skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
We had similar ideas. We registered RejectedByYC.com, YCRejects.com, and I think CantGetFunding.com. We've also got a server available at the moment (we're pre-launch, so nothing else is using it...), though we may need to rescind that if the main product launches and starts taking up a lot of bandwidth.

I'd envisioned roughly this feature set:

1.) Forums

2.) Startup profiles - list your logo, demo URL, description, launch status (pre-launch/launched), and maybe a few other fields. Linked to the user profiles of each founder.

3.) "Demo groups" of 10-12 startups, randomly assigned but ideally with a preference for placing startups in the same city together. Each demo group has a private forum and an area for news, feature releases, announcements, etc.. Each feature release has threaded comments for discussion and rapid feedback. Demo groups are expected to be each other's support mechanism, and give each other rapid feedback on new changes. For startups that are pre-launch, only people in the same demo group can see what you're up to. (If you want nobody to see what you're doing, perhaps you shouldn't register it on a website...)

4.) Karma, based on how many feature releases a team has put out lately and how many people click through to their startup based on that. This encourages people to "release early, release often", while the weighting based on clickthroughs prevents people from adding bullshit feature releases.

5.) Location-based meetups and events. We wouldn't organize them ourselves, but we'd have a place for people to announce their formal or informal gatherings.

I'd like to move fast on this, because I still view it as a distraction from our main business idea. I'd like to use it, but am willing to cut every corner in the book to build it. Ideally we'd have something up & launched by the end of this weekend, even if that something is nothing but a forum with profile fields for startup info.
I'm sure, it's frustrating if you don't know real reason why they rejected you so I wish you good luck, As we say, "what don't kill you that gives you more power".
YC is three months of funding. IF you make $25 an hour, you can work a three month contract and save up enough to fund yourself for three months to try and get a prototype done. You can totally focus on the project for those three months. If you can only get a 6 month contract, then do it, and you'll have 6 months to work on your idea.

Also, you're assuming that doing your startup on the side "massively decreases your chance of success". I think this is in error-- success is goverened by determination more than anything else, and someone who builds something on the side is clearly determined.

Personally, its more fun to focus on your project completely, and so, its probably psychologically better to work for 3 or 6 months, and then take a 3 or 6 month "break".
That's true, but I'm assuming that nobody here is working on a startup that's building medical devices, a manufacturing plant, or has a high government regulatory burden.

So, for your basic consumer oriented web startup, you don't need VC funding...
Yeah, the matrix has you.
I would recommend getting a machine and getting acquainted with the process of shell access (if you are not comfortable without a UI)...also u can do some real benchmarking as far as the hardware and bandwidth is concerned ... I pay $179 for a very basic server and it is a great experience! It works better for me because I cannot host at home as I need a larger pipe for demos!!
There's nothing wrong with graduating and working for a year (or two, or five) to save up capital. If you pick a good employer - like another startup - you'll earn much more than money. You'll have someone who's just as accomplished as PG teach you, except they'll pay you for the privilege instead of you giving them equity. You'll face all the same pitfalls as the yCombinator founders, and learn nearly as much. You'll learn all the little tricks and skills that everyone in industry knows but they never bother to teach in university.
site5
Cause the only way to know anything about your customers is to look out the door?

I assume they are american expats...

... or maybe they are developing a product for the 5/6th of the world that isn't America.
I've never understood the fear and loathing of Microsoft, now or in the past. Microsoft isn't perfect but they've done more than any other company (including Apple) to raise the level of software. They've been the benchmark to which all other software companies compare themselves. Microsoft may not have startup cachet or support of the "fanboys" (of Mac, linux, google, or whatever the latest anti-Microsoft parade is rallying around) but let's hope it sticks around for a long time to come.
or they share a similar very very random story.

I presented to a bunch of devs 2 months ago, and despite being senior IT developers, they never heard of digg or delicious. It's not a big deal, but it's hard to get your point across.
So many disappointments today. Don't give up! You are living in the country of great opportunities.
Would've been good read on April First ... reading it now, its not even funny, the blogger is complete idiot.

