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I used to live with Alex, and saw several iterations of Code Hero (originally called Primer after a book in Niel Stevenson's "The Diamond Age"). His enthusiasm

by woah 14y ago

I used to live with Alex, and saw several iterations of Code Hero (originally called Primer after a book in Niel Stevenson's "The Diamond Age"). His enthusiasm for teaching kids to code, singularity stuff, etc was infectious. He was able to recruit developers very easily at Noisebridge, and various events. When I first met him, his game was very rudimentary- basically just a tree in space. That was actually pretty much it. He was able to weave such a compelling story around the project that a lot of people pitched in to help him with it. He was able to actually get some pretty high calibre people to spend a lot of time advising him and giving him contacts. At one point, he had 5-6 developers working with him to get the game ready for a YC application. He was actually able to get someone to let him use a large office for free in SOMA, while they waited for the response from YC. When the YC funding didn't come through, a lot of people were pissed at him. But honestly, nothing is certain in a startup, and they should have known that. I've personally always found his ideas very inspiring, although maybe his business sense lags behind. He really has thought out an entire dream for what he would like to build, and it is very compelling in a way. It's unfortunate that he's let his gift of gab get ahead of him. It looks like his main mistake here was not sending people their trinkets? not sure from the KS page, and I haven't talked to him in a while. Honestly, so many startups fail, and it seems like it would be pretty tough to build a full 3d game with a built in code editor on 170k. There are many many startups that have gone through way more money and not shipped.

dbecker 14y ago
Everyone who has interacted with Alex says he is a stand-up guy... and that counts for something. But if I took people's money to build them an X, and I failed, I would feel really bad about it. I would offer a heartfelt apology, and I would give them what I could to compensate them for my failure. Alex may have tried hard. And he probably doesn't have the money to refund to people. But he could help his case by being honest about the project, and to recognize that he failed to deliver to those who invested in him. Not only will that calm many upset investors, but it's the right thing to do.
- woah 14y ago
  He's a good guy, but some of his practices resulted in people getting very angry at him. He definitely believes in what he's trying to do and is very good getting other people to believe as well. People coded for him for weeks and sometimes months, under the assumption that some type of funding was going to come through. When it didn't, they were less than pleased. But I'm hesitant to comment any further because I may not have the full story on anything, having never been directly involved. Like I said, he sometimes let his gift of gab get ahead of him, promising things that were not possible with the resources he had at his disposal. He's one of the most persuasive people I know, and had an easy time talking people into things. Here's a previous venture of his, which also resulted in a lot of bad blood, although he seems to have resolved it to some degree: http://blog.sinthetik.com/?tag=tacticalcorsets http://blog.sinthetik.com/?tag=tacticalcorsets

by woah 14y ago

dbecker 14y ago

Everyone who has interacted with Alex says he is a stand-up guy... and that counts for something. But if I took people's money to build them an X, and I failed, I would feel really bad about it. I would offer a heartfelt apology, and I would give them what I could to compensate them for my failure. Alex may have tried hard. And he probably doesn't have the money to refund to people. But he could help his case by being honest about the project, and to recognize that he failed to deliver to those who invested in him. Not only will that calm many upset investors, but it's the right thing to do.

woah 14y ago
He's a good guy, but some of his practices resulted in people getting very angry at him. He definitely believes in what he's trying to do and is very good getting other people to believe as well. People coded for him for weeks and sometimes months, under the assumption that some type of funding was going to come through. When it didn't, they were less than pleased. But I'm hesitant to comment any further because I may not have the full story on anything, having never been directly involved. Like I said, he sometimes let his gift of gab get ahead of him, promising things that were not possible with the resources he had at his disposal. He's one of the most persuasive people I know, and had an easy time talking people into things. Here's a previous venture of his, which also resulted in a lot of bad blood, although he seems to have resolved it to some degree: http://blog.sinthetik.com/?tag=tacticalcorsets http://blog.sinthetik.com/?tag=tacticalcorsets