sparknlaunch

While this is a great story likely to go down in Internet history, it seems a risky strategy. Sure he raised $20k but seems like this will just fuel the fire of the FunnyJunk lawyers. There have been more trivial legal cases than this one - that could go on for a long time.

tl;dr

Lots of startup advice being published and preached by "gurus".

Be careful of taking advice that is not tailored specifically to your circumstances.

Careful judgement needed to pick out and implement advice.

Ensure advice is actionable and measurable.

If the vote actually meant something to Facebook, they would have asked every active user at login to vote?

Thanks for the comments plus all the HN visitors.

Had 250 referrals from HN domains in approximately six hours landing on the home page. c. 100 blog posts were viewed

Not earth shattering but more visitors than normal. Just need to work out how to make them stay for longer than 10 seconds.

Sometimes simple and ugly triumph? We read some marketing experiences of ugly banner adverts getting more click conversions than modern ones. 1 it's an odd one.

http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/keep-it-simple-...

Started writing a blog to document our startup experiences but no one visits it. Those that visit don't stay. Tried promotion through social media without success. Everyone said it will be easy to interact with those with similar interests. While not the aim to make a profit, currently no chance of making any traction, let alone profit from the blog.

http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/

I was looking for a submarine kit for recreational purposes however clearly missed the massive drug smuggling opportunity.

Wiki: "A narco-submarine (also called narco-sub, drug sub and Bigfoot submarine) is a type of custom-made ocean-going self-propelled submersible vessel built by drug traffickers to smuggle drugs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine

Forbes! Congrats to Blake. Only spotted the notes on his blog via HN. Now guest blogger on Forbes. One good motivation for writing notes in class!

What is this?

I know Twitter recently changed (standardized) their logo but how is this site relevant?

http://blog.twitter.com/2012/06/taking-flight-twitterbird.ht...

Nice story however you would only commit to this level of customer service if you had the time, patience and suitable customer base. I don't think many would be spending hours with a customer for a low value product or where little value can be derived.

This situation paid off, however you never know if the directors or companies may have discovered the business through other means.

I know this all sounds cynical but it's a careful balance of sensibility.

Note: The submission title has been changed by the HN editors/moderators. The original title was: "The Worst Ever Infographic - The Startup Ecosystem".

I felt the content and design were terrible. Comparing the startup ecosystem to marine life. Seriously?

>> "Transparent Pricing - Monthly service fee + only pay for successful transactions."

I cannot see the pricing. Any idea of the monthly service fee and cost per transaction?

Please elaborate? Would be good to hear your perspective given your experience in the market.

This won't be the best answer, but I remember once reading how TomTom and Garmin were being punished by the advent of Google Maps and smartphone GPS. New technology essentially cut out the need for paying money for a dedicated satnav or personal navigation device; plus the map content.

With this knowledge the companies were at a cross road. Compete on content or technology? They pursued different paths with different financial results. I believe initially TomTom stayed with tech and Garmin with content.

Unsure the current strategy but know Garmin are big in fitness products but TomTom still remain holding satnavs.

Any improvements in maps is going to hurt both firms.

Difficult hypothetical but Jobs was a control freak. Hard to see him going though the motions of an incubator or accelerator.

What are the common causes of broken links?

Seems unavoidable on large sites.

> Re: virtual FB credits

I remember reading that their are some online games or communities in China that have billion of dollars worth of their own currency in the market. It is so large that they fix the fluctuations to the local exchange rate.

Unsure if this is the same story, but (Online) Gold Farming is estimated to be worth $3billion. (1)

Maybe FB are looking to mimic this growth. Add in the psychological and control aspects and you have your very own economy.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/virtual-gold-farming-compared...

Worth noting that some passwords belong to the dating website eHarmony. The dating site had a password beach last year.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/06/8-million-leaked-pas...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/11/eharmony_data_breach...

> "Speaker Bio Python Overlord for Heroku. Creator of Python-Requests. Photographer. Curator of The GitHub Reflog™. Knows where his towel is."

Thanks for sharing. The site has a few other interesting presentations by the same speaker.

Can someone explain why loading 240k of library files is a negative? Is this a performance issue or a storage issue? If the later, surely consumers don't care about space?

Noticed this today and assumed it was my local settings. Not that HN need to consult or communicate to users but was this announced?

I suspect you can still sign up but via another screen?

Slick website but not sure how this differs to current technology?

Can devices and programs already access the internet through existing wifi?

Wow. Good luck. Given your commitments you've made a brave decision to resign.

What is your plan for the next week, month, quarter? What are your targets? How many months can you survive without income?

Could you not have remained employed by building the foundations of your new business?

Will you be sharing your journey?

When Twitter recently had accounts and passwords leaked, many were attached to spam accounts or duplicate records. Most had obvious passwords (like 1234).

Are these legitimate active accounts? Can you do anything with the hashed passwords alone?

Makes you appreciate the industry a little bit more. Surprising how much performer fees have fallen.

Really like the kaggle platform. First heard about them from a techzing with the founders.1

The challenges can help corporations and others from solving complex problems. No reason why Facebook cannot take advantage of this process.

1 http://techzinglive.com/page/927/166-tz-interview-anhony-gol...

Uh, another good post on sharing the joy/pain of learning Ruby. Thanks for sharing.

I have spent the past three weeks getting my head into Ruby (on the hopeful way to understanding Rails). With so many different languages and stacks, it makes the early stages extremely daunting for a beginner.

I have found comfort in the following resources:

1) The only website I found that actually visualized how everything sits together: http://techiferous.com/2010/07/roadmap-for-learning-rails/

2) I persevered with a Ruby programming book: Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional (by Peter Cooper)

3) Spent a few days on a zero install Ruby tutorial: http://tryruby.org

I plan to write some blog posts on the journey however may wait until I get passed the basics before sharing too much.

I heard there were some restrictive regulations on selling retail items online in Australia? It effectively takes away any benefits of trading purely online. How successful is online retailing?

Java or Javascript?

Sadly memory and recall are not my strong point. In fact I am surprised I even remember anything when I see how quickly it takes to forget things. How much of Hacker News do you remember?

The old adage of you remember 60% of what you read on day 1, 30% day 2 and 5% day 5. Within a day you are already suffering a painful decay rate.

Therefore any method to remember something (rather than nothing) is of importance.