skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
'... Further information about product details, etc. can be discussed upon further contact. ...'

Do you have a demo? a blog? or something you can show? Build, talk create an audience and the long tail of the Internet will work for you. [0]

Not having something, anything to show is counter to what's really going on at the moment in the web where there is an avalanche of interesting things going on. You have to market yourself [0], no not market, make a statement. Here are the words I use to motivate myself here ...

'... Momentum builds on itself -- just start. Do whatever you can. Draw a user interface. Write a spec. Make something, anything, that people can see and touch and try. A prototype is worth ten thousand words. ...' [1]

More releases (code, blogs, demos), less searching. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Remember we are in a boom so lots of really interesting things are happening. You have to compete and show your stuff by releasing and listening to your audience.

Reference

[0] It also tells you if are building crap that nobody wants to read, run or download.

[1] Marc Hedland, 'Entrepreneurial Proverbs, Starting'

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/03/entrepreneurial_proverbs.html
Not mine, I just ran across this site, thought it was clever and submitted it.

Of course, if anyone happens to be looking for a home in Los Angeles... http://www.lalife.com/ is the place you want to go! ;)
Wow that finetune wii interface rocks.
How do you come up with your ideas for startups?
I've found that the most effective way to come up with ideas is to spend some time alone writing down ideas, usually "aha!" moments that occur while I am doing something completely unrelated. Usually the idea scratches a personal itch I have. After that, I've found that bouncing the idea off of co-founders helps to assert (or reject) that it is a valid business opportunity. How about you guys? What methodology works best for you?
'... The "incomprehensible marketing speak" line was aimed at the non-research IBM web pages I've seen, btw, not at Ars Technica :-) ...'

Whoops, sorry. Your summary looks okay. The system allows you to be used to verify your identity (verification) anonymously unlike openid, an 'identity provider'.
Yeah, see, the issue is, I am trying to find coders so that I can make my idea tangible. It is only idea as of now, and I'm looking for skilled people to make this idea a reality, such as a demo.

However, I am hesitant to just explain my idea and post it throughout the internet in hopes of attracting people for fear that someone can just run with the idea on their own. I mean, I am just the idea guy with creativity, they're the coder, they can live without me, but I can't live without them.

How do you suggest I lure coders without exposing too much about the site's idea?

How do I convey that good pay will probably not be the case, rather that he/she will be a partner in the startup, without turning away possible applicants?
'... He's an amazing hacker and a reluctantly-badass entrepreneur. ...'

Yep, OpenID ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openid
Learn to program. ;-)

Seriously, there are a bunch of reasons why coders turn down a startup:

1.) Not enough compensation. If you're paying them cash, you have to pay them market rates. For a bright but junior programmer, that's minimum $55-60K/year. salary in most of the tech hotspots. For someone experienced, figure at least $100k/year. If you're looking for hourly contractors, expect to pay at least $75/hour for anyone decent. If you give them equity - well, I personally would not join a startup for less than 20% equity, and I suspect many other technical founders have similar minimums. Actually, the only reason my current startup got away with so little (I'm getting 25%) is because it has 5 founders, and nobody else has more than 25%.

2.) Boring idea. Good programmers like to work on interesting problems. I joined my startup because it was in a problem domain that I waste a lot of time in anyways, I knew the area, and it'd let me try some cool stuff that I didn't know if I could do, but it'd be fun as hell to try.

3.) They don't trust you. Techies have a natural aversion to business-type people. Be straight with them, always. The second they think you're trying to bullshit them, they'll walk away.

4.) They don't think you add much value. Ultimately, it'll be the techie building the product. They need a reason why working with you beats building the product on your own. Usually, your best bet is to have a large personal network, or good people skills, or the ability to sell something. I don't think it's necessarily true that techies can't be good with people, but in my experience, I can't code and be good with people at the same time, so have a cofounder with people skills has been a big win for me.

Remember, if you're founding a technical startup, you want the best coder you can find. He'll usually be young, because good experienced coders typically have families and will not work for stock, and you generally can't afford the $150K/year that they'll cost you. Don't try to skimp and get cheaper labor - lots of companies tried that in the dot-com bomb (notably Value America), and they almost universally went out of business. Average coders cannot hit the high notes; you need to hit the high notes as a startup, because all of the middle ground is taken.

In my case, I met my cofounder at Homecoming. We'd lived across the hall from me sophomore year, so I went over to talk to him and see what he was doing. Turned out he was working on a startup in a field I was interested in. He introduced me to the other cofounders afterwards (2 of which I already knew from college). I didn't actually join until several months later, when their initial choice for a technical founder quit, but he kept my name in mind.
If you're running a web based business (eg: not a retailer, but where everything is an online service) then the domicile of the business is the web, not any nationality. In other words, you can incorporate anywhere you wish and its legitimate- the act of incorporation creates the domicile for the business.

