That's a moonshot. I am a native Nairobian, and would like to know how you will revolutionize the sector. Biggest employer, biggest component of GDP but still extremely low yields, low income and inefficient with lack of adaption of tech.
Do you by any chance think you can make it to Nairobi, Kenya in your outreach? I have applied as many times as I have been rejected but it would be fantastic if YC came closer. Visa Free for all Africans (and most other nations), fantastic weather, and I volunteer to get you a prime location for the interviews(or just meetup) at the oldest most established tech open space in Africa/Silicon Savanna.
Plus you can all adopt and name orphaned elephants :)
PHP. Laravel to be specific. It's easy to code, has large pool of devs and resources, can be easily set up for multitenant operations. Basically any language though will be feasible. It's not the language it's the product that matters.
Am imagining all compasses would suddenly flip, how would it affect our GPS systems built to work in AI environments? Is it possible that nothing will be much affected a la the millennium 2000 craze or will it be impactful?
China has enabled trading to be easier. I have a device, PlusX 5501, just patented across US and some African countries. Officially not launched. Chinese companies have over $800000 in sales for nearly the same device some with innovations not on the original device. As I work on the software front, my bet is that I will make my innovation on the software, potential name brand markup as well as support.
Rollercoaster of emotions. First email came in while I was at dinner with my super nosy girlfriend and I was dejected. Didn't even take my meal well.
Then acceptance email. Good thing I had a long list of things to achieve before I went public with rwjwction/acceptance. I am happy to be accepted.
For all those rejected, I have applied to YC 6 times since 2012 or 2013 I think. All rejects. One business was adapted by government (it wasn't going to be super profitable, but was really key to my government ops plus led to a scholarship at MIT). Two startups floundered but led me to my current startup(pivot after pivot supported by a somewhat sufficient consultancy).
All in all continue executing. That's what important.
Even if hey left, with 200 member countries it wouldnt amount to much of anything. UEFA(Europe's Governing Body) may oppose Blatter, but this guy is a better politician than most politician and the fact that Football is next to religion means he can afford to be as opaque as he can get away with, because how the federations are structured from the grassroots allow for very little oversight.
Well I find no difference between developed and developing countries in versatility of phones. Most of them are on LTE, internet is pretty good. Power may be spotty in most rapidly developing countries due to high rate of growth, but I would prefer my iPhone anyday to such a phone, and only use it as a backup phone because whatsapp is much bigger than SMS in Africa(or at least in Kenya, where I stay
I just realized that. At a glance it seems the entire US economy is growing at a tremendous pace. The mind by default has the Y axis starting at 0, till you pay attention. Out of a population of 300,000,000 I daresay even my native country, Kenya had a better growth in real numbers with a pop. of 42 million(<i>caveat</i>: unemployment is more than 20%)
This rib on Sama was in my opinion taken out of context too much. But then sama's statement; if it were made to the non-tech population would be disingenuous. However it was made at a tech event, so wasn't to be misinterpreted.
And when they mentioned food service; I thought all those food service apps, loyalty programmes, CRMs and all the technical hardware
I am self taught and I find moving from being an amateur coder to fully fledged programmer is tough. Such a book would be interesting. Can you share your blog or email so that I can help you test readability etc of the book. my email is ondieki@wallenje.com
windows 8 isnt such a big upgrade from windows 7 in performance. i would posit that at the moment windows 7 is better, but doesnt really lead to higher future income for microsoft. With WinB, they are building an appstore, selling UI packs etc. Once you ave windows 7 the only addition may be Office, and you are done with microsoft. So actually for economic sense they should just give out win8 for free to all, hike price and withdraw support for windows 7. Then they should launch an appstore for windows 8 and enable further revenue streams eg adverts on apps etc
wallenje here(wallenje.com). We are making a mobile wallet app. We applied with a prototype but we are launching on 1st of May. When we applied we got to focus on who we are. I can say the YC application was the turning point for us. We built out our vision, I created a website in 10minutes for a landing page and have 2000 members in the waiting list two weeks after that, got some merchants interested in our concept, this was really awesome. We also recruited our first employee. We are on beta, but the fact that we may get our product-which is an MVP out earlier than Clinkle(clinkle.com 30m funding) without funding has put us on a buzz that YC rejection can hardly put a damper on. Our first rejection was KIMA, so we are getting quite used. We have been brainstormin and have got awesome ideas after every reponse but especially the rejections.
I Remember when we started we thought due to Regulations on financial products we would need more that a million dollars. Its shocking to realise that with the right approach we can avoid most regulation, get partners and get our product out there. Nearly 70 merchants have rejected us but we are still making it with 25 merchants signed up! 1 has paid for product despite existence of a trial period, just for training their staff, and an incentive to release the product fast.
EDITED-got rid of some typos and improved comment clarity
I got rejected. Then rereading the email, i remembered Drew Houston didnt get in the first time. The best way to experience success is to overcome rejections and go on to succeed. I personally think between the YC partners blogs, we have enough advice to continue working with our product. In 5 years YC or not, the target is at least 20m users or whatever else is your targets. just target 5% growth.
Monday: Brainstorming;
Tuesday: hitting up clients as this is the most focused day at work for most people;
Wednesday: follow-up;
Thursday: Side Projects;
Friday : Adminstrative duties;
Saturday: Golf , chess and pseudo- intellectual pursuits;
Sunday: Religious and related philosophical pursuits as well as family day.
of course this is the first half of the day. the other half always will be spent slogging in the trenches besides the weekends
No offense intended but what am seeing are ad hominem attacks at worst and pointless agreements at best over suitability of a fellow hacker, pg in this case, to put things clear on a generally clear topic. We are introducing abstract reasons why he is correct or otherwise. Why don't we take him at face value, cause in general it's isn't good practice to discuss someones intellectual ccompetence unless they are a potential hire in our university start-up
hi jweimusic I understand your predicament. am, or was a non coder. I would advise you to join codeacademy learn a few basics to simplify what you need, go to github and SourceForge to see whether there is enough source code/ projects that are similar or can help. then hopefully you can go to oDesk with a clear plan and clarity on your needs.