snake117

Looks interesting, and thank you for sharing this! One common issue with scraping web pages is dealing with data that is dynamically loaded. Is there a solution for this? For example, when using Scrapy, you can have Splash running in Docker via scrapy-splash (https://github.com/scrapy-plugins/scrapy-splash).

I didn't have enough time to dive into all the information or test out the editor. However, one bit of feedback that I have is just wondering what sets ERD Lab apart from other existing solutions? What motivated you to make your own DB design tool? If a prospective customer was either weighing the pros/cons between several DB design tools or already using another tool, what would compel them to decide on using ERD Lab?

Maybe consider including a table highlighting the differences in features/pricing from other similar tools on the homepage (after the list of features) or a separate page entirely highlighting this information? For example, Render.com has a page specifically highlighting how their product is a better PaaS solution compared to Heroku [0]. This is just a thought.

Personally, I'm not familiar enough with DB design editors to know what I should be looking for in such a tool. Moreover, about ~1 year ago, I was looking for a solution that solved this exact problem, so I am genuinely curious about this.

Finally, just wanted to mention that while I don't need this at the moment, I did bookmark it to consider using in the future.

Otherwise, great job, and I wish you the best!

[0] - https://render.com/render-vs-heroku-comparison

Probably one of my favorite courses during my undergraduate studies at University of Michigan. Recently, I needed to brush up on statistics and was excited when I found this entire course available online.

All of the course materials are available under the 'Materials' tab, including the labs.

The lecture playlist on YouTube can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL432AB57AF9F43D4F

Back when I took this course, they were teaching us how to use SPSS, but it seems like they have since transitioned to teaching R. Definitely worth checking out if you need to review the fundamentals of statistics and probability.

I've read a lot of comparisons between Asana and Jira, but I was curious if anyone can explain the difference between Asana and Basecamp? I don't have experience with either service.

Great news! Also, thank you and everybody for all your hard work :)

Will there still be the $15k grant consideration if you become certified when you submit your app for the YC Core program?

Thanks for sharing! Do you mind me asking what admin template you used for the app? I'm searching for a decent admin template right now with a similar color scheme.

The only other company I know attempting to revolutionize email is Superhuman [0]. It will be interesting to compare these services. One thing I can say is that Basecamp will certainly be competitive if they can offer their service for less than $30 per month, which is how much Superhuman charges currently [1].

[0] - https://superhuman.com/ [1] - https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/27/my-six-months-with-30-mont...

Along with the other resources mentioned, I would check out https://elixircasts.io/

I find the videos to be great, both in terms of quality and pacing. Make sure to use the coupon code 'elixirforum' (without quotes) to get 10% off!

This is an awesome post. Thank you for sharing your story with the HN community.

I was browsing your GitHub and played around a little with IsoCity [0]. I really like it! Small projects like these are great and you can learn so much from them. You said it very well:

> I don't do projects to gather attention, I do cause I have fun doing them.

Thanks again for sharing and all the best :)

[0] - https://github.com/victorqribeiro/isocity

This brings to mind Dr. Greer and the Sirius Disclosure project [0]. The first documentary, Sirius, is available on YouTube [1] and the second documentary, Unacknowledged, can be viewed on Netflix.

To be clear, I'm not sure if I entirely believe in all of this myself. However, I don't regret watching any of it. At the very least I got some inspiration for short stories/screenplays.

[0] - https://siriusdisclosure.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC6B4Y0oFACv9QBlf0ebBcg

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA

Contrary to what most are saying, this was an awesome presentation. They kept it incredibly short, gave basic facts about the car (although nothing on the interior), and blew everyone's mind, for good or for bad, with a new truck unlike anyone would've believed, especially putting it against the F-150. Even with the glass shattering, the fact that it didn't go through was still amazing (they definitely have to work on this though). I say it was a mind blowing presentation and I will definitely be thinking through this.

With the built in ramp and their electric ATV pulling up and actually plugging into the Cybertruck was just unreal.

Ford and the rest are going to have to change things up big time.

Is this a truck or an APC?

I'm starting to warm up to it. Definitely will be turning heads when driving.

> "This is why we need a good social safety net...that will be extremely disruptive to their lives while they find new work. If we could support them with a safety during that time..."

I want to refrain from getting too political here, but what you are stating here seems to be one of the core reasons for why Andrew Yang is proposing the Freedom Dividend [1].

[1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/

Seconded. I would definitely learn a lot from this. I love the art style also.

Exactly. I was going to make this point myself, but you stated it better than I could. I can imagine a lot of prospective founders wanting to build an alternative platform to mitigate this issue, but then realize that further down the road they will ultimately become the very thing they set out to abolish in the first place.

> I don't know how to get around the business physics of this. Not sure anyone does.

Sometimes I think to myself that if their is less reliance on angel/VC funding from the very beginning, then founders could stay true to their vision. Like how Elon Musk refuses to make SpaceX a publicly traded company as it would squander the ultimate goal of colonizing mars. However, given how resource intensive it must be to process and store petabytes of video every year (exabytes in total), there is just no way around acquiring investment dollars.

Neuralink has a very impressive founding team and I have been periodically checking their homepage for any updates. I am excited to see what they have been working on for all this time.

Is there a way to preview all the questions on the application beforehand? Or at the very least allow to save our progress so we can return and finish them later?

For most of the questions I know what I want to write, but I like to revise my answers over the course of a few days so I can make them more clear and concise.

