us

This is very true. Unfortunately not enough entrepreneurs out there get this. There are exceptions to the rule but there are exceptions to everything somewhere. Generally speaking though, if your company fails, more often than not, it's because of you, your team (or lack of a team), your inexperience, etc... There is a long list of reasons why a startup my fail, but at the top of that list, it's usually because the founders fail.

An NDA means almost nothing these days. It's more of a scare tactic than something tangible and certainly not very enforceable (at least in California) and most people wouldn't find it worthwhile to do so. That said, there is less and less value in an NDA among several different parties, depending who you talk to.

The correct answer should be, assuming you already have your company entity formed, is to get an attorney to draft up what is called a Confidentiality and Invention Assignment Agreement. This agreement basically states that any and all work done for the company belongs to the company. The draft is different for employees vs contractors but can be made for each type of person you are hiring. In it, you can detail what exactly is being done to avoid it being stolen (IP and all). It basically has a built in NDA but goes further in length to protect what you need.

I do agree execution is where its all at but don't worry too much about your idea getting stolen. If it's easily ripped and you can't defend it better than the people who steal it from you, you got bigger problems. I find that sharing ideas to the public are often better than hiding them. I can't keep count of the number of people and number of times I've received valuable feedback, resources, etc... for sharing what I'm working on with random people I've met at networking events, etc... only to gain more insight than before. Learn to let go of the fear of sharing what you're doing to some degree. Only some things are worth keeping private. The general premise of the idea however, is not one of those things and you certainly don't need to map everything out to your developer you are hiring up front to get them to build a prototype.

As for abroad, you might as well forget it. International legal battles are fruitless unless you're talking about monumental amount of money involved and high power. Chances are, you're definitely neither of those and you're not going to be suing someone overseas. If you're that worried about your idea being stolen, you got bigger issues than it actually happening.

If you're both coders, stay true to what you're suppose to be doing. Bootstrap your prototype yourselves and make it a true MINIMUM viable product. You don't need a 3rd developer as much as you want one, or a 4th or 5th right now. One you get some tractions, there will be more doors open to you.

However, as someone else noted, if you're looking for cheap help, you're probably in the wrong place. While there are many talented people who may consider working for cheap or pure equity, it's something that naturally happens if they believe in you, your brother, your company, your vision, etc... It's not something you should go out of your way to try to convince people. Hard sales rarely work.

Networking, networking, networking... Do this at local events and meetups and do this at big industry related events. The cost at most is your travel cost and time. Getting connected helps spread the word better early on, especially if you're on a budget and can't afford paid advertising to get the word out. Word of mouth, depending on the context, is not a strategy. Pushing to your friends and family can only go so far. Go connect with people in your industry and get the word out by connecting with them on a personal level. It works out much better.

Done ^_~

I've been on here for the past few years as well but more recently started this account and in the past three days (literally speaking) have been trying to make an effort to comment and help out as much as possible to the HN community. I haven't posted anything yet but may soon sometime in the near future when I have something of value to provide. I know a few others that don't even have accounts that just come on here to read. It's not uncommon.

I agree with the poster that NOT all engineers are better off at a startup. It's not a one size fit all type of scenario

As far as I know, they have an Amazon Store you can integrate into your website that allows you to do purchases off your site, so that it doesn't redirect to Amazon. However, I'm not too familiar with all the details but you should look into this. I believe the fee is or was something like $59/site or store

Not a good idea. Some times your first chance is your only chance to make an impression. If among any of these investors are people he would want to raise from (and god I hope people are choosing their investors more carefully than who is writing a check), he'll want to make sure he doesn't fund his first impression by giving a bad pitch. He should only pitch if he feels he really wants to and that he's practice his pitch to satisfaction. If he is just looking for feedback and not funding, he shouldn't be pitching, but rather approach it honestly and ASK for advice. This way it will seem less like a pitch and more like open for suggestions.

