7 ms·
Poll: Did you start company in 2011?
I'm curious. Did you start a company in the passed year? Why?
- _tornado_ 15y agoYes, well, I went into partnership. It was hard to leave my previous job in a big company as it was a good company, good package, great people, 10 minute commute. The reason I left was because although the job was good, I would never become more than a small cog in a large company and then retire. I wanted to do something cool, make a difference, and have a shot at earning enough for my family to have a good life and start some altruistic projects. The things that enabled me to leave and start something new were that I became more known for my work so I was offered opportunities, advances in broadband, video conferencing, web based project management, collaboration tools, powerful hosted DVCS, and other free tools allowed me to easily work from home so I didn't have to relocate or commute for hours. It has been a good few months, it is going well, and I'm excited for the next year.
- mryan 15y agoWell, I formed a legal entity for my startup, but have yet to launch. Not sure if that counts!
- jpulgarin 15y agoYes, to make money.
- Vivek511 15y agoyes
- haasted 15y agoYes. Became an independent freelance consultant.
- nlmoreaux 15y agoI've started to do web-dev/design and 3D since january here in France. I'm 20, I work around 20-30 hours per month, and I've make 7000€ in one year (tax deducted). -sorry for my terribad english
- ggwicz 15y agoYes, I cofounded a little Wordpress theme business launching soon. Happy holidays!
- simonw 15y agoYes, we founded Lanyrd Inc in January when we joined the YC Winter 2011 class. YC strongly advise you to use their default company structure as it's much easier to raise investment if investors know you've been correctly set up.
- pdelgallego 15y agoWhat is the default company structure? Any place were I can read more about it?
- francoise 15y agoMade it into a little poll to better quantify the results: http://p2.gg/5vc http://p2.gg/5vc
- cperciva 15y agoI incorporated Tarsnap Backup Inc. in 2011, but I'm voting no on the basis that it was a paperwork reorganization: Tarsnap has existed since 2006.
- nyellin 15y agoYes! I launched Freeversation (and mostly failed with that, despite the great HN coverage) and then started another more serious venture.
- wenbert 15y agoNot a company, but I have been doing freelance work on my spare time since college. I graduated 2005. 2011 is a special year for me. I got 3 more regular clients and made more in a couple of months than what I would normally get in one year with my dayjob. Regular cleints keep sending me work. Eats a lot of time but totally worth it since I (w/ wife) have plans to move to New Zealand.
- hozalp 15y agoFrutilicious Flavors
- memset 15y agoYes! About a year after finishing school, I started an LLC to sell an electronics kit [1] that I was working on and also as an entity to receive income from an Android app's advertisements. It's been great; I'm not quite in the black yet but I'm already experiencing some growing pains for hand-assembling these power supplies, and android ads pay my cell phone bill plus a little extra. It's kind of neat to be able to say "yes, I build these things from scratch, based on my own knowledge and research, due to risk from my own pocketbook, while working full time." Also, I've met some very cool people (whose work I had only previously admired from afar!) because I had questions about a library they wrote or was improving a design of theirs, not to mention starting to form a set of people who I can email for advice (from how to make PCBs to the best tape to order from ULine.) Highly recommended! [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3054861 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3054861
- rglover 15y agoYep, back in January. I wanted to do design work professionally so I set up a simple LLC. Real motivation was to test my own skills and see if I was able to run a successful business. Went full-time in October. Despite all the negative connotations around starting a business these days, I can't say I have too many complaints. Side note: Congrats to all HN members who started a company and kept it going this year. It's a lot of work, but fun as hell.
- kloncks 15y agoYup! Took a leave of absence senior year with three classes left to move to SF and go through AngelPad for http://www.kout.me http://www.kout.me
- thejteam 15y agoNot in 2011. But I have paperwork ready to file on January 2, 2012!
- sim0n 15y agoYep, incorporated BakedCode in early 2011 during YCS11.
- mike-cardwell 15y agoPeople who started companies are more likely to view this poll and vote on it than people who didn't.
