skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree that the one size fits all method doesn't really work for everyone on social news sites. My site, http://www.klipboardz.com, tries to solve this problem by using some of the same suggestions that you listed. We have a recommended area that lists stories based on what sites you visit and your up and down votes. We also promote users to create groups and add friends so that they can have as many focused groups as they want to share certain stories. I've found the best way to sort through all the info is to use the group view, which lists the top stories in each of your groups on one page. That view almost always allows me to find interesting content.
The Apple Experience
dupe (1133)- but we forgive you because you're pg :)
This article gave me a lot of encouragement and heart, because they are based in New York and because they are out-hacking large, established players.

I agree with what Paul et al have written about the importance of being in a startup hub, but this article makes me think that if you are targeting a particular industry (like advertising), you might be able to find success by locating yourself wherever those industries are concentrated. Not as good as being in a hub, but an option for people who find themselves elsewhere.

It's also a perfect example of a small (comparatively tiny Quigo) company flying under large behemoths (Google and Yahoo) by being open, agile, and transparent.
You can also use it to do code search by automatically tracking which commit comments correspond to which lines of code. That way, you can search for drag and drop say and get back code that has been part of commits where the commit comment included the words drag and drop. You can also try doing code search without commit comments at all by giving each line of code a profile that includes words found in committed code where that line was involved. For example, the line may have been included in several commits where other lines included the words drag and drop, and so you might infer that this line probably has something to do with drag and drop as well.
Ooo good PG video. Will be bookmarking this one...
Respecting licenses is all well and good, but I was never completely clear on why the full text of the book was not published on the web to begin with, since it seems clear that the bulk of the authors' revenue is probably coming from YC, and anyway the publisher frequently keeps most of the revenue from book sales.
Backroom Confessions Of A Marketing Executive
If I could put my whole life in subversion, that would be great.
Can Google Hear Me?
Any chance you could correct the title to last.fm please? Sometimes the little things bug me :)

Its amazing how quickly last.fm responds to their users. Someone asked them to post the source code to this internal tool during their FOWA presentation and by the next day it was up.
It's not even a list of "sucessful" companies. It's a list of well known companies. I'm sure there are plenty of successful companies piloted by only one founder or more than 2 founders. The sample isn't statistically kosher if you will. Success doesn't depend on the number of people founding the company. It depends more on the idea, the talent, the will and the execution of the idea.
Err, no and no. That was a hypothesis from the 50's that has since been invalidated, and many (most?) places in the world do not have 7-digit phone numbers. Memory is "chunky". For instance, you can easily remember phone numbers in your same area code even though they probably have 10 or 11 digits.
Well I guess if he can generate that much buzz over the simple act of handing a business proposal to Google- without even mentioning anything about what that proposal is- then he has some talent. Google could hire him and put him in marketing.
Do You Need to Write a Business Plan?
Could provide a small counterpoint to pg's post-Kiko claim that, "The best solution for most startup founders would probably be to stay out of Google's way." (http://paulgraham.infogami.com/blog/kiko)

Interesting that where Google proves to be kind of soft is the product that actually creates all their revenue. Complacency as the market leader? Just a blip like the Google rep suggested?
If the success of your startup depends on getting a partnership with one company, you're probably doomed. Successful products are ones that create value for users, and value comes from startups. Creating a product where half the value comes from the startup and half comes from an established company usually leads to a product that's only 50% valuable.

If you don't believe me, ask Sam Altman at Loopt whether he'd still do a startup that depended on partnering with cellphone companies if he had to do it over again.

The only thing worse than pinning your chances on a big company creating the value for your product is pinning your chances on a big company providing distribution. Channels are for meeting demand, not creating it.
I didn't think the link provided a good analysis of an optimal number, but it was nice to have a list of some big names next to their number of founders.

It's hard to say how many founders works the best. You just need to find what works for your situation. I'd say it's usually on the low side so you're not burdened with too many conflicting inputs at one time. When you have founders upwards of 5 or 6, it reminds me of high school clubs/organizations where everyone was a co-President, co-VP, or co-Secretary. Sometimes people just want to ride along and get a position, whether it's warranted or not.
I'm sure anyone who has to deal with cell carriers would say it was a pain in the ass. But that pain also kills off a lot of competitors. Much of Loopt's success is traceable to the fact that they were one of the few groups, if not the only one, who were both great hackers and willing to endure endless meetings with cell carriers.
red paper clip as marketing strategy... I guess the internets like the little-guy-long-shot story...

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/
Hi,

Like many others here, I read a lot. Consequently, I find that I have already seen many of the links on this site.

With this in mind, you should consider providing a link next to each article that a user could click if he/she has already read this article elsewhere.

