nwenzel

We all die in the end anyways. Optimize for happiness.

Here's a broader look at tech stacks used by startups on Angel List: http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-ex...

ASU is on a roll. They've done quite a bit of work on the Mars Rovers. They recently announced tuition assistance for Starbucks employees to make college education without crippling debt more widely available. Now they're advancing human augmentation. Maybe more Sun Devils should apply to YC.

Mars: http://www.asu.edu/feature/mars/

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/07/31/m...

Starbucks: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/us/starbucks-to-provide... http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/

My second child was born after submitting the application and before being accepted. The fact that I have kids was on my twitter profile and not hidden.

It's tough. But not impossible. My solution was to cut everything else out. But, I love my family, my co-founder is awesome, and building my company is what I want to do. So, "everything else" should probably have been cut out anyway.

SimpleLegal YC S2013

Are online stores as simple as blog + inventory + accepting credit cards?

I don't mean the platform is simple. Or that implementing a store builder is simple. But the concept and the interface from the end user (store owner) point of view. Basically, if you can create a Tumbler or Wordpress blog and have a list of products, can you have a store?

It would seem so.

Pretty amazing how tech can remove frictions. And yet my cable box still uses as much electricity as my fridge and the remote has more buttons that a small plane.

Congrats to both teams. There's a lot of work to make clusters as easy to manage as single machines. These are definitely the right people to make it happen.

I'd be willing to bet that counting out Jack Dorsey and Square is going to look a lot like counting out Jeff Bezos and Amazon back while they were investing in AWS.

To me, it looks like Square used credit card readers as an entry to point-of-sale which was then an intro into vertical specific applications (Square Appointments, restaurant and delivery are 3 examples that immediately come to mind). These evolutionary steps all take time and investment.

As another commenter pointed out, looks like a hit piece.

"Do you think it's right to continue work on a project that the majority of people dislike for a variety of very legitimate reasons?"

Almost certainly yes. How else can you find new, previously unknown products and ideas of value? Don't you ever just brainstorm crazy ideas because you don't know where an idea will take you? You know... think different... here's to the crazy one's.

Didn't sama just publish a blog post about that: http://blog.samaltman.com/stupid-apps-and-changing-the-world

Also, "majority of people" might need to be edited to say "majority of a subset of people who are HN readers/commenters and who are so interested in browsers that they watch nearly 10 minutes of video on the topic."

Shame they didn't put more thought into their info graphic to better communicate their point. Different graphs using the same color scheme to represent slightly different sized bins of what may or may not be the same measure. Lower to higher is left to right. But on a different graph it's right to left. No explanation of time period for Revenue Distribution graph. Choice of graph type seems somewhat arbitrary. Donut charts and stacked bar charts become harder to interpret as the number of bins go up and the trend line gets buried. The colors seem to be the dominant feature of the graphic.

Plain old bar charts might be boring, but they would have more clearly communicated the message without all the extra distractions. They would also allow the graphic to use fewer code and require fewer text (legends could be omitted). At least they did specific actual graph values in the graphs. The area graph shows how one color can be effective when the graph contains only one type of data element.

Lesson here is to think carefully and make conscious choices about how you communicate your message. It's true in pitching an investor, pitching a customer, or presenting to an audience. Make sure your message gets through. Otherwise you just have a bunch of graphs dropped on a page and the reader has to search for what you're trying to say.

Also, hire a designer. You'll be happier.

Poor bank UI crushes startup's bank account.

Thanks for posting Seth. Must have been a tough one to write.

I can't say this enough, use Zenpayroll.

In a prior company I had one of the other payroll giants (Zenpayroll didn't exist 10 years ago). It was awful. We switched from one giant to another to make 401k easier. But in the switch, both companies reported earnings to the IRS. All my employees received notices from the IRS saying they each owed $10k+ in back taxes and penalties. No one ended up having to pay, but when the IRS comes calling, it's stressful even when you're not wrong.

Zenpayroll is fantastic. New game, new level.

https://zenpayroll.com/

You should talk with someone who will just listen. You might not even need advice. Just someone who will listen and let you walk through your thoughts. Go to http://www.7cupsoftea.com/ and reach out to someone. You'll feel better.