- ColinHayhurst 15y agoYep, my kids have grown up, so I can focus and be hands-on again, after 5 years mentoring startups
- bergie 15y agoNope, we've had the company since 2001. But we did merge with a start-up this year: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/nemein_and_infigo_merge/ http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/nemein_and_infigo_merge/
- BerislavLopac 15y agoI have started a new startup, but haven't started a company just yet. Where I live it would be a suicide, and I only plan to start one once the project is ready to make money or raise investment. Which answer should I choose? ;)
- herval 15y agoIsn't a startup a company? I'm guessing u're refering to a "project"/"webapp" as "startup"?
- nekojima 15y agoI usually consider my start-ups to be pre-trading/revenue stage, where it can have a url & be in active development, but not be necessarily be an active registered company. Generally I prefer to avoid the expense (and in some countries the hassle) of business registration if I'm not sure the start-up will reach launch or revenue stage.
- BerislavLopac 15y agoIn my view, a startup is a commercial project -- which these days can easily be done online without formal incorporation, even by a single person. And if having a formal company hurts more than not having it, the choice is simple.
- jamesjyu 15y agoYep, I started Parse with some awesome co-founders in YC. We started it because we saw all the pain that comes with making an internet enabled mobile app, and wanted to make a platform that made it easier.
- billpatrianakos 15y agoThat was you?! Awesome! I love Parse. I'm signed up in the beta and it's not just giving me a backend service but teaching me some iOS programming too. Thanks for that man.
- jasonshen 15y agoTotally biased poll obviously but still nice to see all the stories. I was lucky enough to find two amazing cofounders to start Ridejoy and doubly lucky to participate in YC. Being a founder isn't for everyone but for me, it's the most thrilling occupation I could imagine. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
- MengYuanLong 15y agoI know it is a shunned statement around here but "I developed an idea for a company" this past November. Regrettably, my programming skills are limited so step 1 is learning enough to create a prototype for my project. I am really interested in shaking up the language learning industry and plan to be able to answer this poll differently in 2012 :)
- int3rnaut 15y agoContinue to better your programming skills, it's a challenging but worthwhile endevour. Being as though I was in the same boat as you (and my programming skills are still laughable!), what I found to be really helpful is while you're learning how to program, using other skills (maybe you know how to make a webpage, or animate)to create a mock-up to more quickly and easily translate your idea into something concrete and more understandable that could attract people (read: potential co-founders) into at least looking at your idea--at the very worst they can see that you've put some time and effort into your raw idea and as I'm sure any technical co-founder here would say, that's a good start. Good luck Meng. :)
- danielharan 15y agoNo - started one in 2009. Got out in 2011, starting a new one in 2012.
- Mizza 15y agoCan you elaborate a little bit on "got out?"
- danielharan 15y agoSure: I was the founding CEO, and wasn't scaling with the company. I helped hire a CEO with more industry experience who already knew most of our potential partners - one of them had actually offered him a senior position. I left on good terms with a decent severance package and kept a good chunk of equity.
- lowglow 15y agoYes, I just launched yesterday : http://www.rtcool.com/ http://www.rtcool.com/ - It's an API for news readers.
- executive 15y agodoesn't work.
- lowglow 15y agoWhat url did you try? It's not perfect, but it is getting better. :)
- lowglow 15y agoAlso, let me point out that it doesn't work on pages that aren't necessarily articles. For instance, someone did a search using : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3390727 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3390727 I've got an update coming down the tunnel to fix this, but it might be difficult with this page because there isn't much substance. I'll think more about how to solve this in a way that makes sense relevant to the rest of the pages out there. My main focus is to not write any code for edge cases, but to figure out a way to solve the whole of the web at once. :)
- eli 15y agoVery cool. I'm definitely interested. How do you foresee people integrating the API? And, roughly, what do you think you'd charge for it? (Also are you familiar with http://www.opencalais.com/ http://www.opencalais.com/ ?)
