joshdotsmith

We give away the laws we write. In fact, the government provides an awful lot of services. If the taxpayer paid for it, the taxpayer should certainly be able to own it. I've never personally found it difficult to explain that to non-technical people.

Is this because of the web fonts or because of markdown rendering?

What do you think takes the most effort to make these projects open source? If this were the policy for all new projects, why would that be difficult?

I really like the work of folks at 18F, USDS, CFPB, et al.

Bearing in mind that I'm ecstatic to see this collection of projects and someone clearly put a lot of time and effort into this already, I do have couple points of hopefully constructive feedback here:

- Please list all of your repositories and feature ones that you think deserve special recognition. Seeing all your repos is a 4-step process otherwise: click on the project, click on the link, click on the acknowledgement that I clicked a link, click on the organization name on GitHub. [1]

- Some information on contribution policies, pulling in your README.md, etc would be helpful on this site. [2]

- When I click on the link to go to your repo, I know I'm clicking a link that leaves your site. You even say so. "But you probably knew that already." Don't hijack it, please. [3]

- The activity feed doesn't provide much value in its current form. Most of these GitHub events are completely without context. [4]

EDIT:

I've since opened the following issues on https://github.com/presidential-innovation-fellows/code-gov-.... Anyone who has feedback, definitely let them know (kindly!).

[1] https://github.com/presidential-innovation-fellows/code-gov-...

[2] https://github.com/presidential-innovation-fellows/code-gov-...

[3] https://github.com/presidential-innovation-fellows/code-gov-...

[4] https://github.com/presidential-innovation-fellows/code-gov-...

I generally love Alex's writing and have learned a ton. This example, and one or two others, stuck out as a little flawed here. If conference sponsorships are a traction channel that proves to be successful for you relative to other channels, then more power to you. To your final point, do what works for your company. This isn't going to come from blog posts – although you may get ideas there. It's going to come from the hard work of developing hypotheses, running experiments, and using benchmarks to start the process anew.

To add to your point: people often make the mistake of trying to replace former team members with people who fit the exact skill profile of the person who left. It's highly improbable you'll find the perfect match.

Instead, identify the bundle of tasks that person did and find people who can take them on separately, and perhaps accomplish other tasks you didn't even realize your team could do.

If you were to identify every task your business needs, then you have the flexibility to direct those tasks to the right people. Further, if you're in a high-growth environment, you can continue to scale by motivating your people to fire themselves from their worst tasks and focus on their best expertise.

If your team continues to evolve in this way while your company keeps sound unit economics, then congratulations! You've solved the scaling problem.

I'm still pretty excited by what Vote.org is doing. Clearly something is broken when our turnout is one of the lowest among the OECD. And if our government – particularly state governments – won't fix even problems that are low-hanging fruit, then fundamentally someone has to do something.

My main concern, though, is that we're going to continue to struggle to justify the utility of voting to the average American who truly understands how little their vote impacts policymaking. When 0% of average people support a policy, the chance that it will become law is 31%. When 100% of people support a policy? Also 31%. That's not a functioning democracy.

The fundamentals are very broken. We need to systematically identify how people can wield influence over the political process en masse, and do so without expecting the rules of the game to change. Voting – on its own – has not appeared to be effective at this.

We're a public benefit corporation!

> Benefit Corporations: 1) have an expanded purpose beyond maximizing share value to explicitly include general and specific public benefit; 2) are required to consider/balance the impact of their decisions not only on shareholders but also on their stakeholders; and 3) are required to make available to the public, except in Delaware, an annual benefit report that assesses their overall social and environmental performance against a third party standard. Such report does not need to certified or audited by a third party, but use the standard as an assessment tool.

We opted against a non-profit because it's vastly easier to distribute funds quickly to projects under this structure (think Kickstarter – also a benefit corp) and because the IRS seems to deny charitable status for organizations that build open source software.

Code Corps (https://www.codecorps.org)

We're helping volunteers and donors contribute to software projects for social good.

Monthly Goals:

- Finish Stripe integration so projects can start raising monthly contributions

- Redesign task UI

- Rework CSS to use flexbox and be more responsive

- Minor features in blog

Skills needed: Elixir, Phoenix, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, Ember.js, HTML, CSS, Sass, flexbox, UI and graphic design (Sketch a plus), dev ops (Docker, AWS)

Slack: http://slack.codecorps.org/

Elixir Phoenix API: https://github.com/code-corps/code-corps-api

Ember front-end: https://github.com/code-corps/code-corps-ember

WordPress blog: https://github.com/code-corps/blog.codecorps.org-site

License: MIT

Thanks for the great answers here. This definitely provides a lot of context to how you're positioning the fund. Some of this was signaled by the round size, but certainly didn't want to assume any of that.