This info could then be used to give an idea of how old the article is, and would also perhaps help prevent overlap with reddit/digg, thereby improving the value of your site.
It's sure one hell of a sustainable competitive advantage if you have the cojones to pull it off. That being said, I'd rather spend my time thinking about how I'm going to get my users laid rather than how to appeal to the self interest of a non-rational corporate entity.

update: That is, I work for a big company and you come to me and tell me that you're going to make my company a hundred million dollars. I say, gee, that's great, if this works out then I'll get my name on the wall and maybe a small bonus. And if it doesn't then I'll get fired, I won't be able to pay the mortgage and my wife will divorce me. So whatever your question, the answer is no. To make it work without a huge reputation and network and existing relationships you need to rely on a lot of luck.

My general outlook on this is that if you read Horatio Alger, the general formula is luck, pluck, and virtue. Which is great, but what's even better is if you can minimize luck and make your bread-and-butter off just pluck and virtue. Then whatever luck comes your way is just icing on the cake.
How Mitchell Kapor (founder of Lotus) deals with a difficult s/w project.
I can't tell you how convenient it'd be to 'commit' and 'revert' on whim.
RSpec - a better way to test your ruby apps.
IMO, this has to do with what a company is about: people and relations between them. That is, communication. With two persons it's easy to get to a 100% understanding. As the number of persons increases, the relations between them increases exponentially. So does complexity of those relations. Maybe two or three is ideal, but I tend to be a loner :D
#include <meatrank.h>
An OpenID is not an account!
The best part of this book in my opinion is the section where they describe every step they have to take when implementing a new feature. It clarifies the advice they give about saying 'no' to new requests initially (because even a seemingly-tiny feature can involve a lot of work to make sure it launches successfully, you have to focus on the most important, most requested features).

You can see that principle at work on this site. Over time they'll know what the most important features to add are based on how we use it.
dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1191
I think he means that threaded comments encourage flamewars, since they let you respond to responses, instead of to the original article.

When reddit added comments, I think that was one of the complaints. But Digg's awful "@userX..." kludge demonstrates that people will flame no matter what, but if comments are unthreaded, they'll just flame more clumsily and less avoidably.
thanks - im taking it down now
This is a really confusing aspect of openID. It still perplexes me that when I log into a new site with my openID that I have to verify email, choose username etc.

Whats all the fuss about if all it does is handle the password entry aspect?

I know that many 'normal' users find it very confusing to be redirected to a different web site to enter their password and then redirected back.
Start the introduction by describing what your product is, in three sentences or less.

Eliminate the account creation. Don't bother making a prototype right now, just make some mockups in photoshop. It's easier to drag images around than it is to drag code around (at least if you want the code to compile).

Once you get feedback from ten or twenty people on your mockups, THEN code a prototype.
Basically, my possibly buzzword-influenced perception is that since more people listen to blogs and other highly grassroots, internet-based, relatively honest (to the extent that they know anything) sources of information, classic marketing has begun to wane in effectiveness, because marketing most of the time is dishonest hot air, and no one blogs about that. So if you're a marketing executive, this should not be very consoling, since it means that your reason for existence is beginning to disappear.
OKCupid is pretty cool...but I can't imagine writing web apps in C++. It just seems pointless and kinda stupid. Performance of machines is so good these days...even the slowest web frameworks in high level languages (RoR and Zope/Plone come to mind) are plenty fast enough for almost every requirement.

I'm sure the guys writing it right now can do fine with the language (and it appears they've created a reasonable DSL on top of C++), but hiring competent developers to take over or help move the product forward faster will be difficult. And, of course, there's a lot of benefit to choosing languages that are already in wide use for the general task you're working on. When I want to add email capabilities to my Perl or Ruby web apps, I go to CPAN or the gems library to find a good email library. In C++, I'm not convinced I'd be able to add interesting email capabilities (receiving, parsing, sending, etc.) in an afternoon...but I'm sure I could in Perl. But maybe I'm just too limited when working in C++.
How does he sleep at night? He writes ten or eleven blog posts a day, reads half a dozen papers, dozens of blogs, writes weekly newspaper columns, and runs a VC firm. And on top of that he still reads a ton of books. Amazing.
At the end of the day this is a public explanation of a private decision. I'm guessing that the amount of thought that went into this decision is massive and began on some level long before PG made a comment. Without personally knowing Andres, I think it's safe to say as a physics expert he possesses the analytical skills required to go into this with a clear head. I for one give him credit for acting on his instincts rather than playing it safe. All the posts below are proving that point. How many people would be claiming that he made a mistake if he continued to pursue Physics and Octopart failed? No one because who can criticize the pursuit of a doctorate? Chances are his dedication to Octopart will lead him in yet another direction, one that most likely would not have reared itself in the basement of the Physics lab.

