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startupstella

1,067 karma · joined May 28, 2010

cofounder, matchist.com, cofounder, EntrepreneursUnpluggd.com, founding member FeeFighters
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startupstella··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2024)
Hoop | Full Stack Senior Engineer | REMOTE US | https://hoop.app

Hoop is a venture backed seed stage startup with a 6 person team hiring engineer #3 to build AI first task management for busy professionals.

We collaborate fully remotely (80% async / 20% sync). We have a flexible, reduced work week and believe excellence in craft comes from intentional prioritization, autonomy and a focus on accountability.

Our product is using LLMs to detect, prioritize and manage tasks and projects. This is an opportunity to work in AI on a real use case that goes deeper than a thin wrapper.

Our investors are best in class (Index Ventures, Wade Foster, Job van der Voort, Annie Duke + more) and the founding team are ex-Trello execs.

We are an early stage company of passionate builders with paying customers who love the product.

Tech Stack is: typescript, next.js, tailwind, node.js, react, postgres. Applicants must have 8+ years of experience.

JD + application instructions :https://www.hoop.app/blog/were-hiring-a-full-stack-engineer

startupstella··on How to Pivot Your Startup
From Every, a framework for pivoting your startup
startupstella··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2023)
Hoop | Senior Front End Engineer | Full Time | Remote (based in US)

https://www.hoop.app/blog/hoop-hiring-founding-engineer-fron...

Join the folks who built Trello as we help teams make better decisions faster without meetings. People are stuck in meetings because decision making is murky and ambiguous. Software can help here. We believe most decisions can be made asynchronously with the right context and tooling...and the future of work will be mostly asynchronous.

We're venture backed (haven't announced funding yet!) from top tier investors and operators. Working mostly asynchronously with a 4 day workweek. Small team of experienced operators building the future of work the way we want to live it.

startupstella··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2023)
Hoop | Remote (US) | Full-Time

Hoop helps teams make better decisions faster without meetings. Founded by three early executives from Trello, Hoop is tackling a gnarly, old problem - decision making is really hard and could (should?) be so much better. Part of the answer is ditching crummy meetings. Another part is beautiful software. We're a 5 person team looking for a Sr Front End Engineer (or a Full Stack Engineer super comfortable with front end work). Company is venture backed, works mostly async, and has 4 day work weeks.

* Front End Engineer JD- https://www.hoop.app/blog/hoop-hiring-founding-engineer-fron...

startupstella··on Silicon Valley: Perks for Some Workers, Struggles for Parents
Right now, good parental leave, flexible work hours, and allowing remote work allows companies to have a competitive advantage when hiring. For example, this article (link below) on Treehouse was popular last month which talked about how they have 4 day work weeks because it's not a drag on productivity and people want to spend time with kids.

I work at Trello, and the company has a similar philosophy in terms of treating people like humans who have responsibilities and interests that enrich them outside of work, which only benefits the work environment. A big draw to working at Trello, in addition to loving the product and team, is the fact that these policies exist.

I hope in the future- "perks" like paid parental leave will become something we laugh about as being painfully obvious. Who cares when work gets done as long as it gets done?

Treehouse link-http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/at-some-start-ups-friday... We're hiring at Trello!- http://trello.com/jobs

startupstella··on We Got Accepted into Techstars and Turned Them Down
I was part of the first Excelerate class with FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon in 2012) and was an EIR with TechStars Chicago a few summers ago.

I thought this post was well balanced and obviously everyone should make their own decisions based on their startup's particular situation...incubators, just like financing, are not a panacea that guarantee success.

Troy, Sam, Steve and all the folks involved in Techstars Chicago all do TS because they are extremely passionate about developing startups and building the types of outcomes YC has produced.

One of the stark realities of the Chicago startup ecosystem is the capital available to tech startups is really tiny compared to other places. As a startup founder, I've both raised money and failed at raising money...one of the biggest challenges of being a founder here are the sheer financing odds you have to beat which are necessary to even have a chance to achieve YC outcomes.

