eterno

I didnt really mean it as a side project. I understand it won't work that way. Just keep it on the side till you are able to raise more funds, or organize from other sources (job,consulting etc.) to give you a decent runway.

Thanks for being so open and honest about the whole thing.

You said, if you were profitable, you wouldn't be shutting down. But if you think there should be a way to make social payments work then don't you think its just a matter of time when you would be profitable.

I mean minimum profitability also doesn't really justify what is called in other posts the 'opportunity cost', but if you are working on something big and still believe there is customer value then profitability will come eventually.

And if that belief is still there then maybe just buckle down for sometime in a paying gig and then go back again. It might take your mind of it for sometime which might actually give you some good insights on how to take it ahead.

I though, still understand that there could be other personal reasons for you to do this, in which case please feel free to not respond.

Thanks again for the post and best of luck for the future.

Typically engineers gravitate to the point of work. Its only the initial germination which matters.

There are more engineers in Bangalore from outside, than locals. Probably same is true for silicon valley.

Almost a downer, I didnt think that tony was the kind of CEO who would sell out.

Somebody tell me it was the VC's.

Think what you will regret.

1. Building a startup and not falling in love. 2. Falling in love and screwing up a startup.

Though both don't have to be exclusive, I bet 2. is a better choice. Also you have your whole life for startups, wheras falling in love would be constrained to a short number of years.

I think go with the girl and figure the startup thing along.

Cool stuff. I think Anreessen gets the whole startup thing a lot more than the current crop of investment bankers.

listened to free willy ost on way to office and then came the sad news.

RIP MJ.You were as genius as humans come.

Couldnt DISAGREE more. The advice is extremely banal bordering on common sense but most importantly discounts the fact that a lot of startups are built not to solve any existing problem but perhaps to just better an existing solution.

The semantics are crucial here, because solving a problem almost implies that it is something a customer 'understands' to be a problem and not just satisfed with the status quo - that is true for almost everything - give me a better house, car, laptop, email, search etc. etc. anyday and if its really good enough I will switch.

The biggest startups were not found by scratching an 'itch' but through founders idiosyncratic views of the status quo and how they belived (without an MBA, without a customer survey and without figuring out if it was really an 'itch') on what was a better way, and for a long time without any external validation.

Selling books online - how does that even make sense, the internet was supposed to get rid of books but Amazon found a way. The iPod - if no one even knew something like this can be built, how can it possibly be a part of their 'itch'. Twitter - I bet there was no itch here too.

Spot on and beautifully put.

On a related note, it never made sense to me that some first time entrepreneurs give it all up and become VC's.

I think arxiv is a great start but still seems to be kind of internet add-on to the old way rather than being a rethink from the ground up to the research business.

I liked the "Cite as" feature, but there are fundamental issues which I think needs to be changed:

1. Anyone should be able to comment/discuss articles. With perhaps karma based user voting to surface the best comments. Each comment should again be citable.

2. The text should be in HTML- shareable simply and acted upon by the community.

3. A reddit style list for each topic listing the recent,high impact papers. High impact is again voted on by the community, again with people who are 'known' to produce better research having more weight.

slightly offtopic, but I am fundamentally opposed to this journal-conferences monopoly on published research and the related profiteering by the likes of springer.

Its like the newspaper industry which has outlived its business model.

Someone please youtube the whole thing and kill them already.

Seems like Google is playing catch-up to yahoo for once. This has searchmonkey written all over it. Yahoo though, seems to be still without its mojo so cant see it capitalizing on this thing - even assuming it goes big.

mind-boggling stuff. Bezos is a killing machine - and there was a time when people wrote amazon off in the bust of 2000 - 'selling books online ??? - wasnt getting rid of print the whole point of the net anyways'

Exactly, and for those guys who do not get into YC, they still have the option of getting a 'prototype of YC' - which in your own words is almost the same as YC.

I am not saying YC is bad - far from it - I am myself a big fan.

The only thing I was pointing out was that the YC interview rejection/acceptance should ideally have only as much importance as being rejected/accepted from probably another angel investor - which happens more often than not in the startup world and consequently should not be given a lot of importance.

The entrepreneurs who are in the trenches shouldnt really care as much about a rejection or two - its no big deal and even an acceptance might not be a big deal - but if you build something that people want and have something to show for it then feel free to jump over the moon.

Is it just me, or do real entrepreneurs need to be less excited about this YC interview thingy.

If you care so much for third party approval from PG and folks (not that they are not nice/smart ppl) but then just go to a B-school dude and get that nice degree which will surrogate for your competencies in the real world.

BillG didnt need no YC, neither did Google guys and neither did the ipod god - infact even PG didnt need no YC, so please stop this gushing/blogging over your yc interviews as if they are like the biggest thing to happen to your entrepreneurial careers. Its beginning to sound almost like a b-school interview and I wudnt be surprised if YC starts attracting the entrepreneur wannabes for the 'stamp' that they missed from going to a b-school.

Hiring is extremely random and for most part very hard to do fairly. Bet even if someone like bill gates or the google founders applied to some of the bigger companies - chances are they will get turned down from a few of them.

Though, I think there is almost zero correlation of landing a position and having done a startup. Also, in real terms failed/successfull startups dont really matter much because often there is a very fine line (often described as luck) between failed and successfull startups. You might have learned a lot more in a failed one than having lucked out in a succesfull one. (for eg. jobs might have been considered a lesser success when apple mostly did the mac compared to say the youtube guys. Even though we now know otherwise because of the ipod, the fact is that it was plain market conditions that led to youtube being a bigger hit than the Mac).

