cabinguy

I like the part where some guy/gal with a stop watch was keeping records of every minute.

I don't want to disparage the masses with words like "dumb" but your comment does touch on a very important fact. The masses are moved by simple, but powerful themes. Cotton understands this and used it to his advantage. In my opinion, anti-SOPA debaters should stick to "Do we want to become like China?" ...and use it over and over and over.

I just tried to submit this for you. You beat me to it.

Me too. I am not a big apple fan (I stay away from most of their products for reasons I will not go into here), but this marks the end of an era.

Specifically, I disagree with giving up.

I appreciate this post but I disagree with it. I started my company in 2003. There were hundreds of times that we should have "folded." Last year we did $500k. This year we will do $1M. Turns out we were just too early, but because we were too early we made all of our mistakes before the market caught up to us. It was a tough road but now we are sitting in the catbird seat.

My advice to others is: never give up.

Spend it ALL on client acquisition. Test Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc... Do 5 tests of $1k each (or 10 @ $500). Spend the remaining 5k on whatever works best.

"You need to discover the moment when you actually know better than everyone around you — when you make the first move without asking permission."

I love that line - it says it all.

As I remember it, the "highly relevant" results on Google were almost exclusively determined by a $299 Yahoo! Directory listing or a DMOZ directory listing. If you could get the Yahoo Directory or DMOZ to link to you with your preferred anchor text - you were all but guaranteed the #1 spot on Google. Of course it didn't mean as much back then, but boy was it easy.

This brings back a lot of memories. Like you said, Yahoo! was referring all of the traffic. For those of you that weren't around or don't remember - the Yahoo Directory was based on the alphabet, like the phone book. I had to beat out AAAUsedLaptops.com with exclamation-point-used-laptops.com (listed as "! Used Laptops"). No wonder Google won.

I'm sorry it DQ's the OP, but this idea is a winner.

I remember him announcing Quizlet on the short-lived TechCrunch Forums. I was impressed then and I am impressed now.

I agree with the current majority. Use off the shelf software to get started.

My company uses an install of Wordpress with the GTD theme (P2 Theme is also an option) for communication - it is basically a twitter/yammer clone. We have 20 people and it has been an awesome tool. Of course you can easily add forums (bbpress) and a ton of other functionality with 10k+ plugins available.

This could be built/ready in 1-2 days.

http://p2theme.com/

Ok...we can keep going. If you would have said "YC is like the Marines of startup incubators" and left it at that, it would have been fine. But you didn't say that. You went a lot further than that. You made very specific comparisons including a condescending remark that you and your peers aren't here to just pay their college tuition, etc...

I am quite sure that your intentions were not malicious, but the response to your post is the response to your post.

Did YC teach you and your "best of the best" peers to know when you made a mistake, how to fix it and then move on? If so, now would be a good time to put it into practice, imo.

I don't want to keep piling on but it seems like you still don't get it. One of the reasons your post got such a negative response is because you are comparing yourself to people who put themselves in harms way for your benefit.

There is a difference between having your startup fail and actually being shot in the f'ing face by a high powered rifle. And you even ripped on the Marines that may have joined as a way to pay for college, as if they are beneath you and your peers.

Do not compare yourself to real soldiers (or sailors), there is no comparison. Just accept it and move on.

Exactly. I had a comment ready to go but I didn't want to get too negative on the OP so I deleted it. He forgets that kids his age will die this week doing what his fantasy analogies describe. As someone who served 4 years in the military, I found parts of this post offensive.

Cold calling isn't just acceptable - it is highly effective. Just make sure you register at https://telemarketing.donotcall.gov/ if you want to do it correctly.

There are a ton of reasons we have not tried to raise funding.

It sounds like it would be easy, we have proof of concept (after 8 years), but raising capital is very intensive. We feel like we do not have time to take our eyes off the ball. Also, if we are correct and we can build this out to a $20M exit - an investor would most likely need to take more than 10% for their $500k - and - $20M exits are not very interesting to most investors.

We are growing at a decent pace organically and now through M&A. We believe there are a lot of other M&A deals out there for us and our time is better spent putting those deals together.

If someone knocks on the door we will talk...but we don't have time to knock on their doors.

I am happy with our progress. I wouldn't call it a success. When we hit revenues that would justify a $20M exit, it will be a success in my book.

I agree with you 100%. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the subject. Also, I shared some sensitive data so I am not going to share our URL...hope you understand.

Whenever I hear someone call someone else's business a "lifestyle business" - I personally get the feeling that it is a direct dig. I am sure some people disagree with me and I am sure not everyone means to belittle someone else's work...but this is how I feel when I hear it/read it.