Really hopeful to see Bryce's model work, as well. Am keeping an eye out to see if your fund experiments with similar models.

Big congrats, Garry. I've been a lurking fan of yours for many years now and this day honestly feels like an inevitability, even though I know it's required a ton of effort largely invisible to me.

Clearly one unique value proposition of your fund is that sweet combination of check amount, time to close, and stage of investment. That's certainly appealing.

But I've learned over time that I care most for my fellow founders in the trenches. I love my people. And with your fund, the people involved – especially those in your portfolio – appears to be a huge draw.

I've had the privilege of interacting with at least a few founders of your portfolio companies and to a person they are all stellar. Fred of Rainforest and Brad and Matt of SendWithUs were all kind enough to come on our fledgling little podcast (thanks again!). And I first spoke to Jarrett of EasyPost as he dove into responding to my support emails; still wear my EasyPost t-shirt all the time!

Some questions that popped into my head while reading:

- One of YC's great strengths is your community of peers. How do you plan to create such a community within your portfolio?

- How strong a hand do you expect to have in guiding your investments? (Trying to get the mental model right of where you'd sit between an AngelList syndicate, a YC, or a full-service firm like a16z.)

- Do you expect to be amenable to alternative exits, for example distributions at some multiple, a la Indie.vc?

- Why are your checks typically in the $500K - $1M range? (Personally not sure my company would need that much capital, so I would like to be careful of being cash rich as much as cash poor.)

Also curious about this.

National Voter File

We’re building the first open source, publicly available national voter database in the United States to power grassroots campaigns, monitor voter suppression, and make door-to-door advocacy possible for anyone.

Monthly Goals:

- Create loaders for new states

- Enhance reliability of existing loaders

- Create Python geocoder to tag households with lat/long

- Develop queries to explore data quality

- Begin work on flash API

Skills needed: PostgreSQL, GIS, Python, Pentaho Data Integration (we can help you learn)

Slack Signup: http://goo.gl/forms/8SJRDlo7Lx2rUsan1

GitHub: https://github.com/getmovement/national-voter-file

Dimensional Data Model: https://docs.google.com/document/d/169mIkiIdl4OetbGvnbVCzq9S...

Information on state voter files to load: http://voterlist.electproject.org/home

Pentaho Data Integration: http://community.pentaho.com/projects/data-integration/

License: MIT

SEEKING WORK - Remote, San Diego

• Full stack front-end and back-end developer, designer (plus others on team if needed)

• Mobile: Swift, iOS

• Front end: JavaScript, Ember.js, HTML, CSS

• Back end: Elixir, Phoenix, Ruby, Rails, JSON APIs, Postgres, Docker

• Design: Sketch, Illustrator, Photoshop

• Experience in analytics, customer acquisition and retention

Website: http://coderly.com/ and http://talkingcode.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/joshsmith

Email: josh@coderly.com

I run a small consultancy but willing to work individually. You can see some of our projects at our website.

Three of us with similar skill sets available to work on projects. Prefer working on new projects as first technical team to build an MVP, but also enjoy team augmentation with the right team.

Currently on a project but we love meeting other companies and are happy to introduce you to someone we trust if your timing is urgent.

Code Corps (https://www.codecorps.org)

We're helping volunteers and donors contribute to software projects for social good.

Monthly Goals:

- Refactoring work on both Elixir and Ember apps

- Build out Stripe integration so projects can start raising monthly contributions

- Redesign task UI

- Rework CSS to use flexbox and be more responsive

- Minor features in blog

Skills needed: Elixir, Phoenix, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, Ember.js, HTML, CSS, Sass, flexbox, UI and graphic design (Sketch a plus), dev ops (Docker, AWS)

Slack: http://slack.codecorps.org/

Elixir Phoenix API: https://github.com/code-corps/code-corps-api

Ember front-end: https://github.com/code-corps/code-corps-ember

WordPress blog: https://github.com/code-corps/blog.codecorps.org-site

License: MIT

SEEKING WORK

Location: San Diego, CA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

• Full stack front-end and back-end developer, designer (plus others on team if needed) • Mobile: Swift, iOS • Front end: JavaScript, Ember.js, HTML, CSS • Back end: Elixir, Phoenix, Ruby, Rails, JSON APIs, Postgres, Docker • Design: Sketch, Illustrator, Photoshop • Data-driven with experience in analytics, customer acquisition and retention

Website: http://coderly.com/ and http://talkingcode.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/joshsmith

Email: josh@coderly.com

I run a small consultancy but willing to work individually. You can see some of our projects at our website.

Three of us with similar skill sets available to work on projects. Prefer working on new projects as first technical team to build an MVP, but also enjoy team augmentation with the right team.

Code Corps (https://codecorps.org)

We're helping volunteers and donors contribute to software projects for social good.