- lowglow 15y agoThanks. I'm happy you're interested. The first thing I see this service being used is for news readers. Not having to develop this technology themselves will lower the cost/barrier of entry into their markets, so hopefully they can focus on interfaces. Beyond that, I'm sure people could use it to scrape and aggregate information about what people are concerned with around the web. On charging for it, I'm not sure yet. I was thinking of using a credit model similar to Twilio for payment. Service might be 1c/unique (previously un-fetched article) and .1/0.1c for each fetched (cached) article. I've run across OpenCalais before and I think it's a great big idea -- I love the idea of a semantic web.
- dougjoe 15y agoyes. i started GoodRx (www.goodrx.com) with 2 friends. Trying to fix the broken American health system.
- templaedhel 15y agoSorta. Within the last month I put together http://exquisitejobs.com/ http://exquisitejobs.com/ and started collecting interested emails. I aim to make it easier for quality freelancers and job seakers to find great jobs!
- gautaml 15y agoSorta. Not a company but I launched a re-done version of my file sharing service: http://dropsauce.com http://dropsauce.com Plan to work on it some more in the coming few months. Also released a jQuery calendar plugin on github: https://github.com/glad/glDatePicker/ https://github.com/glad/glDatePicker/
- bryanh 15y agoIndeed. Won startup weekend and have a cofounder going FT. http://zapier.com/ http://zapier.com/
- Mizza 15y agoSure did - http://gun.io http://gun.io launched in late September, with the idea of making it easier to find freelancers for microtasks, and to channel more money to open source projects. I'm a single founder, and it's a boostrapped project, but I'm counting it here anyway. Things are going well.. I think, at least.
- mknx 15y agoWork In Progress. http://faces.my/ http://faces.my/. Going full speed next year.
- langsamer 15y agoYep. I quit my job to start my own venture. It was scary but it was long overdue. For a while I had been doing the "working on the side project after work" but then I realized that if I do want to do this, there is no half-assing it. It's time to go big or go home.
- Duckpaddle2 15y agoStarted up http://www.Hexicurity.com http://www.Hexicurity.com Thanks for asking....
- ComputerGuru 15y agoYes/No. After HN told me it was stupid to give away freeware, I quit my dayjob, moved back to the States, and started two companies. Doing great and happier than ever! One of these companies already existed as a non-profit, so that was re-filing to go the S-Corp route and start making real money. The other is new.
- billpatrianakos 15y agoI was sick of not being happy so I did it. Much happier now. Successful too.
- CCs 15y agoSort of. Found (profitable) business model and signed up first customers just now. B2B only right now: http://healthexpense.com/ http://healthexpense.com/
- guruz 15y agoStarted http://woboq.com/ http://woboq.com/ about 3 months ago :-) Right now we're a service company around Qt only, but hopefully getting out a product next year either alone or together with another company. Being a service company also means that 2011 is already profitable for us. Hooray for having established connections/networks. If anyone in the Berlin area is up for a beer and exchanging some knowledge, we're interested in that.
- bcsc 15y agohttp://buckheadcs.com http://buckheadcs.com consulting, web sites, support, training, and other things in Atlanta.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ya3r 15y agoI'm fascinated by the fact that more people started a business/company in 2011 than people who didn't.
- georgemcbay 15y agoThere are two probable sets of selection bias going on -- one is that HN readers are probably much, much more likely to start a business than those from the general public (just like Fox News viewers are more likely to vote Republican) and then on top of that, people who started their own business are more likely to take the poll than those who didn't (because they are people who did start a business, clearly the topic is of more interest to them).
- chrissanz 15y agoyes http://geekli.st http://geekli.st
- siavosh 15y agohttp://www.docchats.com http://www.docchats.com
- PStamatiou 15y agoShutdown one startup (Notifo) with one awesome cofounder and started Picplum.com with another awesome cofounder and we became roommates too. 24/7 startup bliss!
- kgc 15y agoNotifo still seems to be running?