As for the women...well that is a whole other conversation. Andres, I know lots of women now that I'm married, let me know your type.
Thanks for your input Alex3917, and I agree that I need to refactor the introduction. But it seems that the "create mockups in photoshop" concept wouldn't really work. Reddit was able to focus for a solid month and get most of their site implemented. It's easier for me to express my product in code than in images. It would be hard to express the power of, say, the tree view with just plain images.
It all depends on the implementation on the relying site.

Indeed you must still pick a username (or perhaps you don't -- again, depends on the implementation), but it all comes down to simplifying the identification process. If the identity provider recognizes you, the relying site trusts that the information you provided there still holds true.

Single sign-on is the main hook right now and it's an attractive one, especially for users who are hesitant to try new services due to a lengthy sign-up form. Because it's open-spec, there are some interesting new applications for OpenID that are coming into light.
I agree with everything PK says and would add one more thing: JL does an amazing job of staying out of the way of the answers. Most interview style books allow way too much truncation of the answers by the ego driven interviewer, usually right when you can tell the answer was about to get interesting. Well done.
That's something I hadn't really thought about before. If I create some kind of useful resource for students, then they'd be more likely to involve their teachers in getting a Classbug, yeah. That's an area to focus on.

Monetary gains aren't my prime motivator. If I can just create a service that allows me to feed myself, then I'm happy. I want to devote some of the profits back to students via the competitions I was talking about, and get students to places where they can work on or create something.
How to Keep America Competitive by Bill Gates (Current state of affairs with Computer Science and Education)
There was a good point that Simon Willison raised recently. If your building a web app and that app gets dugg, the digg users will be able to log straight into your site with no sign up process if you support openID. Aything that lowers the barriers to someone using your app has got to be a good thing.
iRise for Entrepreneurs Program Empowers Emerging Companies With Software Simulation
Much agreed, she asks all the questions I want to know before I wanted to know them!
From the article:

"This issue has reached a crisis point. Computer science employment is growing by nearly 100,000 jobs annually. But at the same time studies show that there is a dramatic decline in the number of students graduating with computer science degrees.

The United States provides 65,000 temporary H-1B visas each year to make up this shortfall -- not nearly enough to fill open technical positions."

---

As a student of computer science / engineering, I can attest to the fact that the numbers are indeed dwindling. This past academic year, the department let go a large number of CS lecturers. In light of topics such as 'outsourcing' and 'tech crash', there are many who are hesitant to pursue a career in software and technology.

I think the need has never been higher. Software Engineering recently topped CNN Money's list of growing careers. However it does seem that those are still involved in this industry are more passionate than ever and I see that everyday.
Word Source - The Social Dictionary
Users Who Know Too Much (e.g. who read the print-friendly version instead)
Tim O&#39;Reilly: Gift Economy or Honeymoon?
Commented the wrong post, my bad.
First Impression: great front page. I am not enthralled / don't understand the wordsource live stuff, however.
Well, I think that your reason for existence still persists, but the methods for achieving that existence have changed. The internet has made all markets more "efficient," so that marketing executives need to figure out better ways to let people shopping for their product/service discover them through search engines, blogs, etc. ...The good news for a startup is that you do not need to have a huge distribution organization to find potential customers in this day and age if you can get good at "modern" marketing techniques.
The xindesk blog
What the Web&#39;s most popular sites are running on
Good rundown, they must not mean "most popular" literally though.
If you can think of a methodology that won't make you puke, please suggest it. Yaws is easy to install on most platforms (like "apt-get install yaws") and very easy to configure. Maybe in the academic sense you can poke holes in the methodology, but in the practical world I can't think of a more clever way to test real load. When it boils down to it Yaws would be much more likely survive a digg effect or DoS attack, period.
What are your thoughts on the emergence of professional bloggers incognito and their impact to the value of blogs as honest source of opinion/reviews?
They probably trick some people into believing that they are honest bloggers, but since people reading blogs generally expect and want the bloggers to be honest citizens, incognito dishonest bloggers can't stray nearly as far from blogger-quality honesty as normal marketing can without being yelled at for being a shill.
"TechCrunch, FeedBurner, iStockPhoto, YouSendIt, Meebo, Vimeo and Alexaholic. These are some of the most popular websites on the Internet. "

Huh?
Markets being more efficient means that customers know better what is actually going on, and marketroids have less influence over their perceptions. Sure, there are still horrid inefficiencies, like the 1000% markup on eyeglasses, but 19dollarglasses.com and the like has begun to close that inefficiency. It isn't that marketing has changed media, like the expansion into TV advertising from radio and paper; it's that marketing fundamentally is waning in effectiveness as people have more ways of communicating honestly as people, rather than as marketing departments.