If you're going to do business in Japan to the point that you have above ground employees (taxes, social security, etc.) then you'll have to find out the Japanese laws. Even then it probably makes sense to incorporate outside of Japan for tax reasons. A foriegn corporation operating in a country is generaly treated differently (and better) than a domestic corporation.

But, if not, then you can incorporate in any jurisdiction which is friendly to corporations.

I would strongly recommend you do not incorporate in the US. The USA is not a friendly jurisdiction for corporations and all the trends are that it is getting worse. Ths US has enacted currency controls, limiting ones ability to move money in and out of the country-- this is the first step in the creation of an "iron curtain". (Requiring passports of people who travel, as the US started doing in January is the second step.)

It is only appropriate to incorporate in america if your business is completely located in america. (If you want to find out what your government does all day, just file business papers in many states- over the next 6 weeks you'll get contacted by many dozens of different agencies, all of whom want you to do paperwork and give them money. Texas is an exeption to this, Nevada may be as well.)

Ok, on to the real advice-- look at countries that are pro-business, or who are, or used to be tax havens. The caymen islands and bahamas are obvious choices, but also st kitts and nevis are worth checking out. You can legally incorporate there. Some of these islands have restrictions about the business you can operate there, but are happy to incorporate foriegn businesses (that is to say, its easier if you'll not be opening an office on their soil).

Along those lines- ex UK protectorates, consider the Isle of Man (or is it the Isle of Wight?) and closer to home, New Zealand and Australia. These latter two are high tax states, but are closer and may prove to be good choices for you.

Also consider the united arab emerites, monaco and Mauritius. These are a different style, but they may prove to be good places.

Finally, probably the best place to incorporate is Panama. Their government is oriented around providing services to foriegn industry... starting with the canal, but also ships registry, bank registration, incorporation and trust services, etc. This is probably one of the easiest places to do it.

If you're planning to bank outside of Japan, you might consider incorporating in Switzerland, so that your corporation and your bank can have closer ties. But I haven't looked into that much.

Its hard to find good information on this subject, probably because US courts have thrown people in jail for giving "Advice on how to avoid US taxes"... so, while this isn't a tax dodge (you're not a US citizen) people are wary of talking about it.
Use rent a coder. I've had good luck with them.
Whenever you run into a frustration in the world write it down. Then later when your trawling for ideas come back to that list and find a solution that will make the frustration go away.
"I mean, I am just the idea guy with creativity, they're the coder, they can live without me, but I can't live without them."

If that's the case, you really have a problem. Ideas are worth next to nothing. If you did manage to get one to join you, he'd likely leave at the first excuse. Why? Because you're contributing nothing.

Find some way to be of value as the startup grows. Learn some domain knowledge about the market. Talk to potential prospects. There are many things a technical cofounder can't or doesn't want to do on his own, and if you do them, he'll have a reason to work with you. But if you're just contributing the initial idea, there's no reason for him to work with you.
Absolutely true. From my own expirience, smart people just don't click on advertising and most of them have some kind of an ad blocking software installed. Myspace crowd is a lot more diverse than Facebook's so Myspace performs a lot better in CPM. Monetizing smart crowd that's averse to advertising is one of the toughest problems any social site will face. Another one is monetizing very young crowd (13-17 year olds)... they just don't have much disposable income.... that's Digg's problem.
Well, don't get me wrong, I think I would contribute a lot to the team.

The reason for saying that was to outline my fear of luring in a coder by exposing my idea, and having such a person run off with it.
I stopped using them because I've had two domain names registered away from me within 24 hours of searching for them on the site. Ironically, one I looked up before I got on the plane to the 2006 startup school and by the next morning when I had network access it was taken. It may just be bad luck but I've never had that problem with a generic whois or providers like GoDaddy.
Interesting to note Om and Niles have given up doing podcasts. [0] Words are more timely, easier to produce, cheaper and in the end much more interesting than voice (expensive, time consuming & technically difficult).

Reference

[0] onpodsessions, 'Phased Redeployment'

http://onpodsessions.com/2007/03/phased-redeployment.html
If you can't trust the coder with your idea, how are you going to build a good team?

1) Be open with your idea
2) If you're not coding, show what you are contributing
Thing is - if your business will fail because somebody ran off with your idea, you have a problem. Because the moment it looks like you're onto something, somebody will run off with your idea. The only way to keep it secret is to never launch, and that means you don't have a business.

It's more important to be able to move quickly once people copy your idea and stay ahead of them. That means finding a good coder, knowing a lot about the problem domain, and talking to lots of prospects.

