Do you have any suggestions about how I can cover the costs? By the time I enter my gap year I'll just be out of highschool, which means: not a really great skillset on a professional level. That's why I want to work on that for a year and then check the possibilities I have. There won't be any other time I can imagine when I would be able to work on just my skills then a gap year (locked up in my room, maybe)
So basically all you're saying is: it's disneyland for techies, but after a while not that fun? Why do still the most successful entrepreneurs stay in the area then? Why did you move away btw?
I think publishing for yourself is the best way you can have it.
When you're publishing on your own blog, you can be covered on other blogs as well, but at the same time you can stay with your own image. When you link your blog on HN you get plenty of feedback and at the same time you're able to build your own audience as well.
Good luck with your writings!
Thanks so much for responding, I certainly must say that with the beta track running right now you guys did an awesome job. I think that when you guys follow this path, the coding education competition will be won by codecademy. I certainly have read the stories and some of them are quite impressive. Moreover, the question is wheter or not these people would have gone the same path without codecademy. By supporting more creativity to build things like they would build them for themselfs. For instance: make people write js whitin a html sheet and link a db to it, so it becomes more clear what to use certain things for and stimulates creativity. At least that is what I reconized from our in school coding classes, and that is what I missed at the codecademy courses. But by all means: I've got a great deal of respect for what you've built so far and with the people behind you I'm sure you are taking this to the next level. Ps: good to know: I'm a 16 year old high-schooler from Amsterdam.
If you didn't disclose any terms, and feel bad about asking any percentage, just tell them how you feel about it, tell him that from his perspective it's smart to just pay the 50k back, but you think it maybe was kind of an investment because it gave brith to the company it is today. I suppose you have a good relationship with the founders and you could easily discuss this over coffee. A convertible note would be an option too
Just tell them, if you do it correctly, you might get to know your competitor a little better and over time, there might be a way for you guys to focus on different markets with the same products, discussing difficulties you both have and so on. Eventually you want to look yourself in the mirror and be happy with what you've accomplished, and not be ashamed of what you've accomplished.
Lol, that's not hard because it's hard, that's hard because you make it hard. These are 2 whole different problems. A name certainly can help to a startup (i.e. seo), but a startup is only a startup for it's rapid growth, and because Google searches are not undergoing rapid growth most of the time, this is not a startup problem but just an identity problem, which is a struggle but not a problem.
I think that when you find a bug, you are obliged to all the users using the service to report it, really arrogant not to report any more bugs and wait until the wrong dude finds it...