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So, what's the next step? Let's network.
Some people reading this are kicking themselves for not having applied to for YC. Some people reading this got rejected yesterday. Some people reading will be rejected in a couple weeks. And all of us have a lot of rejection on the horizon or under our belts.
Get used to it. Let's hack the system.
Two of the main things that YC provides are connections and other smart people to bounce your ideas off of. Let's build that.
I've set up a few things to further that today:
- A Hacker News LinkedIn group. You can connect by going to my profile and connecting from there. I've not found a reliable way to send a link other than that. Add a line to your "Groups and Associations" with your news.YC nick. I'll add everyone in with over 20 karma -- just enough to establish active community members. (If you get rejected, it's because either because the info isn't there, or your profile isn't public. Just add it and re-request.)
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/8a8/6a3
- A mailing list for entrepreneurs. The contents will remain private (though I'd still use some caution when posting your secret sauce). This isn't for general news. You can bounce business ideas off of others, ask for help in establishing connections and look for partners, co-founders, etc. there. If you can, subscribe with an address from your startup. If not, I'll send you a follow-up mail to figure out what you're hacking on. This one is for people that are already working on a startup, not just passively interested. We'll be incorporating soon, and we'll consider swapping minor stakes (1% or so) with another startup or three where we see there could be a mutually reinforcing relationship and where we value your input. If others consider the same that might be a cool way to pull the community together a bit.
http://lists.directededge.com/listinfo.cgi/startups-directededge.com
- I'm in the process of setting up a small web-app where we can store extended Hacker-News profile information with stuff we know about (i.e. "connections to angel funding", "friends that are driver developers", "ajax") and stuff we're looking for other people that know about, and an index of those. This should allow for some info swapping and ideally will suck less than LinkedIn for such things. Paul, if you're reading and would consider that as a patch to the news.YC source, I'd be fine dusting off my lisp chops and doing it that way, otherwise it can live on our servers. Once it's up I'll post source code for anyone that wants to extend it and work with us. I'll mail the list and possibly repost here when it's ready.
Now, let's get back to kicking ass.
- tandaraho 19y agoGroups on LinkedIn are unfortunately a very under-deveopled and over-utilized feature. LinkedIn, however, does provide a unique link for each group. You can access it from the following path: Groups -> My Groups -> Manage -> Invite Members You will see something like this: ------------------------- Invite Members To invite new members, send out an email invitation with the link to join your group. http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/2342/3423ASD3432 Important: You should pre-approve people to join your group before you send out the email invitation. ---------------------- Just copy and paste the link above to this thread. You DO NOT have to pre-approve people. Anybody who clicks on the link puts in a request to join and sit in a queue waiting for your approval. You can access the list by clicking on "Requests to Join" Hope this helps!
- tandaraho 19y agoAnother suggestion regarding the LinkedIn process: Since Groups and Associations can be publicly available, I would rather not post my YC-handle there. Rather, when a user makes a request to join, LinkedIn allows them to send a msg to the group manager. It would be better if we can use that to let you know of our YC-handle so you can figure out the real requests from the SPAM requests.
- wheels 19y agoI didn't have that option when joining a group recently, feel free to send me a message as an alternative (or even email, if you feel so moved). I just want some means of filtering for folks that are actually participating in the news.YC community.
- thorax 19y agoDon't forget the Hacker News group on Chatterous: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134464 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134464 Or the #startups channel on Freenode IRC
- wheels 19y agoPer the LinkedIn group: If you're currently waiting to be accepted that means your news.YC account name isn't visible anywhere. Please either add it to your profile, or mail me with it and I'll approve your request.