junecpy

I think a startup blog should communicate a personality, the thoughts, value and experience of the particular startup. Obviously for the content side, you're going to write about your product. But while your product evolves, can I read the growth? For instance, would be great to write about new features as solving more problems for developers or making their lives a bit easier. Good luck. Hope the blog becomes a venue where audience witness your growth. :)

Overwhelming responses!

Giving you my best wishes. Also to share with you that I've been thru very difficult life for 7 years, between 19-26. [1] I've spent 1.5 years to find my current tech co-founder. [2]

Just don't give up. No matter what. No one will be a loser if he/she persists to actualize the dream.

[1] Quora: What mindset should one possess to be more comfortable when things are miserable? http://goo.gl/dIcji [2] How I found my tech co-founder. http://goo.gl/oBKKz

haha... thanks! Only 2 months in that without full time job, so it's not that hard.

99% Invisible

http://99percentinvisible.org https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/99-invisible/id394775318

Roman Mars has a real sexy voice and the idea about "listening to architectural" is cool!

I found that on Quora :)

I'm in similar situation. Met my current tech co-founder 3 weeks ago and I'm joining them as a co-founder.

See that you believe in the project and are looking for signs to tell whether it's a good fit. Here's my experience: Ask yourself if you can trust them. By trust I mean two things.

One, professionally, can you trust their judgement?

Can you work comfortably knowing that they're going to make decisions that will literally determine the growth/death of the company? You don't have to face this when you work in established companies because no one will have that impact. But in startups, a few wrong decision can turn things bad. If you don't have domain knowledge in what they're working on, you need to be sure that the team is capable in identifying the market and executing the biz.

Two, personally, can you be friended with them?

Are you comfortable to spend days and nights with them? I've only started working with the team 3 weeks ago and I'm now working with them every weekends. On weekdays, I generally work till after 9:30pm. Are they smart to spot the key, proactive to fix stuff, open to challenge, honest in telling the truth? These are all very important elements that you have to look for if you're to spend lots of time with them.

You can't get the real answer until you start working with them. Here's what I did: I worked with the team for free, without any talk of equities. Everyday I just find things that I can contribute and no one in the team can do the same. The founder is very open to me. That helps us working out together. I'd say we just "fall in partnership" without much "discussion". We observe each other in rounds of negotiations, customer meetings and internal discussions. I keep looking for evidences that the project and the people are "for long term".

Of course, it does't mean you have to do the same. But I'm suggesting that you look for opportunities to get into real work with them before jumping in, even it's a mini-project. It helps a lot in collecting crucial information. Regarding questions to ask, probably it's about their business just to start with. If even the founder couldn't explain how it works, what problem it solves and where's the market, that's the red flag.

Feel free to write to me. My blog & contact in profile. Recently I wrote 3 blog posts on deciding between startups and corporate jobs and you might like to see.

Hope it helps. :)

I recently did a research mini-project for a startup in Shanghai and I found this site useful: http://xyo.net. They have apps data by iOS/Android by category by country.

Agree with t0 that screen scrape will do in most case. Download free version from screen-scraper.com and go through their tutorial. I have no tech background by manage to scrape information I need.

Good luck.