coopr

The only place you mention pricing (that I can find) is in your FAQ, and the answer is "Please contact us at 1.866.563.7748 for pricing details" - that makes me think it is WAY out of reach for the startups and smaller businesses that are on HN.

So, roughly, how much _does_ it cost?!

So I'm wondering about those stupid legalese footers on some emails that say something to the effect of "if you weren't the intended recipient, delete this email and pretend you haven't already read it" - would that have helped in this case? Or, if the email had that footer, and Arrington published it, would that open him to legal liability? Or, are those footers just a total waste of space and time? Any lawyers in the house?

Umm, since when does Michael Arrington care about his reputation - or yours?

Use the various suggestions below to estimate your market size. Do both top-down and bottoms-up. Then, for both estimates, consider what would happen if you were off by 10x (in a bad way - you'd overestimated your market size by an order of magnitude).

Do you still have a viable business? Yes? Great, go for it and stop worrying about market sizing! No? Revisit your assumptions in the market sizing calculations - if they are as good as you can make them, and you find that being off by an order of magnitude will kill your business, then proceed carefully, because the actual market size may in fact be 1/10th what you originally estimated.

The Getting Real summary is a lot shorter than the article and the book http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/coming_soon_getting_real_... - short enough now?!

Anyone have any pros or cons of Facebook Connect? Besides the obvious con of requiring your users to be Facebook users too?

Hmm, seems like this writeup is missing the vital recommendation that you have a foot rest and alternate between elevating one foot, elevating the other foot, and having both feet on the floor. I've tried working standing up without a footrest and found it intolerable after a short time, but with alternating feet height I can work standing for extended periods of time - and me feet/knees/back are happier than when I work seated.

I've started, grown, and sold a food startup - contact me privately if you'd like to know more about what I learned...

Are you giving equity in place of some portion of a "market" salary, or are you giving equity in addition to a fair salary? This (should) make a big difference in how you calculate how much to give.

And of course, all equity should be vested, with little or none granted up front. Virtually no employee adds value the day they arrive, thus they should not have any stake in the company at that point.

Indeed Switzerland seems to seem think that fair internet voting is possible - http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/presentation_projet.asp and http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/25/world/main645615.s... describe how they've experimented with it in national elections.

Kaiser tends to get ranked FAR ahead of all other health insurance / health provider companies in the consumer surveys I've seen - and their rates tend to be very competitive. Your broker may not quote Kaiser rates, though - you might have to inquire directly.

Actually Competitious has evolved into RivalMap http://www.rivalmap.com/ - I've used both at two different startups, and I found them to be useful, but not earth-shatteringly good.

In fact, I generally think that a minimum of time should be spent considering your competition (at least when you are a startup). Perhaps you set aside a few hours each month to review their progress, compare it to yours, identify features or strategies you will "borrow" from them (ie "fast follower" strategy), and consider what they'll be doing in the future that you need to respond to, or get ahead of.

Then, add those items to you action plan, and forget about your competition for the next month - focus on building YOUR business instead.

Just my $0.02 from the startups I've founded, funded, and grown.

Hmmm, so the authors are worried about potential vulnerabilities in connected, embedded systems? The electrical grid already has many connected, embedded systems - and I've not heard of any significant hacks, probably because electrical utilities are actually pretty good at securing their devices and networks. I think embedded systems are easier to protect than general purpose PCs. Companies like http://www.Mocana.com make security components for embedded systems, which are highly likely to be adopted by smart grid manufacturers (if they haven't been adopted already). Overall, I'd say this is much ado about nothing.