Don't keep telling us how to talk to venture capitalists and what not. It's depressing. This place is a graveyard of hope - everyone here seems to be trying, and everyone seems to be advising - but nobody seems to be succeeding. And those companies that do succeed, hell, you never see them here.
This is a collection of dreamers and people hoping for that big million payout. If I'm going to fail, I'll fail with dignity trying to sell things that people want to buy.
Well...whaddaya expect? They're too busy coding their startups to post on a glorified message board. That's probably also behind the dropoff in activity - many of the top posters here got into the SFP, so they're now hard at work on their projects.
I'll probably stick around here as long as I still have my day job. Can't really work on the startup at work without jeopardizing the IP, so I might as well at least learn about startups in my downtime. But there's eventually a time when you've learned everything you're gonna get off the web and just have to go for it and try...
1. Take the first word of that sentence out of your vocabulary. 2. Work at night. Forget about what might go wrong and imagine the possibilities.
There. You just won half the battle. Just my 2 cents.
If your IP agreement doesnt already claim ownership over your work inside and outside work, it definitely will at least claim what you do during work hours.
Thats a quick way to lose your job, get blacklisted from other companies, and lose legal ownership over your startup..
(Aside: didn't Lincoln outlaw this in 1863?)
California Labor Code Section 2870: http://www.unixguru.com/california_law.html
I like that. Goodbye, maxklein :)
Ironically, I think that tech conferences such as this would actually be enhanced--for (almost) everybody--if computers were generally prohibited at computer event venues. (Flame me not.) :)
If nothing else, it would increase f2f interaction..would it not??
(Wouldn't this be a rather stunning exercise/experiment...if only for a day or 2 at a major conference?!)
(That said, more submissions on CS and the technology behind many startups wouldn't be unwelcome, at least to me.)
You're probably familiar with it, but I'd recommend programming.reddit.com. You'll get a much better variety of computer science and programming articles than you will here.
For "work" sites like this, I'd say no.
That said, as someone else pointed out, what really matters is doing things, not talking about em :)
In fact, it's an amazing experience to avoid the Internet for 3 days. Try it.