"We didn't invite Microsoft and they didn't bother contacting us" LOL, because they don't give a shit about you =)

Microsoft FTW.
So no one who wouldn't relocate can join to you :) as you will apply again.
That's the best rejection letter I've ever read.
http://www.webair.com/ - I've got a few servers with them, great service and prices. I can get you custom prices that aren't listed on the site; for example I've got a quad xeon 3ghz with dual SCSI 120gb drives, 4gb ram and 10mbps unmetered for 249/month.
Sorry, you've been scooped by ten years, and by someone even
older:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/msapogee.html
Anyone thought about merging/cross-mixing projects/products?
Team doing RSS + team doing lexical analysis = significant?
Got selected. Where's the good food at in Mountain View?
While I'm sure your site is awesome, the Webby hasn't been a valid measure of quality in nine or ten years.
for projects written using Rails, i would suggest engine yard or railsmachine
Ah, yes. Oops.
Justin is having sex NOW on justin.tv
Have people lost the ability to write without using profanity ? I thought the guy who wrote up one of the best speeches that I recollect reading would have better sense.. Mr.Guy, quit being a potty mouth.
RunFatBoy.net is a workout generation system specifically designed for beginners. Users answer a few "real-world" questions and the system develops a simple to follow prescription/workout plan.

I am seeking a well trained eye with an adeptness in designing drop-dead simple interfaces.

Take a look at the site ( http://www.runfatboy.net ) and if you're interested, write me at jim@runfatboy.net .
a fair question -- i would have loved to work with adam and matt, but at the time my stock hadn't yet vested in another startup where i had been working for a while, and i was also running another company i had started in 2004, so the timing wasn't quite right.

i don't want to drag this thread offtopic so shoot me any other questions by email -- thanks :)
haha, the feed is off.
Well, I just finished working out the terms of the job offer from said other startup and I'm insufferably pleased with my negotiating :-). I probably won't have time for side-projects while I'm there, but even if I don't get rich with them I'll probably walk away with enough savings to set out on my own afterwards.
Well done! Shivas is an awesome Indian place - a bit expensive, but really nice.
I recommend http://www.slicehost.com/ I was blown away by the simplicity and power of their service. All the benefits of your own box with far less hassle and only $20pm starting fee. Loads of really good documentation on getting a production RoR environment up and running too. They're probably the best bet for bootstrapers and students.
Got selected as well. I wonder how many teams are interviewing?
I went to that site and saw a blog with a animated matrix background. I didn't get it.

I know it sucks to be rejected (went thru it recently myself) but don't fall into the trap of sour grapes.

Find out what you can do better, or improve on.

And I think this is probably a good forum for doing that.
I don't think its valid, saying, that all applications will be deployed off the web; that would be very wrong. The fact that Google docs hasn't really clicked just points to the fact that certain software makes sense to be offline. One reason why; user sometimes wants to be very close to his data.

The key to the future i believe is the right mix of offline and online capabilities in applications. Microsoft has been kind of late in putting offline capabilities to many of its products. But that doesn't mean they are dead; they have the resources and ability to create paradigm shifts in this business. The fact that a person like Ray Ozzie (who is more or less associated with network computing and collaboration) is now overlooking the software giant's product teams also sends indications that Microsoft will start looking into the online/offline match. Infact the concept of "internet services disrupted", term coined by Ray Ozzie in a recent talk, precisely shows the direction in which Microsoft is headed.
No need to grow slow... unless slow growth is what you want. $6k is not the difference between high growth and slow growth.
np, good luck with DP!
Will definitely proceed because I believe in my idea. I just need to make enough time to work on it, which means finding funding so I can do it full-time...

It was a very nice rejection letter, though. And, I'm consoled by the fact that they at least looked at the website - at least there was access from a Bay Area IP...
The Option Pool Shuffle: Beat the game and raise your valuation
Hard to follow the conversation, but it sounds like they "just sat and talked"....

and someone's getting evicted for "Running a business out of their apartment". Arent' they in the YScraper?

First time I've "tuned in" and gotten an actual feed thats vaguely interesting (Ratehr than darkness, or Justin asleep... which is only interesting for about 2 seconds.)
Hang on, it hasn't happened yet. :)
Hi Paul,

Joel Spolsky came to a similar conclusion back in 2004: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

I think that is more true than ever, When your primary computer access is via a browser, the OS (and standalone applications on top) does not matter any more.
jonhendry is right that Apple is only where it is today because of the wisdom that Jobs gained after being pushed out of Apple.

