jaoued

Nice and easy to use. Really useful. One comment is that when I click on "talk productivity" and "popular books", it would be nicer to get an external link so I can keep "my todo list" at sight. Good work.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This surely is an off-topic on HN.

Interesting concept. Some questions. Is is a cloud based service? When do you to launch and what's the pricing model?

This paper and the "Do things that don't scale" one are regular "must read" from Paul Graham.

To make a startup successful, this is necessary but definitely not sufficient.

From my experience, location is also key; may be to t attract early adopters or customers but to meet interesting and engage with valuable investors. Who you know is as important as what you know.

Funny, the first paragraph has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing grammar but rather with knowledge of vocabulary. its more on having no tolerance of people who have issues with vocabulary, grammar, and writing skills, and not grammar only.

"Put 11 fools on one side, 10 philosophers on the other side ... fools prevail. That's democracy " Jacques Brel

By way of intro, we've been working for the last two years on this project. Our goal is “to enable mobile developers and application owners to quickly bring their applications to any mobile device, without compromising quality or performance.”

The code block converter is just a free tool, which is part of bigger platform called MyAppConverter.

We've built MyAppConverter as an instant and automatic native to native code conversion platform that helps achieve our goal. Our technology is based on semantic code transformation and model driven engineering.

By the way, the entire platform is free to use as a self-service and we currently support Objective-C to Java (Android) and to Swift.

Feedback much welcome.

It is a startup VC with a new model for investing (we may not all like it or we may like it). It would be interesting if this is a model that could be an alternative to current funding models. All the best to SR.

Still waiting for Rackspace to offer Mac Servers hosting service. The current offerings out there really suck.

My view is that the ones, who first hand know will succeed are the founders and co. (even if they sometime doubt)... Investors, etc..., on the other hand, once they invest will always put the right spin and word to fullfill the prophecy. Before they invest, most of of them have no clue, hence invest in large numbers of startup projects with the hope, at least one of each portfolio will make boom for the entire portfolio.

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." dixit Niels Bohr.

Good interview from Sam though.

My humble advice is find a co-founder first and then both of you decide to move to Taghazout. Trying to find your co-founder is more important than the location. Mixing the two could be a recipe for disaster. The most difficult thing in the life of any startup is finding the right co-founder. Best to run solo than getting it wrong. All the best.

Lets give the guy a break. He's helped a lot of folks, entrepreneurs and others too. Revealing out his own demons and suffering is part of his own therapy so it looks, and let us wish him a solid and prompt recovery and a great time with his family.

At last, I am glad to see some positive news coming out of France, especially during this period. The word Entrepreneur is french and its good to see they are taking back. Well done.

Very sorry. Did not realise this. Will try to find the free source.

My advice is you must make contact asap with a lawyer who's specialised in Employment Law. He/she will be best placed to put things together based on what you have experienced and decide on the best course of action while gauging if there is or not a case of abusive dismissal. Letting you go while knowing you are suffering from depression is a serious offence.

Very innovative and fun at the same time. You should showcase this to schools, as kids would definitely love it.

I would disagree as well. I read the story of two young co-founders managing & learning through their failures of applying to YC & eventually getting thru, made them stronger, and building some solid foundations for working again together in the future. When the going gets tough...

I did exactly this few years ago. I had a well paid job in a well established company to do a PhD in something I was passionate about with someone whom I admired and still do in the city of dreaming spires. Spent 4 years doing great stuff, published 8 papers including Phil Mag A. and Royal Society but living on a small grant. Best years of my life: I was young, single and poor but I never regretted it.

We used easyexplainedvideo for MyAppConverter. You can see it for yourself. Excellent, good value and fast service. They grasp your requirements quite fast and everything is done thru skype conf call and emails.

You dont want to read french comments either.

Experience tells me that you will have an edge over them if and only you can execute well. Your idea seems awesome as the market is already been tested and served. Also, established companies mean slowness to turn around and be close to customers, well at least compared to your future startup. Don't waste anytime, its not having the idea that matters but making it happen while learning from those three that have already started and execute fast. Good luck.

"Competition is for losers": may be when it's competition based on price i.e. being the cheapest but definitely not competition based on being unique and creating value - and I don't mean only financial value as Peter Thiel seems always to refer to. That reminds me the Blue Ocean Strategy book by Kim and Mauborgne. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy : How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant

Revolutionary meaning a competitive technology edge that is very hard to copy. However, I believe it has first to solve a business problem that hurts people - who will want to use your product/service as they will find value in it, so much value that they are willing to pay and become your customers. All the best with your YC application.

I would love to know how many sign-ups and customer appointments did Homejoy get after this lecture, across the 5 countries it covers. Am sure the ROI on this 50 minutes lecture will give more sign-ups than any FB or google ad campaign :-). What a cunning way to grow!

I disagree with you on academia, as the checks & balances plus the peer review system for worldwide recognised published research kill and destroy bullshitters. I am not saying there aren't any but having been in both academia & corporate, the latter is infested with them.

In startup world, they get also eliminated quite rapidly as they will just fail. Success of any startups is not to raise funds but to get customers who will pay for value and for that bullshitters cannot trick the system.

My advice. 1. Try to get your MVP out asap with a young tech graduate/internship/ from Bristol University CS department. It will give you time & opportunity to find what you are looking for. Forget meeting technical co-founders like you would date people online. You have more chance of winning in the casino that meeting your tech partner online. Best you start solo than chasing first your tech co-founder.

2. Use your network as I am sure you must be linked to some great folks/friends.

You have to think as your co-founder (tech or not) as your most important relationship before hire, customers and also definitely investors. All the best.

Indeed. If I had one year to live, I would tell my co-founders to leave me alone so I can be with my loved ones. Actually its even in our shareholder agreement as good leaver clauses.

However, its one type of entrepreneurship they teach in SV. Pity lectures don't discuss the fun part. Because no matter how difficult it is, and not only in SV, there is a lot of fun & happiness.

Awesome product. Just tried it with HN and my startup site. Very cool.

Excellent Product. Easy to sign-up and from London it feels and looks as the machine is next to my feet. One suggestion though is may be to include a live chat support to bring some human feel and love :) and differentiate from the competition.

Congrats.

So funny Cloud first, Mobile first... Henry Mintzberg would say that this is an inward focus statement telling and reminding MS employees what their focus should be. Bottom line : no many great mobile apps on MS devices...