haploid

10 ms·

31.
by haploid 16y ago
Assuming the average startup founder is under 30, this is effectively a non-issue. When I was 24, I got a high-deductible PPO that covered almost everything for $40/mo. That's beer money. My point is moot if you're starting at 40, of cour
32.
by haploid 16y ago
In a free market, there is no such thing as "too much" of a given class of workers. A free market corrects for a glut of N by making the expected failure rate of N too high, or the capital available for N too low, or both. Bubbles can affe
33.
by haploid 16y ago
I can't speak to Braintree because we don't use them. I do believe that they will set up a merchant account for you as a proxy or agent, IIRC. But I can speak to the economics of all this "complexity" of which you speak. We currently use C
34.
by haploid 16y ago
5% is horrendously expensive. Just the other week I was ragging on Braintree for being very slighty above wholesale merchant rates. Stripe is quite literally double Braintree's rates, with no value-add. And on top of that, they hold the
35.
by haploid 16y ago
Am I the only one who thinks the local and federal food regulatory bodies are going to have a field day with this? I hope you have a solid legal team in place to deal with the inevitable FDA, USDA, state heath boards, and local restaurant l
36.
by haploid 16y ago
Well, I'm torn on this. My initial, non-thinking reaction was one of rabid agreement. This is very correct if you're a 9to5er. If you are at the office to put in your 40 hours and then leave, I would agree that there is no room to inject
37.
by haploid 16y ago
This is an interesting use case, but I don't understand it. Why fund the development of new software to a third party who will then resell it to your competitors, versus hiring a software shop to develop it and deliver it to you for interna
38.
by haploid 16y ago
This is a good post, but I would take issue with the following: "You are likely to gain weight." It is fairly trivial to stock your cabinets and refrigerator at home with healthy food options. Contrast this with an office environment. Bet
39.
by haploid 16y ago
"Non tech cofounders that have 10 people committed to paying up to 1000/mo and signed letters of intent from the 5 of them (120k/year, 60k guaranteed) before building a product are few and far between." What? I would suggest that the above
40.
by haploid 16y ago
I wouldn't categorize whitespace-as-syntax to be merely "frustrating". I'd categorize it to be "wrong".
41.
by haploid 16y ago
Wait, zero need for marketing spend? The publicity that this move bought them only extends to the insular tech news/blogger community. Do you really think JoeSixPack or Kerligirl13 reads TechCrunch? And even if they did, do you think they'
42.
by haploid 16y ago
Minor correction: diapers.com loses shitloads of money. By the time Amazon acquired them, the founders had diluted themselves down to about 2% and had taken on large amounts of debt as well. What you can say, however, is that diapers.com
43.
by haploid 16y ago
This. I don't understand why everyone thinks the price for color.com was too high. We paid quite a bit more than that for our domain names, so I do have a point of reference here. I personally believe this was a horrible investment in a h
44.
by haploid 16y ago
Looking forward to the HN pseudo-feminists coming out of the woodwork on this one. Queue the white knights in 3, 2, 1, Go.
45.
by haploid 16y ago
Zynga contributed to the economy's growth? Really? Farmville increased average worker productivity?
46.
by haploid 16y ago
Yes, and phpfog has the added bonus of being very secure. Those guys eat, sleep, and drink security. Your code/data/site is safe with them.
47.
by haploid 16y ago
Yup. Ecommerce, or anything else that provided a real service or real product in a sustainable manner. The funny thing about Amazon is that they took on so much debt that everyone was certain they would be the first "big one" to fall when
48.
by haploid 16y ago
My comment is very tribalist in nature( e.g. my region is superior to your region ), and I fully expected the downvotes. Regardless, it does reflect much of what I see in the insular SF startup culture, even if it's based entirely on my ane
49.
by haploid 16y ago
I suspect it's because we in SoCal prefer actually getting work done instead of being trendy and being seen hanging out with other trendy people doing trendy things. Although I do exclude certain portions of LA and Hollywood from this descr
50.
by haploid 16y ago
There is nothing stopping anyone from doing a startup on the side. Needing to pay rent and working on your own project are not mutually exclusive.
51.
by haploid 16y ago
"And, I think Google ranks sites higher if the domain name has the keyword in it." There is some effect, but it's not that significant. Bing, on the other hand, seems to weight domain names very highly.
52.
by haploid 16y ago
"it just doesn't seem that people navigate to sites that way" It may not "seem" that way, but our data suggests strongly otherwise.
53.
by haploid 16y ago
We got our domain names by approaching the registrant and making an offer. There are plenty of domain names that are not listed on the ripoff domain name sales sites. Find something you like and make an offer.
54.
by haploid 16y ago
Let's say you're a founder. You know that it only takes $X to develop and market a given app. So you go out shopping, asking for $(1.3X)MM( the estimate plus a small buffer )at a Y% dilution. You pitch your idea to Trust Fund Baby Venture
55.
by haploid 16y ago
In the same way that inkjet printing affected the book publishing industry. Try printing a full-length book on your desktop printer, and let me know how much the total cost of your time, the paper, and the ink is. Compare it to the cost of
56.
by haploid 16y ago
I think you vastly underestimate the driving compulsion of millions of attention whores to get random men to tell them how hot they are by virtue of myspace angles and flattering lighting.
57.
by haploid 16y ago
Same experience, here; never received a response.
58.
by haploid 16y ago
Reminds me of the pre-IPO dog and pony shows I experienced in 1999 when series 1 and 2 investors would tell mezzanine investors that "This is bigger than electricity, bigger than the railroads" with a straight face. Sequoia is just talking
59.
by haploid 16y ago
As someone with a company that has purchased 6 and 7 figure domain names, I wonder why you make this assumption. All our deals were for cash, and I have no reason to believe these listed deals were otherwise. Do you have any citations?
60.
by haploid 16y ago
Because overinvestment in a specific sector of the economy necessarily results in underinvestment in other sectors of the economy. In the case where investment capital flows to ultimately unproductive enterprises like photo sharing, and awa

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