From the commencement speech he gave to the Stanford graduating class of 2005:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

"I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

I think this pretty much disputes Paul's notion that Jobs' being fired from Apple was somehow a bad thing. It was bad in the sense that the people who took over nearly destroyed Apple, but it also set-up the conditions for a reborn Jobs to return and make the company into what it is today.
"Step one for tomorrow: get new friends"

I haven't heard him directly address the camera before.
PhotoBucket Videos Blocked on MySpace
I did not have the impression that there is a lack of imagination in Second Life. That there are lots of boring creations is meaningless, as it does not say anything about the amount of interesting creations.
As my company is dealing with this stuff right now, this is def. good to know!
Yes, it keeps telling me that the server's full.
Yeah, I was broadsided by a local ordinance against having my residence as the official location of my company. Not nice.
How is it over there? I'd email you, but you have no email address in your profile.
True but the Philippines is the 2nd largest outsourcing country to India(Correct me if I'm wrong) Although I agree that going out there and getting to know your customers is the most important thing.
We definitely want entrepreneurial hackers on our team. I often say entire aspects of our company are tableau rosa. There is fertile ground for innovation and creativity not found in big companies. I guess we are hiring employees, but I've not once used that word.

Ask Craig Silverstein if he has regretted being Google's third guy.
Justin.tv is retarded!! I can't believe PG encouraged that idea ... but I guess ppl will feast of anything these days ... lookin at the # of reality shows ... I haven't watched tv in 4 years ... what is the count these days ?
Thanks for the advice!

The only thing that makes us feel bad is the impression that we developed it without interest. We built novlet in our spare time while graduating, so we couldn't spend the time we would have liked to, however we were very interested in the project and it's a pity that it doesn't seem so.

The site was initially meant mainly as a proof that we could work togheter, but it would be great to work on it full time, but apparently they didn't even look at it.

We are not discouraged, it would have been a fantastic experience.
We'll keep on working.
I don't know if I need to apply....cause in 6 months I will be far ahead... just for the record, I think PG made a mistake and I am putting it here so that I can prove it in 6 months :-) ... I know he liked it and I know he knows that I know he liked it too!!
Very close to my stats. My posts are also hosted on wordpress.
-main page + news page: 275
-google reader: 19
Wow, I love the enthusiasm, but that would be a bit too creepy.
How do you mock-up / sketch your web app?
What do u mean how?? Ruby on Rails :)
Hey, Wayne, thanks for the insight. I met you and Robby a month ago when I visited YC the day after demo night -- you guys had just settled on the name "Zenter." I'll admit my skepticism regarding the usefulness of current web-based productivity apps, yet all it took to convince me was your demo, especially the Google Images and "webcasting" features.

Very excited to see what the future holds for you guys!
As a younger (20's) half reader who also happens to be a pro photographer, I think the hyperbole of "all apps on the web!" is silly. Tell me, when will my upload speed equal the speed of my 10,000 RPM Raptor HD's? My Core 2 Duo? Man, I can't sit around and wait while 75MB RAW files are uploaded to someone else's computer (that's all a server is, after all). This is the day and age of the personal super computer. Outsourcing apps to the web and cheering their stripped down interfaces isn't progress to me. It's like watching your neighbor's HD TV through the window with binoculars.
On paper with a pen :)
We've been using plain paper & pen to create mock-ups, but it's kind of hard to collaborate online (many interactions of scan-email-comment).

So far I liked this one: http://www.mockupscreens.com . There's another one called Axure, but it's quite expensive: http://www.axure.com . I tried Denim a while back (http://dub.washington.edu/denim/ ), but it's a pain to use with a mouse (Denim was designed for tablet-pcs). Drawing tools are ok, but they do not have ready-to-use UI components like buttons, drop-downs, etc... Visio has UI components, but it's expensive.

Are you using any tools for web app mock-ups?
Guys, if you really need an investor try centralway holding, you can apply at anytime. Good Luck!
Well, there are 3 days and each team gets 15 minutes. Assuming they give about 5 minutes interval between the breaks, that means 3 teams per hour. So assuming they do 8 hours of interview every day, that is 3x8x3 = 72 teams. This is not including those teams which are local and have been moved to the weekdays. So all in all, those who are selected, don't be too happy yet, there's still only about 1/7 chance of getting into the final 10.
I disagree.

If there are many crappy things out there and some rare jewels stick out, I think it's justified to say there is an overall lack of imagination.

It's that what many people notice when they visit Second Life the first time. Large abandoned places. Nothing of real interest.

