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aepstein

1,179 karma · joined October 26, 2009

Co-founder Creative Market: http://creativemarket.com YC W10

Say hello: aepstein at gmail, @aaron_epstein

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aepstein··on Greplin (YC W10) Grabs $4 Million From Sequoia For Social Search
Not only was Daniel (and his co-founder Shai) the youngest in our YC batch, but they built and launched a couple of different startup ideas in the time that the rest of us built a couple of features.

Daniel easily could've packed it up when he lost his cofounder - Shai had to go back to Israel a week or two before Demo Day. Instead, he built a prototype of what would become Greplin (in a week), pitched it to investors at Demo Day, secured funding from Sequoia, and is riding a rocketship.

When PG and YC say that they invest first and foremost in founders, this is a perfect example of what they're talking about. Every startup hits a rough-patch, and some even look like they have no hope at all, but the best founders persevere against crazy odds and will themselves to succeed.

aepstein··on How I Got Kicked Out of Y Combinator and Then Raised $1.5m for My Startup
It's not a contest, there can be more than one :)
aepstein··on How I Got Kicked Out of Y Combinator and Then Raised $1.5m for My Startup
Jon/Storenvy is a case study in refusing to die.
aepstein··on YC startups seeking designers for Feb 2011 designer directory
If there's one thing that YC companies are always looking for, it's a designer.

If you're a designer, this is a pretty sweet opportunity to work with, or even join, a YC co.

aepstein··on Flightcaster Gets Acquired. I Go on to Start Woven.
Think it's the lowercase "go" that made it confusing...
aepstein··on Man Sued Winklevoss Twins in 2009, Saying They Stole Company Stake From Him
The actual court docs, if you're in to that kind of thing: http://www.businessinsider.com/irony-alert-man-sues-winklevo...
aepstein··on COLOURlovers (YC W10) Wants To Unleash Your Creative Streak With An iPhone App
It's a battle every day :)
aepstein··on COLOURlovers (YC W10) Wants To Unleash Your Creative Streak With An iPhone App
Darius actually wrote a blog post about our reasoning: http://whoabubs.com/should-we-do-ycombinator-were-further-al...
aepstein··on COLOURlovers (YC W10) Wants To Unleash Your Creative Streak With An iPhone App
Thanks Daniel, much appreciated.

We (COLOURlovers & ColorSchemer) actually merged up in summer '09 before doing YC last winter.

aepstein··on I'll do your website copy for free
Free has no strings attached. If you don't like the feedback, don't use it. Nothing to lose.
aepstein··on I'll do your website copy for free
William gave me some good feedback the other day on our app description for the App Store. An extra set of copywriting eyes is always nice, especially when it's free.
aepstein··on Path — Introducing The Personal Network
www.frid.ge is working on solving exactly this problem.
aepstein··on The day Steve Jobs dissed me hard
And how do you expect iOS devs to create their mobile apps?
aepstein··on Any bad experiences with Y combinator?
The YC experience is what you make of it. They're there to help whenever you need it/ask for it, and they don't pressure you to do anything you don't want to do.
aepstein··on How to make your YC application stand out
Harj touched on it briefly last night at the NYC meetup, but I think that HN karma points are looked at as a bonus, rather than part of the criteria. Like all other aspects of the application process, it's just another chance for YC to get to know more about you.

When we applied, we had (and still have by most measures) low karma scores. But we also had a working product with actual users, so that worked in our favor.

aepstein··on Yep, Amazon Launching Their Own App Store For Android Too
This app store fragmentation is going to be bad for both devs and consumers. In the near future, there is likely to be at least 3 separate marketplaces (Google, Amazon, Verizon), with certain apps only appearing in certain app stores on certain carrier networks.

Want the Skype app? Oh, that's only available in the Verizon store over the Verizon network.

Want some other specific app? Oh, that's only on the Amazon store, which Verizon may or may not allow you to install in the first place.

aepstein··on Style Your #NewTwitter Profile With Themeleon From COLOURlovers (YC10)
That's one of the neat things about the new Themeleon: you can preview your profile with the new Twitter layout even if you haven't been switched over yet.
aepstein··on Startup Update: Notifo iPhone App v2, More
Great job guys, and excellent walkthrough Paul.
aepstein··on Free lifetime software upgrades are bad for customers
Here's an idea: release a scaled back version of your new v2 as a free upgrade, and then take the full version with a majority of the extra goodies they're going to want and put it out as a separate product. Then, give existing customers a 30-50% discount off the "new product".

Release both the free upgrade and the new product at the same time, so they'll feel like they're getting something for free, as well as a discount to grab the new product.

aepstein··on Free lifetime software upgrades are bad for customers
Completely agree, money isn't the only motivating factor for continued development. But it's easy to get burned out on big projects (see TextMate 2), or move on to other projects.

With time being such a valuable resource for any developer, unless the product is a side hobby or the dev has special circumstances (rich, etc), money is a big factor in deciding what to work on.

aepstein··on Ask HN: How to deal with a prospective third co-founder?
It sounds like you need a new 2nd co-founder if you want to take this seriously, not a 3rd.
aepstein··on Investor Dave McClure: ‘Open is for losers’
Because PG's realistic. Not a whole lot of non-iPhone mobile apps making money (or even gaining much traction) these days.
aepstein··on Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
Sure, Bump impresses you now, but you would've had the same dismissive comments about them on their demo day.

Revisit this list in a year or so and I'm sure you'll have some different opinions and wish you hadn't been so short-sighted.

aepstein··on Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
Perhaps the "really hard problems" that were submitted & accepted into YC (which PG has knowledge of and you do not) could not be fully solved in 3 months?

I'll bet when Bump came out you thought "Who needs a new way to transfer contact info?" Now they have a partnership with PayPal, and it's clear that their vision is to build the platform for information transfer.

Think bigger. You're judging these companies by their first step on a very long journey.

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