johnrob

54 ms·

571.
by johnrob 15y ago
Not a founder myself, but the people I've been scheming with are either college friends or co-workers from other startups. IMO, working at a startup great potential source of future teammates (but I rarely see that mentioned around here).
572.
by johnrob 15y ago
Although they may want it for a myriad of reasons, most founders probably want to get rich. From http://paulgraham.com/start.html : And that's kind of exciting, when you think about it, because all three are doable. Hard, but doable. And
573.
by johnrob 15y ago
Justin.tv seems like it's doing really well (at least from the outside), which makes it difficult to understand why they keep launching new products.
574.
by johnrob 15y ago
Reminds me of the most recent conclusion I had come to regarding Groupon: it appeals to broken businesses. If you can't get new customers by simply lowering prices (instead of offering a Groupon), then your business is on very weak ground.
575.
by johnrob 15y ago
Roughly speaking, if you save the difference between the rent and mortgage price, you should end up with the same upside that a purchase would have netted (although if rent > mortgage, then renting only makes sense for a short term stay
576.
by johnrob 15y ago
Interesting question. My take would be that you need to toe the line between building something quick and dirty, and building something that can scale. If you can't get the features right then scaling is a non issue. If you do get them r
577.
by johnrob 15y ago
People have always wanted to do certain things online: search (google et all), shopping (amazon, ebay, et all), communication (email, aol, facebook, et all) are good examples. I've never really sensed a similar demand for syncing and backi
578.
by johnrob 15y ago
I'm somewhat surprised that a file sharing company can get a valuation this large. Don't get me wrong, the product is great, but I'm skeptical that the "file sharing industry" is big enough for valuations like this. Some quick math: A 5 b
579.
by johnrob 15y ago
The point of these games is to have the farmers play Call of Duty and the soldiers play Farmville.
580.
by johnrob 15y ago
21. The best thing you can do is get traction Why is the supposedly most important idea listed last? It's no wonder startups waste time on the wrong things, if this is the way advice is structured.
581.
by johnrob 15y ago
Taking something apart is vastly easier than putting it together. Just because Anon is small doesn't mean they can't find an exploit.
582.
by johnrob 15y ago
You sound just like someone from 2001. No matter how much we try to rationalize and/or avoid it, the industry keeps going through the same cycles.
583.
by johnrob 15y ago
Phrasing the question that way makes it easier for the person to be critical, since the asker is already implying that there are issues (and is less likely to be let down).
584.
by johnrob 15y ago
This person is very smart, but (as far as I can tell) he's never instructed everyday students before - is that a problem?
585.
by johnrob 15y ago
You can't call bubble by citing companies with billion dollar valuations - there aren't nearly enough of those to signify any sort of trend.
586.
by johnrob 15y ago
It seems like angel investing really only makes sense these days if you do it as option on future investment. Given how valuations are avoided until Series A, the angels end up buying at only a modest discount off the VC price. I recently
587.
by johnrob 15y ago
Another issue I'd wonder about is operational costs. DVDs are pretty easy to warehouse and ship. Clothes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, plus they have to be washed. Definitely requires a more complex/costly operation, which is a
588.
by johnrob 15y ago
While he might be a fine advisor (I wouldn't know), I would assume his main value add is PR. He definitely knows that space inside and out.
589.
by johnrob 15y ago
I think you mean to say "businesses" where you currently say "companies"; unless you intend for these kids to quit school.
590.
by johnrob 15y ago
Thanks, this will be useful for many screen scraping tasks!
591.
by johnrob 15y ago
Is it possible that some of those users clicked on the ad multiple times? If that's the case, their browser would likely cache the images and not reload them.
592.
by johnrob 15y ago
Hence the beauty of the concept: you can fail without "failing".
593.
by johnrob 15y ago
Apparently another feature was to automatically set your gchat status to "available". That explains why I got a bunch of messages yesterday morning.
594.
by johnrob 15y ago
The 5th amendment doesn't mean you can block normal legal proceedings just because they would happen to incriminate you. You do have the right to remain silent, however. That might be a stronger defense.
595.
by johnrob 15y ago
About a year ago Fred Wilson said straight up that common stock is unreliable and not suitable for investors. Since employees get common stock, the only point of leverage they have is their commitment to future employment. Thus buying opt
596.
by johnrob 15y ago
The best bet for an iPad competitor would be someone delivering a standard desktop OS in tablet form, somehow solving the input (keyboard/mouse) issue. At that point you'd be matching Apple's ecosystem with an even bigger one from OSX or W
597.
by johnrob 15y ago
Mobile version please!!! (for my flash enabled android phone) For some reason the page is very slow to interact with and type on while using my Motorola Atrix (supposedly a fast device). Ideally, the home page would have just a textarea an
598.
by johnrob 15y ago
Excellent. I hope this doesn't go the way of atdhe.net. They built the equivalent of this, but for live sports video instead of music.
599.
by johnrob 15y ago
I was going to recommend that living with the parents might free up some time to hack out a new idea, but I see you aren't a developer. As such, I'll suggest a non-programming idea: rebuild the old version of Techcrunch. Write a blog abou
600.
by johnrob 15y ago
Also: Borland, mid-1990s.

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