RESERVE Your FAVORITE USERNAME IN NEW STARTUPS

earlyclaim.com

4 points·mindgap··6 comments

Ugh.

Note: this service will be blocked from any company that I am involved with or have influence at.

Why? I'll have a bunch of spammy, disinterested non-accounts registered and using up usernames that real customers might want. For what? I get... access to those people? Them added to a mailing list? No thanks.

hi , we actually don't create accounts, but rather time-bounded reservations that match the users expressed categories of interest with startups that fit into those categories (i.e. we don't reserve everybody into everything, unless that's the user's wish)

Each user can change the reservation into a registration if they are interested in the service by logging in / using the service within X days from launch (up to the startup), else the reservation gets canceled from the startup and the (initially reserved) username is freed.

That improves things somewhat. I'll still likely refuse this service on my own products and push others to do the same if I see that 'reserved' and unused usernames are being taken ahead of people who actually want to use them enough to register them.

Sorry if I sound bitter, this evoked a strong reaction ;)

I think it's because it's an inherently selfish model - "Stop other people having the things I want"

Not sure if it's just me but when I get to the second form (email and password) clicking the button does nothing.

sorry about that...this post on HN's jumpstarted a lot of traffic and our servers are struggling a bit. tnx for the ping though, much appreciated! working on it :)

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