HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

orlick

74 karma · joined April 1, 2007

http://hnofficehours.com/profile/orlick/
submissionscomments
orlick··on "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."
Our startup team of 10 has kept pretty strict time logs for the past 3 years. We have an official policy of 40 hour work weeks, but yeah, no developers are able to have that much productive time. Usually we see about 25-30 hours of solid development time, 5 hours of meeting/admin time, and 5 hours of lunches/coffee/break time.
orlick··on Ask HN: Here is my current batch of ideas. In exchange, I ask for your feedback.
There is something I really like about #4 the guided daily diary. I wonder if you could turn this idea into a dating site -- users can submit a guide and the top ranked ones get answered the next day. Users of the site can browse everyone's answers for that day.
orlick··on Ask HN: bikechatter.com - review & suggestions
OK... As a huge cycling fan I love the idea of this site. I could follow these guys on Twitter but I like the idea of taking a 2 minute break and just skimming this site instead.

Some suggestions:

1 - Spend time on making a more cycling oriented design 2 - Add thumbnails of the cyclists pictures next to their comments and maybe link to a bio page

orlick··on Ask YC: What kind of hours do all of you hackers work?
I've been keeping pretty close tabs on my hours for the past few months and find that I generally average about 6 hours of really focused and productive work per day. It's really hard for me to get into the productive zone so I might actually be sitting at the computer for 10 hours procrastinating.
orlick··on Ask YC: Advice on startup idea and funding.
I'm not sure if this is really the place to be asking a question about style and fashion :)

A) Yes I would go to this if it was branded correctly and all my friends were going to it. I wouldn't go there regularly. For examples that are working in Portland, OR check out Voodoo Doughnuts and Saint Cupcake

http://voodoodoughnut.com/

http://www.saintcupcake.com/

B) You would need a bank loan, perhaps backed by SBA.

orlick··on Ask YC: Should I believe the Rails hype?
If you want to be a better programmer -- Learn Rails

If you want to spend your time creating a new business -- Stick with PHP

orlick··on Debian or Ubuntu for server?
I've been using Debian stable as a server for the past 8 years. The stability has been top-notch and I actually prefer having a distro that doesn't update very often. The less time I can spend updating a server the more time I can spend delivering value to my customers.
orlick··on Correlation between personality type and entrepreneurial interest? - Lets find out
INTP.
orlick··on How does the unconnected get buzz for their startup?
Have a co-founder who is as passionate about communicating ideas to people as you are about hacking code.
orlick··on Who Will Buy Facebook? (and why TC thinks Google is a possibility)
... maybe in a few years we will all say:

"Facebook dominated the most monetizable activity on the internet: connecting people together"

orlick··on What is Twitter's source of income??
My guess: They will start selling professional accounts
orlick··on 2 weeks after launch, and no real traffic. What should I do?
Cool site. I co-founded a startup that was doing a very similar thing in 2002 (it failed). Here are some ideas that will hopefully make your site successful.

- Start off with a really niche site. For example: Vegan food in Portland, Oregon. It's the niches that sites like Citysearch aren't serving very well.

- Don't code any more features. Spend the next 3 months on marketing. Making this site successful is an exercise in savvy marketing, not programming.

- No one cares about keeping track of restaurants they visited. Everyone cares about going to good restaurants. Same features, different message.

orlick··on Apple speed bumped the Macbook today. Good time to buy
Thanks for the tip. I'm going to pick one up.
orlick··on As a startup where would you host stuff? Dreamhost looks the cheapest?
I am currently using Dreamhost right now for a staging server. The reliability has been terrible. I have never seen the uptime go over 24 hours.
orlick··on Part-time founders more productive than full-time founders?
I had a unique idea that I implemented in my part time. The site was featured on Techcrunch a few years back and quickly started making a lot of money. Within a few months a handful of VC funded competitors sprung up. They were able to iterate on the concept very quickly and completely destroyed me within the year by developing a significantly better product then I did.

The moral of the story: Working on your startup part-time is a great way to mitigate risk while you build out your first version. However, if you see some traction quit you day-job and start executing relentlessly.

orlick··on New Y Combinator startup: overhear.us
This could turn into the non-nerd version of InklingMarkets.com. Or it could just be a place to bitch about your boss. I think it's great!
orlick··on Can anyone suggest a nice laptop to run Linux?
Lenovo Thinkpad
orlick··on At what point do you share your idea/prototye with others?
I would share the idea almost immediately with at least 5 potential customers.
orlick··on Advice needed: "friend" stole my idea...what to do?
Are you pissed because you know that this woman has the contacts and industry experience to execute on the idea better then you?

A presentation and an hour talk surely hasn't given her much of an advantage. Go off and build your idea into a successful company. The day after it hits Techcrunch you'll have 50 competitors anyway.

orlick··on Would you work for a Google-like company that gives you 100% freedom? You will be fired if you don't make money though.
Interesting idea. Rather then taking on all of the risk (and reward) by doing a startup that risk would be spread across all of the employees in the organization. Sounds like the organization would exist to provide "startup insurance".