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trey_swannon Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool?

I use the StartHQ launcher. Pretty cool! Thanks guys!!

I also like the weekly update emails. They email you news and posts about the apps you use.

trey_swannon Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool?

https://www.truevault.com/

TrueVault is a HIPAA compliant data backend for apps, devices, and sites. Developers use TrueVault so they can develop healthcare apps without building out their own HIPAA compliant infrastructure. You access data in TrueVault via our API and native clients. Think of TrueVault as Stripe for confidential patient data. You use Stripe to store credit card data so that you are PCI compliant. Our customers use TrueVault to store protected health information (PHI) so that they are HIPAA compliant.

It’s cool because new healthcare applications are paring back their feature sets so that they don’t have to be HIPAA compliant. TrueVault helps solve this problem, and prevents legislation from hindering innovation. TrueVault will handle HIPAA so that entrepreneurs can focus on improving the quality of care for millions.

Also cool because TrueVault takes care of all of the technical requirements mandated by HIPAA. HIPAA compliant hosting providers (AWS, FireHost, Rackspace) only provide a HIPAA ready environment. You still have to spend the dev time and money to build your own application stack in order to comply with HIPAA.

trey_swannon Ask HN: I have a list of 20 potential customers. How to reach out to them?

Start with a personal email. Keep is short. Your ask, in the initial email, is for a phone call. That's it. Your objective is to set a time for a call. One sentence on what you're building, and one sentence on why it is applicable to them. Indicate that you respect their opinion and that you would like them to help shape your product roadmap.

On the call. Don't sell them anything. Ask them questions about what they are currently doing, and what solutions they would like to see for the "problem." Even if you just talk to 1 out of 20, listen to what they want and tweak your product to make them happy. If that customer is happy, then there is a good chance that other users will want what you've built. "Do things that don't scale" - PG.

Your goal on the call is to get that person using your product. Offer to do it for them. Write code for them. Help them implement your solution. Treat it like a consulting gig. Whatever they are looking for, you can do it.

A LinkedIn add compliments a direct email. But, a LinkedIn message is often ignored.

If you don't have the customer's email use Rapportive -- http://rapportive.com/

Rapportive is amazing! You add Rapportive to gmail. It is a free add-on for Firefox, Safari, Mailplane, and Chrome. You can guess at the email you are looking for...firstname@companyname.com, firstname.lastname@companyname.com, firstinitiallastname@companyname.com, etc. When you get a hit the right hand side of gmail lights up with the person's picture and links to their publicly available social networks, all of which gets displayed alongside the message. The sidebar replaces Google’s contextual ads, so that’s a double win.

Even if you don't like my advice you should checkout Rapportive, it helps.

trey_swannon Applicants who stayed long working for large organization bad for YC?

Sounds like you were lucky.

I took the comment to mean that the most successful founders typically get so fed up with the Byzantine systems at large companies that they leave. And, they leave quickly.

PG is likely just pattern matching. The successful founders that he has seen don't stay long at large companies.

trey_swannon Immigration Reform: A Catalyst to Strengthen America

Written by Gautam Sivakumar, founder of Medisas (YC W13). http://www.medisas.com/

Great piece! I love the line "A start-up is like a seed, that can be planted anywhere you want. Why would you not choose to plant that seed in the most nutritious soil?"

trey_swannon PG charts acceleration of YC applications since noon

An increase in time spent would not increase the success rate. Probably the opposite. More time spent -- less likely that an applicant is on the right track.

Applicants that submit at the last minute have likely been thinking about/living with the problem for a while, and they are able to quickly articulate the problem, their solution, and the reason that they will be successful.

trey_swannon Startup School 2013 Doodles

Insanely great. I'm a huge fan. Thank you!

trey_swannon How to make your YC application stand out

I'd argue that the unpolished application videos are the best. I really like the video that the guys from DirectedEdge submitted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nTFBO5lvGc). This video demonstrates that there is chemistry between the two founders, identifies the problem/opportunity, and clearly explains their solution. I wasn't in the room, but this video appears to be spontaneous.

I can't speak to the timing of it all. But, given the data points available I'd say rough videos and applications free of marketing speak are the best.