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I honestly think this site is fabulous. DISCLOSURE: It is not my site.

Although I think the idea is less novel than others, I think the presentation is great. I haven't seen as smooth a UI/UX in a while.

Overall, I think the site is pretty awesome. What are your thoughts?

I said this the first time this site was posted. It is brilliant and helpful. It is actually the first helpful site I have found here on HN for my personal life.

Amazing. You are god.

Thanks for posting this, Bill!

I talk to a few close friends to get some ideas, but I don't rely on their excitement to give me an indication of how worthy an idea it is. Validation comes from actually getting it done and having people pay/use it.

OP here. I actually haven't done any until recently. I just sold a musician FB likes at 100%+ cost I paid to get them. Might pay the bills..

You might try once a month. Do a poll and see how people would react. you have been so honest thus far, I think continuing to say that it will be very difficult to continue with the existing profit margin will allow subscribers to take a hit. Example: they pay $15 for one shipment per month. You will most likely keep most subscribers and potentially gain the cheaper ones who don't want to pay $24 for Japanese candy

Great story! A little bit of common sense can go a long way.

I do not think college will help you. Put the effort into teaching yourself C/C++, PHP, and Python. You can get the books you would have to read while in school anyway.

Then, build a resume of products you have developed. If you have been able to make some cool ones on the side, go with those. If you have an idea for a bigger one, but do not have the time, then maybe live off those 2-3 years of savings for half a year and work on the project full-time. You will learn a ton working on the project, you might make a viable business, and you will add to your resume for getting a job.

Best of luck

Hi, first of all, I sympathize and understand exactly where you are coming from...actually in more ways than you may imagine. I have to agree that the major is not always the end-all. In fact, many programmers I know tell me that school taught them nothing. It was self-teaching and tutorials that helped them learn what they needed to. College these days is about connections, alma mater, and if you are really dedicated you can learn a lot.

I know you want to remain anonymous in your public post on HN, but if you want someone to talk to, send me an email (in profile). Best regards whatever you decide to do. Number one thing is to not worry about the future. Under no circumstances can worrying help you. Make daily goals, attain them, and before you know it you will be successful.

My takeaway from the article is that yoga, like any other physical activity, can be dangerous when one does not know how to do it properly, but more importantly, has too large an ego to know when to quit/pause.

I've been doing yoga for only a little over a month, but I go at my own pace at home. I'm not in a class where I force myself to "keep up" or whatnot.

This totally ignores the fact that people who go to college are more likely to be ambitious and career oriented / smarter. It totally skews all of these results..

Well because you are just helping customers implement certain small features, I'd say you might have a niche consulting position here. Market it like that 1 feature = $X, any 2 features = $Y, and 3 or more features implemented = $Z

From your use case it just seems like you know how to add a few features and will be implementing with companies/sites that need them.

I guess I'll just use December to summarize the entire year. As a non-technical co-founder I helped acquire 5-figure investment from a billion-dollar hedge fund, organize a team to form another bootstrapped one and came very close to closing a deal with another simple project that cost me $10 to start...

...then I butted-heads with the investor in the first project and have all but been pushed to the side. Then my technical co-founder for the bootstrapped project started to beef up his own profitable project instead of working together with me, then the deal fell through on my $10 investment. The greatest part was that I even took some time off from school for that (and other things)!

I know - sounds like a failure. Well, it was. In any case I learned a TON about things I like doing, things that do and do not work, and most importantly, I learned a lot about myself.

I'm working on some projects on the side, but I am re-entering school full time in Jan. to get my BA degree. Let us all hope 2012 is prosperous.

Who cares. The genius part about Hacker News is that it is democratic (mostly). If it is a good thread/discussion then the people want to keep it even if it is off topic.

My two cents anyway...

Jimmy, let me clarify.

When I say making sure that US citizens are always in the know, I mean that the resources are almost always available for those who would like to be in the know.

With regard to your comment about having informed opinions on everything the Government deals with: I don't necessarily mean local matters. At first, perhaps we could start with the U.S. Congress while leaving the state.

I definitely agree that there are some issues to deal with. This is one radical proposal and I'll be the first to admit it might not even work. I do think that a more direct democracy in the model of the Swiss could be of great use in these times of questionable ethics (lobbying in particular).

