marrone

Is there a filter on PG so that he doesn't auto win? Kind of like how you weren't allowed to pick Gretzky in hockey pools?

There is the Startup Library, if you did not know about it, on this site: http://ycombinator.com/lib.html

I think the site looks really cool. The only thing that is stopping me from using it is that I have to enter my banking credentials to allow it to access my banking info on its own (nightly). I may decide to sign up in the future, but I am curious as to other people's opinions on that one.

I've seen a lot of discussion around asking users for their login credentials just for their email (see this recent YC posting for example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=55660), and this is obviously more extreme than that.

Hmm, looks pretty cool. Definitely some nice features in there. Im not sure if any of these features have been implemented elsewhere, but I like the fact that it automatically scrapes contact info. That is something I am always to lazy to collect, and end up searching through thousands of emails later to find it.

Also, the stats could be useful. I never use it unless I specifically want to talk to someone, and that would be nice to know when I could expect to find them online.

> "Let me know if you have any questions."

I will hold you to that. I have a question for you right now actually. Are there any tech skills you wish you had learned, but so far have not?

looks like a nice site. well done

I see what you are saying. For example, I posted this link which I think is an awesome read for everyone on hear, and it got squashed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49579 Read it people, read it!

But I don't think there is any karma whoring going on. I think PG articles come with a pretty safe bet of being a good read. Whereas you aren't sure what you are going to get with the others. Im assuming pretty much everyone reads the PG essays, and thus there is more discussion to be had. Whereas I would like to know the proportion of people who read all the other links submitted, as opposed to just their titles.

oh, I wasn't trying to say that school wasn't useful. I don't think you can argue that school is useful. I was just trying to say that I agreed with pg's point that it depends more on the person, rather than the school.

I liked this article, if for the simple fact that it can only help my cause (I graduated, though not from a prestigious school)!

The whole time I was going to school I was super impatient to get done so I could actually get working on something real. I was really just after the piece of paper they give you at the end (though I never attended my graduation to get that paper, and the original was sent to the wrong house).

Once I graduated I started my own project so that I would have some work to show when applying for jobs. I found that that experience led to as much or more knowledge gained as my best year in school. And that is not a knock against the school I went to (I thought the staff there was awesome).

I am always reminded of a quote from some movie (cant think of the name of it now)... "You spent x thousands of dollars on an education you could have got for 2 dollars in library late fees"

Read through all 4 pages. It is a good article. The best quotes: "Maybe failure isn't the problem. Maybe expectation is",

"The great thing about surviving a storm is that you're much better prepared the next time the winds start kicking up. You recognize the early warnings. You stock up on essentials. And, most crucial, you go in knowing that no matter what happens, you can always rebuild.",

"Because I'd failed, I wasn't afraid of failing. And that enabled me to push a lot harder for what I believed in.",

"Given all these risks, why do it? Because even in failure, I knew I'd grow from it. ",

"It's just like weight training, really. You push yourself until your muscles fail. That's how you grow stronger."

uh, not that my above comment was to say that all CMSs are bad. What I meant, was that like everything else, they have a time and a place. I checked out Pagety and liked it

Ive had to use Joomla in the past, and I agree with you. I hated it.

A CMS is good to get you kick started, after all who wants to build another boring login script? But if you are serious about your app, I think you have to roll your own. Simply because with any set of code provided for general use, it will never fit perfectly to your needs. And I think it is that extra bit of perfection, the 'icing on the cake' that makes your app special and stand out. It is much harder to accomplish that using someone else's code than writing your own specifically for your own purposes.

Cal Henderson in his excellent book 'Building Scalable Websites' mentions writing his own file transfer protocol for a middle-ware file storage system. His reason was that it was custom made for Flickr's needs and thus was faster than anything available.

A quote I heard somewhere about Catering Fake, when asked what tools she recommended to build a web app, she responded 'PHP' (in other words, she suggested using no tools, and to build your own).

I watched the demo video. Congrats on what looks to be an easy to use user interface. The kind of app you are making is the type where the ui pretty much makes or breaks the entire thing. You seem to have pulled off a fairly good one

ha, exactly my first thought

If you are looking for some of that, another excellent read is the book "Dont Make Me Think" by Steve Krugg.

Good points. Actually I did the same thing with "Da Vinci Code". After like 3 years of avoiding reading it, I finally broke down to read just because it stuck around so long.

"How To Get Rich" by Felix Dennis is another good read related to what Godin is saying. He is in the magazine business, and recommends anyone looking to start something to start it in a growing industry not already entrenched with leaders. "Ride the wave" is his suggestion

yeah, let's face it. You ALWAYS have to assume there is someone else out there doing the same thing you are doing. That shouldn't sway you though. The point is to do it better than them. Reading pg's book has great (and funny) commentary on dealing with the competition...

why not. I personally love the discussion around news. From what I read, Google is only allowing comments from those related to the news article somehow. Could be a good means for more follow-up. Though, Im curious as to how well that is going to work out.

I agree. The way I see it, is you don't apply to YC for the money at all. What you get out of it is connections and access to some of the best minds in the industry who have been there and done that (though of course, I am not speaking from experience here) to help you at the critical early stages of your venture, which will end up being immeasurably more valuable in the end.

that is what I was wondering. Nice idea either way, buy it doesn't beat firebug

I'm in Calgary as well. Parker, I think I have seen you around.

Nice article. Basically what Seth Godin talked about with his "Purple Cow"

It works. I used to do something similar for going to the gym

This is a great post. Something we were just considering in our own startup. Since we are just starting out it is easy for us to just brush it aside with our optimism, but really anything can happen, so after reading this post I am sold on doing it.

A side note, the book Founders At Work is an awesome read!