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pegobry

pegobry on Hacker News

Re:Should you take a pay cut to work at a startup? on Thursday December 23, 2010 @05:45AM (#2034087)
You should do what you're passionate about. The rest is housekeeping.
Re:The Startup Visa Act Must Be Stopped on Monday March 22, 2010 @10:16AM (#1210332)
That's a good point but it doesn't change that the overall dynamic of the Act would be to put way too much power in the hands of investors.

I hope you're right and that's how it will work out, though.

Re:Thesixtyone is awesome on Friday January 22, 2010 @07:36AM (#1069564)
Yes, so I've seen. My take is basically this: they're experimenting, and you have to give them kudos for that, and since this is a web startup they can work out the kinks as they refine their system.
Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @09:49AM (#1062204)
That was hilarious. I'll keep it in mind.
Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @07:47AM (#1061992)
Great points. I'll incorporate them into the post.

It's growing faster from a smaller base, though. I find more relevant that Tumblr is still much, much bigger. And I think it will stay that way.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @07:31AM (#1061968)
They don't contradict my thesis since Tumblr was always much bigger than Posterous and while they may have had faster growth it was never enough to catch up.

Again -- I may be proven wrong in six months or a year, and if so I admit it publicly right here (in fact, do you want to make a bet?). But I think at this stage the data warrants the trend I extrapolate from it.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @07:08AM (#1061944)
Thanks for the comment.

If you have actual traffic stats I'd love to see them. ;)

Also, the estimate isn't for "a couple months", but for the past 12 months, and the trend points in one direction. Even less reliable but even more "damning" is Google Trends: http://google.com/trends?q=tumblr,+posterous&ctab=0&...

That being said, your general point is right: nothing is preordained, and the trends could switch around tomorrow, and the picture look much different a while from now. But that's why I have a blog: this is the situation as I see it today. Maybe six months from now I'll eat my words, who knows?

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @07:04AM (#1061942)
You're right -- obviously this isn't a post mortem or anything. The trends could reverse, and Posterous could become wildly profitable with less users while Tumblr has plenty of traffic but no money.

Although it seems pretty obvious that both are headed for a combination of advertising/freemium model, and the revenue that comes from that seems pretty correlated to userbase size.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @06:59AM (#1061938)
Thanks for the kind advice. For me, blogging is a conversational medium, I try to write blog posts the way I would speak, and so it's pretty unfiltered. Also I try to be engaging. And insofar as my opinion/analysis has any value, I think it's better for those concerned that it be unvarnished. I don't believe most things should be sugarcoated, and I don't think the kind of people who do startups do either.
Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @06:01AM (#1061883)
Actually, it shows the past 12 months.
Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @06:00AM (#1061882)
Thanks.

The Company A vs Company B thing is just (to my mind) a particularly stark example of these broader points I try to make.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @05:55AM (#1061879)
The signup pages are an example of a broader mindset which is different at Tumblr and at Posterous and which in turn, to me, exemplifies broader trends for startups. That's what I think is interesting.

I'm not saying startups should not be metrics-driven. Design and engineering are both driven by metrics. But they're different mindsets. And in this case, one is clearly winning.

You're also right that the zero-sum fallacy is wrong. However, those two companies are competitors in the market and one, at least on publicly available data, is winning hands down.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @05:52AM (#1061877)
Thanks. Duly noted.

The Compete data seems to show Posterous stagnating just shy of 1M uniques for the past few months while Tumblr's curve is stuck "up and to the right," though.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @05:52AM (#1061876)
Thanks.

Am I trolling? I don't think so, insofar as I use a provocative example to illustrate trends that I do think are important: the coming of age of New York as a startup hub and as a "school" for building consumer startups, and the growing importance of design vs. "hard" technology in building a successful consumer web app.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @05:50AM (#1061874)
You're right that Tumblr's social aspects are more developed than Posterous's and that this has been a huge driver of their growth but to me that's not so much solving two different problems as Tumblr being more smartly designed -- realizing that blogging, even minimalist blogging, is inherently social.

As for Tumblr's top tier investors -- sure, that's true. I was trying to emphasize that Posterous, on paper, has everything it takes to win.

Re:Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @03:35AM (#1061763)
I think it was only six months. And first mover advantage means little online. Facebook wasn't the first social network, Twitter wasn't the first microblogging app, etc. Posterous's had a year and a half now and it's stagnating.
Re:Ask YC: Where can I find list of AOL startups acquisitions in the l... on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @03:06AM (#1061739)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL

After googling "AOL acquisitions".

Hope this helps!

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