Some of you who applied to other programs besides the Y probably got invites during the summer to meet up with those people and other entrepreneurs. Anyone going?
If so, we should hold a mini get together or something. It'll be fun. Three trips planned in one summer, its a lot of money but it's not everyday you get the opportunity to meet exciting people
I've been learning Rails and I LOVE it. I can't stop coding, it's actually kind of "sick" since I get like 4 hours of sleep.
I have PG to blame because his whole advice on "learn to code" was so very true. I'm not a CS major (I did take a 'few'classes) but Rails really makes sense to me. Coding is just so..logical.
Speaking of Rails, there are other options in the Python world besides Django.
Pylons is a very Rails-y framework with the difference being that it is made to be easy to customize. In Rails if you don't like something you are going to have a hard time changing it out unless you are a good hacker. In Pylons that is easy, and you've got access to Python's vastly better platform (speed, Unicode support) and libraries.
If you are an absolute beginning programmer it might be kind of hard to pick up, but if you've programmed a bit or you've used one or two web frameworks (especially Rails) Pylons won't be hard to learn.
I'm helping my dad design a replacement for the Digital Signal Processor. Actually, it's already designed and it actually works through the Phase I testing. Talk about years of painfully drawing up electric engineering diagrams and deciphering electric engineering language to a way that you would understand it to draw the diagram and write the description out. It's like having a crash course on 4 years of EE education in a week. (I'm not an EE major). Not to mention making suggestions upon the improvement of the design and have your dad say "no it won't work" only to find out days later that your proposal actually works but your dad is just too proud to admit it. I think the closest he got to an offer was from Nokia but he chickened out and didn't pursue it. Sucks for him and especially for me who spent days finding a personal contact information to someone at Nokia.
Too bad, he's one of those guys who just likes to invents to see if it works. Not much of a 'start a company' guy...I think he just wants to sit back and enjoy the rest of his life as opposed to dealing with the politics of a company. 9 years on working on something and the fear of someone stealing your idea keeps you from sharing it to the world. It's a shame but oh well. It's his 'baby'
1. Technical yes but you will need someone who can find out every single competitor out there and find a way to make your product better.
2.In addition, you need to be able to find and talk to users who are using your competitor's product to find out what they're complaining about so that you can make it better.
You're probably thinking "a hacker" can do that. Ummmm..hackers have no problem talking to other hackers but how about talking to non-hackers? In addition, you need to make sure that your user interface is idiot proof to someone who isn't a programmer.
Another example of why you need people who understand the industry or your users -
Example: Awhile back there was a debate I had with somoene, can't remember his name so I will call him Mr.Citrus. Anyways, I stopped responding because he was too stubborn. Mr. C and his team are building a site that is a women-related site. Mr.C says that he is going to take on Monopoly X by building site Y. However, after looking at site Y, I noticed that it offers nothing better than Monopoly X. In addition, if Mr.C had people on his team who understood this industry or knew where to look or who to ask, he would have known some juicy gossip related to his competitor that would have assisted him to get acquired quicker or beat out his competitor. What kind of gossip can a non-hacker give him? Well things like:
1. Monopoly X has a partnership with several women magazines in which the editor of that magazine would never do an article who is a competitor of Monopoly X. So that cuts out an avenue of obtaining users.
2. The recent acquisitions Monopoly X had acquired as well as the new venture Monopoly X had recently branched out too would provide a glimpse of where the competitor is heading and who/what he just bought. It would have helped Mr. Citrus predict his competitor's next move
3. Understanding what Monopoly x is missing, and fill in that gap or void because currently, there is a HUGE chunk monopoly X is missing but because Mr. Citrus and his team compose of only hackers who are attempting to penetrate a women related industry, he doesn't see it. And unfortunately, asking your sister or wife for their opinion isn't always helpful b/c if they're not into the whole web 2.0, kill your competitor attitude, they won't offer much opinion.
And that is why you would need a non-hacker...on your team...
Disclaimer: This does not apply to dimwitted, moronic non-hackers who have an idea but don't know the competitors or offer programmers suggestions, opinions, or even know how they can make it better or why something is better
The flaw in your reasoning is you present different areas and don't consider overlap. The way you explain it, you make it sound like a hacker / coder is a beast more constrained by his class than a twelfth level paladin.
A successful startup will have members who individually fill many roles with diverse skillsets. For a web startup I fully believe the most important factor is being able to take whatever vision you have and form it into reality.
If you don't understand the customer base you won't do so well. If you can't build your product you won't do anything at all.
I'm presenting the point that you shouldn't lump everyone into one category. If you notice the anti-MBA feeling on the forum that they are useless on a team.
Well, how would hackers feel to be lumped into the category of a "beast constrained by his class than a twelfth level paladin."
The point is: Don't lump people based on their degree
Are you somewhat technical savvy? Do you know every single competitor out there and now how to make your product better to slaughter them?
I've heard a lot of entrepreneurs say "I can help with marketing"...um well at the beginning there's no marketing because there's no product. So you need to think of a way to help your team out before the "marketing" phase.
Marketing doesn't start with a product. Marketing starts with figuring out what is the right product to build. You should have some idea what the market wants before you start designing the product.
One of the things that attracted me to my (non-technical) cofounder was that he has a pretty good understanding of the market space. That's valuable in the beginning, because it means less flailing around building the wrong project.
Of course, you shouldn't only be doing marketing, because that tends to take a lot of time before development, a lot of time after the product is ready, and very little time in-between. But a smart cofounder (and who would partner with a dumb one?) can find other ways to help out in the meantime. My cofounder is learning Flash and helping on the UI end, for example.
Has an article mentioning Y Combinator, TechStars, HitForge, Curious Office Partners, and Obvious. Focus is upon bringing together engineers, sharing resources, and cranking out a bunch of web companies for quick acquisitions.
The article should have really focused more on Y combinator than HitForge as the Y did come out with this concept first.
