skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Example: what if a real estate broker hired a really personable ex-cheerleader/glee club member for $20 an hour to do nothing but sweat the details and be charming the entire time the closing was going on?

Sounds like the pharmaceutical sales industry.

Reference:http://edrugsearch.com/edsblog/introducing-the-all-pharma-cheerleading-squad/
It's true that making something people want, if you push it too far, would cause you to make something dangerously addictive. But very few startups are that successful; 99.9% of them err on the side of not making something attractive enough.

So "Make something people want" is like "Get more exercise."

Plus, if you want to try to replace this rule with one that works in that additional .1% of cases as well, it's hard to say what it should be. "Make something people should want?" Then you're on the road to fascism (if you have a lot of power) or failure (if you're just a little startup). I suspect that "Make something people want" is optimal in the same way democracy is. As Churchill said, it's the worst form of government except all the others.
Sean Parker(Napster,Plaxo, Facebook) gets involved in politics with Project Agape
Aur, thank you for your insight. Currently I would say I fall more into a marketing/sales/negotiation "box," which I believe is an important aspect for start-ups.

If I were to begin a start-up it would be as a co-founder. Yes, I would need to find someone with the technical know how - fortunately I'm living with a software engineer. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure he is happy with his job...but maybe I can convince him to give me 20% of his time if I develop my plan further.

Again, I appreciate your response.

Best wishes,

Clinton
The problem with DRM + music subscription services
LOL! "For ages 28 and under". This also made me laugh:
http://flickr.com/photos/36521975476@N01/138454683/
I have a wife and two small children. I have also successfully started a business using only "sweat capital" and know the stress it can put on a marriage. So I might qualify to give you some advice. I am also starting another company and willing to move to Cambridge.

I am fortunate to have a wife who is very supportive and sees the payoff of me staring a new venture. If I win, she wins. Also, I plan to move the wife and kids to Cambridge for the summer. They view it as an "extend vacation". Well, a vacation with no money, but at least it is new scenery (new playgrounds are always exciting for kids!).

I don't think the "don't do it" wisdom is always applicable. It wasn't in my case. As long as you make some time for your family and kids, and as long as they know the situation is pseudo-temporary, it can work.

Besides, being miserable at your current job is probably just as a negative on your wife and kids as a start up. It is hard to come home and be a good husband/father when you are bored/frustrated all day.
She didn't. She didn't touch his shares :)
How to let your current employer fund your next startup
I think it's time for Alexa to die. Their stats have always been a dangerously misleading source of data. Now they're behaving evilly too. If anyone wants to apply to YC with an idea for a replacement, we'd be excited to fund such a company.
People's hidden desires will continue to be fulfilled by a free market society. People can feel free to try to swim against the tide, but nature abhors a vacuum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_Of_The_Self
Looking for entrepreneurial team: non-patentable idea, first client lined up
Sorry to repost, it's been pointed out to me that the original headline was poorly phrased.

So, here's the situation: there's an idea, it's already been publicly disclosed by me several times in email and other mediums, so there's no possibility of a direct patent. That's the way I want it - I'm a humanitarian working in the refugee field.

However, there's a spin off concept which I have a client for. They're quite interested and figuring out internal funding issues. If that comes off, there would be a relatively fat contract to deliver a working system based on 2D bar codes, camera phone programming and some basic cryptography to ensure the data on the bar codes isn't stale or damaged. The limiting step is how much data can be printed on a US Letter piece of paper and successfully extracted by the camera on a camera phone. There are some windows for developing IP on doing things like deconvolution algorithms for out of focus shots and so on.

http://appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Project

The deal would be that, if the client comes through, I'd act as an advisor to the team but, otherwise, simply walk away from the deal. I need the tools, I need the job done, but this is not my trade or how I make my living.

If you're interested, email me: hexayurt@gmail.com
How To Find Audio And Video That Suits Your Taste
don't know the details but these finalists were selected from a pool of 70-80 entries and all the judges are top name VC's and angels, so you tend to get a good group.

Many of the final group are fairly IP/Research orientated so it might be less relevant for the Web 2.0 crowd, but I always find it interesting to see others pitching their startups, to get pointers on what works and doesn't work, and find out about new / cool technology businesses.

Finals presentations are open to the public.

