Start-up Engineering Course FAIL - Where's My Stuff - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 21, 2013, 08:03:19 am
content: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/where-s-my-stuffOh dear, an example of Stanford's Start-up Engineering Course FAILA lot of uni's seem to have these startup/entrepreneurial courses these days, which is of course a good thing, until you get results like this and every man and his dog thinking they can come up with a good idea and execute it well.

author: AxelDominatoR
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 21, 2013, 01:41:58 pm
content: Well, I can think of at least one person who might need something like this. Desperately.Once he forgot his car in front of my house. Not the keys: the *car*.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 23, 2013, 05:46:04 pm
content: Hard to believe how bad that video is. Seriously, what were they thinking? It stinks of vapourware - in the description it sounds like they have made something (possibly working) using words like "finalising", however the video shows nothing to back it up.

author: Orpheus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2013, 03:19:59 am
content: I'm taking that course. It's actually a quite nice coverage of today's online tools and methods.Unfortunately, it's completely contaminated by what I call the "Stanford School of Startups": Make it all software, grow exponentially fast (they insist on a metric of percent/week), never make a profit, but have an "exit strategy": who will buy you out because they are afraid of you, are afraid of some competitor acquiring you, etc. Ironically, the professor is currently a founding principal at a biomedical HARDWARE startup, but he's completely drunk the Koolaid.You should expect to see a lot of these in the coming weeks. The main course project is to build a Selfstarter site for a product, and try to raise as much Bitcoin as one can from ones classmates.I decided early on that I wouldn't take it 'for credit', because I wasn't interested in this approach, but it covered so many technologies/services that I'd never gotten around to learning that I stayed in, just to get the lectures -- which unfortunately the professor doesn't consider very important. They were often posted up to 4 weeks behind the initial syllabus (and homework deadlines) and halfway through he seems to have completely given up on lectures altogether, figuring we'd just read the notes (which were informative when finally posted, with good practical exercises -- but if I wanted to learn that way, I'd have learned it from the web long ago)All that notwithstanding, I WOULD recommend that course, now that he's finally written the lecture notes [well, we're still waiting for the last set] and recorded some lectures. It was valuableBTW, completely avoid James Green's entrepreneur course out of UMD. It was dreadful (the only MOOC out of the 30+ that I've taken that I'd call dreadful). I wrote him detailed notes on how to improve it, but even then, it would only be decent. Try Steve Blank's Udacity course instead. It's very clear, very good, and coincidentally elucidates the principles of this week's Amp Hour guest

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2013, 06:34:51 am
content: Quote from: Orpheus on August 25, 2013, 03:19:59 amThe now old "New Economy" way. Found it, bring it up, sell it, run away.So your professor is effectively teaching how to become a conman. Sad to see that you no longer have to have dodgy friends, be a member of the organized crime or in prison to get that kind of "education". Today signing up for a course at Stanford does the trick.

author: Orpheus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2013, 10:40:10 am
content: Yup, he said up front that he'd alternate between parallel tracks on tools/methods and "philosophy".He's officially openly dismissive of anything that isn't "get rich quick" (or Apple, for that matter)

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 06:01:21 am
content: At 1:18 in the video you can see the tag for the keys in his hand. Typical iPhone user.Give me 75k and I'll figure out how to make it work.Does anyone remember in the 1980s you could buy those key rings that when you whistled, they'd beep so you could find your missing keys?

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 07:21:50 am
content: i remember this guy from "shark tank" I dont think he got anything from them either.what happens when you lose your phone! I think he has it backwards. I would lose my phone before I lose my keys.EDIT:Possibly a credit card like device that goes in your wallet and you'll know if you lose either one.

author: Phaedrus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 02:17:50 pm
content: What if you lose your wallet?

author: Hypernova
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 05:00:34 am
content: Quote from: Phaedrus on August 28, 2013, 02:17:50 pmOr your pants! Food for thought.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 06:09:39 am
content: Could you imagine the embarrassment of losing your pants in a brothel?

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 04:35:27 pm
content: Quote from: Stonent on August 29, 2013, 06:09:39 amText on a T-Shirt: I lost my pants in a brothel and all I got was this lousy T-shirtAnyone interested in crowdfunding that

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 07:45:12 pm
content: Quote from: Stonent on August 29, 2013, 06:09:39 amOr if said brothel gets raided by the Underpants Gnomes.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2013, 06:10:10 pm
content: Quote from: Stonent on August 29, 2013, 06:09:39 amBrothel? It's embarrassing enough even if you don't loose your pants.

author: madshaman
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2013, 06:56:14 pm
content: Whatever happened to building something because you have a passion for it and strive for greatness?I'm sorry, I wouldn't be excited over the idea of choosing some niche/fad/gimmick you believe will get hot so you can dream of being bought out.If that's your plan, might as well go work for a big corporation, they'll handle all the shilling for you and you can make the big bucks.

author: Dave
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 01:04:12 am
content: Quote from: zapta on October 05, 2013, 06:10:10 pmYou don't just loosen your pants in a brothel, you lose them all together.Speaking ofwhoresprostitutes, I just remembered this song.Hey, this thread derailed 5 posts ago, might as well go along with it.

author: Greyersting
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 11:22:42 pm
content: They couldn't even have a real person talking?

author: mikec
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2013, 05:16:01 pm
content: he forgot his magazine...