As I said in the article, it's event based which means it can handle massive concurrency and serve pages that don't necessarily reply straight away - perfect for implementing things like comet. It gives you similar capabilities to Ruby's EventMachine. I don't think PHP has an equivalent at the moment.
To me, the important part of node.js is that it's using the V8 (http://code.google.com/p/v8/) JavaScript engine which Google has a strong, vested interest in being the fastest dynamic platform around and a lot of really smart programmers to make that happen.
Otherwise, it's a matter of preference. What's the main advantage of PHP/Ruby over Perl?
I don't see the chicken & egg problem. This article pretty clearly showed that he was able to learn about user's needs with only time, persistence, and money
I couldn't disagree more. When you start using Facebook, it becomes a must have. When I went about deleting all my online accounts, it was one of the two I didn't get rid of. If I got rid of that, I'd lose the most valuable communications medium I've got.
"Traditionally, in grades 7–9 mathematics comprises 2 school subjects,
geometry and algebra that are taught in parallel (e.g., 2 hours per week for
geometry, and 3 hours for algebra). In the senior school [16-17 years old], also two subjects are taught, geometry and algebra and elements of calculus. In grades 5 and 6 (and in primary school) we have a united course of mathematics."
For comparison, the US high school math curriculum (for students 14-18 years old) is generally algebra, geometry, precalculus/trigonometry and calculus, although students can still graduate with just algebra and geometry.
That said, I don't doubt that there is a cultural and educational emphasis on math in Russia.
"Also, to eliminate any confusion, grades 5 and 6 in Russia are roughly the equivalent of grades 7 and 8 in the US."
Where did you get that from? When I studied in Russia we'd skip grade 4 (don't ask me why!) and most students started 1st grade at the age of 7. Meaning grade 5 really corresponded to grade 4 in other countries.
Upon review it looks like it might only be shifted 1 older or possibly the same, but it's unclear. Russian education apparently starts a year later than in the US and, until the 90s(?), ended/still ends(?) a year earlier and, as you noted, didn't/still doesn't(?) include a 4th grade. The presentation from 2000 on Russian math education I linked to also states that "number 4 is usually omitted" and that the system "has been in the state of permanent reorganization." Thus, it's not entirely clear to me how the grades match up, so sentence excised.
For the past 10 years it's just about having the money to pay for your exams. Education has gone downhill since the collapse of the SU. Russia doesn't need mathematicians or physicists anymore. My uncle is a professor and gets paid well under $1K a month. All that matters is what the price of oil is, and how much they can export while the old refineries still haven't fallen apart. Russia's income is purely from oil & gas now.
The stats FlightCaster collects is like the stats on road accidents: if you go by route A on Ford you have a 90% probability to broke the car (and be late), so you better switch the route or the car.
The difference in pitching a VC vs. an angel is in presenting your far goals. I guess no VC will like your promise to quickly become a profitable company with few employees only and making hundreds of thousands per year, and not going to grow beyond that. Angels might like that more than having to wait several years to get a smaller slice from a bigger pie.
"The monetization model needs to at least result in a $100M revenue business growing at 20%-30% with strong EBITDA margins." - that was the stock answer to VC question
I would say that our project is definitely unique and could be applied in other fields, but we're sticking with one and seeing how it goes. There's also a dozen ways to make money and none of these include advertising. Because it's different, I'm often worried that people might not "get it" and may never use it.
Yeah, I'd say DoLeaf is a me-too product. I don't look for things that are earth-shattering. Instead, I look for ways to bring existing technologies or practices to underserved communities. I think that can be incredibly profitable, while also being predictable.
I do have a question for you, I really like your other startup/app (The tabletop gaming one.). I read your post yesterday so and found my way to another blog post about how you managed a huge surge of traffic from Penny Arcade, which seems like it was 2-3 months ago.
So the question is why not concentrate 100% on that one? If you are holding down full time jobs do you have enough bandwidth to spread across 2 startups, and why not concentrate on the one that has started to gain some traction? (If you don't mind me asking)
I'm not sure I have a good answer. I've been frustrated at the rate of growth of Obsidian Portal, and social networking sites are tough to monetize. Our subscriptions are doing pretty well, but it's not a perfect situation.
I wanted to pursue a startup with a much clearer business model. I think a lot of the "we'll figure the business model out later" startups are in for some pain when they do try to monetize. Oh, and forget about ads.
Plus, growth of a site is related, but not directly, to the amount of effort you put in. OP grows at its own rate now, and it does so regardless of my efforts. That's why I'm not a huge fan of the quit-your-dayjob mentality. It just takes time to grow these things, and you have to eat during that time.
I really like your product (and model) because it scales so beautifully from the word go. As you said, from the moment you launch you'll be making money (in theory) - want more revenue? pour more resource in that side of operations.
Its interesting to see who they choose in the end. 20 companies is a pretty high number to get them all right.
Anyway, keep going and maybe when the summer ends you will have better chances of further funding than any of the TS (or YC or ...)companies!