- PStamatiou 15y agoUp for now: "While Notifo will continue to run in the interim, I encourage you to find alternative methods to accomplish your notification needs." http://blog.notifo.com/notifo http://blog.notifo.com/notifo
- math 15y agoYep. We started http://backrecord.com http://backrecord.com [early days]. The driving factor for me with this is I really want to get a better handle on market efficiency. Despite studies claiming otherwise [and much scoffing by peers], my gut feel is that some aspects of some markets are not efficient. We're far enough in that we're getting some results. The data is certainly very noisy, but early indications are that there is some signal in there too.
- EGF 15y agoIncorporated a newco this year (webvio.com) which is the first new entity in awhile. Its a labs project with our first launch of todayskicks.com so far.
- cgag 15y agoYou should do something to make links stand out imo.
- simonswords82 15y agoYep - http://staffsquared.com http://staffsquared.com - A web app to help SME owners communicate and manage their staff,
- aaronbrethorst 15y agoYep, created (and sold!) http://cocoacontrols.com http://cocoacontrols.com.
- therandomguy 15y agoCreated http://classfrog.com/staging http://classfrog.com/staging but still in stealth mode.
- dangrossman 15y agoYes, working on http://www.dialshield.com http://www.dialshield.com
- simexous 15y agoYes, in active development: http://www.expulp.com http://www.expulp.com
- nfm 15y agoYep, started https://paydirtapp.com https://paydirtapp.com - intelligent time tracking for freelancers. We spent 2010 freelancing figuring out the business side of things a bit, earning some money to give us a bit of a runway, kicking lots of ideas around, and working on our tech chops. 12 months in we're starting to focus more on marketing and sales than development, and we're aiming to be profitable sometime before the end of 2012. Everything takes a lot longer than you think!
- hajrice 15y agoI started Helpjuice.com a couple months ago. It's now profitable. I had an idea, called a few companies that I thought would pay for it. Then, I skipped school (I was in high school at the time) for a couple of days and built it. After I had built the BARE minimum version (now that I look back, our "search" was using simple MYSQL LIKE "search" and I was selling it) I was able to get a few companies to pay for it. And am now working on it full-time. Maybe I'll write a blog post one day about the process.
- eli 15y agoYes, http://www.industrydive.com http://www.industrydive.com My co-founders and I have just quit our jobs to focus full-time on it. It's a mobile-focused B2B media company (pull up constructiondive.com on your phone for a very rough feel for where we're going). I'm working on a blog post to explain why, but the short version is we see a great market opportunity and our team is uniquely qualified to fill it. I really like working in the B2B space because there's a ton of money floating around, but it seems so unsexy that there is little competition from innovative startups.
- defied 15y agoI launched http://testingbot.com http://testingbot.com last month. Provides easy cross browser testing by using Selenium. Not many customers yet, but I think there's a market for this. Everyone needs to keep their website bug-free.
- highace 15y agoYep, http://www.txtyourclass.co.uk http://www.txtyourclass.co.uk - Remind101 for the UK, teacher to student text messaging. So far so good!
- therandomguy 15y agoMay I ask you how you got your initial users? My site is this space is almost done and the next steps will be to get some users.
- sprobertson 15y agoYes I did, finally built up the courage to produce something and try selling it to a global market. My first project: http://trollaroid.com/ http://trollaroid.com/
- gdhillon 15y agoYes, Started http://diglig.com http://diglig.com
- playhard 15y agostraight out of college and working on it!
- shard 15y agoYes, http://www.lonelytraveler.com http://www.lonelytraveler.com We connect travelers with locals in their destination who can give them experiences that traditional tour companies cannot. Me and my co-founders have been bootstrapping it since earlier this year, when we failed to find any real competition online for this concept. In a fit of global consciousness synchronicity, there are a few dozen now popping up all over the world.
- folke 15y agoYes, we started http://engagor.com http://engagor.com in February this year. Have been growing ever since!
- dwharrison 15y agoYES! www.enGrant.com - we track scientific research projects from their funding sources...