Thursday, April 26, 2007
6:00pm - 9:00pm Andersen Auditorium
Introducing Web2Open @ Web 2.0 Expo: The free conference attended, imagined and created by YOU.
A VC: The Industry Standard - Lessons Learned
Matador is a new social network for serious travelers
Community review based patent search - WikiPatents!!!
I don't think it's the keeping in touch that is bad. I think it's the extreme situation (which I have personally seen) where people spend hours per day going around Facebook to look at people's pictures and profiles. Usually this is some method of procrastination employed when a major paper is due or there is an exam the next day.
The IBM initiative - http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/
Our submission focuses on this sort of data, but just not for all websites. We're looking to provide tracking and statistics for our target market.
My knee-jerk reaction was to agree with Cato, but the problem is that broadband isn't a free market. The telcoms have been legislated into monopolistic conglomerates. The damage caused by those laws is already done; repealing them now wouldn't help. So, although in a perfect world I'd be in favor of competing telcoms and against net neutrality laws, a government-created, government-regulated monopoly is better than a government-created, unregulated monopoly.
Millionaire Before Graduation: Max Levchin (My 5-Question Interview)
death of the blockbuster drug (maybe the blockbuster software too?)
What drives me to love "business" and entrepreneurship?
As consumers, we are in charge of our own consumption decisions. Its aggravating to see people try to pass that responsibility to others.

The most successful product, service, or even startup is going to be the one that people use. Sure, instead of building a site that serves electronic "junk food," Steve could've designed a website that cuts War and Peace into "bite size chunks." But if nobody uses it, and I have a feeling nobody will, then there will be no incentive to build it.

The best way to change the web is to change your own consumption decisions. Bothered by reddit? Don't visit it. Can't resist? Block it. If enough do that, I'm sure Steve and Alexis will respond with a "healthier menu."
What I mean is: could these same market forces apply to software? Are we at the end of the era of domination on the order of Microsoft Office?
Venture Capital: Overview
10 Tips for Students Seeking VC Funding
10 Tips & Advice for Student Startups
YouTube Co-Founder Jawed Karim: "The Next Big Thing..."
Can you please add a link to the comments page to the RSS feed with each Article. Then the article's link would go the the site and the content would include a link to the comments. Also, the number of comments should be displayed. This would integrate the RSS more tightly into the site.
YouTube and PayPal Growth: Why So Successful?
Most Classroom Learning Sucks
This is not a classified ad service.
You Remember Me! (A Humorous Message to My Client)
Unconventional But Yet Successful Online Homebusiness Ideas
Yet another YC-based application
haha, cute.
The usefulness of scribd is now fully apparent to me. thanks!
Yipes, these guys are even worse plagiarists than Techstars. There are whole chunks of near verbatim text.

http://www.iventures10.com/funding.html

The deadline was in Feb though. How can I have never heard of this? Did they even go ahead with this thing, or did they build the site and then change their minds?
Maybe because it's in Illinois? I just happened across it following links from the 5 posts jtame just put up.
As a sophomore at the University of Illinois, my classes make me get up at 7 or 8am every morning. I usually get an average of 4-5 hours of sleep per night.

I find myself getting sick after doing this for periods of time. But it's definitely a hard-to-break behavior. I still average 4-5 hours per night.

Can't say I'd take it back for anything. There's probably not a full-time job opportunity in the world that will replace the excitement of being an entrepreneur.
Woz's business card - very very cool..I want one!
I don't know how competent their application makes them seem...

"Week 9: Business model stuff"
I'll take Stanford over University of Illinois any day ;)
The chicken and egg problem faced by companies who's users gain utility from other users must normally be solved in novel ways. Viral, exponential growth doesn't happen when nobody is "sick".
One way to improve the learning environment for public schools is to centralize the process using technology, then nudge the process in a different direction.

But we must test to make sure that the new direction is a better one.
I agree entirely with this article. From my own experience, I did a lot of abstract maths in undergrad and really hated it because I couldn't figure out what all these Groups, Topologies, Normed Vector Spaces, etc were all about. What was the use of learning all these things without some practical application? It was only later on when I started to learn more about the people behind these theories, and the challenges that motivated them, that it became more interesting. The founders of all this knowledge were trying to get one thing or the other done, and this is what motivated them to construct these mind bending abstractions.

I think it is a lot more effective to give students challenges rather than knowledge. When they get stuck (and they will get stuck eventually), then give them the knowledge they need to overcome their obstacles. Of course, you never know, without having some pre-determined way of solving something, the students might end up discovering a smarter ways of solving the same problems!
"The Code." Tapping into the unconcious of why people buy what they buy
I was involved in this competition, although I got accepted to interview with them, I wasn't accepted for the summer.

I got sidetracked with a fairly crazy idea and went out on a whim. I should have done something closer to my own expertise, and didn't build a prototype. Very difficult to pitch without a prototype.

My actual interview was a disaster. I had 3 backups of the PowerPoint, but they were all old copies (LOL). I had to give the presentation from Contingency Plan #4, hand-outs ;)
The CS community, at least in my opinion, hates business jargon. They're trying to make it as CS-friendly as possible, I believe.
Guess they failed at that.
I actually like your first answer more though. =)
Interesting. For anyone interested, you can watch a video featuring this guy at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/view/
"IllinoisVENTURES is a seed and early-stage technology venture capital firm focused on research-derived companies in information technologies, physical sciences and life sciences, with a particular emphasis on those deriving from research conducted at the University of Illinois and other regional research institutions."