Basically, success is all about having many good ideas, one after another. The first one just gets you in the door - it's usually wrong anyways. It can't get you in the door if you never tell anyone though.
I quite like http://www.spock.com/jobs as an example of an ad for coders. It says what they're making, why you should join them and the "Work with Jay" section shows you what they're like to work with.
I feel the same way-- when you see job postings for "Stealth mode startup", or otherwise people use it to try and add an air of intrigue to what they are doing-- it's extremely cheesy.

It was cool for transmeta, but immediately after it became cheesy.

On the other hand, when you have an idea, or a solution, and you're evaluating it, and trying to determine what the market is, what technological solutions are needed, or even if it is viable, you don't want to start talking about what you're doing too soon.

Not because your idea is super secret-- but because your idea is evolving every week. If you're doing a social network (And by the way, if your social network doesn't already have 1M members right now, please stop and find something interesting to work on-- you already missed the party)... but your niche is changing each week- one week it is cat owners, next week it is ferret owners-- you don't want to talk about it and sound like a goofball who is a member of the "get-rich-quick-scheme-of-the-week" club.

If you're really in stealth mode, you won't ever use the phrase "stealth mode". You would simply not talk about it.

However, when talking to friends who know I'm working on something, it would be nice if there was a phrase to use that says "it is too early to talk about right now, but I'm not trying to be pretentious."

Maybe just "early stage" is the phrase to use.

As for titles, I always hated the CxO titles-- they say to me "these are titles we give to MBA idiots cause they insist that their air of pomposity be respected, but secretly we know anyone with this title is an clueless and not worth spending time with at parties."

Personally, I'm going with founder. It is way too early to come up with a job title to specify exactly what my responsibilities are-- if it isn't done yet, it is my responsibility!
"If somebody can go get a browser plugin (AdBlock) and kill all banners with very little effort, what's to stop most users from doing that?"

Inertia. First of all, most people aren't that annoyed by banner ads. Of those who are, most of them are using Internet Explorer, so they're extremely unlikely to try to install Firefox/AdBlock or find a similar solution for IE. Of the people who already use Firefox, there is a large segment that doesn't use any extensions at all.

I know of very few people who go around installing AdBlock on people's computers. These people would be a chunk of the same people who install Firefox, but even Firefox's market share isn't very large. Five percent or so of Firefox's ~20% market share isn't very much.

People who use AdBlock or are likely to in the future are a tiny segment of users.
Idea praxis:

There are many ways ...

- make things for yourself & solve your own problems

- take notes in notebook

- observe from nature

- don't be obstinate (in-flexible)

- revise your ideas & filter

- listen to your users

The thing is some ideas are crap. Others maybe ok. But it's what you do with the idea that matters. Turn the idea to a demo. Release the demo and see how many users pick it up. Re-visit your old ideas

It's how quickly you can turn idea to demo. Unleash your ideas in the form of a demo on your users. You'll find out quickly if they are crap or not.
There's a huge difference between selling and being sold
'... I am trying to find coders so that I can make my idea tangible ...'

Help! I'm trying to find great musicians to create a fantastic hit album bigger than Beatles. Now where's some great guitar players? I'm a great producer.

'... However, I am hesitant to just explain my idea and post it throughout the internet in hopes of attracting people for fear that someone can just run with the idea on their own ...'

Classic founder mistake. If you own the idea (hint, the most passionate) nobody is going to try. If you can't code, well then you are behind the eight ball. I've outlined the reasons why your not getting anywhere. Try reading from others who are more articulate & experienced than myself [0].

The rest is up to you.

Reference

[0] pg, 5. Obstinacy, '18 Mistakes that kill a Startup'

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
Notice things that seem broken-- things that should be possible, but aren't (yet).
Found+READ
I bet it's a social network ;)

Luring coders is hard, the best way to do it is to be a coder yourself and put cool stuff out there for other to see. If you cant code, now would be a good time to learn. Not only can you start getting stuff done but when you do recruit coders you'll be able to communicate and understand each other better.
kyro, try telling u r idea in your most trusted circle..say friends and if none can help you, ask them to suggest a possible reference who could do it for you. That way you can get a tech guy straight away. If you still cannot find one, narrate your idea and what u want to build to some tech guy and get his advice of which tools are needed, then u can start learning that language.
i had applied there long back, they shooed me away :D
May be it was my fault as i got interviewed on yahoo messenger with some puzzles
You'd think a guy with so much creativity would to be able to lure at least one "coder"...
Dropped you an email, not too far away. It all depends on what kind of impression you make on people, and what kind of idea it is.
Your insightful criticism is deeply appreciated.
I still think the best source of inspiration is the government's list of 101 things to do besides having sex:

http://www.iamworththewait.org/101.html

It does a pretty good job at spanning the range of human activity.
Or questions that shouldn't be answerable but aren't.

