humj

just to provide even more context. In our previous system, you entered your email to be in our beta queue. You could enter 3 of your friends' emails to move up the queue. Pretty standard stuff. We didn't think much of it.

In our last HN post, a reader named zem had commented that they didn't like the 3-invite system. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3194012 (click parent to see the original post). As i mentioned earlier, we saw it as pretty standard practice and hadn't given it an extra thought when we implemented it, but the comment sparked the question, how could we make beta invites more engaging when just about every other company out there is doing the same thing.

really good point, lots of room for optimization

haha good job stanton. obfuscate probably would have added 30 seconds to the time it would take to hack it. If we really wanted to make it more robust, we would have added a validation to the score, a validation ensuring that time had passed between duck clicks, (looks like you didnt click ducks at all in your case), a minimal time to beat the game, a validation that ensures you didn't exceed the maximum possible score, and whatever other means to make it more annoying to hack, but even then... and in the end, we're not a gaming company and this was just a fun lil exercise we threw together to test a concept. Good job though haha, we knew if we posted in tech, this would probably happen :)

We're working hard to get there!

Hey Bobby, so made the share on facebook checkbox more visible. Also, clicking out of the modal now automatically unchecks that box. The only time it will share now is if you click "Done", with the checkbox checked, in which case, it should be very clear that you've seen the checkbox and know what you're doing.

Deployed and tested. That should eliminate any unwanted surprises, so feel free to mark all the things you've done!

Hey bomatson.There actually is a checkbox right under the done button to not post on FB. I think a lot of times, people just click out without looking at the modal. The whole doning and wanting experience is definitely something we're looking at. Of course we want people to share on FB but at the same time, we don't want to give anyone an unpleasant surprise.

I'll let you know what we come up with for that one. Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks, we changed it

I think you've highlighted one of the difficulties in this space. Nowadays, a lot of people expect any new ecommerce site to be some sort of deals site. It has become the default and you actually have to do work to show that you're not a deals site.

I'm aware these may not be your intentions, as I stated in my post. I'm saying, be sure to step outside and think honestly about how it comes across to someone who isn't familiar with your or your business.

You mention a "big idea" and use the startup "team" rhetoric, but that's all par for the course. Think about all the signals you're giving off. Others have mentioned here already what the NDA signals. Contract-based pricing and vague equity incentives feels a lot like you're looking to outsource development of a huge project for too little return despite the "team" rhetoric, even if that's not your intention.

Options:

1. if you're looking for "your guy", (s)he needs to REALLY be part of the team. Don't tip-toe around it with vague incentives, contract-based pricing and NDAs. These things signal inconfidence.

2. Become "your guy". Or at least try. Shw that you're hustling and that this thing will get made with or without "your guy".

A few people here mentioned that their online giveaways didn't convert well. You may think, "who wouldn't try out my cool new app for a chance to win an ipad right?" But consider how this may read to your potential new users, "So they want me to enter my information into an unknown service, without any concrete return? and wait, is this one of those... try out any one of these services for a free ipad scams?"

remember that your potential new users have no idea who you are, and people are still generally suspicious of new things on the internet, and rightfully so.

I think what you're talking about is graphics rather than design. To me, design is the umbrella term encompassing UX, UI and graphics. so I'll rephrase the question: Do graphics matter?

While it may not the biggest part of design, graphics still do matter. "The way things look" plays a big role in how your eyes move through the space of your product, where your attention goes, and ultimately, where someone decides they've had enough and are ready to leave. Basic Examples: is the call-to-action button colored in a way that I can spot it instantly? Is the text readable enough that I'm not fatigued after a few posts?

The zone is something I'm very familiar with and have been aware of for a long time, even before programming. To me, the zone is a product, not only of complex problem-solving, but also, high creativity (but perhaps these are one and the same). By day, I'm an architect (as in physical buildings), and I often find myself in the zone particularly in early design, when thinking very big picture and developing new concepts; asking myself questions like.. - what are the different components of hte project - how do they relate to each other - how do they fit into the existing infrastructure - how does it change the existing - what is the experience of each type of user - how do these experience differ from expectation (good or bad) - how do these new relationships and interactiosn affect the business model

just to name a few... So these are a lot of questions to handle all at once. I find myself asking suprisingly similar questions now that I'm coding/designing. The basic principles of physical space don't differ much from web space. My analogy for this sort of juggling is an image of a person standing one-legged on a ball with a stack of plates on his head and juggling an array of different objects.

When I'm in the zone, my mind is hyper-extended and I tune everything else out. I often won't even answer someone who comes up to speak to me. In college, my mother would call me and I wouldn't answer for hours. She'd get angry and say.. you couldn't spare 5 minutes? 5 minutes means having to drop all the things I'm juggling, fall off the ball and break the stack of plates on my head.

