joeag

8 ms·

31.
by joeag 15y ago
Finance is the most important issue for solar adoption, especially for distributed generation. For residential customers there is very little reason not to invest in generating your own power from rooftop solar, unless you don't plan to be
32.
by joeag 15y ago
Solyndra's tech didn't use polysilicone. Which was great when polysilicone prices were high. When the prices went down, the vast majority of panels that used polysilicone got much cheaper and Solyndra couldn't compete. Solyndra's circula
33.
by joeag 15y ago
I don't think you need to be an expert glassmaker before you go and find out if there's a market for "glass services"(if that's what you are interested in). It's enough to go out and talk to glass owners and find out if they have a need for
34.
by joeag 15y ago
Could you expand on your reference to Sendgrid? What problem does that solve for your business? I have not experienced a lot of problems in the past with getting emails out to customers, but maybe you are referring to marketing emails? I kn
35.
by joeag 15y ago
Residential is the most profitable part of the solar market because residential rates are by far the highest, so your PPA or lease revenue, even at a discount to grid, is still fairly high. Sure it costs more to install residential than co
36.
by joeag 15y ago
There's no "loophole" - but the US tax code doesn't all you as a homeowner to use the accelerated depreciation deduction the way a third party for-profit business can if they own the system and lease it to you or sell you the power it produ
37.
Ask HN:What "everyday" legal problems do startups face?
3 points by joeag 15y ago|0 comments
38.
by joeag 15y ago
Patrick- this part is especially interesting to me - "This might be shocking, but many of my software buddies do not have fully automated fulfillment. If you buy their software, they get an email, and then they have to do something to ge
39.
by joeag 15y ago
Seems like a good consulting business opportunity to audit large companies web presence to get a list of all publicly accessible sites and then gather current info from IT and management on what is authorized and what's not.
40.
by joeag 16y ago
I think the point is you may not know who is "useless" at the outset and rather than create an argument and dissension at that point, you use vesting. Then when you find out (or all agree) that someone is useless, you can get rid of them (
41.
by joeag 16y ago
Lots of money has been made by the lack of rationality of those who control movies (Hollywood). I exaggerate to make a point, but if it is in my lifetime, it might be just barely.
42.
by joeag 16y ago
Actually you are stating a hypothesis as a fact. Exactly what DRM is under First Sale Doctrine is to my (somewhat rusty) knowledge, still unclear. Whatever licenses you do or don't have in front of you don't matter. That's the whole point
43.
by joeag 16y ago
Not in our lifetime.
44.
by joeag 16y ago
First sale doctrine. You buy it you can rent, sell or destroy. Can't edit or change. Argument would be if you are "changing" by encoding, I would assume that's why they are stressing the DVD player solution. If you look at some of the ca
45.
by joeag 16y ago
Now is maybe the really scary time for Dropbox - here come the "me too's" including corporates who will say "Hey looks like people are starting to want this file storage and sharing thingy" - we can do that too and offer it to our own custo
46.
by joeag 16y ago
"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door". I thought this was discredited a long time ago. The world has to find out about your mousetrap before they beat a path to your door. That's marketing.
47.
by joeag 16y ago
Not true in CA anyway, you can have a 2 person company and apply for small employer group coverage. You can't be denied for pre-existing conditions and your rates have to be within 10% of larger group rates.
48.
by joeag 16y ago
"Pivot" is so 2010.
49.
by joeag 16y ago
Unfortunately there are also fireman, police, city managers, political assistants, etc. who make $150,000 to $450,000 a year, and will retire with 90% of that salary per year for LIFE (I kid you not). That's where all CA taxes (corporate,
50.
by joeag 16y ago
You may also end up with schedule C income anyway if your legal entity provides you with a dividend or other payment outside your regular salary, and you are likely to want to do that anyway because non-salary distributions are not subject
51.
by joeag 16y ago
You are correct. A legal entity of any type is not going to protect anyone given the typical underfunded HN startup profile. The great thing about technology/web based businesses is that they don't take much capital to start. Unfortunately
52.
by joeag 16y ago
Would be cool to be able to draw lines and labels for columns, rows or squares to organize the post-its.
53.
by joeag 16y ago
I love this gadget - we are trying to invest in energy efficiency (as a business - we pay upfront for efficiency improvements and collect a percentage of savings) and this could be a great way to reduce the cost of ongoing monitoring.
54.
by joeag 16y ago
I think that comment was directed more at the appropriate way of generating potential buyer visits to the site - and I agree there is unlikely to be a quick and cheap spike generated by TC. I agree that this will probably have to be sold vi
55.
by joeag 16y ago
Not really. Most big users of power pay incredibly low per kwhr rates (in the US anyway). Without a realistic feed in tariff (meaning the utility buys the power generated, not the data center) the deal won't be economic (unless the data c
56.
by joeag 16y ago
Actually oil, gas and coal get more than 10X (in dollar amounts) the subsidy that renewable energy and technologies get. Granted, it is because the quantities are much higher, but it's not a "subsidized vs not subsidized" argument.
57.
by joeag 16y ago
Solar Shingles by Dow - http://www.dow.com/news/corporate/2009/20091005b.htm Note: these are not cost competitive with "regular" CSI panels - they are mostly for people who put a premium on appearance.
58.
by joeag 16y ago
In US units one square foot of roof can support 10 watts. So a kilowatt takes 100 sf of roof space. In much of the US you would generate 1,400 to 1,600 "AC sun hours" per year, so a 1 Kw system generates 1,400 to 1,600 kwhrs per year. If
59.
by joeag 16y ago
You probably don't have enough space then. In most locations and for most homes or businesses, you can easily replace over 80% of your grid power. You could even replace 100% but the risk there is that most utilities have "no negative net
60.
by joeag 16y ago
Typical degradation rates for crystalline silicon solar panels is 0.5% per year. When you read about efficiency being an area of innovation it's conversion of solar radiation into electricity that's usually the issue. Inverters are 95% ef

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