mdink

Ok this might be reaching but if she is an SEO consultant and her username clearly is just a sales pitch, I am not sure if I buy this story...

If I were you - I might switch all the free content to be at the top of the page. Initially when I clicked the link I immediately saw "sign up to access" on 6/7 of courses. Luckily I know how to use the scroll bar :) Just saying I fly though most of these links and sometimes don't even stop to scroll. HN is an awesome market for your team - it might even deserve it's own offer splash page or something.. ? Keep up the good work.

Seriously the Feds better be watching this closely. This smells like a lot of trouble when Harold is wrong.

craps table in vegas.

Partly joking here, I too think this is the wrong type of question to ask. So many times I get approached from people who have the next facebook/twitter/fucking-annoying-I-know nothing idea.. do they ever mention the implementation details? No. It's always about going viral and making millions. What do you end up with? Something as spammy as "honestly.com"

Seriously just find an interesting problem to solve, solve it well and see how you can expand on it. The money will come when you aren't focused on it!

kankles.

Awesome thank you for the link!

Just curious Y not? I think they are great!

Ok so how many prank calls have you gotten? Anyone mistakenly call thinking it was a phone sex number?? Rails does have a lot of connotations...

Is this real or just an exercise? (sorry if that sounds stupid - you never know what kind of shit gets posted here)

I am sorry - while I don't condone what Anonymous does, these guys got pwned. They need to quietly go away and start another scam business.

I started an interesting thread awhile back about this very topic:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2202187

Had some interesting comments...

No but I know several people who eat orange skins.

Incredibly generic advice here, but why not build a simple blog app - you would only need a handful of db tables, and would learn a heck of a lot!

This is strictly business. I would get / create a full contract that immediately clarifies how and when you get your percentage. Also what type of stock is this? I second jaltucher's response.

I would also like to add - how many of you started with 0 profit when you went full time doing it?

RiderOfGiraffes is absolutely correct. I often do quite a bit of documentation upfront to make sure the client knows exactly what they are going to get. From wireframes to technical summaries, each is a step in the overall project process (and completely billable). Don't be afraid to shoot down something you think is considered "spec" work such as a bit of UI demonstration or data modeling. They either see your previous experience and trust you or not. Otherwise run away - could be a shitty client.

In answer to your specific case - explain to him that the first deliverable is a "project brief" which summarizes the project and proposed "high-level" solutions. Again - totally billable.

I would also suggest picking up so general programming books, especially focused on OO programming techniques. The "Head First" series is a good place to begin. Once you get more experienced, head on over the Pragmatic Programmers publisher site for some more good reads.

Great article!

Just an idea - can you integrate what the recommended changes for vehicles are at various mileages? That would be killer and a heck of a way to plan in advance. I know the info is out there, every time I go to get my oil changed they pull up a program for every car and review the recommended updates...

I think this especially helps with older cars. For example my truck has 110K miles on it and I just had some major work done (timing belt and new radiator). As life goes on, I need an easy place to remember what I did so some scammy mechanic doesn't try to lay one on me.

Just some critical advice - you might want to redo your screencast. Not b/c it wasn't informative, but b/c it had no energy. I felt sort of like I watching a coding screencast and wasn't excited to take any action. Just a thought...

Wow that's hard - only because I really think the experiences would be VERY different. Imagine you are sitting in exchange MBA program in Hong Kong learning first hand about the economic policy / human rights differences between China and the US (and thus seeing the opportunities and experiences one would have if choosing this path). On the other hand, what if you decided to bootstrap and build the next great healthcare revolution in the US? Both seem like totally awesome ways to live your life. Personally, I favor the bootstrapping because truthfully (and selfishly) I want to contribute to building more ethical and innovative companies - that is my passion.

Chinese hackers love IE 6. This would be my guess as to why IE 6 has a higher count there then anywhere else. I don't say this out of spite, our site just uses an exception notification system that floods my inbox with tons of bogus requests from china. They can't all be proxy servers and have a user agent indication IE 6. Just a thought, not meant to be negative...

So I know people keep asking this, but I am dying to hear what industry / niche your dipshit company was in. Obviously you are out now, so no need to keep secrets?? :)

This is going to sound so lame, but... time. My goal was to do it the "right way" and thus I wanted to get through these: http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/ before I started. Perhaps I should just read something and jump in....

Actually I also have a question. One of the main reasons that I wish to start meditating is to stop being so negative about BS stuff. I hear things on the news, get cut off in traffic, shit breaks at home, have to pay unexpected bills and I tend to get bitter. I need to just CHILL the F OUT. I am not sure if you can relate to this, but I would be curious to hear anything that might be a motivator to use meditation to decrease negativity.

This is really interesting - thanks for posting. I have a goal this year to meditate for 3 weeks straight and have not started yet. Very inspiring.

Warning: I am not going to answer your question directly, but hopefully provide useful info..

I live here in Austin and I have been around SXSW a few times. I think before you do something like this, try to network and pitch your startup the casual way.. by saying "Hi" and introducing yourself. It sounds soooo lame, but people there are really friendly and are as excited as you are to see and hear about everything. You might actually make some very strategic partnerships (friendships?) in the process.

I will leave the "purple cow" tips to the experts though ;)

So question - I have seen this before and it is very intriguing. But the worry-wart in me says.. "Hmm what's the catch??" Does the local govt own a large piece of your startup? Can you leave anytime and take your company with you? I have seen other offers such as from Dubai, but they turned into horror stories. Now granted we are talking about 2 VERY different cities... help a skeptic out.. :)

For me it has been - who picks up the hat when something painful needs to get done? (getting tax info together, sales cold calling, doing a complex data migration, etc.) It is usually the founder, in order to shield employees from potentially morale destroying work. For this (and other reasons mentioned here) their value is more then that of their employees..

Obviously this is not the case all the time.. just my experience...

Isn't the real problem here that we rely on "academia" to be the "experts"? I know a number of very accomplished and intelligent folks that did not pursue PhD and have done phenomenally well in their own research. But sadly many, for credibility's sake, had to advertise themselves as think tanks. Why can't we just put the damn degrees down and listen to the person to judge their competency??