In the most extreme cases, when in the zone for extended periods of time, I've forgone eating and sleeping (no caffeine needed in the zone), without any ill effects until snapping out of zone, which ends in a crash.

NYC is becoming a great place to do a startup, but is NYC the next silicon valley? I'd say no (I'm a New Yorker). Silicon Valley has always been the place to run a techonology company. New York has always been about commerce, finance, fashion, art, media. NY and SV are good at 2 different things. What's happening now is not that New York is becoming good at what silicon valley is good at. Its that the things New York is good at are now becoming technology enhanced, so depending on what kind of company you're building, SV could be better than NY and in some cases, NY could be better than SV.

(I'm making wide sweeping generalizations of course and they may not be valid months from now.) edit: yes that last statement was just to cover my ass. ;P

To be honest, I think your question should be "how to convey to YC that your TEAM is worth funding"

Karma is just a metric and should be treated as such. If someone is judging someone else by their karma score, that says more about the judger than the judgee.

I'm the same way. dual monitors are also a must for me. Coding on on screen and refreshing on the other and looking back to the code without losing my place is just much smoother than toggling/minimizing.

Another thing is, with a laptop, ur mobile, so you might be coding in some foreign environment, which can be distracting. With a desktop, I'm bound to my own familiar space where I can be most productive.

PG: Paul Graham I can't really answer that for you since I dont know your situation so I can only speak for myself. I'd try to find someone who's more than an "employee". I'd want someone that's as invested as I am.

I think most good investors will shy away from single founders for many justified reasons. PG writes a lot about it in his essays. actually, most people in this space who write, will have written about this, so I won't spell it all out.

The 2 recurring themes are: How can you convince anyone of your product if you cant even convince 1 other person to join you? and 1 person just can't do it alone, you need multiple perspectives to dissect a problem.

There are very very very few exceptions, probably enough to count them all on your fingers. That said, I'm in the same boat as you and looking for a cofounder but I'd say don't just go and pick up any cofounder. Take your time because this relationship is something that takes a lot to build and is not like just hiring someone to help you with a task.

The answer to this will really depend on what you're building. If you're asking this question, then I assume community really important to you.

The best communities are pretty good at moderating themselves. Take hackernews or reddit for example. The barrier to entry is actually very low in each of these but the community decides what gets seen. Although ubiquitous, Facebook is actually another example because everyone is the moderator of their own community. eg: I wouldn't friend a spammer.

I'd suggest you'd think more about how you build a strong community than how to moderate spam. The community is the big picture. Spam is only a symptom of a weak community.

fun-fact, there was a site many many years ago, back in the days of dial-up modems.. It was called "crushlink" or something, which is exactly this sort of crush-matching by email since facebook wasn't around yet. It eventually died because of spam and imposter emails posing as crushlink emails.

Ideas are rarely unique. In fact, competition makes people aware of your space. Just execute the crap out of it.

HN is a pretty good alternative.

Agreed. I think we might be talking semantics here. It just depends what you consider to be asking the users. The Henry Ford quote is just meant to say that you can't take advice from users literally because they'll only tell you what they're already used to. To me, asking the users is not a literal asking, but rather, a questioning the shortcomings and potentials of the current environment.

That's not to say you shouldnt ask what they want. What you have to do as a visionary is to interpret their answers into what it is that they really need.

I'm an architect by day (like real buildings), and sketchup is used really heavily in my field, cuz it just works. The problem with more advanced software is that with large teams, you'll get different people working in different ways and if 1 person doesn't conform to the standards, it screws up the organization of the entire project. You can't really screw anything up in sketchup since it's so simple. Also, Import and export between other programs works really well also, which is key. Components/blocks and whatever associations are often preserved.

Congrats, and a note about rejection:

I see a lot here on HN, that people take a YC rejection to mean that YC doesnt think they'll succeed, and the outcome is.. quit or set out to prove them wrong.

Perhaps when YC doesn't accept your application, it only means that PG doesn't see your project as a good fit for what YC has to offer or the current class. I wouldn't take it to mean that YC is betting against your success.

edit: I mean that as a general note to other HNers, because it doesn't seem like you do harbor any negativity toward YC

So what if you were lady gaga or something? Would she not be allowed to use quora without her real name? Or are fake names okay if you have celebrity status?

I think another important lesson here is that there's a big difference between putting in the time and putting in the work.

In the comments, he says the website took the developers he hired about a month. He doesn't even seem to associate himself with the making of the product. Of course I don't the situation for sure so I'll phrase this as a general comment. Sometimes, people think they can hire some programmers and think, "I put in money, I put in time, this should work." 3 years is a lot of time to run a website without learning to code, or reading a book about entrepeneurship. Putting in the work doesn't mean, "if I dont know how to do it, someone else will." It means "if I don't know how to do it, I'll learn."