Also, look at their portfolio companies. I wouldn't say they are as software oriented as programs such as YC.

Regardless, they come off rather unprofessional.
You've really arrived when you can get a screenshot of a "coming soon" page on TechCrunch.
Is one of the main benefits of YC advice on how to make something more attractive and/or how to find customers for whom it would be attractive?
Yes, I remember seeing the pbs show on him (pbs is awesome), and thought of him to be more of a salesperson than actual master guru. Alot of what he says is hindsight. Look instead of how he sells his "service" to these large companies for good sums of cash. He invites them into his nice home, gives them good french wine and almost courts them. His accent is a whole bonus in itself. In the end, the companies feel justitifed spending the sum of money, because it is viewed as an upscale expense.
That is some impressively bad 1990s style frame usage.

They get bonus points for asking for the application in plain text though.
He also carries large numbers of special $2 bills with him.

http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html
The "Manhattan Academy" mentioned in this article is a Montessori school. Expensive Montessori private school for my own children is my startup motivator. My day job would be enough otherwise.

You can see some example Montessori materials here:

http://ourdoings.com/brlewis/2006-01
I LOVE this quote...

"If I wasn't starting this company, I would be starting another company. It's my job. It's my life."
I'm sure if they hadn't plagiarized the YC form, they would have asked you to submit a crappy Word document.
I think it shows that Andres doesn't have the interest or time in his school work. I'm in a similar situation, considering dropping out as an undergraduate, and I just don't have the time to work on my startup and school at the same time and expect any progress in the next 12 months.

Plus you have to consider what a degree is going to get you. In most cases, at least for undergraduates, a degree is going to put you in a full-time, entry-level job. Not everyone wants that, and not everyone is meant to be in college.

You can argue this two ways. Your view is "you need to finish what you started, otherwise people know you're a quitter." I'm the type who says "I tried it, didn't like it, and now I'm chasing my dreams." There's no right or wrong here, it's all perception.
I don't think that the failures will report here...

We should start a "Paul Graham convinced me to drop Java / C++" poll to cheer him up.
Steve Jobs at Next documentary - Old but very interesting
"There is no evidence that broadband operators are unfairly blocking access to websites or online services today, and there is no reason to expect them to do so in the future. "

That is a rather controversial statement. Dear AOL and the attempts to blackmail Google come to mind.
yeah, I guess he has figured out their code :)
Paul Graham says Alexa is "behaving evilly"
Study Examines Silicons Valley's "IT" Factor (SBA Office of Advocacy) (pdf)
link to full report: http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs296tot.pdf
Here is my response as I wrote on my blog(http://www.zaid360.com/?p=107):

-----

It is getting tiring to hear folks complain about the corrupting impact of web2.0 ventures on daily life. I think such arguments make for great philosophical papers. But really they have little practical meaning.

Two things:

1. the argument that stuff like Twitter and YouTube are time wasters and thus amoral can be debated to death and debates are the last thing entrepreneurs like to get into; we would rather build more YouTubes and more Twitters

2. if you think that Twitter and YouTube are nothing but time wasters, you are simply being short sighted.

Ya'll need to realize that many new tools in their initial stages are used for fun, and that is the stage most of the new generation of web2.0 ideas are in. It has been what less than three or four years since facebook took off, and YouTube sucked us in? And already we are hearing of YouTube 's use in catching stupid crooks, facebook as a tool to find lost wallets and Twitter's potential to help during a SF earthquake. Such waste of time, eh.

---
Admin - Configuration - Images - Zen Cart(tm) Wiki
Posting this was a complete mistake. I accidentally clicked my bookmarklet. Anyone know how to delete a submission?
I'm only one data point, so you should probably take this with a grain of salt. I went to a Montessori school from kindergarten through third grade, and I can't stress enough how badly that specific Montessori school failed. Teachers were distant, more like babysitters than having any kind of structure. Any project we wanted to work on was fine, but most of us didn't do anything (the equivalent of pretending to work at work). We'd have to keep track of what we did in journals and get them signed by a teacher, so most of us made up stuff and forged the teacher's signature. I don't remember learning any mathematics at all back then. In fact, I'm positive that it wasn't until fourth grade that I got into basic math. I don't know if that's normal, but my father had been teaching me math outside of school from a very early age, so I was still strong in it. It's a very strange school system.

My final observation is that my Montessori school was so small! I was a shy kid, and going to a small school from K-3rd grade, then another small school from 4th-8th grade, did not help me to become a social person one bit. If you do something against the group, everyone will hate you, resulting in more shyness. Even at third grade.

You probably should evaluate your child. Is s/he shy? If so, it may be a benefit to send them to a larger school. I'm not saying that it will cure them of shyness, but it may help.