Not even close! I spend most of my waking time thinking about how to improve and grow. It is the last thing I think about when falling asleep and the first thing I think about when I wake up...and has been for 8 years. I love what I do everyday - but I am far from satisfied. To be honest, I can't imagine ever being "satisfied."

My main point is: Our business does not address a large enough market to create a $100M+ business - but that does not mean it should be called a "lifestyle business."

My little site (regional) gets 150k visitors & 2-3M page views per month on average. About 70% of those visitors find us through search. Our goal is to lower that number, but at this point it does not bother us. We know that it is in all search engines best interests to keep us at the top of the search results because we are the most relevant website for our topic/services...all of the search engines recognize this and one of the search engines knows this because they count our page views for us.

We SEO our site to make it easier for the engines to know what we are about...but we do not bother with much of the deeper stuff (all the onsite relational linking strategies).

The goal of every search engine is to deliver relevance. Be relevant.

I don't know Jason Calacanis, but I get a couple of things out of this. (and yea, I know my two main points are contradictive)

1. Mahalo is blowing in the wind. I have no idea what Mahalo is or what Calacanis wants it to be. SEOing the hell out of near-worthless content is not a long-term strategy. If you want to win - solve a problem!

2. Jason Calacanis is an excellent executive. This Google algo change took place on Fri/Sat. By Tuesday this guy made the huge, painful, most difficult call in the world and laid off 10% of his company. If you have ever had to lay people off - you know what I mean. It is hard, it is painful, it is life changing. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I understand that the employee takes the blunt of the blow - but believe me, being on the other side of the table is not a desirable place to be.

I know this is not a popular stance on HN, but I have a lot of respect for Calacanis. The guy has done so much for the start up community. TWiST is some of the most valuable content I have found on the web and The Launch Conference - if it hasn't already - will change the startup conference scene forever. Not to mention his home brewed angel network that tilts the table in favor of entrepreneurs.

Calacanis is a hell of a self-promoter - but even if he rubs you the wrong way - you should respect what he has been able to do. If you have been (or were) on 60 minutes talking about internet startups...in your 20's...feel free to rip him apart. If not, show a little respect for what he has done and little empathy for what the guy just had to do.

The author basically described priceline...didn't he?

I dont' want to come off as a naysayer - I can see this taking off - but I do have some real questions. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

Don't you keep hard copies of these documents? Just wondering. For us, if it requires a signature, we usually need a hard copy (original) for our records.

Since we are printing it out (or receiving via fax in the first place), it seems just as easy to walk over to our $40 fax machine and send it (via our $9/mo Vonage fax line).

I am sure I am missing something here.

I sure do hope The Startup Foundry perseveres. It's going to be one hell of a hard thing to do...but I hope they do it.

One bit of advice: Drop the "the" -- just "Startup Foundry" -- it's cleaner.

Your not going to get very far.

If you are selling ads directly (just as hard, if not harder than selling your product) - it will depend. You would have to get huge CPM's with your traffic for it to make sense.

If you are going to use an ad network (adsense, etc.) you will make almost nothing. Way, way, way less than the $1,200 you are currently bringing in.

Here is what I would recommend: Offer your potential clients a free trial. Let's say 30-90 days. If your product is valuable to them, you will be able to convert them to paying customers. (Like your neighborhood crack dealer. Give it away for free, get them addicted and see who comes back for more! Its a proven strategy.) The key is to get them using your product.

Also, there is no rule stating that you cannot show display ads/text ads AND charge for your product. The only people who complain about ads are hipster/early adopters. If your customers are not redditor types, you can most likely have your cake and eat it, too.

If you have some money, you can negotiate your credit cards down to almost nothing (eg $30k = $4k payoff). Call the credit card company, tell them you have $X (X being about 10-15% of your balance) and you are calling all of your creditors to see who will take it as payment in full. $X is all you have...and if they will accept it, you will send it to them...otherwise you are sending it to the next card on the list.

It will be a little scary making that first call and making such a low-ball offer, but it is where you want to start and you will be amazed at the results...I guarantee it. Be sure to get the accepted deal in writing before sending any money.

This is a tough thing to go through. As an entrepreneur, you have to be able to compartmentalize these types of problems. Put these problems in a box, put the box on a shelf, and continue to build things and solve problems. Don't forget about the box, but set it aside and refocus on kicking ass. This is just a wall. You will run into a lot of walls on your journey. Walls are not there to keep us out, they are there to keep those who do not want it bad enough out.

tl;dr It's not over until you quit. Never quit.

Because I shared some sensitive data, it is probably a good idea to keep the name of our site to myself (for now).