colinyoung

I don't know the man, and while I know what IMAP is, I'm not exactly part of that newsgroup.

However, it's awesome to think that I will now think of his legacy whenever I refresh my email, because he made something that I use every day. I think that's what we all hope for here at Hacker News.

My favorite part about this is the built-in event tracking. You can easily see even detailed things like whether people failed the signup, maybe one degree of tracking beyond, say, Mixpanel. Hopefully, this can easily be integrated into larger systems like the same.

I love the built-in SSL. --My only real concern, and I'm sure reviewing the docs further will help me understand more, is how I mirror users on my app so that I don't have to query the REST API for user accounts.-- EDIT: Looks like it's automatic. Even cooler.

Smart man.

This website is great. There were at least 3 boutiques shown that were within 3 blocks of where I'm sitting, and they're high quality places. Props to them for launching in a bunch of cities. Is there a similar platform for men?

Then don't do a site like Google. Maybe wikipedia, or something educated people use, that will make news in a more correct way: it's being done as a statement, etc.

I think this may actually be genius. Someone call Zuck, Jack, and Larry.

This is really cool. I'd suggest, though, that the creators of the site give more info about the venue and the people that'll be there- I live in Chicago, so it would be really easy to head there. I could probably drag a bunch of people with me, but I know they'd want more info.

Totally exciting though, and I like the choice of place.

I had a friend who did this to a (really) prominent angel investor, but planned it on twitter first. It apparently went great.

Congrats guys!

Never hurts to try. And there are answers to those questions -- I'll try below, but I'm sure other places can answer it better.

If you don't know anyone, the best way to get intros is to do an incubator program. Regardless, people there are generally very nice and most will make intros pretty easily. But to do a 3-5 day blitz is extremely difficult even for people with huge rolodexes; especially if you're raising from VCs as the followup cycle can include up to a half-dozen meetings. And not meeting in person on those can hurt you because VCs care most about team. I would say AngelList is probably your best bet for that quick of a blitz, but it's probably best to budget a week and a half or more.

I am not an expert either, but I may be able to comment on a few things.

> Also many new and unproven companies raise amazing amounts of money, for, at least seen from the outside, downright silly business proposals (share your credit card expenses, anyone?).

Judging by the current climate in SV, I can safely say that silly businesses are not still not really getting funded. Blippy for example was forced to pivot. Investors are still looking for businesses that are either going to make lots of money now, or engage lots of people and make lots of money later. Many people outside SV scoff at the 2nd clause, but with 1B people online and 3B cellphones in the world, and instant distribution channels like the App Store, it's not so absurd. Just as a general rule, if you see something seemingly stupid get funded, they probably have something else going for them -- crazy traction, awesome customers, or past entrepreneurs as founders.

> Apart from the valuations...taking huge amounts of money "off the table" in subsequent funding rounds.

It's true that a huge amount of the raised money went to the execs, but that stock was sold, at the established price, by the "executive officers, directors or promoters" in question - one could argue, [as Andrew Mason himself does](http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-ceo-andrew-mason-tell...), that it was an intentional way to get early liquidity. Obviously that price has now gone up; it was their choice to sell. Founders often argue that raking back is a good thing because it prevents people from needing to sell perfectly good businesses to get liquidity. Just playing devil's advocate.

Definitely. The main reason they didn't reinvest was timing -- everyone was burnt out on startups even if they had won after the dot.com burst.

But now, FB or Google employees are like, wow, that was awesome, let's do it again. I think the startup scene is more mature now and that reinvestment is more likely to happen outside of SV now -- the key difference is that startups are more stable, wiser, far leaner, and more `cool' now, so it's seen as an actually "safe" bet to re-invest. I know if I ever had a win that's exactly what I would do, in fact being able to re-invest is a lot of my motivation for being a founder.

In Chicago, where I'm located, this is our core problem too. It's all about that first round of winners. I think startup scenes really launch after the employees from the first big win sell _their_ companies.

I won't answer for Thomas, but:

No, I definitely wouldn't say angelPad is less hacker-oriented. It just means their 'market niche' is more about experienced individuals, with some work experience at startups, etc. Of course, our class (I was in W11) had both experienced people who were on the scale of Product Manager at Youtube to just great coders. AngelPad is like an older, wiser YC that seemed to seek to build companies with slightly bigger ideas than YC, focused on more hands-on mentorship.

Mainly because of "cool".

Love this one. Best part is the hidden dialup sound and <blink> tags.

Same. So frustrating. Maybe I'll try to hack together a similar dropzone for Min.us or Crate.

> DHH lambasts the weird aversion we software guys have to charging money for things.

You know, I kind of like that we have this aversion. If the Internet is the first true global common space, the open source 'movement' is one of the coolest things we've ever done as humans let alone software developers.

Not to drink the Koolaid too much. Just think about it, is my point.

I'm curious about this too. The sleepcycle app never worked too well for me, but I'm assuming that's because it can't be as accurate as a wristband.

Ah, I see what you mean. Should have checked my source before saying that. If I got into YC, it'd be extremely tempting not to do that, though :)

Yeah, that site has no reason at all to be flash.

There are way more companies per class now, from about 10 up to 30 or so. They also didn't used to have a Winter class.

How do you remember your username to type it in?

I almost think you should link to the other post, Self Reliance: http://danielzarick.com/post/1642680958/self-reliance.

It was very applicable and actionable advice.

Even if there is a bubble, what does it mean for the app economy? People making money on facebook, twitter, and the App Store might see sales dip if there's a bust, but people aren't going to use free services less. (Although App Store sales won't dip because the app store was built during the last recession).

edit: perhaps this seems naive, but please keep in mind I'm only asking about this one small segment.

Ahh.. I think perhaps the fact that isn't immediately obvious was somewhat intentional on Apple's part.

Can anyone clarify exactly why a backgrounded application would become suspended? Obviously, it's supposed to occur when the OS becomes low on memory, but does the App's icon actually leave the -- for lack of a better name -- double-tap-dock area?

I've never seen that happen, and nearly every app in my full Springboard is also in the double-tap app switcher.