Also, mashing up two abstractions is a good way to narrow down the solution space you are interested in.

For example, IT combines information with technology. PT combines people with technology. CP combines communication with people. TT combines two technologies.

Each mashup has a different set of value propositions that work well with it. IT generally uses tech to manipulate information to answer a question or help people make sense of something. PT generally revolves around augmenting human ability. etc.
You can purchase a WiFi modem to boost the signal and have it work inside:

https://wifi.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=44022
Ok, you're working on this in your spare time. Good, that's a good plan. You're working day jobs, and then in the evenings you're working on your startup.

That's all well and good, but where's your cocaine habit? How are you blowing all your money if you're spending all your time at work or on the startup?

IF you're not blowing all your moeny, and you've spent a year looking for funding (like it sounds like) then why dont' you have a year's worth of living expenses saved up?

The problem here is hte pervasive idea that the first step to starting a company is getting someone else to fund it. Screw that-- nobody can ever know your business as well as you can. You can use advice, sure, but wasting months working on proposals-- getting seeking emotional validation from investment, this is all the wrong way to go about it.

Build your product, save your cash. When you have enough money saved up, and if you really believe in your predictions (That you'll be cash flow positive in 6 months) then you quit your jobs when you have $12,000 saved up, or less.

If you can't save $12,000 between now and the next YC funding round, and you're working full time, then you are spending your money on something-- cocaine, maybe?

IF your idea and team really are good, you shouldn't be desperate for money... and hinging your emotional well being, or self confidence, on validation from investors is a recipe for failure (and unhappiness.)
Seattle is the third best startup hub, behind SF Bay and Boston and ahead of New York.

Zero reason to move to the bay area if you're in seattle... and a lot of reasons not to.
$30k is below the median income for the country which is $36k.

If you're a software engineer, even in alabama, you can easily make $60k a year.

And anyway, it doesn't matter-- if your income is that low, cost of living should be low as well.

Alabama is probably a great place to start a startup-- just you should start living on half your income.

Do that for a year and save the balance and you have a years living expenses to live off while you try and get your business going.
Uh, if you're spending 15 hours a week and making a decent living, what are you doing with the other 25 hours a week?

If you want a startup, it sounds like you have 25 hours a week to invest in it. It doesn't sound like you need to save up a lot of money.
I pretend to be a VC, listen to people's pitches, and implement the best ones.

(It's a joke. Laugh.)
To be fair, if it wasn't social then it would hardly need to be on the net in the first place.

Eg:

Complex circuit analysis app - no, not on the net.

Tool that helps people communicate and share knowledge - yes, on the net.
Yah think? http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11676
What is your idea filter? How can you tell if one of your ideas is worth pursuing?
Avail 1 br close to Davis (10 min walk). $700/mo. Must be willing to endure heckling if project is not python based. Must be williing to endure stories of how I couldn't do Y-combinator because of pending python book regardless. Dogs allowed but only if they are bigger than a cat. No cats,

Less flippant: Davis is a nice place to be. Take a look at a map though. There is good space available in Arlington which is one T-stop down from Davis (Alewife station) and it isn't hard to find something closer to the T for the same money (worst case scenario walking home from Davis at 2am - 20 minutes). Plus if you are in walking distance of Alewife you are in walking distance of one of the few bowling alleys in MA (I don't count candlepin).
Never write an idea down. The ones that are worth pursuing are the ones that keep nagging at you long after you've moved on to other things.
Anyone know what the leveling-off in Apr 06 was?
I had something similar happen and I emailed the instant domains guy and to his enormous credit he took the time to look into it and dig through his logs. Odds are that you and me and tons of other people are just victims of domain kiting (google it). Bad guys register tens of thousands of domains on spec for nothing. It sucks, but wait a week or two and your domain may reappear

Incidentally he said the site is actually using an internal list of domains that I think he got through some sort of DNS trick. It doesn't make any outside queries.
I actually write ALL my ideas down! I probably have a hundred by now. But you are right, there's always one or two ideas that keep nagging at me, and right now I'm pursuing an idea that although it wasn't mine, right now I simply cannot not put it aside.

My filter for writing it down is simply if an idea represents an actual problem that a real person is facing. In other words, I don't write down an idea that I simply think it's cool, but when I hear about someone facing a real problem.
This might be true but it definitely won't come through CPM or CPC advertising. Facebook needs new methods of monetization (i.e. gifts, sponsored groups, user data).
- Start with more than one business idea

- Identify an unmet business, social or consumer need

- Why the need was not already being met?

- Can you assemble the competencies to solve the need?

- Can you get the resources to bring the product/service to the market?

Disclaimer: Those are my notes from a great presentation by Antony Awaida: http://www.startleap.com/