Then, take a sick day.

Then imagine just walking out middle fingers in the air (figuratively or really). Might be fun. Then imagine bumping into those people in a restaurant, future job interview, sales call, meetup, at the park, on the bus. Might not be so fun.

You're going to run into the people at your current gig again. It will come back to bite you.

If the power was out for a period of months, if the internet, cable tv, phones, and all electronic communication were down so on day 2, you only knew that the power was out and you couldn't reach anybody, what would you need to do to survive?

Wait it out seems somewhat optimistic. No refrigeration means any fresh food would spoil pretty quickly. Better hope that garden can be scaled up.

Clean water would become an issue first though. I don't know where the nearest lake or stream is. Though I imagine several days away on foot.

Assuming you made it that long protection would become an issue. You'd want to be sure you had good relationships with your with your neighbors.

It really doesn't take much to get pretty far down the doomsdayer path I guess.

Lesson learned... optimize for happiness everyday.

Walmart was a startup once. Starting a company to take on an entrenched giant is not rational. But I don't know what else I would do. It's right for me to take on Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis. Probably not for everyone.

Well that was fast.

The recent early-stage-company acquisitions are an interesting change in the business world. The other, in my opinion, is the move to hold off on IPO until later stages. It seems the opportunity to invest in growth is getting squeezed from both ends.

Mountain View 2 roles in Marketing INTERN - Outreach (or junior full-time) and Director of Marketing Both are our first hires to separate the sales role from the marketing/lead generation role.

These roles are: - NOT Cold-Calling. - NOT content marketing or advertising. - NOT sales (though if you are in sales with experience handling 5 and 6-figure contracts, preferably with SaaS software, please do get in touch).

These roles are about identifying leads, nurturing the relationship, and handing off qualified leads to sales. It's about GROWTH.

We set targets, track progress, and work hard to achieve our goals.

Maybe you've built lead pipelines at a prior startup. Maybe you've read Predictable Revenue, SaaStr, or anything else by Jason Lemkin or Aaron Ross. Maybe you're looking to launch your own startup, but you want to learn what it takes to get users and customers to your door.

Customers include companies like Stripe, Sequoia Capital, and SurveyMonkey. If you like the idea of taking on industry giants who are "too big to succeed" then you should definitely get in touch.

We're a YC company (S2013) building a software platform for the General Counsel (or VP of Legal, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer) at mid to large companies. We're a small team with experienced leadership. We have paying customers today (product is well beyond "MVP"). We are roughly break-even and continue to sell to new customers to reach profitability. We're looking to grow and want some great, high-energy people to join our team.

We're http://www.simplelegal.com. My email address is my first name: Nathan

Can't your get far more bang for your buck by using convection and a pizza stone or a brick or something else to hold in the heat?

Certainly the steam/humidity thing won't be helped by the pizza stone. But keeping the air moving and providing something solid to act as a more uniform beat source gets you pretty far. It's like switching from crappy pots and pans to a nice set. A big difference is the thickness and materials in the base to create even and steady temperature.

Yes, startups have a structural advantage.

I've used Paychex and ZenPayroll. ZenPayroll is awesome. No reason to ever look back!

Great post on why startups can win.

Startups can win because the company cares more about their customers.

I'm sure plenty of people at large companies care about their customers. But a large company's org structure separate the decision-makers from the front-line employees. Any great customer-facing employee can add much more value to a smaller company.

I'm also sure there are plenty of counter-examples of startups that didn't provide great service. But that almost always past tense... small companies that don't care about their customers don't last long.

It's probably not important to track down to the second. So no real need to use a timer app. Most important thing is to track it every day. Don't fool yourself into thinking you'll take care of it at the end of the week. You'll never remember what you worked on, then end of the week turns into end of the month.

Just be diligent. And it's tough to beat pen & paper as a good UI.

Tough to beat pen & paper as an easy to use UI.

Basic things: are there enough chairs, are they compliant with maximum occupancy restrictions of the building, are there enough snacks.

Less basic things: No on said YC Hacks way of getting people in the door is better. It's just the way they're choosing to handle it. YC seems to want to expand the community and this looks like a pretty good way to do it.

