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jgraeupner

13 karma · joined March 26, 2019

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jgraeupner··on Show HN: Polar 2.0 – Integrated reading environment for EPUBs, PDFs, & web pages
I'm one of the founders at Polar. 3 quick things:

1. your data is 100% NOT lost. Just pull in your local Polar directory and it'll all be in the cloud 2. we increased the storage for any existing user to 2 GB to support somewhat larger libraries 3. we released an updated stable version of the latest 1.0 release for anybody who wants to keep the local directory

jgraeupner··on Ask HN: How did you turn your PhD into a startup?
I originally did a PhD in chemistry - spent loooooots of time organizing papers, research, files, etc... hated using platforms like Mendeley and many other inefficient file / knowledge management systems. Also extracting the information into one space and working with the knowledge was super clunky...

When I met my co-founder, he was actually already working on a solution for this. Obviously, we vibed immediately We're now working on a reading tool that allows you to build a knowledge base directly from your reading. The tool already supports importing and reading of pdf, epub, and capturing webpages. The tool has an integrated reader that allows you to do a whole bunch of stuff, including incremental reading and creating flashcards directly from annotations Various other features are in there and we have a long list of features coming up. We also have a native Android app coming out in the near future

This is what we're building: https://getpolarized.io Would love to hear your feedback. We're actually very close to a major release. if you're curious, you can play around with the beta of that release here: https://beta.getpolarized.io (you'll need an account to do so)

Not quite a startup in the chem space, but 100% a problem that I encountered every day and I'm sure many other PhDs, software engineers, and other knowledge workers encounter :)

jgraeupner··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2020)
Polar | Front-end engineer | SF or Boulder | onsite preferred, fulltime

We are looking for a co-founder. Equity-based until funding raised. If you join after fundraising, role would be founding engineer with cash / equity comp

About the platform: Early stage EdTech platform with existing user base and very high retention vs signups. Platform has been live for about a year. Our platform has seen increased growth since the coronavirus lockdown, since a lot of students use it for remote / collaborative studying Two co-founders:

- one with technical background. One of the inventors of RSS, spent lifetime in startups

- one with education / business background. PhD in chemistry from Yale, subsequently in consulting / startups

Requirements for role: - Experienced front end engineer (preferably 5+ years)

- At least few years of React + Javascript experience

- Decent understanding of developing for phone, tablet, desktop

- Strong preference for previous startup experience

- Strong interest in growth, ideally SEO

- Analytical thinking. Deep respect for the scientific method and objective data analysis

Ideal candidate also has experience with react-native, typescript, NodeJS, PDFs or epubs, and Firebase

If interested, msg me at jonathan@getpolarized.io Please include resume, github, projects you've worked on before

jgraeupner··on Ask HN: Why aren't you using spaced repetition?
Have you tried Polar? https://getpolarized.io
jgraeupner··on Ask HN: I feel like I should be working all the time and its killing me
I meditate and go to the gym every day. Would go nuts if I didn't... Did management consulting before jumped into the startup world. Strongly recommend it! :)
jgraeupner··on Ask HN: What's your cross-platform PDF / ePub reading workflow?
Quick note:

Since we (Polar) got our start here on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219960), Kevin and I decided to give anybody who signs up 2 months free premium (valid until Jan 31, 2020). Just respond to my welcome email when you sign up :)

jgraeupner··on Ask HN: What's your cross-platform PDF / ePub reading workflow?
epub support will be implemented in Q1 '20 finally