dralison

It would be a pity if this particular idea died out because the author couldn't create a proper paragraph. It won't gain attention from a single petition anyway - there will need to be many of them.

That said, this one is worth signing, as will the ones that follow in order to make this happen.

What someone needs to do is get a business process patent on "Patent Trolling".

Great opening:

In the introduction to Start-Up Nation, Dan Senor and Saul Singer's best-selling paean to Israeli innovation, Agassi was the soft-spoken software wiz who had a brilliant idea and a terrible time locating a backer. That doesn't seem to be a problem anymore. "Not when you've digitized the most expensive molecule on the planet," he says. "We've digitized oil." He pauses. "I'll put it this way: We have people from China here".

Sounds intriguing, wish your site video wasn't Flash based - can't watch it on my current device.

My summary concluded that the best way to find a partner is to expand your network and insert yourself into the right community. I also don't condone going out and "shopping for a partner", yet very often a first time entrepreneur may think that way. By phrasing the title the way I did I was hoping that people new to startups or those thinking of expanding their business by adding a partner would read it looking for practical tips and reach that conclusion.

You're confusing introversion with shyness. An introvert looks in at themselves and isn't looking for a way to meet others. That's what makes them an introvert. Someone that's shy however may want to meet or interact with others but cannot overcome their shyness.

If Color does indeed help true introverts catalog the humans around them then it's actually pretty creepy.

As an old guy myself (47), I've found that it's easy to get frustrated when you see youth repeating the mistakes you've made. While I've learned many things over the years that I enjoy passing on to those less experienced, the skill most valuable is the ability to convey that information in a positive and constructive way.

The irony to me is that so many incredibly talented "senior" engineers and business people have awesome lessons to impart but they never acquired the gift of communications. They don't present themselves as the sage elder that deftly imparts wisdom, they feel a sense of entitlement from their age and it shows as soon as they open their mouths.

That said, I really enjoyed reading your blog post Daniel.

The larger the company, the more complacent they get. They become tied to their legacy and have a difficult time adapting to a changing world. This is magnified dramatically in today's tech environment. I think Facebook is just a privacy breach (or stupid privacy decision) away from becoming a company that can rapidly accelerate their time on the upside of the bell curve.

In my case it was an acquisition and roll up - they acquired my company and one of my competitors, combined the two together and brought in a seasoned executive w/ IPO experience to lead the NewCo. I was retained to be the CTO, though it's tremendously difficult to go from being the boss to having a boss and left a little over a year later.

Last hit for me: launched solo in 1998, self-sustaining though I didn't make any money personally (kept folding it back in, worked programming contracts to live), got angel funding in 2000 and popped staff to 14, first profitable month in March 2001. Became consistently profitable in October 2001 and never again went into the red. Sold to a venture firm in 2006.

Current biz: launched in 2009. Still working on profitability. This is a long tail business so I've learned I need to be patient.

That's another aspect of this I find fascinating; how this impacts people in an online world. What got me was when he said this was his way of getting out into the world and meeting people. Then there are hundreds of comments from people saying where they are in the world. That was an emotional gut punch for me though I can't really explain why.

What does this have to do with startups? If you're an entrepreneur there are times you wonder how you can get through the tough times. This post helps put that into perspective.

Most profound thoughts I think I've ever read on the interwebs. Hard for me not to get emotional reading through them.

Clearly the X variable is highly dependent on the space (as Daniel points out in the article). That said, the initial friction point for creating a startup is substantially lower than it was 10 years ago, especially for pure web based alternatives. Domain names, hosting, scalable cloud services, development/server licenses, support assistance, etc. have all dropped substantially over the last 10 years.

Reading this I immediately turned to my bookshelf to confirm that my K&R book was still there.

"Any time you hit a snag in negotiations, you really have to be 100% sincerely ready to walk away..."

Wish I could upvote that more. When we sold our company my partner was ready to take nearly any offer but fortunately for me I held a 51% stake and was able to adopt that mindset. Two months into acquisition discussions I got up from the virtual table and said "This won't work. Sorry."

The acquirer resumed discussions later that day and we were able to hit the target we had for the deal. Managing that kind of stress is incredibly hard.

I specified that the testers be people that worked in team oriented environments. That was a hand written requirement.

I like the idea, low friction for people that want to help a cause. My concern is getting people engaged when they land on the page. The graphic on the home page doesn't really tell me enough in just a glance. It's relatively small and hard to read.

Very cool concept though. Watched an ad to help buy new schoolbooks for some kid in NY ;)

Being open and clear is definitely important, but so is being measured. Since I was the majority partner in my ventures I had to learn HOW to say certain things because my word carried more weight. Some times I would say things about our product direction out of frustration with a specific event—thinking out loud—and would create issues with my partners. This was especially true early on.

As our relationships evolved we learned to read each other better but it took time to get to that point.

I've received some outstanding feedback, both here, on the IRC #Startups channel and via email. I really appreciate you folks helping us improve our product!

Great suggestions - thanks!

Great feedback - thanks!

One of the ways we wanted to approach this space was to address the pain point of status reports; people spend time putting them together, then waste a lot of time sitting in meetings reviewing them. I still feel it's a space, though it may not appeal to everyone. Rather than be one of N "project management" tools, we were hoping to become synonymous with helping eliminate the status report / meeting mindset.

Thanks - really appreciate you taking a look at it. I've always been reluctant to draw direct comparisons with other products. As a consumer when I see that happen it always feels like a completely biased point of view.

Definitely something to think about. Perhaps in a "Why SharedStatus" section.

Provocative idea. Agree (and upvoted swombat) that 100% is inaccurate. Here's the thing: how many applications do you use today that if they used the model upstartly.com is providing YOU would have invested in. I spend a huge amount of time in Clicky (web analytics) today and am a paying customer, but I wouldn't have given them $5 to build it. I needed to see it working—and try it—before I made that commitment.

Microsoft has long said they have an embrace and extend policy. I guess this is just taking it to a higher level.

I dunno. I think this was all about the money. Anyone that's spent ANY time with SFDC knows it's not a great company to deal with as an outside developer.