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I am a part time single founder of www.socialadmanager.com and a part-time co-founder (adult site). I have found that it helps not only in terms of working on the product at a faster pace but things just get done at a must faster pace in general as a single founder.

As a single founder if users are complaining about something then I am the only one there to fix it so the most important things (the ones being bitched about the most) always get done first and if it needs to be implemented as a product feature I don't have to discuss things with people like i do at work.

At work everyone wants to feel as if their opinion matters even if it does not. We have to get a consensus on things and trade emails, phone calls, text messages etc... just to get a simple feature out the door or any similar task.

I can just get in and fucking do it. We spend so much time at work justifying shit to morons that want to play devils advocate or salesmen that are asking for random things that they don't even really understand.

As a single founder when I develop I keep in mind that I will need to maintain and manage this feature myself so it is mandatory that all features have proper test and administration tools that facilitate this. Then if and when something happens I can quickly deal with it and move on to something else.

At work I am usually outvoted since we all agreed to do "group product development" (Note: this was done to ensure the authenticity of the site within its niche (xxx)). Even though I make sure we have test the maintenance portion is usually seen as a luxury so we go without until something fucks up. At that time a day or so is spent paralyzed by indecision and a few more asking how to fix the issue with minimal impact to users blah blah blah it eventually gets done but its never smooth.

Oddly enough I think that one place being a single founder also helps is in customer service. I always make sure that every one gets an answer to their questions. And 2 (or half lol) of my agency clients actually have my cell phone number and call me whenever they really need something important or right now. Some people would think thats lame but what I have found is that it makes me focus on what the most common things people call me about are and work them into the product asap so that I don't have to be involved in the task.

Anyway... this is just my two cents.

Good job. This looks cool. I made something like this for dell once called FTR (First Time Resolution). FTR is a metic that describes how many times (on avg) a user has to call in before their issue is resolved. I think if you added that here w/ some pretty charts or something it could help you monetize it.

I dont think that it has reached its "Final Stage". I do feel that its currently over hyped and will have to evolve in order to compete w/ traditional casual games now that the free distribution they were receiving has disappeared. I never really thought that the current popular social games "Farmville" etc... were ever real games anyway.

Another issue here is that IMHO all the best teams are formed organically (e.g.: Google Guys @ Stanford / FB Guys @ Harvard etc...) and not out of a direct inent to form a startup. As we all know running a startup w/ a co-founder is like being married. 1 issue that this site could run into is that just like on dating sites its very difficult to establish a significant amount of rapport and I would argue that having a good rapport with your co-founder is just as important as having a good rapport with someone that you want to date. Instead of using a site like this you should look around and determine which of the people you know and like would be the best fit in the role of co-founder. Something like Facebook or linked in would be a good place to search your network for potential startup co-founders. Or if you are like me you just start a project and annoy all your friends to test/review/help etc... so much that they either stop talking to you or become your co-founder.

I think that there is something wrong with that. I have found that business co-founders are a dime a dozen but tech co-founders are extremely hard to find and in high demand. Oddly enough this creates the same situation that you find on traditional dating sites (e.g.: too many men not enough women). But even with that said. It seems like a cool idea and I hope they do well.

I have and currently work for adult companies (AFF / Stockroom / AEBN etc...) and this problem is even bigger then this article explains. Several companies have closed their doors. One interesting thing I have found is that niche / fetish sites are immune to this because their content is so unique (and sometimes disturbing) that tube sites wont run it and cam sites are doing better than ever. The sites bitching about their content being pirated need to innovate and do so in a way that can not be stolen. AEBN attempted to do this w/ the real-touch but failed miserably because the thought of having sex w/ a machine does not appeal to men and it was far to expensive ($299.00 a unit & 1 dollar a minute).

totally off topic: I just saw the company you work for. I developed the mentality that I have while doing a 14 month bid. I did pretty much the same thing you do only I didn't have permission.

Why is that dumb? What's wrong with a fight? IMHO a fight is better than waking up knowing you are a coward.

Your site is really well done but this seems like more of a feature than a stand alone product. What is the most compelling reason a user would have to use this and not an existing sharing service?

You should read a book called "Blue ocean strategy"; it is about this exact thing. The core part of any disruption in my opinion is to eliminate the value cost trade off. Companies usually compete on 2 grounds; lower price or increased utility. But when a someone enters the market and breaks the value cost trade off (increased utility w/ lower price) the result is usually disruption within the market.

Yes, I know the above stuff is ovious; what you need to know is how to do this. I have put some methods below.

1. Reconstruct market boundaries: you can do this by looking across alternative industries or across strategic groups in an industry. What are your customers alternative? What if they trade up? What if they trade down?

Drawing a strategic canvas and applying the 4 actions framework is useful.

2. Focus on the big picture and not just the numbers

Data driven decision making is good but sometimes people get lost in the numbers; epically the market leaders. By focusing on the big picture (context and consumer intent) instead of just the numbers you are more likely to be able to see outside of the existing market paradigms.

