carpal

1) You will never do anything new if you take that attitude. Anything new inherently requires risk. If you do nothing new, you fail.

2) Scaling is a problem for Twitter because it has to scale to such an absolutely massive scale. Saying that you won't choose Rails because Twitter has scaling problems with it is a stupid argument unless you are reasonably sure that you're going to be building an application that will get Twitter-like traffic. No matter what language/framework you choose, if you get the kind of traffic that Twitter does, you will have problems.

1) Send email to ask them if the domain is available for sale.

2) Receive email back saying that it is for sale, for $40,000, despite the domain not being a dictionary word or a combination of dictionary words or anything anyone but you would ever likely be interested in.

3) Send email back with a reasonable offer (say, $500).

4) Receive email back saying that the price is $40,000. Firm.

5) Look for a new domain name. Repeat.

(Actually happened to me. After that, I usually don't even bother)

"odds are you can't skip down to the local coffee shop to get a feel what other startups are doing."

Just head down to Octane one day. I can guarantee that at least one person there is working on a startup.

Yes, your chances of success are reduced if you do not get funded by YC. If they're reduced enough for you to quit, you shouldn't be doing it anyways.

I define "success" as being able to quit my day job and work on the startup full time. Anything after that is gravy.

My chances of being able to do that if I'm accepted to YC: 100%

My chances of being able to do that if I'm not accepted to YC: 25%

The 25% is more than enough to keep me going and to keep my inspired. But I'd still have a better shot if I got accepted by YC.

No, we don't know each other. But we have a lot in common.

I even had an idea a couple of years ago similar to your Wamily thing. I called it "Grupevine". Pretty much a "website in a box" for a group. Groups would associate with each other and a user could easily find and be a member of many groups.

There's a weekly meeting of other "smart people in Atlanta" called AtlHack that I go to. It's at Octane every Tuesday at around 8:30. You should come some time.

I'd like to hear more about your Wamily idea. You can hit me up at erik /at/ subwindow[dot]com

I didn't find out about either Barcamp or Startup Weekend before they were sold out.

I go to the Atlanta Ruby User's Group meetings and AtlHack (http://www.atlhack.org/).

I never said they would give up on their dream if they declined YC.

They just have a smaller chance of it happening. As a YC-funded group, you have a 100% chance of pursuing your dream. If you aren't funded by YC, your chances of that are significantly smaller.

Yes, they're pretty bright. But the kids from Tech that I know, are doing one of 3 things:

1) Working at a job that pays and is stable (and this is what they want) 2) Working on their own startup 3) Working on a graduate degree, and not interested in things that make money.

I'm in mid-stage development for a startup in Atlanta.

It is not going well. There aren't many people here that are available, willing, and smart. I'm finding that the biggest advantage to the "startup hubs" is that there are more people nearby with a similar mentality. Be it employees, cofounders or investors. In Atlanta, there's hardly anybody whose brain is wired the same way mine is.

The solution for me is to move out to the west coast as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to make it out there for at least another year.

The key to this is to discover the golden key of negotation:

BATNA- "Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement"

Your BATNA: To keep doing what you're doing, and not get rich by fulfilling your dream.

YC's BATNA: To fund someone else that is about 99% as good as you.

You have a lot more to lose by walking away, therefore YC holds an incredible amount of power in the negotiation.

23+BBA in CIS and TLAs