Be adequate with what you are asking for. You have the right to get paid fair salary. What investors may worry more then a few grands of salary raise, is how to keep your attention on the startup as much as it's only possible. If you're underpaid and cutting your expenses, you can't be a good person to develop a strategy on spending invested money. Know your value and you'll be fine.
For the most of startups you'll be doing fine with some old computer, which you may not consider for desktop station. Once you'll start feeling that it's not enough anymore, it's time to think why your startup makes so much traffic and can't pay a hundred for buying a dedicated server for itself.
Well, I'm not fully agree on the examples with Sergey and Max. Sergey's father is a very qualified ex-soviet mathematician, he gave very good basics to Sergey. Max moved to US when he was 16. He's got grounds from the soviet education system, which was very different comparing to US. So, their college choice (theoretically) could not change their fate. ;)
But in overall you're right. Don't treat college as your pass to success, however it could be your backup, just in case if you're not that smart as you think. ;)
Choose Stanford (MIT, Harvard). The major benefit which you will get there is alumni and networking. If you are low on funds, you will have to be extremely wise on budget. But don't let debt scare you. When you are done, you can take two-three years working on other startups, get the rid of debt and gain priceless practical experience. And you can always bootstrap your own thing during your off-hours outside day job. Startup is not an easy thing, but if you have passion and willingness to win, nothing can stop you now. Don't be afraid and you'll be thankful to yourself for making this choice.
"Being in your own business is working 80 hours a week so that you can avoid working 40 hours a week for someone else." (c) Ramona Arnett
Let me clear my point. Speaking about outsourcing, I was talking about offshore development, outside US.
Well, still, a lot of startups are always looking for someone, either programmer, or designer, or database developer, etc. There are also a lot of single founders. To start a startup one man is not enough. Even if you are a hacker, it's always nice to have one more hacker.
Here is my point: a lot of startups are looking for someone to join them for a tiny salary plus huge chunk of equity. So why wouldn't they consider outsources, using the same amount of money, they may not give any equity at all or just a small piece of it.
kingnothing: you sound to me like you think that outsourcers require more money, than local people. Did I get you wrong?
mercurio: I'm not talking about corporate level outsourcing, B2B. I'm talking about using power of freelancers. They still stay below the US market rates.
You can't be employed by the company you own. And you can't share the ownership to avoid this restriction. As far as I know, they don't care are you 1% or 100% owner. So, this means neither H1B or EBGC are possible. And yes, among with solid revenue stream, ability to prove that you're not "one man shop", and that you're not trying to make your business of solving other's immigration problems, the company also needs to be able to pay competitive salary within the market range. So, if you're getting H1B for Software Developer, I'm pretty concerned that you'll ever get approved if your company is stating your salary is less then 65K annually (in CA). And, as far as I know, the companies and visa applicants are getting audited very often to assure that they keep the salaries not lower then stated.
Well, to my understanding, the first one is pretty obvious and it was covered already here. But definitely I'd like to see the types of answers for the second one. ;)
Thanks, I was also considering Rockridge, but it seems to me to far from Silicon Valley. Speaking about Potrero Hill - it's nice, but too expensive. I'd like not to pay more then $1,800-2,000 for 2 beds - I can't do more unless my startup is going great. So that's why I'm circling away the SF from the list. ;)
Well, #3 is not good choice. ;) That's even not a subject for discussion. Besides, our potential clients already gave up on Google when they are coming to us. #2 - well, maybe yes, maybe not. We make it easier. And #1 - not much people have hundred of friends on IM. And sometimes, it'd be nice to know 50 opinions, instead of 10 (someone's typical online IM active list). (And well sometimes you don't want you friend know that you're interested in SOME THINGS :P
Don't forget that if you know where is the best retail store close by, some people don't, and they are not that happy to invest hours looking for it.
Speaking about my example with shirt/club/etc, these are really bad examples, saying about paid questions; but they are good if they'd be free (and they would).
However, just a silly example. I'd like to buy a gaming console, but I don't know which one. I have close to 100 of active contacts in my IM, but barely few of them know something about gaming consoles. So I'm about to spend several hundred dollars, and (me, personally) would be happy to spend $10 or $20 in advance to gather opinion of 50 or 100 people about the gaming consoles before making a purchase. And I want it now. Not tomorrow. Not after the week of gathering all pros and cons.
Beta testers are already hooked-up, so their opinions would not be too objective. I need some thoughts from those, who never used us before, but now can get an opportunity to try.
I already showed an example for questions, which I see to be typical there: which shirt to choose, where to shop, which club to go for, what present for girlfriend to buy. Also, we could be a great match for market research during the product development cycle. I don't see problems how to compensate everyone (the client pays for getting answers), subscribers will get attracted by the challenging style of the process and ability to get paid. However, what I really concerned about is whether this idea sound interesting for potential clients or not. Speaking about competition, it's always good and it speeds up the progress. Besides, the market always has a tendency to change the business model within time.
We've got a dedicated server at ServerBeach, everything else is a typical LAMP. We've got enough skills with Java and Ruby, but PHP could be the best choice to bootstrap quickly.
That's not exactly what we're talking about. We're not questionary service, but instant and multiple answers. Instant, means, within very short period of time, like 60 minutes max. See my other comments. Thanks.
I wasn't very clear with my point. We're not about professional services, but with something, which doesn't need a degree or special skills. Like choice between red or black shirt, one nightclub or another, how good is some idea, the best gift for the girlfriend, etc.
Personally, I don't think this will work well. Although, it's a good idea for some niched startup, but for something more global, we'll never get much luck with crowdsourced support, comparing to hundred thousands of subscribers.
That's the one which is really close. However, our main point to to provide multiple answers, but not a simple solutions. Besides, the Amazon's idea is not about instant answers, so there are not many chances to get your answer(s) within an hour after asking. And yes, I bet we can do it better. Just because we're more simple and easy and intuitive. More, speaking about Amazon's Turk, the price paid isn't relative to real world cost of living. Most of the HITs over there are less then $1 per hour gigs. We see our business in questions, which can be answered in 5 minutes or less, without need to perform long term investigation, review, discussion or anything time consuming.
Mostly it's about delivering updates to people, who want to participate. Email notifications, IM, cell... Also it'd bring a spirit of a challenge, and so you'll have to hurry up and use your chance to answer the question and get some money. So this will motivate subscribers to check the site often (when they have spare time) or even have it a a home page or keep it sticky all the time.