The title "Tools to make your website mobile compatible" is misleading. Should be retitled to "Tools to make your Joomla website mobile compatible". Don't try to linkbait.

You and several thousand of other people here (and everywhere else for that matter) are exactly the same. The talent you seek are often not cheap. If you're expecting to get people to build your company for you without much value proposition, you might as well forget it. If you're hoping to sell them on equity (founder or employee), they must believe in your company and vision.

I assume from your post that you and your brother are cofounders and neither can code? If this is the case, your setup already hardly make any sense. Smart coders will know better. Chances are you hardly know much about the business side of things much less convince coders to build your dream, one that I'm sure hasn't been "truly" validated.

Of course I am assuming and I could be wrong and you did validate your idea correctly and have much more going, but I seriously doubt it (and I'm trying to say that nicely here).

You should in all sense, validate the idea with REAL potential users, not your friends. If that pans out and you have limited funds, outsource a prototype first. THEN and only then, should you consider moving to the valley after you've got some minor traction and a working demo. The valley is not cheap and unless you live somewhere like Manhattan, you're not helping your financial situation much more. You're making it worse.

Networking is important but working smart is also important. You can make online connections before coming here. You have your odds stacked against you if you don't have local coders for raising (whether you hire before or after). Majority of all investors won't invest unless you have in-house coders so the long term strategy of hiring overseas hopefully isn't something you were planning and is only in consideration for your prototype/demo.

Salaries here are crazy but that's how it goes. At this point in your startup, I would seriously consider finding a cofounder and define very specific roles between you and your brother. And hopefully you're bringing enough knowledge on the business side as you're expecting your coder to bring to the table on the technical side. After all, you don't want to bring on someone who can't code at all and expect them to learn, no one wants to team up with an inexperience business cofounder only to have them learn and certainly not TWO of them. Something to consider.

Ideas are great but alone they're not worth much. You need to make it worthwhile for whoever you're working with as well. If you can get a prototype and demo up, pitching to coders AFTERWARDS make things a bit easier. Something to consider.

Best of luck

I did it over a year ago when it was on sale for $99. I got it for my wife and myself. While I did find out more about myself, many of the diagnosis weren't completely unexpected base on my eating habits. I would still recommend doing it but only when it's on sale as someone else have already commented.

If you do end up finding something, it can be highly valuable regardless of the cost.

I think that rather than just throwing out numbers, what they should do is evaluate what the actual cost of education would be and remove all the useless excess courses added to the curriculum unnecessarily.

Blindly raising tuition and charging more than necessary isn't good nor is it smart to just slap a blind number like $10,000 and ignore all the economics at play. While I think the four year rule is somewhat good for commitment, I also strongly believe the education system needs a major makeover instead. Not all degrees are the same and should not all fall under the same timeline as each other. Everything should be restructured to make the best of each person's education instead.

I used Yammer at our last startup and at our current startup. While I think there are some concerns with what you potentially may say or don't say on a Yammer feed, the benefits for us far outweigh the disbenefits.

Not to mention most of the stuff people post are pretty vague and would only make sense for those involved. It's a good and valuable tool if the culture and habits are developed correctly in adopting Yammer early on in any company.

1Password is my weapon of choice. Leaving a universal login on your browser isn't always a good idea.

Just filled out the survey to help them out and looking forward to seeing what they can bring to the table

Sounds interesting. Maybe we can start a group for this with Skype handles instead

I am not from Canada but the majority of people I talk to online that are from the entrepreneur community are either from the Toronto area or the Vancouver BC area.

The title of this thread should really be changed. First, I get that LivingSocial is of the same type of business and hence was mentioned in the title but then its more than just Groupon and LivingSocial.

Second, it's not Groupon that is engaging in the questionable practices. When you're going through massive deals like this, it can be easy to miss that the retailer you're doing business with is pulling a sly one on you. It's not uncommon to get a separate link and to think that some on here would believe that Groupon should thoroughly go through every link and verify for price discrepancy that may show up is unrealistic.