As a result, the startup looking for potential customers not only doesn't need a huge distribution organization, it doesn't even need to get good at "modern marketing techniques," since most successfully marketed products, particularly on the internet, have succeeded because they were better, not because they used hip new marketing techniques. Even PR is ineffective at penetrating actual blogs, although it still has an effect on old-style newspapers that have been webified.
I am a current user of Blackboard, but only under duress, and would heartily welcome a replacement written by someone who actually cares about software. Under their model, even if you write the best software, it is likely that no one will care, since the users of the software (teachers and students) are not the people who select the software (administrators). Multiple professors at CMU have commented that Blackboard is a system designed to annoy professors and otherwise not accomplish anything that couldn't be done via email and normal websites. All of my best teachers have rejected it.

This means that if you do, in fact, write even passably good software, teachers might spontaneously decide to use it. However, from there I'm not sure where any revenue would come from.
Shawn, I too am very interested in improving the classroom experience using the web. You might want to check out my buddy Mark's post on creating a viable blackboard alternative: http://www.markmcgranaghan.com/2006/12/16/idea-lightweight-blackboard-alternative/

He outlines pretty well the costs of maintaining blackboard for college campuses (very expensive) vs. the quality of its product (not so hot).

For some feedback, I think the automatic grading system is interesting but incredibly difficult to pull off. Teachers have a huge, vast array of testing practices and to create a system to easily check them would be very time-consuming. Maybe it'll work for very small cases, like multiple choice.

Also, building on top of other suggestions, I would separate the features from the reasons for making them.
Hmm this extra comment showed up as I was trying to edit my previous post. Oh well!
Advertising truth [state of the zeitgeist]
Starting up in Florida
Head start for startup school
Extremely informative! I had no idea that blackboard had an annual cost of $75,000. Ridiculous.

Yeah, the automatic grading will be hard to get perfect, but it can certainly come close in a short amount of time. One thing that I feel will be beneficial will be the ability to embed videos, images and hyperlinks directly into the assignment. Not to mention the fact that whenever someone types an answer, that answer is saved, so they don't lose their work whenever the browser crashes (see: Blackboard).
Hmm.. This ended up as a double post.
It's disheartening to hear that teachers are using such horrible tools that they're refusing to use them. I hope to change that.

As to revenue, I'm not worried. I'm going to focus on making it as useful as possible first. :)
In my limited experience, the best investors don't ask for biz plans. Perhaps instead of a biz plan being the method by which an investor judges an entrepreneur it is a means to adjudicate an investor.
Looking for partners to build ebook/self-publishing related website
Stupid idea: Someone should do a mashup of Google and Revver, and show related Revver videos instead of text ads next to search results. The site would actually be monetized by getting people to watch the videos.
Hmm, perhaps we should talk. Email me at e40.32313371@bloglines.com if you're interested.
Kazaa Creators Do Latest Venture by the Book
Am I reading this right?

"believe that books going digital is great business opportunity on the long run (in the next 5-10 years)"

== you will only be compensated with stock OR we don't expect to bring in any money for a while.
(not that that's bad for a startup partner.)

:)
agreed. have the masses really been yearning to make friends and build a network around dictionary words?
great detailed read, Kinda of funny to think that mySpace pushed SQL server further than MS have done themselves.

I would have done it a lot different myself :p
Venturevoice - podcasts of leading entrepreneurs such as Reid Hoffman, Evan Williams, Fabrice Grinda
yes.
I'm working alone on an idea.
Plus I work full time as a software developer and have a small baby at home.
I'm trying to find partners who hopefully have more time or at least interest and willingness.
I don't see this being a full time activity at the moment -- I wish it was ;)
I think a working prototype can be built in 5-6 months, this can start generating some revenue but I don't expect that to be huge amount of money. The goal is to establish a merket share and have a stable userbase by the time ebooks really pick-up.
"your reason for existence is beginning to disappear."

Not the whole reason for their existence. There is broadcasting to the market to get leads, there is manipulating the market and perceptions artificially (which I hope is the part that's dying), and then there is also _reading_ the market correctly- then getting the right information to the rest of the company.

There have always been the manipulators, but you don't have to be one in order to be a good marketing exec. If your product genuinely stinks, move on.
Wow, 30 mintues and 51 people contacted me and they all want to become my partner!

... well, not really :)
The best employers don't require resumes, but it can still be useful to have one lying around.

Also, just because smart investors can create value for the business doesn't mean every investor has to be smart :-)