skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I modded this up because I enjoyed this explanation, but second thought, I would like to revoke my +1. This isn't topical to start-ups. Is this a feature that could be added in the future?
On the other hand, sometimes your major sustainable competitive advantage is your IP. My current employer has developed an algorithm that pretty much blows anybody else out of the water for what we're doing and they most definitely don't want anybody else learning about it. Granted, their strategy is simply don't tell anybody (All I know is we have the algorithm, not what it is), but protection of IP can be important in some cases. If what you're protecting will be obvious once your product is out there, then yes an NDA is pointless. However, if you want to protect some behind-the-scenes technology that won't be evident to anybody using your product, then an NDA may be in order.
I'd like to see an option to view all articles I've upmodded, downmodded, or commented on. It makes a great place to go back to if I want to find something I said or read a while back and can't quite put my finger on it.
>> Many developers view software development () as a science or engineering activity() Writing software is neither: I view it as a craft or art, similar to the work required of teachers and writers. () So its not clear why we call software development software engineering. ()

The real issue is that some feel the need to strictly classify everything in distinctive categories. I would content that writing software IS engineering even in the strictest sense. But as a artful craft? It sure is. It all depends on the application, intent, and approach.
Definitely true. I think it's a combination of your friends losing respect for you for "dropping out," combined with the feeling of smugness that comes from the same.
Whenever there's a blog post about Y Combinator's summer funding, I always see TechStars and Lightspeed brought up or mentioned in the comments.

Comparisons will be made, naturally. There is a lot of discussion regarding the funding vs. share percentage ratio, some lamenting that there is such a high percentage being taken for a relatively small seed. If broken into pure numbers, I can see where one might draw that conclusion. But it seems many are then missing the point.

It's not the size of the check that's written, it's the support and backing, the advice from valley veterans, the valuable critique from those who understand this arena the most. It's the crucial foot-in-the-door process and the inherent buzz publicity you just can't buy.

And since it comes down to all that, I'd rather it be with Y's folks because these are names that I actually recognize along with a proven portfolio.
Exactly. Some of the scientific studies are interesting, but it's not anything that you wouldn't know already after reading Emotional Intelligence and other similar books. Yes, choosing from twenty different types of toothpaste may be a pain, but that's hardly a good reason to adopt a religion to artificially limit your choice.
Old, but good.
Don't do an identity startup. Even if you know the solution to the problem. In fact, especially if you know the solution to the problem.

The fact is, 99% of Internet users don't know they have an identity problem. And no matter how much they do, nothing you can do will convince them of this. Better to wait another five years and then tackle the problem. No one else will have solved it by then, trust me.
Just wanted to comment that Kulveer's blog and Harjeet's blog, Mealticket, are some of my favorites. For me, the most useful advices and resources are often anecdotal.
Douglas Crockford: &#34;The JavaScript Programming Language&#34; video
yui-ext JavaScript library with excellent layouts, tree view, and other widgets
completely off topic, but here are Fred Wilson's top CD picks for 2006:

http://www.squidoo.com/fredsmusic/

(If you read his blog, you know that it's half music and half venture capital stuff)
Happy Entrepreneurship Week! (Feb 24 - March 3)
Google Apps a Productivity Killer?  (from a Microsoft guy :) )
I like this guy's blog and he's usually got some good stuff, but this one smells a bit funny. I've actually found since I got my Mac that you really don't need the Microsoft software as much s you'd think. I love Office 2007, but honestly at this point I greatly prefer web mail, and the online and open office suites are almost there.
The patent system is completely insane. At this point in history, does it accomplish anything?
Not at all; we're not VCs. We just do seed funding. That is a very different world.
With the identical application, it doesn't hurt to hedge your bets and apply to them as well as Y Combinator. They've got nothing over YC but it's certainly a viable alternative.

Can you clarify the line about inside info and how the Tech Stars program could be bad for a company's future VC funding?
>marking a comment up or down should use ajax

Without ajax I'm sometimes discouraged from voting at all, because it's difficult to find my location after a refresh, especially on long pages.
If a seed firm has an official relationship with a VC, that VC will know which of their startups are best. They can't invest in all of them, since the number of startups is so much larger at the seed phase. Any they don't invest in, other VCs will know are rejects. And this is the kiss of death, because the most important thing to most VCs is other VCs' opinion.

Both Techstars and the new Lightspeed thing have this problem. At Techstars one of the founders is a VC, and Lightspeed is itself a VC firm.
Everything you need to know about Venture Capital, presentation by Danny Rimer (Index Ventures) from Future of web apps
With their hard ties to VCs, if TechStars do not continue with you in their next round, you are auto-stigmatized. TechStars has then effectively marked you as undesirable in a sense and others might not give you a fair look.
I'm having issues with cookies, I have to keep logging everytime I visit, this does not happen on reddit, anyone have an idea or experience similar behaviour?
That was a brilliant presentation, the slides alone don't do it justice. Luckily the audio will be posted soon on futureofwebapps.com.

