Hacker News Reader

ashishkon Amtrak to add WiFi, upgrade Fleet

Thanks for the notes! Did they have free coffee on the Limo Liner? That may be a plus.

Just bought my ticket (somehow Amtrak let me cancel my Accela ticket) for Thurs. We'll see how it goes =)

ashishkon Amtrak to add WiFi, upgrade Fleet

I totally forgot about Limo Liner. I'm thinking of taking it this Thursday morning.

ashishkon Amtrak to add WiFi, upgrade Fleet

What's crazy is that not once, but twice in the past month, I've been on a train from BOS-NYC that has broken down at some point in CT or RI. The first time they sent a new train (we boarded it using planks laid across the tracks) and the second time they sent a new engine car.

Otherwise, yes Amtrak has been more reliable than Megabus/Boltbus =)

ashishkon Sell HN: Selling our Twitter marketing tool (ask me anything)

Looks interesting but has it made money?

ashishkon Ask HN: How long did it take you to get ramen profitable?

You're right - my bad.

My startup is a niche dating site (myzamana.com), I make money by selling subscriptions to members that want to message people they're interested in.

Ramen profitable would mean paying food and rent for an average apartment/ food budget in Boston.

ashishkon Will single founders please stand up?

I've actually been seriously thinking about that. Not sure how long that would take, but I'm definitely open to the idea.

ashishkon Will single founders please stand up?

I'm a single founder. Thinking about crossing over to the dark side, but it's not such a bad life. You keep more control of the company, but things move slower as a result.

ashishkon Ask YC: Fair founding vesting

Wow thanks! That was super helpful. I will check out your blog as well.

ashishkon Ask HN: How long after launch did you get your first customer?

-2 months. (yes thats a negative)

I built a dummy signup site before I started developing the real app. Launched with a few hundred users.

That said, my app is consumer-facing, and I sign up customers with ads (it's a dating site).

ashishkon Ask HN: How did you get started in hacking/programming?

I started coding during my Senior year in college. Roughly 1.5 years ago.

The reason? I outsourced dev for my first startup (which I started my Junior year) and it failed miserably. Small fixes took days. Terrible freaking way to start a startup.

Anyways I started with HTML/CSS then moved up to LAMP (yes I know rails is awesome, but hey, I just started coding =)). Since my Senior year, I've personall started and coded two startups, one of which raised angel money and the other which may not need to.

ashishkon Ask HN: What are your goals for your startups in 2010?

Thanks Zack =)

If anyone from HN signs up, let me know and I'll upgrade your account for you.

ashishkon Ask HN: What are your goals for your startups in 2010?

I have a separate landing page that I use for marketing. And yep - A/B testing is critical.

ashishkon Ask HN: What are your goals for your startups in 2010?

Ramen profitability. Stat.

ashishkon I hired 50 people today. This is what they look like

Cool experiment. Thinking of using Turk for photo approvals on my site, but the accuracy issue leaves me slightly hesitant. Has anyone had experience doing this?

ashishkon Ning Proves That There’s Life Outside of Facebook and Twitter

Link does not work for me.

ashishkon Justin.tv to Launch Pay-Per-View Service

It's already being done. Megavideo basically does this. They seem to be doing OK (thus far).

ashishkon Polaris launching Dogpatch Labs free startup space in New York

I understand what you're saying (Chris Dixon had a great post on this), but I disagree.

They're giving you office space and coffee, not your first seed round. Also, there's a soft cap on how long you can hang around for, so you just may not be ready for funding by the time you leave.

ashishkon Polaris launching Dogpatch Labs free startup space in New York

This is awesome news. I work out of the Cambridge Dogpatch Labs, and besides being a kickass office to work out of, the community that works there is very sharp and diverse. A few YC/ Techstars companies included.

ashishkon Rate my startup: Ask My BrainTrust (Business Brainstorming Tool)

Interesting idea, although I would personally prefer to use Gmail, as I often do when asking a handful of friends for advice.

Small bits of advice: I don't love the idea of giving up my card for a free trial - that seems a bit much. Also I'd recommend FB Connect so that it's easier to get my friends on board.

ashishkon A 20-Something Makes a Mint (and Sells It to Intuit)

My personal rule is I’m not touching anything I got from the acquisition. I’m just going to continue to live off of my income.

Wonder what his plans are. Investing? Funding his next startup? Philanthropy?

ashishkon Who needs angel financing/help? Testing hacker news for this purpose.

Feedback would be great, regardless of whether you're interested in exploring further.

ashishkon Ask YC: Publish the bubble list?

This would be interesting, but I'm not sure if I would be comfortable discussing private business matters in a public forum.

That said, for issues I am comfortable discussing in public, I would just post them here (which I often do).

ashishkon Offerpal Tries Out A New CEO. Shukla Out. Garrick In.

at first i was surprised by how quickly this happened. but then i saw they've raised 20M in funding in the last 2 years. i think its obvious the VCs run the company.

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/offerpal-media

ashishkon Ask HN: So I quit my job to focus on my startup...

one of the regulars here posted an awesome guide about freelancing. i would look it up but i'm going to grab a beer instead =)

ashishkon The most important question to ask before taking seed money (from VCs)

perhaps highland capital. i'm not sure if spark's program has invested in anything yet. could be lightspeed as well, although they generally fly below the radar (no press for their launches, etc.)

ashishkon Poll: Universities for Aspiring Hacker?

I went to Columbia and am a startup enthusiast. I had several close friends at school that were also starting or working at startups.

As much as I loved my time there, I'd have to say it's a pretty bad school for startups. MIT or Stanford are probably far better in terms of providing resources, a community, student support, etc.

The problem is that the administration is too busy to adopt new technologies, the engineering community is too tied into wall st, finance, consulting, etc., and the students are just sort of averse to supporting startups.

Fun fact though, CU Community, an early Facebook competitor, was actually building a strong following before Facebook even existed.

ashishkon Good investment for a tech guy?

If you haven't done this already, you could buy an apt. and live in it. Might be the simplest real estate investment.

ashishkon New Google Music Service Launch

search song lyrics? an anyclip for music if you will?

ashishkon Loopt acquires GraffitiGeo

Congrats to the GraffitiGeo team!

This would seem like a talent acquisition, unless GraffitiGeo had a large amount of active users.