Despite the very high bar of getting accepted into the YC program, I don't think YC is trying to be "exclusive" based on excluding people. 90% or more of what pg, sama, and the YC partners tell YC companies can be found online.

When are we going to be finished with raw speed tests? I get it that faster is better. But I've always been a believer that good design will get you farther than choosing one software/hardware/infrastructure over another.

Also, I get the comparison of MongoDB and Couchbase. But why Cassandra from DataStax? It's a completely different technology with entirely different strengths and weaknesses. There are certainly overlapping use cases, but it seems like an odd comparison.

The better comparisons would seem to be comparing Couchbase to vanilla CouchDB and Cloudant's version of CouchDB. I guess you could throw in MongoDB, but MongoDB and CouchDB have different strengths and weaknesses. Raw speed alone doesn't exactly leave any technology in the rearview mirror.

I'm buying a car and checked out the service. So much better than randomly driving around to various lots. It's an improvement on buying from an individual. Cars have been inspected. No way I'd buy a car without the inspection. But at a dealer that means the car costs about the same as a new car.

I think I'm looking for the same things all early-stage startups are looking for.

My company exists because my co-founder is awesome. He and I willed it into existence, took pretty massive income hits to make it happen, and have put a ton of time and energy into making it happen.

Our company has been given some freedom because angel investors with their own retirement plans, families, and LPs have taken a chance on us and believe in us. The time they devote to us goes well above and beyond their potential financial gain from our success.

Our company took off because early customers have taken a chance on us because they believe in our passion and our product [0]. They are nice enough to not be "nice" and instead tell us exactly what we need to improve to be even more useful to them.

So, I want the same thing that all early-stage startup founders want. I want someone who can help me keep my promise to all those people.

As for particular skills: UX knowledge, javascript, python, django (or any web framework). Probably in that order. I'm not a big proponent of "butt in seat" time (ex: must have 5 years experience with X).

On the marketing/sales/hustler side, It's mostly about follow-up and follow-through. Show me that you have those two talents. If you've built out a marketing campaign, if you've implemented something like Predictable Revenue, if you've setup targets and tracked progress against those target, if you've produced content (blog posts, demo videos, one-page info sheets, white papers), of if you think you'd be good at taking on one of those challenges, let's talk.

But really, I just want someone who understands what it means to me to keep my promises.

[0] http://blog.simplelegal.com/top-4-reasons-companies-should-b...

"- Asses"

Pretty sure that doesn't mean what you want it to mean.

As a YC founder, I can say that this post is absolutely correct. Also, any intern that can put together all the peices the way the author has done, won't be an intern for long. She/he'll be full-time or a founder in no time.

That ability is one that I look for. It's a rare skill to be able to see the bigger picture.

Also... any UX people with Python, django, JavaScript skills (pick one or two) looking for an internship, drop me a note. Mountain View or Orange County, CA.

Any Ops/sales/hustlers that want to work directly with a founder on growth, brand awareness, and sales, drop me a note. Mountain View.

Congrats Ritik! Box adding a streaming content provider opens up a new world for them. Great choice on their part.

While many universities strive for exclusivity, ASU is finding ways to be more inclusive. It probably hurts us in the rankings, but it's the right thing to do.

Proud to be a Sun Devil.

From the AZ Constitution: Article 11, Section 6 http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/const/11/6.ht... Section 6. The university and all other state educational institutions shall be open to students of both sexes, and the instruction furnished shall be as nearly free as possible. The legislature shall provide for a system of common schools by which a free school shall be established and maintained in every school district for at least six months in each year, which school shall be open to all pupils between the ages of six and twenty-one years.

"the people that would meet there could go on to do great things together"

+1

I don't think you have to look much further than comments by sama and pg about building YC into an institution that lasts 100 years. It's the network that creates sustaining value. I have no insider knowledge, but this event seems like a great way to expand and grow that network.

Love to see it. Love to see YC continuing to do and try new things.

"but it doesn't help you with profiling HTTP APIs that don't have a UI"

That's been my only complaint about an otherwise fantastic debug tool.

Anyone have any thoughts on running multiple debug tools like these together? I think mostly you would get comfortable with one and stick with it.