nibo

Wow, I've been looking for something like this for ages. Definitely going to try it out the app. And great post too.

thank you a lot! We gonna change that.

Thanks a lot. Really helpful!

Thanks...Are you a designer?

hi tinko12, we do Cage and it's really cool. However they focus much more on collaboration. Board is browser extension designed to help you save images in a pinterest-like way but with private boards.

Thanks csense. We had a lot of conversation about the colors. What colors would you use instead of orange for the pricing&sign-up button? Also: do you understand what the product does based on homepage icons?

Thanks for your feedback!

Yes, it really depends on your goals. Maybe this can help? http://thinkvitamin.com/business/how-to-track-six-key-metric...

You could search the whole Venture Hacks archive but I would suggest to buy the Venture Hack Bible http://leanpub.com/venturehacks and Pitching Hacks http://venturehacks.com/pitching

Shaqqs, I do see your point. However I personally believe creating a start-up is more similar to an on-going process and constant dialogue between the founders. It's hard to think about building a start-up as a restaurant menu. I think the last point of this essay by pg explains a lot http://paulgraham.com/founders.html

I spoke with a few YC alumni.In your case I think it would be great to apply. PG and YC partners are looking for companies they can mentor but they don't want to baby-sit you. Since you are already profitable, I suspect you already know what you are doing and you simply need some guidance. Moreover if you have a good product I think your chances to get into YC are quite good. Getting to YC is becoming harder and harder and "just having an idea" is not enough. Since you already have the product AND are profitable your chances are quite good.

snitko, eh eh. Hacker News is home of very smart people and I don't expect The Bootstrapper Bible to be their only book.

Btw, the fact that you suggested that book made me understand how much the current way Amazon suggest you books doesn't really take in consideration your goals or background.

It should actually ask you "Why are you buying this book?" Me "Because I want to make a startup" AMZ "Oh cool, what's you background?" Me "I am hacker" AMZ "Oh ok then with Seth Godin you are going a little bit too businessy. Try Start Small, Stay Small"

Sorry guys, early morning thoughts.

I understand your point. Do not forget that he may be a marketing guru now but Seth Godin has computer science degree and started Yoyodyne in 1995, raised $4 million and sold it to Yahoo! 3 years later for $30 million. I think that's not bad.

I know that sometimes he's maybe too motivational but I believe he has a brilliant mix of talking and doing. Squidoo is a great hack to raise money for charities; same for the Domino Project to re-think the publish industry; and the work he is doing for Acumen Fund is really inspiring

It really depends on your ambitions. My opinion is that if you are "one engaging conversation away from starting a new programming/writing/music/film project" you ultimately have something entrepreneurial inside you and you want to MAKE something.

In this case, my humble advice is to not care if you don't have the skills. Start doing and you will learn. By "doing" I mean even the smallest thing: start a blog about what you want to do (I am sure you can do that), create a Facebook group to involve people and then evolve from there. If you are really excited about what you want to do you will find people ready to help you along the way. So don't worry if you don't have the skills to create something. You can still be good at engaging other people, the ones with the skills you need.

I personally think that being aware of your own strenghts and weaknesses is very important for every entrepreneur.

Howard Schultz, founder of Startbucks, many years ago said the best advice he got was to "Hire the skills you don't have" (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/...)

Add the learning part when you are already making. You will understand much more. When Facebook was getting bigger young Zuck started to read Peter Drucker's essays. And I am sure those pages where really teaching him a lot because he already did some much. They were not theoretical notions.

Hope I am answer your question.

I am sending you one now.

I see what you mean.

As pg points out: "One of the things I always tell startups is a principle I learned from Paul Buchheit: it's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy." (http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html)

Regarding the fact that they are all "we are the x of y of z" and seem derivative, pg says:

"One good trick for describing a project concisely is to explain it as a variant of something the audience already knows. It's like Wikipedia, but within an organization. It's like an answering service, but for email. It's eBay for jobs. This form of description is wonderfully efficient. Don't worry that it will make your idea seem "derivative." Some of the best ideas in history began by sticking together two existing ideas no one realized could be combined." (http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html)

which ones are you referring to?

Really cool as I am addicted to trailers. I would also add a piece to their business model. They could let you browse old movies trailers as well (I would watch them!) and let you rent the movie from Netflix, taking a percentage. What do you think?

No at all. You may also want to read the following part, from YC FAQ page.

Why didn't you accept our application?

Strange as it may sound, the better your application was, the less likely there is to be an answer to this question. So don't take it personally. The fact is, even the best investors are quite bad at picking winners. VC firms consider themselves to be doing well if 4 out of 10 companies they fund succeed.