I'll totally respect any decision you make though :)
Picky domain names
My kids are not shy, and math-wise they're ahead of where I was at the same age. I went on to get a math degree from MIT. Your story is the first time I've heard of a Montessori school being so unstructured. Do you know if it was accredited?
Enter my "open source" biz plan for leveraging media -- and situation comedy in particular -- to establish the most popular online market for customized education.

See OpportuniTV.com for details. Two (de facto) reviews of earlier versions of the site's content:

"I just spent about an hour surfing around with a bit of amazement."

Josh Peterson
Co-Founder/CEO
43Things.com (an Amazon.com company)
December 12, 2004

"Frank, you are a good man. Have you thought about joining this team? Your only alternative, of course, is venture capital. But their usual models require getting rid of the 'originator' within the first eighteen months. With Netscape it took a little longer, but you get the idea."

Randy Hinrichs
Manager, Learning Sciences and Technology Group
Microsoft Research
December 1998

Enjoy!

Frank Ruscica
Yes, but if you stop to think about it, what you've described is 95% of what doing a startup consists of. So saying yes to that = yes, we help people with their startups.
I have to disagree with you, and vehemently. Centralization is exactly the problem.

I was lucky enough to be educated in an International Baccalaureate program that stressed interaction between students and teachers, convivial debate rather than lecture, and analytic essays instead of rote recall. The strength of the program came from its decentralization, relying on good teachers rather than central planning. The teachers and students worked together, as collaborators.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but in education, it generally gets in the way of the greatest teacher: intellectual discourse. A teacher and 10-20 students talking with each other[1] is an optimal model for learning. Educational technology generally takes the personal interaction out of things, and certainly makes the process less engaging.[2]

[1] Very different from a teacher talking to, or at, students.

[2] I'm talking about secondary education. For primary ed, technology can be very useful. But that is a very different environment.
"Open source" biz plan for leveraging media -- esp. situation comedy -- to establish the most popular online market for customized education
Tipping point achieved
I don't know, sorry.. I am sure that it was the Montessori system though. They even had pictures of Dr. Montessori hanging on the walls. I haven't really looked back into that time in my life, 'til now. I'm not upset, I turned out fine, I just personally feel that in a bigger school I could have become social more quickly by interacting with a wider variety of other kids.
Heh see http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=7584
Free Online Photo Editors
Well, I see now that there are two kinds of centralization.

1) The system is top-heavy, and administrators pick out what teachers teach. This is centralized planning.

2) The content that teachers generate (assignments, quizzes) is put into a centralized pool, which other teachers can browse through to come up with new ideas for their teaching. This is centralized content.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear, but I didn't mean centralized planning, I meant centralized content. If there is some way to know what a teacher taught and how well it worked which other teachers could use as a reference, then it becomes a memory. Teachers can improve upon other teachers' previous works.

Right now, each public school teacher is almost universally independent. My idea is that as each assignment is completed online, the assignment goes into the memory pool. Teachers can browse all content. Students and teachers can rate and comment on the assignments. This seems like it would encourage good collaboration and interaction.
Are you confident that YC has the knowledge and/or connections to help a startup whose customer base is fundamentally different from those you've worked with in the past? What if the customer base has shown years of resistance to following the lead of technology early adopters? Would you be able to either penetrate such a market directly or find another market whose lead they would follow? Or, how much more likely would you be to succeed at this than a hacker who applies his/her problem-solving skills to the question and tries a few things?
Yah woz has a lot of neat tricks.

For anyone interested in this kind of stuff..

You can buy uncut currency sheets here: http://www.moneyfactory.gov/store/section.cfm/69

And the metal biz cards:
http://www.plasmadesign.co.uk/metalbusinesscards.htm
I think we're considering fundamentally different paradigms. In my education, there were effectively no assignments, and certainly none that could be completed online. Consider my senior English or Latin classes: the only "assignments" were to read, and occasionally to write, generally on a self-generated topic.

In class, similarly, there was very little pre-planned content. In Latin, we simply went through the previous night's translation, line by line, with discussion breaking out whenever someone was perplexed or intrigued by something.

In English, there was perhaps a bit more planned content, but not much: the teacher would have something to talk about, and start out talking about it, but within 5-10 minutes we would have moved out of the prepared material into our own discussion.

Now, in the sciences, yes, there is definite content, and there, surely, there would be value in a central content store, but it would need to be developed outside the institutional structure, or your 2) would rapidly become 1). (Yes, I'm a bit jaded: I went to an amazing program, but it was housed at a horribly administered school.)
I hear ya. For me, I don't have a problem with the social skills. I have a networking problem of "the right people." Some people meet the right people earlier than others. Unfortunately, I've never been privy to that, so I hack really hard. :)