developed that diva attitude ;)

Would you ever consider being a cofounder before the MVC is built?

I guess you're saying that you'll only build MVCs for cash, but then will consider joining as a cofounder afterward if the project looks promising and you can work out a fair equity agreement?

Thanks for the info. Very helpful. Will check out those sources!

> you're either stupid or you really do believe in your business.

haha, I'll refrain from trying to answer that for now ;) You're right in that by far the most challenging part of the learning so far was the first day, and trying to get rails working on a Windows PC. For a person with no technical background, it takes a huge amount of persistence or stupidity to get past that stage.

I actually learned to program so that I'd be in the position to build my own MVCs. The idea came to me as I was learning.

I don't have a lot of money, so I figured the only way to win over a good developer was with credibility (an actual product that at least somewhat works and has some traction).

Thanks for the feedback. I will check it out!

Yeah, Japanese people are shockingly bad at English. The idea is for Japanese users that CAN read English to provide short summaries of interesting English articles. While the Japanese media is pretty open and liberal, there are still some topics of (possible)importance that never make it into the headlines there. The US media isn't necessarily great, but if you can read English, you have access to A LOT of info to form your own opinion.

Thanks. Really appreciate the feedback.

It's so tempting to keep build quick and sloppy, but I know I need to be more diligent with testing and documenting.

I'm setting a relatively low target number of users to acquire just to make sure this idea has a chance, before bringing on a developer.

Very broad question, but how does one find an experienced developer? I live in New York, but have zero tech connections.

Novice with 7 months of learning here. Quit my strategy consulting job to focus full time on learning to code, and am currently working on this project, built in Rails, on Heroku (it's all in Japanese, but the concept is similar to Hacker News/Reddit) http://www.daidake.com

Is this a bad idea? Would like to hear your thoughts. I have to admit I do feel like I'm in a little bit over my head, in that once/if I start getting a lot of users, I really have no idea how to scale this thing. I figure I need to start networking to find a brain that wants to team with me.

I'm glad I've learned to program though, even if at a beginner level. If this fails (I already have a previous project that was a resounding failure), I can test out new projects easily.

Yes, now that I recall, I believe this was a very popular topic in Japan a few years ago (I wasn't in Japan to see it first hand). It was referred to as "India-style multiplication," and some guy(s) sold millions of instructional books. http://math.hoge2.info/kakezan/pr04.html

However, don't think it involves the drawing of lines like in the post.

32 year old Japanese here. I can unequivocally say I've never seen anything like this in my life. Possibly the younger generations, but I somehow doubt it, as people are pretty slow to adopt completely new teaching methods. Pretty cool though...