Monthly Goals: - Finish our migration from Rails over to Elixir/Phoenix - Build out Stripe integration so projects can start raising monthly contributions - Finish UI style guide - Rework CSS to use flexbox and be more responsive - Minor features in blog

Skills needed: Elixir, Phoenix, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, Ember.js, HTML, CSS, Sass, flexbox, UI and graphic design (Sketch a plus), dev ops (Docker, AWS)

Slack: http://slack.codecorps.org/

Phoenix API: https://github.com/code-corps/code-corps-phoenix Ember front-end: https://github.com/code-corps/code-corps-ember WordPress blog: https://github.com/code-corps/blog.codecorps.org-site

License: MIT

That's tons of work. Lots of heart and soul went into that. I can still be sad for people even if we didn't lose people.

You can give critical feedback without being so dismissive. For example:

> Please show something useful; maybe screenshots or a list of features. Right now I'm not sure what your web site does. The only actionable thing for me to do is register and give you my email address, but I'm not likely to do that without more information.

Do you see the difference in tone, empathy, and guidance here? If I were to show off my work to this community, I would hope for a little bit of that kind of consideration.

> "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

What are people doing to change this? What do you think needs done?

Asking seriously because I'm actively trying to figure out the answers to these questions.

Hi Debra! Thanks for the hard work on Vote.org.

Have you thought about efforts to open up access to a nationalized voter file? As it stands right now, a one-time snapshot of all 50 states would cost approximately $144,000. This makes it difficult for get out the vote efforts, and for efforts to identify registration irregularities.

Also, have you thought about open sourcing your work at all? I know there are a large number of developers ready and willing to help efforts like this, particularly for a non-profit like yours.

Get a Blue Yeti.

This is an excellent article. Also brings to mind some of the writing that Nadia Eghbal has been doing recently about open source (https://medium.com/@nayafia).

Not being an asshole is obviously the right basic mindset. But if you're a maintainer of open source, there are a number of other considerations to keep in mind. You really want your project to be as accessible as possible.

People talk sometimes disparagingly about "drive-by pull requests", but these are good things! Your core contributors can only do so much, and you're likely to get only so many people capable of making core-level contributions. You want to take advantage of the long tail as much as possible.

This is especially true when you consider the pool of potential contributors is often much wider than seasoned open source contributors. You'll get people who have never squashed commits before, or never even submitted a pull request. A welcoming mindset is the first step. But you need to be thinking hard about how difficult it is for a new contributor to onboard onto your project.

I know it's a lot of work for maintainers who are already stretched thin. If this is a topic that interests you and you want to chat, feel free to email me. I'd love to help figure out how to make this easier for more maintainers.

Hey fellow HNers. I helped build this app along with a large group of volunteers in r/CodersForSanders. I actually learned Swift to build this app in particular. It's backed by a Rails JSON API. The Android app is another 1-2 weeks away from being finished.

As far as I know, this is the first time volunteers have come together and built a canvassing app for a campaign. The campaign heard about it, liked it, and asked if they could absorb it as their own.

Please ask us anything you'd like about its development, and any one of us on the team will be happy to answer.

How does this compare to JSON API? http://jsonapi.org/

Is this a competing standard? I'm getting fairly nervous about the rise of competing "standards" with APIs.

SEEKING WORK

Location: San Diego, CA

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

• Full stack front-end and back-end developer, designer (plus others on team if needed)

• Mobile: Swift, iOS, RubyMotion

• Front end: JavaScript, Ember.js, HTML, CSS

• Back end: Ruby, Rails, JSON API

• Design: Sketch, Illustrator, Photoshop

• Data-driven with experience in analytics, customer acquisition and retention

Website: http://coderly.com/ and http://talkingcode.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/joshsmith

Email: josh@coderly.com

I run a small consultancy but willing to work individually. Just built a mobile app for the Bernie Sanders campaign that's about to released on the app store: https://fieldthebern.com/.

Three of us with similar skill sets available to work on projects. Prefer working on new projects as first technical team to build an MVP, but also enjoy team augmentation with the right team.

Talking Code: http://talkingcode.com

I'm a host, but I figured it's okay to post since I spend more time working on this podcast than I collectively do listening to others.

There's no reason this company can't make you a founder with a year cliff. When you hit your year mark you can decide at that time if the company is worth remaining at relative to school, and if not, continue on with your education. Forcing the question right now does neither of you any favors. I wouldn't assume that the founders are being disingenuous, but simply don't see this pretty reasonable (and probably better) alternative.

We just interviewed Sentry founder David Cramer about exactly this topic: http://talkingcode.com/podcast/episode-10-david-cramer/

Crazy people trying to actually earn a living from their hard work. Harumph!