Theres some videos of FOWA presentations available on Ian Forresters Blip.tv page but unfortunatly this talk isnt one of them. Check them out at http://blip.tv/?sort=date;date=;topic_name=fowalondon2007;s=posts;page=1
I loved the video. But I'm about to post a PDF that's much deeper that is mentioned in the presentation, and that pretty much blew my mind when I realized the implications (that you can mathematically show exactly how the decisions are made).

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/ely.dahan/content/greedoid.pdf
The Mathematics of Choice (goody heavy read)
Skip the abstract- it's too obtuse- the paper itself is pretty readable. Non-compensatory: when a customer is making a decision, and no combination of additional features make up for a lack of the feature they really want (e.g. it doesn't matter how cool the phone is if I can't play mp3s). Versus compensatory (e.g., well, news.ycombinator doesn't use ajax, but the fact that it's focused, spam free, and easy on the eyes makes up for it...)

You can translate the concepts to simple additive math and work from there.

Brilliant to be able to predict peoples' decision between hundreds of competing products based on answering just a few questions.
This might be a pain, but could you make this topic sticky for a while?
Bug or undeveloped feature? Go to edit a comment- above the text box there is a "comment" and "edit" link. The edit one just refreshes the page. The comment link, though, shows... ??? It looks like I can comment on my comment- had a nice "nil" sitting there. I didn't have any replies to the comment I was editing, though, so maybe I would have seen something more?
Feed Stats - What Matters
Hi-Tech Entrepreneurs Mull Build or Sell
Working in France, in the Style of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley whiz kids grapple with build-or-sell dilemma [dupe. Too slow]
Your Comments are Mostly a Waste of Time :)
Good post, glad to see this. I do sometimes tire of seeing nothing but "do this to sell your company in two years for $2 million." Honestly I think that there's a lot to be said for making a great product, executing, making more great products, and growing the company to a much larger size. (Nothing at all wrong with cashing out at $118 million though, if that's really the average for VC-funded startups. Higher than I thought.)
I can't get the grammar in the title (or the original) to parse correctly in my head.
Heh- Looks like he had to just take it himself. If you want something done...
Hypothetical situation but what would happen if a startup participated in TechStars or another program and then afterwards applied to YC? Would previous experience increase chances of application success or would they be passed over because it would seem they've already been given a chance?
Also, here's the presentation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1932851428624192110
Thanks, I hadn't seen those slides, and they're very good.
Another important thing to realise venture capital is only appropriate at a certain lifestage of a company where the founders are keen to grow at extrodinary rates in a short time. Not having expectations of growing a startup to Facebook, Google or Bebo size you are going to be wasting a VC's time. This is no mean feat - you have to be mentally prepared to grow and scale a company like mad and similarly your startup must have proved its case for being able to scale.

Whats the best way to know if your startup is ready? build a prototype, get some traction, look at the numbers, measure, experiment then measure again. If you truly are going to scale (and you are growing at 1% a day) and you've experimented enough that you've found a suitable path you'll end up needing money of the VC scale.

It doesn't cost much to sit around and build something. Go and test it - figure out what people want first - change your assumptions and above all PROVE that if you scaled your site it'd be worth it for investors. You don't need VC yet to start something and test it out - If it comes to that point well thats something to think about.

I'm reminded of the story Michael Birch of Bebo tells - they built something, put it out there off the traffic of birthday alarm and experimented with features. Every time a feature added to the growth of the site and got a noticeable increase in users they kept it and tried something else which also contributed to the growth. By experimenting, measuring and then iterating for things which correlated for growth they ended up on the right path. When they had 5 million users and were growing month on month they had the numbers to prove themselves. They took $15m from Benchmark capital. The bottom line - you'll know when you are ready: just go prove the numbers.
Bootstrapping Your Company - A practical guide by Greg Gianforte, founder of RightNow Technologies [MP3]
in the future, submitters please post mp3 warning... though a domain indicator would have worked in this case. pg?
Sorry, I decided not to tag it [MP3] since it linked to the site not the file directly, forgetting about the lack of a domain indicator. Harb suggested it under the feature requests but it didn't really get any attention - I think an upvote is in order.

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=363

[edit: handily, though, there is an option to edit the title of a submission]
I think this was mentioned by pg earlier (I'm putting it here so it doesn't get forgotten), but auto generating a link when an URL is posted would be very handy.
Yahoo only did 3 acquisitions in 2006, for $42m
>[edit: handily, though, there is an option to edit the title of a submission]

well, there's one improvement over reddit...
don't know if this particular speech applies so much to consumer-facing internet companies-- his first mantra is "sales comes first", and he tells the story of how he sold a bunch of software before the product even existed.