That's why 1871 looks the way it does- it's meant to attract entrepreneurs but it's also meant to attract money. It's a symbol of the growing tech community in Chicago and a way for potential investors who have not invested in tech previously to see tangible proof of a burgeoning ecosystem. That's the truth...while office space is cheaper in Chicago, 1871 provides the connections and "accelerated serendipity" early stage founders might need. Again- I worked out of there for a year and left because it was too distracting...it was the right place for the right phase of business.

When it comes to Troy, he is just about the most founder friendly person I know. I'm sure if the founder had spoken to Troy about his discomfort with the exploding LOI, I can't speak for Troy, but it's hard to imagine him not understanding.

I look forward to seeing the big outcomes- GiveForward, SpotHero, SimpleRelevance, SocialCrunch, etc. in the future.

startupstella··on Why I asked to be removed from the Techweek 100
i like that you had to go completely overseas before finding something. well done.
startupstella··on Why I asked to be removed from the Techweek 100
Because it's a tech event. When was the last time you saw someone wear a playboy bunny outfit to a tech event?
startupstella··on Why I asked to be removed from the Techweek 100
The very first line of this is "TechWeek Presents"...it's a party associated with TechWeek.
startupstella··on Why I asked to be removed from the Techweek 100
Not at all. Sexuality is irrelevant in the context of a tech event. It's not about sex, it's about tech. And making everything sexualized to attract attendees is the problem.
startupstella··on Why I asked to be removed from the Techweek 100
I assure you if they are developers, they would not go to a tech event dressed like that. Unless the tech event had a sexual theme.
startupstella··on Why I asked to be removed from the Techweek 100
HA! I would love if you could find me a tech event that features overtly sexualized men on the advertisement. That's a challenge.
startupstella··on Why I asked to be removed from the Techweek 100
The problem is that the women are overtly sexualized. Which is fine if the ad is for a strip club. But it's not...it's for a tech event. Context is key here. We've been desensitized by accepting these images of women as normal...they're not. And especially not for a tech event.
startupstella··on Tech leaders strike back over Techweek Chicago images of women
Have you seen the images? That's clearly not true. When pressed to identify the so called "eventgoers" the leaders of techweek came up empty. just a bad excuse.
startupstella··on How to Think
If you like this story, check out Brooklyn Castle- a really great documentary about that school and its chess program- http://www.brooklyncastle.com/
startupstella··on Ask HN: How to find part-time developer work?
If you have a good online portfolio (a site showing what skills you have, what projects you've done, and your personality) as well as good client facing skills, check out matchist. We built it to help awesome freelance web and mobile devs (in the US only currently) find curated projects.
startupstella··on Why open-office layouts are bad for employees, bosses, and productivity
There is no one size fits all solution...for me personally, I require a mix of social and private time to maximize my productivity. Working from home half the time, and working in the other half tends to be best...For those who want to talk/meet, knowing I'm only there at certain makes them more likely to think twice about prioritizing meeting time. Also, the quiet of home and lack of distractions (no giggling coworkers or visitors to the office) leads to the best writing/thinking.

You just have to know how you work best, and hope your company can support it. If you're a startup, be flexible about optimizing workers' time...

startupstella··on Bad Indian Programmers
Stella from matchist here. Our whole business is based on the fact that outsourcing development overseas leads to a bad experience (not all the time, but statistically). There are a lot of negatives to outsourcing (cultural issues, time zone differences) that already make a collaborative process like development even more challenging. There are ways to mitigate the negative effects of outsourcing, but they then negate the whole reason to outsource: labor arbitrage. If it's cheaper to hire local, there are good reasons to hire local (domestically). I actually just wrote a post about this on the KissMetrics blog: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/in-house-or-outsource/
startupstella··on Show HN: We built manual user acquisition as a service
I just signed up, but I really don't understand what you are doing. Will you be finding leads and emailing them? Will you just curate lists of potential leads? Either way- it's an interesting CA channel to try. But I think you should make that clearer...If it's wasnt for HN i would never pay up front for a service without seeing any benefit first (esp $800)
startupstella··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2013)
I should mention, dev shops are also quite welcome.
startupstella··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2013)
SEEKING FREELANCER- NYC