I'm not so sure we even need a congress anymore. Honestly...hear me out.

The purpose of congress is to provide representation for American citizens who could not travel to Washington D.C. to vote on the bills and amendments that congressmen take part in.

These days reporters in D.C. can blog about all bills or report them in news stories instantly. So U.S. citizens are always in the know. More importantly, American citizens can easily vote with the current technology we have. Youth can use the internet, elders the telephone etc.

What do you guys think? I doubt it would happen...congress is too ingrained in our constitution and 'murica in general...

I think this business model is similar to that of the self-publishing model.

The two main parties in any published work are 1) the author and 2) the reader. The publisher, agent, distributor (book store) etc. are all intermediaries that have increased the cost of books for the reader AND decreased the money earned for the author (therefore restricting many authors' artistic contributions). With websites like creativespace.com authors can now publish self-publish with many fewer middle-men - therefore making the price lower and the net gain to the author higher.

The same applies for Louis CK's experiment. I assume his industry is pirated more than the print publications so that is the real trick. Either way, great experiment.

I understand you probably do not want to reveal anything to the US incubator, but I suggest just re-posting or posting with your real account. I think HN readers will be far more willing to help you.

I just started on the same path as you (although I am not a designer). You have a distinct advantage so you're good to go. I used this resource initially despite the date (pre-HTML5)

http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

I would also recommend finding someone who is knowledgeable about HTML and CSS. I have a "mentor" of sorts and he is both challenging me and helping me. I would also suggest just choosing sample sites to create once you have a grasp. Make a web design with all the features that look really cool and don't take the easy way out. Design it just like you want and figure out the way to code it. Good luck!

Hey Jason, I'd like to help you out. This seems like a really cool idea. I lived in Europe and traveled extensively while living there. Can you send me an email? It is in my profile..

Is the company making any money yet? If not and you are doing this for future earnings, then I would suggest following what e1ven says. As a non-technical founder it is hard for me to advocate that, but that is the free market. If you don't offer something beyond an idea, you don't deserve to do it.

Stay legal, of course. If you have signed agreements do not do anything to break them

Try to write some relevant content on a regular basis. I know a Swedish website that is nothing more than a couple that write about raising children from books and magazines and nothing more. They have no original content, but they do it in Swedish so they pull ~ 20K/year (they used to - it has now been sold)

If they pay for additional training it may be worth it. Typically university is just a diploma to get looked at these days. It's like the high school diploma of 40 years ago. Anyway, if you need work immediately after graduating to stay in the country, then go train with them and work a while as you try to find another job. It is in San Jose so you'll be in a great environment to jump ship to another job. Best of luck

If you are getting good pay and you have no stock options then I would recommend riding the ship down (although in this metaphor you seemingly have multiple lives). If it is no secret, then there is nothing you can do, really.

I don't think you have any liability here, though you are playing in a grey area without outright telling them (at least in an email) that you are worried about the state of the program. If they ignore you, then it is on record for the future.

I make sure to block off an hour or two every day for physical exercise. Eating right is only half the battle.

I eat almost completely vegetarian (Indian) which is all home cooked so I can control the type of oil, the amount, and all other variables to make sure it stays healthy. Plenty of restaurants take healthy dishes and make them unhealthy...

Perhaps just have a bar/club locator for the users geo-location. If I log-in from San Francisco,CA then the site would automatically recognize my location/zip code and give me the closest bars in the area. Or better yet, you could parse information from Yelp and return searches with the best bars and clubs in the users' locale.

Then just slap some adverts on it.

Hey, I am not a programmer (yet), but I do know exactly how you feel (in terms of feelings of failure, contemplating suicide etc.) I like to help people so send me an email (in my account) with a throwaway email address if you would like. I think I can help you out.

I'm not sure about the morality of this (perhaps it isn't "right" to do), but I would suggest getting a job lined up in a company that you want to work for before you quit your existing job.

You could make a site that informs people of jazz events near users. Then offer discounts or promotions..

There are a lot of models that exist already, but try to form them into something for jazz. (look up a startup called Will Call)