Please refer entry dated: 12 May 2011 "New Jobs Code" in below link.
http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html
It doesn't say anything specific about ad from YC companies though.
241 karma · joined March 22, 2011
It doesn't say anything specific about ad from YC companies though.
And why would they want to use a $65k odd worth project management software just for installation cost+license? Haven't these guys ever heard of cloud web applications with some custom integration? What a waste of public funds!
Correction to title: It is Oracle, not Google.
Best suggestion in the interest of the business and for the business to remain stable enough to learn the target customer. Can't upvote it enough.
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2919-ten-design-lessons-from-...
Here is an excerpt: ================= Olmsted had no formal design training and didn’t commit to landscape architecture until he was 44. Before that, he was a New York Times correspondent to the Confederate states, the manager of a California gold mine, and General Secretary of the United States Sanitary Commission during the Civil War. He also ran a farm on Staten Island from 1848 to 1855 and spent time working in a New York dry-goods store.
His views on landscapes developed from travelling and reading. When he was young, he took a year-long voyage in China. And in 1850, he took a six-month walking tour of Europe and the British Isles, during which he saw numerous parks, private estates, and scenic countryside. He was also deeply influenced by Swiss physician Johann Georg von Zimmermann’s writings about nature’s ability to heal “derangements of the mind” through imagination. Olmsted read Zimmermann’s book as a boy and treasured it. =======================
The last line sums it up. Thanks for sharing. "Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start. In the end, people will understand."
May be this is an opportunity for these kind of payment service providers to come out clean & prove it out to the world (at least in forums like HN) as to how paranoid they are about security?
Gist of what I find in wikipedia is this:
PCI DSS Requirements: Build and Maintain a Secure Network 1. Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data 2. Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters
Protect Cardholder Data 3. Protect stored cardholder data 4. Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks
Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program 5. Use and regularly update anti-virus software on all systems commonly affected by malware 6. Develop and maintain secure systems and applications
Implement Strong Access Control Measures 7. Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know 8. Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access 9. Restrict physical access to cardholder data
Regularly Monitor and Test Networks 10. Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data 11. Regularly test security systems and processes
Maintain an Information Security Policy 12. Maintain a policy that addresses information security
They also claim to have PCI DSS 2.0 certified. In light of all the discussions happening repeatedly about need to regenerate passwords & not to store plain text passwords if they have it this way, this is so stupid.
An inspiring poem shared by my friend. Was read out by Winston Churchill at the beginning of Second World War.
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SAY not the struggle naught availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly! But westward, look, the land is bright!
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Here is the paraphrase shared by the friend:
Don’t say that the long struggle [against tyranny and injustice] is of no avail; don’t say that all your efforts, and all the injuries you’ve sustained, were in vain. Don’t say that the enemy’s just as strong as ever; and don’t say that nothing’s changed for the better!
If the things you hoped for haven’t happened, well, maybe the things you’re scared of won’t happen either. Perhaps over there on the battlefield, now obscured by smoke, your comrades are chasing the enemy away, and all they need to ensure victory is that you go and join them.
Look! Those waves don’t seem to be making much headway, even though the tide’s supposedly coming in. But far behind you, unseen creeks and inlets are swelling with incoming waters: the sea really is on the move after all!
Look! The eastern window you’re sitting at isn’t the only place affected by sunrise; from there, yes, it’s true, the sun hardly seems to moving up the sky at all— but cross the room and look through a westward-facing casement: see how the whole landscape’s already flooded with light!
Clough had just personally witnessed how Garibaldi's brave attempt to help preserve a new Roman Republic had been foiled when the forces of reaction (led, ironically enough, by the French) had successfully brought the Siege of Rome to an end in 1848. He was trying to cheer up fellow-supporters of reform and of independence for Italy. They were all feeling pretty downhearted. That's the historical context.
The service that we are building is not ground breaking or unique, but definitely a market validated one. My friend (now my partner as well) & I decided on one particular idea that is not unique, but a market validated one. We used to debate about several ideas while pursuing our day jobs for the last couple of years, wrote business plans and were searching for THAT unique idea that we should pursue.
Thanks to HN community, reading various articles on these subjects cleared lots of things for us. I now understand it is not necessary that the idea needs to be unique that nobody else has ever solved. (Thanks to patio11 for his excellent blog posts. Thanks! :-))
There is always scope of not just one or two but several companies to thrive and solve customer's problems. We can always take a standard market validated solution, innovate & make life better for those specific niches around us. Like it is always iterated by various folks here in HN, it is execution that matters.
In my case, I think starting with the market validated idea is the best approach to get started and I could pursue my unique ideas using this as a platform. Plus it helps that I have a greater chance of bootstrapping it all without taking external funding (not that external funding is bad, just that you have the freedom to execute as per your plan).
I just read the article recommended by the other commenter (Joel's article on Segmentation) and it makes sense.
I think I should do the following to start with: talk to potential customers to find out what is critical; identify their price sensitivity; then group the features needed for various customer segments and identify price points.
I guess this will take several iterations to get a grasp, but I think I have a fair idea now as to where to start.
Which consumer segments are most price sensitive, and which are more likely to pay more for advanced features? Is improved technology enough to counter the advantages of having a dominant brand? How can I tie my consumer segmentation closer to actual feature preferences? Consumers say they're "very likely" to buy the product I want to develop. What does that really mean?
# Do not hire a PR firm to do your free marketing for you. This is a core capability you must own. You can and may want to hire a PR firm to supplement your efforts, but that’s a different story.
# Marketing is for companies who have sucky products. If you build something that is amazing (think Flipboard or Instagram or Instapaper) people will adopt it because it is amazing."
I think it is absolutely necessary to market what you build and that is the general advice from most gurus. Anybody has different thoughts to correct my perception?
Besides what I find is a total disconnect of industry reality in college education. The only way we could circle back to correct this is by having experienced people from industry going back to academic roots to teach, to improve quality of experience graduates go through.
With my current employer to bridge the gap & provide more exposure to students & guide them, we go to colleges & schools across rural areas and we conduct a program in partnership with "Junior Achiever" (http://ja.org/).
We hope such programs would eventually bridge the gap between industry & academia and also help students get the right exposure.
When we take any service to a different country / continent, we need to take into account the local practices of the place (especially pricing) and build it into the system, wherever possible.
However, we have seen several cases where the usage of the functionality slowly drives how the feature is morphed and I am guessing Google is experimenting with the button initially to see how the users like it and would try to weave other functionalities around it.
I absolutely agree with you that thousands are affected (especially students who studied on a equal footing with their peers while completing the course) but having disadvantage to get employment just because of the lottery system and their status.
But claiming that half a million are stuck unable to start a company / change jobs due to a visa is BS just to push the author's opinion down the reader's throat and this is where I differ.
"Over half-a-million highly-educated and skilled immigrants are stuck with temporary, non-immigrant work visas like the H-1B, which don't allow them to start a company or even change jobs. Pushed to a corner, they come back to India, where the entrepreneurial climate is far from ideal."
Being an Indian who chose to come back from US after couple of years, I know this is not true, but this statement is being made as if its authentic. There will always be a genuine few who are trying to start a company and stuck due to these issues.
But saying that half a million can't change jobs due to this is ridiculous. They choose not to change jobs, because they want to get their permanent residency status in US. But they know it is their choice.
And if ALL these are people who want to start companies & do well, I can't see why they cannot come back & do it. It is not necessary that you need to have the "perfect" environment before you start something.
If you can't see a change happening, be the change yourself. If you want to do something so much, just do it anywhere.