I've always wondered what Postmates and other delivery services do about the no-parking-near-crowded restaurant problem. This seems like an interesting solution, to have designated "walkers" pick stuff up and hand it to the drivers.
736 karma · joined August 31, 2009
I looked at contestant elimination data from past seasons of The Bachelor. The data was comprehensive from 2009 onwards (there’s a lot of information online on recent seasons). Prior to 2009, the data was spottier so I left those out altogether.
For races of the contestants, I did include people of mixed ethnicities (for example, I counted a half-Filippino and half-Italian contestant as a minority). Mostly I went based off the photos, and looked for bios where they were available to confirm ethnicities.
Data sources: For elimination and callout order: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bachelor_%28U.S._TV_series%...
For photos and ethnicities of the contestants: http://sophienettejc.thedeadone.net http://starcasm.net http://www.wetpaint.com/the-bachelor/articles/do-you-care-th... http://okhereisthesituation.com/2014/05/tasos-hernandez-bach...
Yeah we haven't implemented "seen" receipts but that's a good idea. We show you which waffles you've opened but now which ones your friends have - we could probably use that same UI element (a dot next to the waffle)
Another thing that is confusing design-wise in the app is how to add friends. Right now you have to take a picture first and then add friends. We need an add button on the home screen.
We definitely could have used this a few months ago
But yesterday I'm out of groceries, and I'm sick of the unhealthy restaurants near me. So I decided to give them another try.
This time the food comes on time. So much care went into their packaging. I heat up the food and it comes out - woah. So delicious. Real food with real ingredients. The total, including delivery fee, was $15. Which is cheaper than most nearby restaurants with much crappier food.
It's really cool to see how far this startup has come in the last year. I hope they succeed so I can just replace all my meals with them.
If you want free delivery on your first order feel free to use my invite code: https://munchery.com/invite/6XHDF26E
He screen captured his progress here: https://giveit100.com/@rainloft/2bjr46
Post rejection, we waited a few weeks until we had some pretty good traction stats, and then sent an email to PG asking they reconsider us. We got an email back saying they don't change their decisions because they wouldn't be able to scale that way.
In this case, we didn't think the best thing was to do flashy techniques, based on what we've heard about PG. Depending on where our startup is, we may apply again next batch. We're applying to other incubators right now too.
I am selfish.
100 days ago I got an email from a lady who had seen my viral dance video. I got lots of emails from people who wanted to learn to dance but that’s not what she wanted. She had multiple sclerosis and what she wanted was to walk again.
So I taught her how to use Dropbox (the very first version of 100 was files in Dropbox folders) and she started taking videos of herself learning to walk every day.
Today is day 100 and you can see she’s made a lot of progress: https://giveit100.com/@cynthia
When people ask me why I made the dance video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daC2EPUh22w) I say it’s because I wanted people to see the invisible hard work behind talent. And that is true but you know why else I made it?
Because I am selfish.
I knew if I could make it go viral it would give me opportunity – as a dancer, as a writer, as a speaker.
And when I had the idea for 100 (giveit100.com) I said I wanted to build it because I wanted to help all these people. And that is true but you know why else I wanted to make it?
Because I am selfish.
You know what one of my hidden motivations was? I thought it’d be cool to write a book one day and I felt like a viral dance video wasn’t substantial enough material. But something like 100 – ohhh that would be good, that would be big, that would give me enough material for a book and I could become a nice published author.
Well it’s been one month since Finbarr and I launched 100. It’s been stressful and I feel burnt out and it’s tiring be constantly on.
And I wasn’t even going to admit that because potential investors will look for cracks and weaknesses and no doubt they are reading this very sentence right now. And they don’t like to smell weaknesses on a founder. Especially not a female one.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that ripping your weaknesses open for everyone to see is where you can draw your greatest strength. If you try to hide it, you give it power. But drag it out in the daylight and you will be liberated.
I am selfish.
But now I can see that 100 is bigger than me and it is bigger than a viral video and it is bigger than a book. If we do this right, it’s going to be the thing every person learning a musical instrument turns to. Every person learning a language. A sport. Every tinkerer toiling away on their side project. Every scared soul starting a business. Every teacher and every student. Every parent recording every child growing up – learning to talk, learning to walk. It will give people confidence, it will give people an army of others who support them, and it will give them belief in themselves.
How someone as selfish as me could create something that could affect so many people and make a real, practical, positive difference in the world – I don’t know. We have a long, long way to go. But we’re gonna make it happen.
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Why is this news?
Well, it's not supposed to be. News is when so-and-so raised a $15 million round from Sequoia-this or Andreessen-that.
Yesterday, we had an interview with Y-Combinator for our video startup, http://giveit100.com. We just had a pretty good launch earlier in the week. My co-founder Finbarr is more reserved than I am - he doesn't like to count his chickens before they hatch. But me, I had practically made myself a chicken sandwich. We'd get in for sure!
A little embarrassing to admit, but I'd already started writing my self-congratulatory Facebook status in my head. "So excited to announce that 100 has been accepted into the next batch of Y-Combinator," I'd say.
Then at 8pm: we got our rejection email.
Ugh.
Here's the Facebook status that went out instead: -------
So excited to announce that we had our YC interview today and ...didn't get in.
You only hear about people when they succeed huh? I'm way guilty of this too. Only posting the good news on Facebook. Painting an artificially glossy version of my life.
But I better start practicing what I preach. Show my mistakes. Don't be ashamed of failure. Be proud I tried my hardest. Fall 7 times, get up 8.
YC gave us some good, actionable feedback in their rejection email. They even challenged us to prove them wrong. I appreciate that.
Challenge accepted.
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Then a cool thing started happening. One by one, people left comments about how they'd failed before. Joel Gascoigne from Buffer wrote how they didn't get into YC - they didn't even get an interview. People told me about other YC founders who didn't get in on their first try. Drew Houston from Dropbox is one of them.
Overall, Silicon Valley is pretty good about embracing failure. Here, it's not taboo to say you started a business and it failed. I don't know anywhere else like that.
But that's easy to forget when we see shiny headlines on TechCrunch. We're only seeing a brief moment of glory. We don't see the self doubt, the lost sleep. The dozens - sometimes hundreds - of rejections from investors.
We're good at embracing failure - but we could be better. Do the scarier thing. When we stop hiding our failure, we stop fearing it.
"The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried."
- Stephen McCranie