Mistone

IMHO - one of the very best HN posts ever. no way for YC to be right about founders every time but the rejection feels devastating (we got interviewed then rejected for Winter 2010). But truth is that the vast majority of startups don't do YC or other incubator programs. Hustle, more than anything stands out as the factor that turned a rough situation into a success. good stuff Jon!

Vancouver seems like the best to me, it's very much like Seattle and SF, and while very west coast also distantly Canadian.

very good point - over that period the biz will earn that money anyway.

While the ending annual cost may come out the same, its harder for most business to pay that in one shot instead of month to month with no contract. So that's the main difference.

Also $50 was my higher end suggestion, big difference between $25-$30 and $65.

more appropriate name would be: "Drop Box for Big Companies, or Drop Box Enterprise edition."

I was really excited until I hit the pricing page. Should so a small biz edition at $25-$50 per month for 3-4 people.

thanks, guess HN didn't recognize the duplicate domain.

Is that referring to Brand name deals or building a company brand? I'm guessing the latter. But even groupon is just becoming a recognizable brand. They are #1 but the dust has yet to settle. I would say thier abity to drive demand to a deal is the main reason they are so strong.

edited, thanks.

Would like to buy a banner spot for our hoodie site, because well, stoner's love hoodies.

It might make more sense to say a startup without revenue or a monitization plan is just some code. While likely unintentional I think "business plan" trips people up. The idea should def cover how the startup will get users and make money.

whats your suggested equity split?

PacNorWest states may have followed suit in next few years if Prop 19 passed. But I doubt BC pot has a big impact on CA.

cool, I'm excited to check out the app.

fair enough - but to be clear I'm hardly begging, I met the AdGrok folks a few weeks back and would be a real customer if the product is awesome.

not that I care too much. but why down vote this comment? just wondering.

awesome news guys - pls send beta invite asap - thanks!

def agree with Jason's bottom line comments: 1. kids + no resources + first startup = #fail 2. kids + resources/support + second or third startup = totally fine/you’ll be inspired."

For me its all about having resources and support, Jason is quite fortunate because he is wealthy and can afford all the extras like nanny's, night nurses, etc, so the load on his spouse is much manageable.

On the flip side if your not wealthy its going to be much harder and puts you in the position that you need to take a decent salary if your going to go full time on your startup, which means you need traction and funding or a profitable business.

Parenting is a fabulous example of bootstrapping - you get much craftier, less wasteful, and in fact may have more time on your hands because your at home more. Once the kids go to sleep - start hacking away at your projects.

I would also say that when you have kids you appreciate some of the perks of normal job more like vacation time, steady income and health care benefits etc.

We've been bootstrapping our company for 2 years now and I have 2 kids (4 and 2 yrs) and it has somehow worked but not without a lot of extra challenges. I'm hoping that at this point we have enough traction to take it to an Angel/VC and get some funding so I can digg in 150%.

on the open source side Magento is getting lots of traction

Another option is Interspire Shopping Cart (http://bit.ly/9z96cl) - which is not open source but give you full access to php code base, design flexibility, a steady stream of updates, support, and new features.

Interspire also makes BigCommerce (http://bit.ly/bxyds4) which is a hosted shopping cart with solid front end flexibility.

fb's is following their social design process of solving problems. the solution to someone joining you to a sketchy group is also solved by social design - you un-join, un-friend the person, and post quick status update stating you think the group is crap and call out the person that signed you up. Its not totally ideal but there are clear social repercussions for such bad behavior, which is an advantage of social design.

no reason, this is what I was reading so I posted it.

I'm sure Zuck and Sandberg went straight for the delete button on that email. "Oh its linkbait Calcanis ranting about something stupid and trolling for an Adviser gig."

Its so odd, I do really like JCal's stance on other issues (paid pitching groups) but his fb rants are annoying.

He should have wrote them a thank you letter for delivering an easy to use tool for exporting all content rather than just a simple PS mention.

I think Marketing is the big missing piece here.

- Clearly presenting value prop

- Use CustDev framework to test and validate the idea

- Create and manage ad campaigns

- SEO and content marketing

- Conduct user tests

- Getting out of the building

Having a co-founder that focuses on customer development and distribution is super valuable in a startup.

Interesting thing about this article is the stats are from 2009 census and show just how badly the recession hit American's. Covers income gap (increasing), poorest poor (increasing), commuting (descreasing - less people working) and lots of other fascinating and scary stats.

porn has always been a great early indicator on the web, and the fact that blogger porn sites have exploded on Tumblr indicates that is usability, and social features are superior.

I'm a big fan of Posterous but the social edge on Tumblr means more traffic and exposure for the blog which what attracts and keeps people on the platform.

just signed up and had the same experience, would have much preferred being told that the system is not ready before I logged into one of my social accounts.

very cool to have the pro feature ready from the start, rather than the someday we will figure out how to make money approach. lots of value for the business user there.

"... Google seriously suck at accounts!" agreed.

here is our pricing page for a Web CMS service targeted to designers. one of my big concerns is that people correlate a hosted CMS offering to the cost of standard hosting so our prices seem high, any feedback on your first impressions of value/price would be appreciated. http://www.webvanta.com/pricing

2nd DDOS in a matter of a week.

seems like they folded to social pressure of the burner community which is vocal and well connected, but their change of heart was driven by wanting to further avoid a PR shit storm. Joe Q web company or individual has no chance of getting similar treatment.