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peripateticon Ask HN: Do you need a seed investment to get VC?

Funding profile I was meaning more like: your revenue level and growth rate, what industry you are in and dynamics of, the business model, strength of team, etc.

if you want to discuss send me your email address to: peripatetic@suremail.info and I will drop you a line.

peripateticon Ask HN: Do you need a seed investment to get VC?

No need for seed for the "connections." In fact a seed investment can kinda screw things up because you're deal won't be as clean.

Only take on seed if you think it would improve your "funding profile" to VC's. So you need to evaluate 1. what your funding profile looks like now. 2. what it would look like after a seed investment. And remember more is not always better (meaning, sometime its better to show a little less results than more. ie "wow, these guys raised a $500k seed and still only grew at 2x...")

PM me if you want to talk about your current vc fundability (i'm ex-vc, current ceo of startup)

peripateticon Ask HN: What formula do you use for calculating subscriber churn?

I don't know the convention, but the most accurate would be the rate of decay on the installed base.

peripateticon Ask HN: What equity percentage for a co-founder joining after de-risking?

I cannot imagine what you could do to "de-risk" a company with zero capital, zero customers and zero product.

peripateticon Poll: Is humility an important trait for entrepreneurs?

V. Important.

don't confuse ambition, audacity, etc, with lack of humility. you can be ambitious and humble.

humility helps you attract team. humility helps you delegate when you have that team. humility helps you pick your battles and focus your resources. humility attracts investors. humility helps you get customers. humility helps you ask the real questions, uncomfortable questions about your current product and how its meeting customers needs. humility helps you cope with the infinite number of small setbacks in starting up.

peripateticon iStoleYourStartup: A story of an iPhone Company Con Man

What a squalid petty affair.

I think you need to keep a little perspective. You aren't the first guy to waste a bunch of time on a side project that didn't go anywhere.

1. this was a side project!?! you can't expect great results from a side project. if something happens, then great, if not, well .... you still have a job.

2. Don't you first need to _have something_ before it is conned from you. I certainly didn't hear of any great technical achievements that would have lead to success.

3. Maybe you didn't like the direction the project took. But it sounds like your partner was right about one thing, dealing w/ your dojo guy did get the attention of the Secret guru. It seems like the involvement of the Secret guru is the only thing the project had going for it at one point. And as I mentioned prior, you didn't mention any great technical successes that would have lead to a breakout.

Like i said, welcome to the club of failed side projects.

peripateticon Widely useful Python utilities by Peter Norvig

http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/twic.py

excellent. and great comment: """This is Tom's personal Python subroutine library. You are not expected to understand this.

Warning: this file contains HIGH MAGIC and DEEP VOODOO, as well as quite a bit of QUESTIONABLE CODE and very few COMMENTS. Use with caution.

ha!

peripateticon [dead]

yeah, but what i really want is the "Lime Away" stain remover...

how the hell is that thing unblockable?!

peripateticon [dead]

Well, luckily we all now have "Felony Machines" installed in all our homes (internet connected computers), that are capable of generating all number of felonies in an evening (child pron and the like). Cliky, clicky everybody.

peripateticon Ask HN: Bay Area .Net Devs - Stigma on .Net

I work for a startup in sv. successful. we are all linux, python, ruby. we are building our infrastructure from the bottom up, (no previous decisions we are locked into). The idea of doing _anything_ with microsoft is just completely alien... its like another world that is just not relevant to us. could you imagine if we were discussing a new service and one of our engineers said "lets buy a win server 2008 license and an IIS license and check that out" ha. lol. "and if we have any questions we'll just pull up some stuff on the microsoft knowledge center or msdevnet to figure out how to use it." LOL!!

(feeling is similar towards java, but java people are seen as more redeemable. but if you worked on java at HP, you are pretty much lost to us.)

peripateticon Ask HN: Thoughts on performance-enhancing drugs?

I disagree w/ a lot of what is stated here about: "don't cover up the problem" or "get your life in order then try medication."

I got a lot of the same bad advice and I wasted years flagellating myself to try to get my life in order first. Well, turns out that I have a "real" problem. The 2nd or 3rd day on medication it was like, "wow, all those guys that could balance their checkbook, get the essay in on time, etc, and would condescend to me, and tell me i just needed to "buckle down" well, wholly sh8t, if their minds work like this the whole time... well, damnit they were cheating!" medication can improve the tools you need to get your life in order.

so, you need to answer for yourself if you have a "real" problem. if you do, medication could help immensely. For me it probably saved my life.

But, like other comments, its no panacea. if you really have ADD, well you need to work at it too in addition to medication.

peripateticon Ask HN: I could really use some business advice.

Get a partner.

If you're stating you're in a vacuum now, well wait, because there will be an infinite stream of decisions and competing priorities and aims and risks that come from taking a co to the next level. So, if you want to take it to the next level you need a partner, somebody that complements you, but kinda knows what to do (either because of his experiences or the way he's built).

But, get a partner in a smart way. Take a year or two. Get somebody in your own age range (not too old, not too young). Talk with him _a lot_. Get that weird feeling that your not in sync on a couple of big issues, don't do it. And make expectations clear that you expect him to take on quick projects that are immediately CF positive for at least a year while he learns the business. ( I always slap my forehead when I hear those stories of founders letting a new ceo take a huge flier early on. Big new marketing plan. Conferences! etc.)

good news in it all: Time is on your side.