Second Life is missing Google. There is nothing that really helps people to find the good things in Second Life.

I'm sure it was a kind of "google effect" in the old days that showed people what sites on the internet were good and widely accepted, and by that they started to improve their own sites. Maybe if something like that is built, true innovation and improvement will be noticed and more easily adopted by the citizens...
we use joyent.com - at least we try to... The portfolio is impressive, and we mainly chose them because they offer horizontally scalable rails solutions, something that many providers are still missing.

We requested the new server 2 weeks before. Still no server...

Do you know of alternatives we might be looking for?
In reality, this can still be a dangerous path. Just ask my buddies who had these plans and then experienced a life changing event such as having children or getting married. It will be many years before you will again have the freedom that you have now.
I love me some Indian food. Thanks for the advice.
Well, sort of. The selection isn't random. If you're one of the 10 that appeal to them most your odds are 100%. If you're not, they're 0. Unless they decide by rolling dice there's really no probability involved.
MS Groove is pretty decent ....
I know people who were dead-set on ideas, put everything they had into it and literally lost everything. There are many places/situations where time, funding, and cofounders are vastly less available.

Lets look at it in reverse: why do so incredibly few people execute the most obvious, high potential startup plans? Because there are innumerable costs that those who are already at the top have lost their ability to accurately consider.

All I can say is, good luck all.
I use Photoshop to mock up the wireframes. I found it to be an excellent way to get your thoughts down visually and quickly adjust on the fly. With a PS document's layers and commenting tools, it works well for ongoing, collaborative changes. And once it is to your liking, you can easily make it a final draft for implementation.
I'd recommend Railsmachine. I wrote a post about it here: http://blog.wakoopa.com/archives/how-we-got-hosted-the-rails-way
A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs
I spent a couple dozen seconds on your site and had no clue what it was about. You need to focus your pitch and make it more obvious for "old" folks like myself. You lost me as a viewer very quickly.

PS: Lose the obnoxious, animated, poorly incorporated wrt background color GIFs... they gave me a headache.

PPS: Also, lose the first page: you'll get better SEO results & it won't look like it's 1997. ;)
Paper and pencil, it just works.
"From a ragtag operation run out of sublet crash pads in Palo Alto, they now have two buildings (soon to be three) of cool gray offices"

Cool gray offices?
What is a shark?
Thanks, but...

"Geographical focus Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Poland and Hungary."
How do you intend to promote your startup?
are people just hoping that they'll get promoted through word of mouth? or will you be spending money on marketing?
You can do your own PR. Try a local newspaper press release.

Write up your startup as a human interest story and send it to every local newspaper in America. See how many times you get published.
Sorry, but not everyone is living in the US here, and you can try it ... you can't lose.
I never spent money for my sites. Word of mouth, google, craigslist (in case of english content) and patience, this is my approach.
Well that's an interesting approach.
I agree with Feb/March/April. Summer will give you a lot of users who will use your site more thoroughly. If they're still around by winter then you have a good chance of sustaining the growth. That's my guess.
Paul Graham is ALWAYS right

Sounds like the start of a series of Chuck Norris style PG references
Followup on SF Bay Area Startup hub, vote up if interested!
details at:
http://fuzzythinker.blogspot.com/2007/04/to-all-sf-bay-area-startups-after.html

please up vote so more people knows about it so we can get started sooner! My last post regarding this only got 3 votes so it was buried in less than half a day.
I'm starting a startup hub in the SF bay area:
http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11808
Or, let this post get bury, visit and up vote on my follow up:
http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11808
I'm starting a startup hub in the SF bay area: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11808 .

Sorry if you see this in other posts, but my last attempt got buried in less than half a day..
I'd definitely recommend http://rimuhosting.com

I know of at least 1 YComb startup that has used it in the past - and we're using it now. I've personally been hosting with them for 2 or 3 years now and it's hands down the best virtual hosting I've used (compared with 4 others I've tried).

Other friends are using Amazon EC2+S3 for scaling needs (on the fly load-balancing). Haven't used it myself, but I only hear great things.
What is outline of new pg 'Startup' book?
'... He's currently
working on a new programming language called Arc, a new book on startups ...'

Noticed this on the stanford bio for pg. [0] Anyone care to speculate what the outline for the new book is?

Reference

[0] pg talk, 'Summit 2007 - Paul Graham Keynote'

http://ases.stanford.edu/summit_2007_graham.shtml