3. Reach beyond existing demand

First tier: “Soon to be” non-customers who are the edge of our market; waiting to jump ship

Second tier: refusing non-customers who consciously choose against our market

Third tier: “unexplored” non-customers who are in markets distant from ours

There are many other ways as well e.g.: Get the strategic sequence right etc...but these were some of my favorites.

"As long as the site isn't true-blue porn, I wouldn't sweat it. In other words: if the site caters to people looking to hook-up, no big deal. If the site caters to people looking to pleasure themselves, this is perhaps a problem."

In my opinion this statement is pure stupidity. If you can code and you are the best candidate then you should get the job. I have done extensive work in adult w/ some of the largest adult companies around and I can promise you that the technical challenges of a site that does that type of massive traffic are greater than or on par with what you will encounter at your typical job.

As long as you don't make or appear in porn you should be fine.

You are very correct and most people feel the way you do even if they wont admit it. I have worked at sever large hookup and dating sites and all the problems are the same. The main one called the 90/10 rule is the root of all their problems.

I am building a dating site right now that eliminates this issue and introduces a totally different model.

Also... have you seen this https://squadedit.com/?

Well, sort of.

What I really mean is that I work on apps that are simple on the front end and require lots of heavy lifting (example: Sentiment Extraction from Unstructured Text using Tabu Search-Enhanced Markov Blanket.) on the backend.

I am not a programmer or engineer. I am a hacker; but I am also a brilliant problem solver so I can teach myself what i need to know to solve the problem at hand. Even so I am not naive enough to think that I come up w/ anything close to the "optimal" solutions (mathematically). IMO thats where people like you come in.

I am working on this problem right now.

I am the exact opposite of you. I can put up entire projects myself (design, code etc...) but when it comes to heavy lifting I try and out source it because even though I can do it, it would take as much time as putting up a whole mobile web app.

I am currently working on 3 apps (2 will go live in the next few weeks). If you are interested in working on some stuff together send me an email.

The fact that you got down voted and he has 12 up votes (currently) has really kind of changed how I see the hacker news community. Socially I always knew i didn't "fit in" with the people on this site but the one thing that connected us all was learning about technology and a love for sharing what we learn. Because of that I thought that there was enough general respect amongst us all not to use a word like "niggle" or "niggardly" and certainly not to defend it's use. I know you all wont agree with me but lets be honest for a minute; I am a black male and if you were in a conversation with me face to face you would not use that term because if you did we would have a problem.

I am a black male. My father made 30k a year. He could never afford a computer for me but I have been hacking since 10. A computer teacher of mine sent me to see some friends of hers on a "Kids to go work" day and I got an internship out of it. I was there so much (and even sleep there if they would let me) they let me work for a computer. My point is that if your really want to do something you will find a way to do it; that is a true hustlers mentality.

FYI: Im a beast on the basketball court too.

Don't look for ideas, find problems (that more people than just you have) and solve them.

For me its based on progress; if a project is going well and I am constantly being presented with new challenges it does not get boring. If that is not the case then (e.g.: not growing and no progress) then i quit. Quitting is not always a bad thing. I highly recommend a book called "The dip". It may help you understand when its time to call it quits on a particular project.

We sent them an email after we pushed the change live. If I could do it over again I would send them an email a week in advance and funnel all the complaints to our support team. The biggest mistake was having nowhere for them to complain because then they took to fb, twitter etc...

I co-founded a startup called NetWinner. It was a casino style online game that allowed users to win prizes. Everything was absolutely free and users never paid. They just watched ads while they played the game and they could instantly win gift cards and cash prizes.

When the economy started to tank our ad revenues tanked and the model as it was could no longer be supported. So we changed it so that users won raffle tickets for prizes instead of winning prizes directly.

We did not message this to our users well and the BBB got over 250 complaints about the change we made. It was covered on local TV in charlotte, NC and lots of other bad stuff happened. They could never take legal action because they never paid but they still tried. They posted stuff all over the web about how we cheated and scammed them out of the prizes they won (which we did). I was just the technical co-founder and did not have a vote in financial decisions but since I owned the domain people thought I was the head guy and came after me. Good thing it was always free to play.

Pivotal Tracker - pivotaltracker.com

I would look at what the feature cost me to offer and use that as the basis of my decision.

I know this is not a popular opinion its really how I feel. I know lots of geeks and am very familiar with geek / startup culture. One of the coolest things about YC is the fact that there is so much input / guidance from PG. This decision seems like a shift away from that and toward more of a judged by peers model IMHO.

This makes me not want to apply; I guess I am just one of those people with bad ideas that YC would not have wanted to fund anyway.

If you need the support I would go with rackspace. If you dont need help AWS is better IMHO.

Release early, release often.

i want an invite; arion.hardison [@] gmail.com