nickmolnar2

Nice work, Michael. The city needs more events like this.

Adding Boris Wertz was a great move, and not a moment too soon. He adds credibility, and capital, to Bootup at the time when they need it most.

It's a good thing, too. While their misfortune has certainly hurt people, myself included, Bootup is a great addition to the Vancouver startup ecosystem. 3 new companies is far better than 0 in my books. They also throw fantastic events and mentor many more entrepreneurs than they fund.

I was trying to put together a real-estate deal for a Bootup coworking space in December, but in January - when I assume the funding round fell apart - Boris (Mann) became quite scarce. I'm over it. They took on an uphill battle and are hustling to keep the business alive. I think they deserve credit for surviving when others might have folded. As a member of the Vancouver startup community, I'm happy to still have them around. Anyone who has met Boris or Danny can tell that they are genuine in their passion for entrepreneurship and wouldn't have done this if it wasn't strictly necessary. They also have built a kickass portfolio of companies in a short time.

It's a bit of an aside, but Vancouver is really coming into its own as a technology hub. Over even the last 2 years, the number of new startups seems to have grown exponentially. One day could be very soon; and if it is, feel free to get in touch @nickmolnar. We need more good engineers.

There is also the benefit of down-the-line wages you can earn from having great experience on your resume. Maybe by turning down a 200K job for an 80K one, it makes the candidate eligible for a 350K job two years later.

Saying you worked for Google, or Corton, or any other top-of-their-field employer is something that has long-lasting benefits. The payment is just deferred and spread over 30+ years.

I am genuinely concerned about this problem. Focusing on my immediate surroundings gets harder and harder every day.

We really don't like it when clients come in and say that they need a 'Drupal site' just because someone told them that Drupal was going to be the cheapest way to get their plan made.

You hire experts so that they can help make those important decisions.

I'm 23, so I just have no idea if my freewheeling views on privacy are going to turn around to bite me in the ass later in life.

I'm the mayor of a sleazy local strip-club on Foursquare (don't ask, but there is a story). Guess I won't be going into politics.

Keep your eyes on senses.thirdi.com. We'll be posting all kinds of stories and lessons from this project (and a few other neat projects we are working on right now).

Plenty more lessons to be learned, too, I suspect.

That fix is already in the works.

Thanks

You're right. And as the copywriter for the site, I'm feeling a bit sheepish for not pressing to include that in the 1.0.

If you'd like to find out more about us, you can always go to staging.thirdi.com (our new site is going up soon, we thought we'd point there) or providentsecurity.ca.

A proper 'About' page is in the pipeline.

We've been aiming this for a bit more of a corporate audience than Mint's. We think this works particularly well in situations with multiple employees and a single bookkeeper. Of course, we'd like to make a product that works for individuals too, but we are starting off by focusing on our strengths.

Thanks for the heads up. Is there any chance you'd be able to send over the diagnostic logs. It is an option in the Application Menu in the app, and would help speed along our fix.

Admittedly, we haven't tested it on a Storm yet. We'll get on that.

Thanks for the support. We'll let you know when you can properly use the app.

We aren't doing OCR right now. We are using your bookkeeper's eyes as the OCR. It is close to 100% effective, if not as space-agey.

That's a good one. We definitely don't want to be making native clients for every platform out there. It's on the to-do list, I'll see how far up we can push it.

We've already had a few of those complaints. We will rework the language to make the Blackberry requirement more obvious.

We're working on the logo. It'll be up, well above the fold, soon enough.

Thanks. We like the name too.

Don't worry. We aren't storing anything in plaintext. SHA-1 with a 256-bit salt.

Sorry, I was a little confused about the password-via-email comment. No, it doesn't shorten your reg. Only the share. We include the password for easy record-keeping for users. Also, we don't keep anything of value on JTB. It is just receipts. No bank account numbers or CC numbers. Just like a paper receipt.

We definitely have a long way to go in terms of new-user flow. This should be dead simple, and give some positive reinforcement to get people to cross the chasm.

I think once someone uploads 3 receipts to this thing they are going to be hooked, but that is a big jump.

We've certainly been talking about the idea. I think that this is positioned a little differently from Mint. People are far more willing to pay for business software (especially the kind that cuts down on manual labour) than they are on personal efficiency software.

I think that leaves us some room to charge a reasonable monthly fee for some premium features. That is an easier, and more direct, business model.

The Mint-style stuff might come later if we have a big enough audience.

We like the PW via email to shorten the registration process.

Also, it lets us make the 'Share' button much more powerful. This way, we can have someone share an account with a friend and deliver them a fully functional account with no signup.

All data is added via Blackberry right now. Email soon.

We created this service as a side project with @providentmike in some free cycles we had in our software development company (staging.thirdi.com).

We went from back-of-napkin to Beta in about a month, and are wondering if we have already hit a minimum viable product. We can accept expenses from Blackberries only, but we are working hard on an email submission process which opens up the iPhone/every other smartphone.

Other than that, what would it take to make this something that could satisfy your businesses expensing needs?

I did something similar once...just with a less happy ending. This girl had a dream to be a guest on Oprah, and had an idea for a mobile app that just might get her there. I was in love with her and thought that it would be a very thoughtful Christmas present to make the app for her. She was a designer, so she just had to style it and launch.

I built the app over a few weeks by sleeping an hour less each night, ultimately giving it to her for Christmas. She loved it. Unfortunately, things went way off course between the two of us. I don't think the grand gesture helped. It's a lot of pressure to put on a person.

If I had to do it over again, I probably would, but I sure as hell wouldn't have let her go at the end.

We don't talk anymore and she has let the project go. C'est la vie.

iam _at_ nicholasmolnar (dot) com

Thanks a bunch. I signed up, but have not received one. Google doesn't love me.

Thanks for the clarification. That seems far more practical than what I was imagining.

Encouraging open source and group projects is definitely going to be a priority at whatever we end up building. I'd love to chat more with you about other ways of doing that.

That's a great thought. They are very similar (high capital costs, skilled machinery, loud).

Sounds great. I can't get there until about 9, but sounds like a good time to meet-and-greet-and-clean.

I would love to know how other Hackerspaces have succeeded making their equipment available to different groups with distinct needs.

There definitely needs to be a very powerful reservation system. Some high-paying members might be able to rent out certain pieces of equipment for days at a time, while others would only be able to access it when vacant. You would not want somebody monkeying around with your C&C machine while you were taking a 2 hour break.

It would certainly require some good software, and community support. Maybe the different pricing levels would allow you to book equipment further and further in advance, to ensure availability for big projects.

I really have to meet those guys anyways. Everywhere I go in Vancouver, I seem to be hearing about them these days. Always good things. It seems like they are successfully kickstarting the startup scene here. Their events are usually more packed than the ones I went to in Seattle, which says something of the growth.

Three or four years ago, the Vancouver startup scene was pretty anemic. There were some gaming companies, a few startups, and a dearth of any events to spread ideas between them.