Some of the other principles, though, such as not spending more than comes in, first things first (keeping the cash flow coming), etc, are more universal.

the quiz at the end is funny, too.
Tags.

It's one of the features of Slashdot that I like. The flip side of tags is that they make search a lot easier to implement.
Under 30, online and world-beating
50 million pounds? That has to be a typo.
Thanks, I had never read this or known of its existence but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's fascinating to read about pre-corporate capitalism.
Conglomerates Seek Small Business Acquisitions
uh, yah. It's a fun idea, but 5m seems more appropriate.
I find myself marking up comments of the same 2 or 3 users more often than others. They don't have ultra-high karma or anything- they just are interested in the same articles and discussions I am. It would be nice to learn more about them.
See also The Bootstrapper's Bible by Seth Godin. Seth has a much better explanation of the benefits of bootstrapping than anything else I've seen. The eBook version is only three bucks on Amazon too.
We'd consider them. We have sometimes accepted companies that have already had a little funding. We prefer companies that aren't incorporated yet, though, because the paperwork is so much simpler.
Yeah, it's probably not so applicable to consumer facing internet companies since the approach really needs a business to buy into the idea (much more willing to preorder, a single sale could fund the entire development).

Although maybe that depends on what you are creating. I could see something like Hotmail or Skype being bootstrapped with this method, because those services are useful to both individuals and businesses. Back then, email from any PC with the internet or free international voice calls would have been things that many businesses would have paid for (and still would, if there weren't so many free alternatives now). Even Reddit got its NYT deal soon after starting which pushed it into the black, did it not? (not rhetorical - I don't know much about their history so tell me if I'm wrong!)

There is the problem of loss of focus though. If a company like Hotmail started in '95, realised it could make millions selling their product to companies and focused on that (sales, turnkey servers for easy installation), they would probably only get a few years of that income at most before they are dethroned by a company that just focused on making the best web based email possible. So it would be a bit of a local maxmimum. Is this more dangerous than the loss of focus of doing something totally unhelpful/unrelated to the main product to bring in some cash (contracting, searching for investors) while simultaneously working on the final product? I'd like to know what everyone thinks.
On the user pages it'd be useful to see their comments as well as their submitted articles...
Yahoo has been dying ever since Google took off.
As far as I can see, there are two tar pits that Digg and now Reddit are stuck in:

1. Lack of focus and quality:

In my experience, users frequent a site because it has quality content and they leave when the quality of the content declines. Digg and more recently Reddit, are experiencing a loss of focus and quality and as a result are losing their initial users. Diggs quality is so bad it is now pointless to read and much to my chagrin, Reddit seems to be following suit.

Reddit seems to be drowning in a rising tide of noobs. Apparently, there arent enough old users around to down-vote the crap posted by the noobal hoard. From a quick read of comments, it seems many long-time users are angry and feel disenfranchised. Its because of this that those users whose content made Digg and Reddit popular in the first place are now leaving those sites and taking their great ideas with them.

2. No troll guards:

Nothing poisons an online community quicker than a few nasty trolls. Another one of the reasons that Im pulling away from Reddit is because it is getting mean. Both the links that are posted and the article forums are being destroyed by trolls stomping around unchecked. I hope Reddit can fix this problem. If not, Im going to stop spending my time there.

The impression that I get, Paul, is that your goal is to make this YC News a start-up news site and a community of potential founders; not simply another social news site. The only way that I can see to maintain quality content and to filter out the trolls is to institute some form of moderation. Straight democracy leads to anarchy; thats why I think a news site needs to be a republic.

I dont think, by any stretch of the imagination, that Slashdot is perfect, but they do have a system where moderators are selected from heavy and moderate users on a rotating basis. The system filters out new and spam accounts and gives preference to high karma users. It seems to keep the trolls in check. It also encourages people to take more ownership and to participate in the community.

Slashdots FAQ explains their moderation system here:
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm520

There is also a brief discussion of their anti-troll rules here:
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm2000

Thanks for setting up the site. It scratches an itch that Ive had for a while.
As far as I can see, there are two tar pits that Digg and now Reddit are stuck in:

1. A lack of focus and quality in the content.
2. No troll guards.

1. Lack of focus and quality
In my experience, users frequent a site because it has quality content and they leave when the quality of the content declines. Digg and more recently Reddit, are experiencing a loss of focus and quality and as a result are losing their initial users. Diggs quality is so bad it is now pointless to read and much to my chagrin, Reddit seems to be following suit.

Reddit seems to be drowning in a rising tide of noobs. Apparently, there arent enough old users around to down-vote the crap posted by the noobal hoard. From a quick read of comments, it seems many long-time users are angry and feel disenfranchised. Its because of this that those users whose content made Digg and Reddit popular in the first place are now leaving those sites and taking their great ideas with them.

