joe

Yes. And "having a life" is overrated, as was noted already. I work 4-5 hours a day on a startup project, and another 4+ on a "real" job to pay the bills.

However, I still find plenty of time to spend on things other than work, whether it be personal project/hobbies/self-improvement, or hanging out with friends. So I may or may not have a life, depending on what standard you're measuring by. But I'm happy.

Let me recommend a friend of mine: http://phillipridlen.com/

Just a note concerning the <$20/month table, which is all I've looked at thus far: VPSLink's platform is Virtuozzo.

And I can't speak for any of their other services, but their $7.95/month service SUCKS.

Why thank you. =)

I'm impressed. :)

This is particularly interesting because I find myself in somewhat the same situation. I've been working on a startup idea (http://www.scriggle-it.com/) with a team that's never taken (or sought) VC funding. The only investment we've put in has been time, and expenses paid for out-of-pocket, for things like the domain name, hosting, SSL certificate, payment processing gateway, and the like.

I'm our sysadmin and backend programmer, and then another guy does graphics and site design, and we have an ideas/customer relations/PR-type guy. We've also got a guy working when he can on a Java-based client-side application that syncs with our site. We launched the site last October and have netted a few thousand dollars in profit, thus far. We're still totally committed to our idea, and it's occurred to us that seeking/taking VC funding might be a smart next step. It would keep me from having to work a second, "real" job, and allow us to hire a friend of mine, who's a top-notch coder but is married and can't quit his current (barista) job unless it's profitable for him to do so. Furthermore, we're trying to expand into in the cell/SMS arena, and VC funding would allow us to pay for a short code, an SMS gateway, etc.

Having no VC experience, however, we're wondering whether venture capitalists would even consider us, what their terms would be, what VC "stage" we would apply for, etc. Any comments, suggestions, or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Switching from the 5 day view to the 3 month view, you tell me what's behind this chart, and I'll be impressed:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=EURUSD=X&t=3m&l=on&#...

I'm eagerly awaiting the Google response.

Someone needs to learn how to scale images symmetrically.

Dubuque, Iowa

What sort of alternative end users (or possibly uses) would you foresee?

There are already quite a few generic mailing list services out there, which is why we're trying to target musicians and build a site centered around fan bases.

If only it didn't cost money. We've also considered newswire press release services, etc., but I'm unconvinced as to how things like that would attract actual users.

http://www.scriggle-it.com/

A little background: I'm the lead developer on a self-funded Web startup. It's a (mostly) free service to help musicians and bands stay in touch with their fans. I have a lot of confidence in it as a great product. What are some (cheap) ways I can make noise about it and get people using the site?