Lastly, it's also not uncommon for coupons to be honored on original prices rather than sale prices.

The problem that has always existed is someone will come along, think they can do it better than everyone else that has come before them (basically that they're smarter when they're probably not), or is delusional enough to believe their the first to think of an idea, and when asked how they're different, they say crap like "we're going to kill it with X which is what Y company isn't doing". It's redundant and unbelievable how many people think this way.

Here's a 2560x1600 screenshot for you to review since you only see 1280x800: http://d.pr/WxxM

There's a lot of things wrong with this landing page so take what I have to say as best as you can without getting offended. Just want to be objective.

I can't stand the design. It's horrible. There are so many things wrong with it that listing things that are okay would probably be a shorter list.

There is no strong objective on this page. I have to spend time scanning around to try and figure out what it is you do and even then, the message isn't concise. I hate that I have to click "more" to read the rest. Perhaps this works well on a 1280x800 but it shouldn't be so on my screen. I also don't like that all the info is so spread out.

I also dislike the fact that when I click on one of the play buttons, it SLOWLY loads up what looks like powerpoint version web 0.5 and that I have to wait for stuff to crawl across the screen to be able to read it. I read extremely fast. Not having all the text there ready to go is annoying.

I'm sure I could continue to list a few more things but I hope this helps.

We hacked together a simple system in a day to get user feedback from our beta group. You don't need something fancy and surely it can be replaced with something better down the road. For an MVP, it should really be an MVP. Just put together a simple feedback box that allow users to post feedbacks directly to you or in a forum style board where other beta users can discuss and roll with it.

Of course you can integrate simple solutions that do this for free as well rather than build your own. We just hacked something together because we wanted to be able to integrate it with our internal system (user logins) for people to post. You can do it differently.

This is from personal experience so I want everyone reading this next comment I'm going to make with a grain of salt but in choosing a business partner, make sure you got the balls to tell them what's on your mind, good or bad. And the ability to fire them without making things awkward. If you can't treat your business partner the same way you'd honestly talk to a really good friend, you got more problems awaiting ahead than just how the startup is going. Not every person you want to partner up with will always turn out to be the right person regardless of the number of precautions you take, so just make sure you can speak freely when you need to.

There are several problems with this hypothesis. Apple has said it before that they're getting more iPhone orders than they can manage to build in many cases. At $625 per iPhone and they're selling like hotcakes on top of their recent Verizon expansion, even if they could produce a lower cost iPhone, why would they? The profit margin doesn't make sense and isn't typical of Apple.

Of course I could be wrong and Apple may do an iPhone nano but this would also greatly diminish the user experience on the phone and apps experience by minimizing the screen. If you've ever played on an iPad, you'll know many apps work a lot better on the iPad. The screen size do make a difference. Shrinking the iPhone doesn't seem to be helpful in this area.

Lastly, Apple is not known for making half assed products with cheap components. Using older components doesn't equate to cutting costs low enough for profit margins on a retail $200 phone to make sense when they're raping $625 per phone as it is now. Would you do it? The economics just doesn't seem to make sense here.

My answer is probably not the best answer here but a friend uses Vim and I was introduced that way. I'm sure if I didn't know anyone using Vim, the chances of me picking it up and trying to dive head first on my own into how Vim works would be slim, albeit not impossible.

My genuine advice, after hearing how've you already exhausted two years and haven't gain enough traction to be profitable, is to treat it more as a side project than a full time startup and work towards finding ways to generate revenue until your side project picks up enough to warrant full time commitment as a startup.

Don't let your excitement of starting a company blind you from the things you need to handle day to day, like finances, and wait till things dry up. Do what you can to produce income while working on this startup part time.

Alternatively find a cofounder who can share the workload with you. But before you go down this route or do anything else, I highly recommend re-evaluating your roadmap, strategies, and plan. Two years is a long time to be working on a startup with no traction yet.