2. No troll guards:
Nothing poisons an online community quicker than a few nasty trolls. Another one of the reasons that Im pulling away from Reddit is because it is getting mean. Both the links that are posted and the article forums are being destroyed by trolls stomping around unchecked. I hope Reddit can fix this problem. If not, Im going to stop spending my time there.

The impression that I get, Paul, is that your goal is to make this YC News a start-up news site and a community of potential founders; not simply another social news site. The only way that I can see to maintain quality content and to filter out the trolls is to institute some form of moderation. Straight democracy leads to anarchy; thats why I think a news site needs to be a republic.

I dont think, by any stretch of the imagination, that Slashdot is perfect, but they do have a system where moderators are selected from heavy and moderate users on a rotating basis. The system filters out new and spam accounts and gives preference to high karma users. It seems to keep the trolls in check. It also encourages people to take more ownership and to participate in the community.

Slashdots FAQ explains their moderation system here:
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm520

There is also a brief discussion of their anti-troll rules here:
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml#cm2000

Thanks for setting up the site. It scratches an itch that Ive had for a while.
UK startup: free web site monitoring.
Still, 5 million pounds? $10m for an idea?!?
Search - and it needs to have the reddit feature where if you search for an URL, you get the submit page when nothing was found. That's how I submit all my links in reddit. This site doesn't have that, so I wonder if I'm wasting my time when thinking up or typing in a title for a submission - since it may already have been submitted.

Also, I need the "save link" feature.

Good site so far.
Well, the idea is out in the open now so you can steal it and make them feel silly :) Actually it doesn't really say in the article what they've developed, if anything. Also, the VC firm could own 90% of the company now or something- it's not like they handed them a $10m check and said have fun.
Startup: Firefox sidebar for chatting with fellow visitors to any website.
Searching Their Souls On Camera (SF Museum)
I would second this.

In my mind, however, what would be more useful for us budding founders is a place where we can share our ideas and projects in their early embarrassing states. It would be nice the be able to get feedback right at the beginning when I have only the the vaguest idea, and then to be guided by feedback as the project develops and matures. I would not be comfortable to share my pre-pre alpha project on reddit. And people would not be interested.

I believe that the search-space is too great that we should ever worry about other people stealing our precious idea. Starting from one point, different people would diverge and develop in different ways.

I don't know. But I would really welcome more openness. I think when an idea is interesting, and new, people would rather cooperate, and help along. Competition only happens (I hope) when people are chasing after the roughly same fad.
amichail: you need to submit this to programming.reddit.com .
I couldn't agree with you more. It isn't until you really experience what it is like to work for someone else before you realize what it's like to work for someone else.

After 2 years of corporate work, I'm ready to step out on my own as a result of frustration with what other people want me to do. Sometimes it takes the mother bird to force the chick out of the nest before it learns to fly ....
digg won't necessarily drive up your Google rankings but it can drive traffic to your site which, if you have something to offer, is a good thing, right?
10 Mistakes that Will KILL a Forum
2008 Democratic Presidential Candidates (cartoon)
OpenID: What is it, and why everyone is talking about it
Incubator Companies Raise $250M (Just in Israel!)
This is funny. The guy has been offered access to a fund, which is $100m in total, not the full fund of $100m itself. I love how things get spun.

I blogged about it here: http://www.kulveer.co.uk/2007/02/oxford-student-offered-access-to-100m.html

Lazy journalism, for real.
VCs Back Location-based Services
Marketing using Educational or Entertainment means
Finding the next tech billionaires
Turning Ideas Into Dollars
From the article: "Most attempts at innovation fail to generate enough payback. Payback means one thing-cash". In an earlier post on news.ycomb I suggested that a business is not a business if it does not generate money. The authors of the book "PayBack" insist that any innovation is pointless unless it leads to profit. I know a lot of people on this site are startup (co)founders; so I would like to encourage everyone to take a little time to atleast ramp up a business plan other than one that involves Google's adsense :)
Sports and In-Game Advertising
Jubii To Launch 10GB Webmail and File Sharing
In-game advertising is a severely underdeveloped business considering how long games have been around. Since this concept is new, branding within video games would work much better than it does on old-media (print/television). This has a huge potential especially in multiplayer games that require thoughtful analysis and interaction with the virtual medium (as opposed to passively watching the television). Both the market and the technology already exists; it is simply a matter of time before some startup (like adscape) takes a large piece of it.
52 Ways to Reduce Stress
Website Flippers make millions
While selling out to a larger corporation is a great exit-strategy, I suggest that all startups formulate a plan to monetize their site. The fact is, for every startup bought by the big five's (Google, MS, Yahoo, AOL, eBay) there are at least another 100 that go down the drain.
British Tech Visas Up 32%, Most to Indians
How Important is the .com TLD?