A friend of mine got turned down with one of the biggest private enterprise software firms in the US. They hired the best of the lot - stanford, mit etc. He went on to join a smaller firm, and then did a startup which is about to run a million in revenues this year. The private software firm has since lost its mojo and is laying off right left and center. The friend, who is now CEO, is hiring right left and center. The very people who thought he was unfit to join their 'ranks' would now be very happy to be on his payroll.

In any case the lesson is that treat a job as independent from doing a startup - it takes a different set of skills to land one and its not fair, so just try to find what is required to land a job and not assume it to mean anything more than that.

Please fix irrelevant results. Search for 'rfid tutorial' gives a Java JDBC page at the top.

Also, layout is not a differentiation so please stick to google style and stop wasting time on it.

He is dead serious and that is an incredibly honest and accurate piece of advice.

This is one of the most brilliant startup stories I have read in a while. Im not a big calcanis fan and dont think too highly of mahalo, but the amount of wisdom and insight in this post left me reading this over and over again for almost an hour (Normally, I dont read anything 1/10th this long and even if I do, I just skim.)

Po Bronson's "What to do with your life" is a great read.

This article though seems to be full of fluff and about reading too much based on post-facto news. Sabeer is definitely smart, but he also definitely got incredibly lucky, and a lot more than everyone else who is as smart or smarter.

I have also come to the same conclusion independently.

You need a sounding board and a source of moral support absolutely. This is best done by a co-founder. However, it CAN also be done by someone who is not a co-founder and more of an advisor.

Also, you do NOT absolutely need co-founders with complimentary skills. That is a myth. Larry and Segie did not have complimentary skills. Bill Gates and Paul Allen did NOT have ALL the skills required to build their business. They had or developed (read learned) a lot of skills on the way, for which they could not hire immidiately - which is the only thing that is required of a founding team.

Totally agree that having a co-founder helps, but totally DISAGREE that either that is the solution to your cold-feet, or that is absolute required to do a startup.

Also, I think there is little reason to believe that either bill gates or steve jobs got over their cold feet because of co-founders. Not to say that having co-founders might be a big reason behind their massive success. but at the same time they might have had smaller successes without co-founders.

So, to be more specific, do absolutely spend time in finding a co-founder or advisors that you can confide too, but again get over the cold-feet before that.

Getting over the cold-feet is a two step process: Do it directly and quickly.

1. Cross over to startup land by quiting your job already. 2. Burn the bridge by telling everyone, your friends, family, (now) old colleagues that you are doing a startup.

Always remember, the only way you will get around to fighting the devil is when the deep sea is behind you.

I think photo-sharing services need to verticalize and create niches.

I see a clear case for a photo-sharing service specifically designed to host high-resolution images (big size) images which are rapidly becoming the norm with higher resolution cameras rolling out.

What would it take:

1. Uploading will take more time. Should happen in the background. 2. Browsing can be made better - by showing reduced resolutions on the fly - zooming out on parts etc.

I wouldnt say so. Even with that one user and thousands of failed users you might be on the verge of evolving your product to better suit market needs and gain usage.

The biggest truth about entrepreneurship is that no-one knows. There is no authority - not your current users, not the 3-times successful serial entrepreneur not even Bill Gates.

The only one who knows best is the entrepreneur himself - and that might not be much to bet your future on.

This is an amazing writeup. Incredibly honest.

It would be great if you could do an as honest writeup after some time(possible a couple of months). I would be interested in thoughts along two lines:

1. Maybe working Google will not be that great. They sure do have very smart ppl - but I guess you know by now that startups are a different beast. There was a reason you went into the startup world - maybe because you found more meaning in the complete responsibility a startup endows you, and probably that wont exist in Google - nor the adrenaline. Maybe you need to balance that 'meaning' in your job with having fun - your starup was all about meaning and probably too hard to be fun so a stint at Google looks exciting. Maybe you will crave meaning very soon, in which case Google might not be the best option.

2. "And I have no cofounder, so I'd be doing everything myself until I could afford employees, and then I'd have to build a company culture. That will be no 'fun'" Maybe you can still find a cofounder(maybe in Google). I am not sure, but I think there should be a way to do startups while keeping the fun intact. One thing that I have seen is that big companies afford you a default(big) social circle which a lot of times is the source of the fun you have. (Also startups typicall dont have cute HR's ;)). But maybe you can still create a big enough social group by just hanging out with other startup folks and have as much fun.

Just some random thoughts. Feel free to (not) reply.

Also anything else will NOT work. Bookmarking will definitely not. Noone uses bookmarks.

I think distribution is the key. You built a good product and ppl like it, that does not mean they will start using it. (Welcome to the real world, by the way).

To make it very clear, there are only 4 things you can do to tackle distribution.

1. SEO - Will not work in your case because it typically works best were large amounts of original content is getting generated. (think ugc)

2. SEM - Will again not work in your case because lifetime value of visitor is not much. Plus conversion rates are low with extremely low deal size. (Let me know if any of this is not clear).

3. Widgets - dont think how this will work for you.

4. Go B-to-B - I think this is the best option available for you right now. Essentially offer this as a service to hosting companies and domain registrars. Charge them a usage fees or an ROI rate. But this will require some real world busines development where the rules of the internet do not apply. If your tool is good, it could also be a nice little acquisition target.

There was a time when "change the world" used to mean something. Go out and feed a few homeless,poor ppl, but please dont make the 1 millionth todo list app and claim to "change the world".

Nice design though.

I spent half an hour going through the main links and the "how it works". I still have no clue what this site does and why should I use it.

Total Fluff