We're seeking both front end and back end professional freelance developers based in NYC to join matchist. We've recently been seeing a lot more demand for devs in NYC and currently have more local projects than local developers. To sign up, please have a link to your portfolio (required) here: http://matchist.com/talent

startupstella··on Ask HN: $2k to $3k a month part time, but is it sustainable/ethical/scalable?
It sounds like you are just great at sales for creative work. If that's the case, perhaps you can make more money doing BD for a dev shop or creative agency? I think the question is what the end goal is: if it's to make a lot of money, you'll have to model out the time, resources, and clients you'll need to make X amount of money and weight that vs the opportunity cost of doing BD for someone else. If it's the autonomy/owning your own business, that's a different set of analyses.
startupstella··on The Freedom - Responsibility Trade-off for Entrepreneurs
This was my main takeaway, freedom doesn't necessarily mean time away from work...it's the freedom to change the direction of your business at any point or not to take on more customers (or even to hire people) or sell the business. It's the feeling of being in control of your destiny (not to be cheesy).
startupstella··on Startup Common Sense
This is a very narrow view of mentorship. Mentorship is incredibly selfish: often the person doing the mentoring gets more out of the conversation than the mentee...case in point. Here, the author was challenged on basic ideas that led him to think more broadly about what he assumed was obvious. This could and often does lead to more creative thinking and applications in his company. As long as he doesn't do this all the time, I think it's silly to assume that a CEO should spend 24/7 working on a company. In fact, it's degenerative, unhealthy, and produces poor results for companies (as many studies show).
startupstella··on Startup Common Sense
Some of the most valuable insights/learnings have happened to me when I'm sharing advice with people. Often, I don't even realize I knew something until I've shared it.

Startups are also built on reciprocity- I'm only here because mentors took time away from their successful companies to help me. Now, I'm helping others.

startupstella··on Startup Common Sense
I love this post because everyone in this community takes the Lean Startup truths to be self evident, however, the rest of the 99% still ascribe to truths that are unbelievably archaic. I see this all the time in bschool (luckily bschool entrepreneurship curriculums are teaching Lean methods now) as well as on matchist, where the #1 question entrepreneurs ask me when they submit a project is: "How do I make sure developers don't steal my idea?"

Generally, I know by this question that this person will not make it past that phone call/email because if they are so worried about a developer stealing their idea, there is likely nothing there/they haven't done their research/they are not serious.

startupstella··on Show HN: Get Paid on Time - Simplified Payments for Freelance Developers
Great question! We currently offer this payment system on matchist and many of our developers have requested to use it with clients outside of matchist. Online dispute resolution processes tend to be standard (check out Modria). The cool thing about having a 3rd party hold payment is that they (or an arbitrator) can rule in your favor if you are in the right and a client is withholding payment as long as the contract is followed.
startupstella··on The Problem with Delhi's Rich Kids
My college (im sure like many others) had a bunch of rich international students from India. I found them to be hard working, ambitious, and generally down to earth. Perhaps it was because they were well traveled and had a will to surpass their family's wealth with their own stamp on the world. Many had also done a lot more community service than American peers in much more squalid conditions...they also seemed to be more attune to their (screwed up) political system.

In short, just like the other comments, I don't think this rich kid ennui is just in India...or Delhi

startupstella··on Why I'll be a solo founder next time
I would agree with many of the other commenters but chime in with the "correlation does not prove causation" there are many other factors why the other startups could have failed: the other companies were better capitalized, had better processes, founders that worked together better, etc.
startupstella··on Bootstrapped, Profitable and Proud
Jason addressed this issue at one of the Entrepreneurs Unpluggd events (you can see it here http://entrepreneursunpluggd.com/premium-content)

Essentially, their argument was that if Jeff Bezos invested, they could have access to his advice and connections which was worth way more than any money he put in.

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