Looking forward to this! Thank you to everyone at YC and Startup School :)

I have been using Firefox as my default browser for as long as I can remember and after the release of Quantum I have loved using Firefox even more. I still have Chrome for cross-browser testing and the occasional website that loads correctly on Chrome, but not Firefox (for whatever reason). However, this occurs very rarely.

A big thank you to Mozilla. Keep up the great work!

This is exactly what I do. It took me quite some time during my undergrad years to realize that repeating information out loud can be an effective study strategy. It was especially perfect when studying for subjects like biochemistry, physiology, immunology, etc. In these kinds of subjects, there are so many little details/exceptions to know in addition to the large pathways/cycles/concepts that it can very quickly become overwhelming if you are unable to piece all the information together, in order, and think through it logically. Forcing myself to describe everything out loud is the best way for me to identify where my gaps in understanding of the material are and also helps me retain the material better.

This was a really insightful read, so first of all thank you to Sahil for writing and sharing this.

I think this is a perfect read for anyone contemplating on starting their own business as this clearly illustrates that not every startup is destined to become a unicorn and/or should be heavily backed by VCs. Moreover, if that is the only reason why you are pursuing your venture, then you will most likely experience heavy turbulence, possibly face the brink of total failure, and possibly just have to accept failure.

All that being said, I really enjoyed the end of the post, where he was explaining his change in outlook and open-sourcing the service. This could lead to wider adoption and potentially open new sources of revenue, similar to Discourse and how they can create and manage your forum for a fee even though the product itself is open-sourced. The reality is, sometimes people need the middle-man and it is nice to have the option available if you are in that situation.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences. I wish Sahil and the Gumroad team all the best :)

With regards to the addition of the Trix editor, there were some people claiming that it should not be included in the core framework (like a few comments in the video introducing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJZ9TnKrt7Q). Personally, I think it is a great addition as it offers just the right amount of features, with a simple design. Also, the fact that it was created by developers at Basecamp makes it more comforting knowing that it will be maintained well.

As always, great work from the team. Thank you for all your hard work. Can't wait for the full release :)

If you are feeling a bit adventurous and open-minded as you begin this venture, I would highly suggest looking into Elixir and Phoenix, especially since you are asking for "...best bang for the buck".

In fact, the 1.8.0 release for Elixir was just announced earlier today here: https://elixir-lang.org/blog/2019/01/14/elixir-v1-8-0-releas... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18903602)

What makes Phoenix great is that, not only is it blazing fast, but the framework serves as more of a web interface to your application as oppose to "taking over" your application, like with other major frameworks. Moreover, you get the full power of Erlang and OTP as well. I will have to say that some things are a little rough still, like deploying your application. This process is not as smooth as what you would experience with a Rails or Django app, but it will definitely get better over time. One of the features of Phoenix that is also really exciting is LiveView. If you have some time, definitely check out Chris McCord's 2018 keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2DU0qLfPIY

There are a lot of great books and resources to explore. I listed a few below:

https://elixirforum.com/

https://elixircasts.io/

https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-second-editio... (just released)

https://pragprog.com/titles/category/elixir?f[sort_by]=pubda...

https://www.manning.com/books/phoenix-in-action

With regards to Python, I cannot give too much recommendation as I have experience in Ruby/Rails and Elixir/Phoenix primarily. However, if you really want to begin building, stick with Python, since you already have experience with that language, and look into a popular framework, like Django or Flask.

For those who are not aware, Jose Valim (the creator of Elixir) live-streamed all his solutions to this years Advent of Code on Twitch (found here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/346878345?collection=YDM6eKu6bh...). I found this to be very informative and enjoyable. It is definitely worth checking out regardless of your proficiency in Elixir.

This reminds me of when Elon Musk announced on Twitter [0] that SpaceX and Tesla will be removing their respective pages from Facebook [1].

Having potentially large groups of users deleting their profiles as well as (reputable) businesses deleting their Facebook pages should hopefully serve as a wake-up call to Zuckerberg et al.

[0] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/977211923719598086?ref_s... and https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/977216157080993793?ref_s...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16659656

This is my first year participating in AoC and I am going with Elixir. I think this will be a great experience as I can try solving the problem on my own and then watch Jose Valim's approach live on Twitch. Here is more information if you are interested: http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2018/11/lets-learn-elixir-t...

This seems like a solid product and I will definitely keep it in mind. One thing that I really like is the number of languages you support (https://repl.it/languages). I would recommend adding support for Elixir and Phoenix down the road. While the community is small (compared to other languages/frameworks), it is growing, and the community is great.

Congrats on securing your funding and all the best!

This is a sad day. Paul Allen certainly had many achievements, but one of his endeavors that I truly admire is the founding and funding of the Allen Institute [0], especially after I had the pleasure of attending Christof Koch's lecture at the American Academy of Neurology annual conference two years ago [1].

Thank you for everything. You are truly an inspiration. RIP.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Institute

[1] - https://alleninstitute.org/what-we-do/brain-science/about/te...

I remember reading in Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future something that Elon had been formally admitted to the PhD program at Stanford, but dropped out after three days. Vance contacted the Registrar's Office (or the graduate department itself?, I cannot remember) and received the confirmation that he was admitted.

For those who have built and deployed applications before, how do you go about planning/developing your idea before you begin building it? For example, do you sketch out rough drafts with something like Balsamiq Mockups or just pen and paper? Do you bother filling out the YC application to flesh out your idea (even if you don't plan on applying)?

There are different approaches to achieve this, but finding a technique that is both comprehensive enough and time efficient is the challenge.