In the React Native case specifically, I've found that searching github issues is often super helpful. The project is very popular, changing really really fast, and still has a bunch of rough edges. So if something really seems wonky (and isn't a bizarre use case), it's pretty common that someone has already brought it up there.
Reading the code is pretty much always a good idea, too.
> It won't be 100% but I bet the bots aren't 100% either
Bots having tons of false positives doesn't really matter (except to the bot maker, maybe). But GitHub having tons of false positives means customers get annoyed by false alerts, locked data, whatever.
I don't think people will be upset to get an "WARNING: You might have committed a secret" if it's a negative.
You might be right if it really is a ton, but then you work on your algorithm. I think the problem is so big that there really do need to be warnings for these kind of issues.
Removing such suspicious actions from public /events API and other APIs would probably have minimal effect but have the bots that feed from those not see it. Just one of the possibilities :)
This is no longer accurate. Some remain "contractors" still officially due to regulatory issues, but we now have employees in multiple locations outside North America. And that list of locations is growing.
Figured this was the case but assumed it didn't changed the gist of the answer too much. tl;dr actually employing people in other countries is difficult
> I can't name a single ad that I have seen over the past week
Ads aren't trying to get you to remember the ads, they're trying to get you to recognize, like, buy, etc the product. That can happen without remembering or actively paying attention to the ad.
I won't go on a hunt for a list of research confirming it, but there are about hundreds if not thousands of examples explaining that marketing does work, whether its audience thinks it does or not.
tl;dr Even if you believe you'll never click an ad, you're probably still hurting the advertiser and therefore the publisher.
Which is the justification for pay-per-impression ads. Grandparent says that they are sorry if they are pay-per-impression; what difference does blocking or not make though if they're pay-per-click, and they never click?
You hit the nail on the head. If it is per impression, then yes, there is some information they would like me to have and there is some profit that this site is receiving from those impressions. It is fair game then to have me see those ads if that is what the model is as long as this model isn't abused.
If the pay-per-click is supposed to piggy back on free impressions then I have zero conscience of denying them free advertising.
We certainly didn't kick SV Angel out. They're among our favorite investors in fact. It just didn't make sense with their fund size to keep doing these investments. Unlike the other investors, they are what's now called a "super angel" fund, and those are much smaller.
I'm certain there are some companies that need more runway than others. Is it possible for, say, hardware companies to renegotiate for, e.g. 30k per VC rather than the current 20k?
I'd recommend staying at ~$80k. One of the mistakes I made last year was over-building inventory (possibly because I had access to $150k from Start fund).
From our perspective (hardware company), the 150k did provide some runway, but more than that, it provided funds for R&D. We could finally make future versions of the product without always finding a customer for it first.
We could order components just to try them out, without worrying that we were spending money on what may potentially turn out to be an unusable or unnecessary part. We could answer a lot of questions about what was possible using test setups rather than assumptions based on scraps of information collected from various sources.
80k probably would not have provided both R&D funds and some runway.
EDIT: I mean 'runway' in the sense of money for salaries, excluding R&D and other costs which could possibly be seen as ongoing costs of operation too.
This doesn't preclude a company from seeking funding elsewhere and I can imagine very, very few companies at this stage that could legitimately burn through $80k in 3 months. If that doesn't get you close enough to at least prove something that could be used as a basis for raising more, it's probably time to take a step back and figure out if that's really the best strategy for moving forward.
Yes. But this takes time away from building things when you only have 3 months before demo day, and I'm sure there's always stigma attached to pursuing "outside-money" when everyone else is fine taking the 80k from the 4 investors YC trusts.
I agree. I meant that you could raise after demo day. As I said, it's pretty unlikely that you must have more than the 100k you'll get during that time, even for hardware. Plus constraint in this case is a good thing, virtually anything can be built given enough money, but in order for a company to exist you need to be able to build it at some reasonable cost. If your prototype is going to burn through all of that cash, it's time to get creative and find a way to do it for less.
The 150K was crucial for us as a hardware company. But it's hard to find the optimal balance between development speed and burn rate for hardware. Being able to more freely purchase things (components, raw materials, equipment, prototyping services, express shipping) helped us move much more quickly than before. With 80K, we would have adjusted our judgement calls and consequently moved a little more slowly.
"Notably missing from the investor group: Ron Conway’s SV Angel. Y Combinator founder Paul Graham said in an interview that this new format didn’t make sense for Conway and David Lee’s fund size."
Reading the code is pretty much always a good idea, too.