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It's funny, I totally remember that air-high five and the teacher comment thing. I happened to be standing right there (probably hovering, trying to get my 30

It's funny, I totally remember that air-high five and the teacher comment thing. I happened to be standing right there (probably hovering, trying to get my 30 seconds with you know who ;). Anyway, thanks for the read. You trying again this time? Good luck.

waleedka 19y ago
Me too. I totally remember waiting in line for a taxi and then offering you my place. ;) Seriously, though. Very nice post. Thanks.
palish 19y ago
Thanks. Yeah, we'll try again each time until we're accepted, or until we take the plunge anyway. If you don't mind if I ask, what business are you building? It's always fun to learn what everyone else is working on. When we realized that making something for public schools was a really bad position for a tiny startup to be in (if you've ever wondered why the technology tools that teachers use are so bad, it's because a public school's buying process is broken), we wondered what to do about it. All Emily and I knew is that we have a huge, overpowering desire to start a company. So I looked at my strengths to find something that I could be really passionate about. I've made random little video games for a long time, and I've held a job in the gamedev industry for the last two years, so I realized, "Hey, you don't have to work on a webapp. Just do what you really love." Emily and I talked for awhile, and we realized that a lot of people want to create their own game, but don't want to deal with the complicated details. I don't blame them. Game art is complicated to create. And not only are most games created in C++, which is a horrible language for a beginner to use, but the complexities of the graphics libraries make it almost impossible to just create a cool little thing to show off to your friends quickly. Plus, cross-platform is really messy to accomplish. So we're building something to make 2D game creation suck less. Making multiplayer Mario has always been a little dream of mine. And imagine a day when you can just read through some simple instructions and make something right away, then have your creation show up where your friends can play it. Or you're playing through someone else's game and spot a cool-looking character, so you press a button and you can use that character in your games, too. But, one step at a time. It's not concerning that it's a huge project. And Emily doesn't mind that she has no idea how to contribute. We're just working on it part of each day and saving up our money, and trusting that one day, with a lot of hard work, things will fall into place. And heck, our idea is for video games, something that YC has already said everyone and their brother tries to apply with. But we applied, even if our chances are nil, and had a lot of fun hammering out our application and doing our traditional loud ten-second countdown before submitting. So however crazy your idea seems, let's apply anyway! If we all do, then at least one of us will get in, which is really cool. What's everyone working on?
- nostrademons 19y ago
  Interesting. You're probably a competitor of us. We're working on basically the same thing. ;-)
  - palish 19y ago
    Cool! I thought so, from Diffle. Toss me an email at palish@gmail.com if you want to compare notes. P.S. Anyone interested in game development should come hang out with the Gamedev crew at irc.afternet.org, channel #gamedev. They're really smart and they'll help you with any problems you're running into.
- vegashacker 19y ago
  We're building an easy-to-use tool for making web apps. It's interesting, although we're not competitors, we're both empowering individuals by letting them make something which would ordinarily require programming skills.
- janm 19y ago
  > ... we realized that making something for public schools > was a really bad position for a tiny startup to be in ... Well, the question is: "Who is un(der)serviced in this market?" If the public schools are bad, it is probably the parents and students. I don't know much about your product, but one approach might be to see how it can be sold to parents who want to improve their children's education.
- jdavid 19y ago
  have you heard of torque? its a great game engine that a lot of schools use, like ITT Tech Green Bay. A friend of mine http://justinbosar.net http://justinbosar.net has started some development in torque. he does post production for hollywood movies.

waleedka 19y ago

Me too. I totally remember waiting in line for a taxi and then offering you my place. ;) Seriously, though. Very nice post. Thanks.

palish 19y ago

Thanks. Yeah, we'll try again each time until we're accepted, or until we take the plunge anyway. If you don't mind if I ask, what business are you building? It's always fun to learn what everyone else is working on. When we realized that making something for public schools was a really bad position for a tiny startup to be in (if you've ever wondered why the technology tools that teachers use are so bad, it's because a public school's buying process is broken), we wondered what to do about it. All Emily and I knew is that we have a huge, overpowering desire to start a company. So I looked at my strengths to find something that I could be really passionate about. I've made random little video games for a long time, and I've held a job in the gamedev industry for the last two years, so I realized, "Hey, you don't have to work on a webapp. Just do what you really love." Emily and I talked for awhile, and we realized that a lot of people want to create their own game, but don't want to deal with the complicated details. I don't blame them. Game art is complicated to create. And not only are most games created in C++, which is a horrible language for a beginner to use, but the complexities of the graphics libraries make it almost impossible to just create a cool little thing to show off to your friends quickly. Plus, cross-platform is really messy to accomplish. So we're building something to make 2D game creation suck less. Making multiplayer Mario has always been a little dream of mine. And imagine a day when you can just read through some simple instructions and make something right away, then have your creation show up where your friends can play it. Or you're playing through someone else's game and spot a cool-looking character, so you press a button and you can use that character in your games, too. But, one step at a time. It's not concerning that it's a huge project. And Emily doesn't mind that she has no idea how to contribute. We're just working on it part of each day and saving up our money, and trusting that one day, with a lot of hard work, things will fall into place. And heck, our idea is for video games, something that YC has already said everyone and their brother tries to apply with. But we applied, even if our chances are nil, and had a lot of fun hammering out our application and doing our traditional loud ten-second countdown before submitting. So however crazy your idea seems, let's apply anyway! If we all do, then at least one of us will get in, which is really cool. What's everyone working on?

nostrademons 19y ago
Interesting. You're probably a competitor of us. We're working on basically the same thing. ;-)
- palish 19y ago
  Cool! I thought so, from Diffle. Toss me an email at palish@gmail.com if you want to compare notes. P.S. Anyone interested in game development should come hang out with the Gamedev crew at irc.afternet.org, channel #gamedev. They're really smart and they'll help you with any problems you're running into.
vegashacker 19y ago
We're building an easy-to-use tool for making web apps. It's interesting, although we're not competitors, we're both empowering individuals by letting them make something which would ordinarily require programming skills.
janm 19y ago
> ... we realized that making something for public schools > was a really bad position for a tiny startup to be in ... Well, the question is: "Who is un(der)serviced in this market?" If the public schools are bad, it is probably the parents and students. I don't know much about your product, but one approach might be to see how it can be sold to parents who want to improve their children's education.
jdavid 19y ago
have you heard of torque? its a great game engine that a lot of schools use, like ITT Tech Green Bay. A friend of mine http://justinbosar.net http://justinbosar.net has started some development in torque. he does post production for hollywood movies.