

Ask HN: Sponsor my travel for Startup School - abraham

I have been accepted to Startup School (yaaaay!) but I don't have any money for travel (boooo!). So I am looking for someone to sponsor my travel expenses from SEA to SFO. According to http://www.hipmunk.com/startupschool the total cost of the flight will be between $220 and $320.<p>I have thought of several possible exchanges for the sponsorship but I am open to negotiations.<p>* Karma and a hug because you are awesome and have everything you need.<p>* A workday of consulting/contracting from me.<p>* Time spent coding or contributing to an open source project of your choice.<p>* An interview for a job at your company.<p>* A night of hacking on your project.<p>* A four month subscription to @therealcaro's baked good of the month club.<p>* Other stuff?...<p>Please feel free to contact me at 4braham@gmail.com or @abraham. I'm actively looking for a job/startup to co-found, preferably working with a developer community and an API.
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limedaring
Just today I bemoaned the cost of a design conference and random people banded
together to help offset the cost for me... so it seems like this is a good
time to pay it forward. You should have additional funds in your Paypal
account, and see you at Startup School. :)

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dacort
Your comment influenced me to chip in a little to help Abraham get there. He's
a great hacker and has already made an impact on the Seattle scene.

It took me a while to realize I wanted to build/run a startup - anything I can
do, however little, to help somebody else get there faster is a great thing in
my eyes.

~~~
limedaring
Kind of funny there are responses to the downers, but no thanks to any of the
people who responded and helped out. I didn't feel like asking for money was a
big deal like the others, but it's also nice to see appreciation (I'm a poor
startup founder too :P). Ah well, c'est la vie.

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yemkay
Sent you $75, Abraham. I'm a big fan of your Twitteroauth library :)

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bootload
_"... The Hacker News community/West Coast is being unnecessarily harsh to
@abraham here:<http://bit.ly/bT6yj4> Midwest folks: Let's sponsor him! ..."_ ~
<http://twitter.com/mathiasx/status/26501001577>

When did HN become the mean spirited place it's become?

~~~
abraham
My guess is the natural evolution of all internet communities as their user
bases grow.

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raster
Money sent... Thanks again for helping get Web608 off the ground, and taking
part in Madison & Milwaukee's tech communities.

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therealcaro
Wow, people are kinda douche-bag-y. They're like, haha, you're really poor
right now, that's hilarious and ALL YOUR FAULT. Funny, how people think they
know everything about you after reading a single short post...

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gtracy
Do you have a PayPal (or similar) account setup for collecting funds?

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abraham
4braham@gmail.com is a working PayPal account.

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gtracy
I'm good for $20.

Consider it payment for your work growing the tech community in Madison, WI as
well as a down payment for your future evangelism on the behalf of Madison.

Oh, and I wouldn't mind some baked goods!

~~~
therealcaro
Since you're nearby, you get a few options of baked goods: fresh baked bread;
key lime pie with or without meringue; fabulous old-fashioned gingersnaps;
oatmeal raisin and/or chocolate-chip cookies; or chocolate cake with cream
cheese or coconut/walnut frosting. Pick one, and we'll coordinate drop-off
when it's ready :)

~~~
gtracy
I would have pegged a Mainer to make a mean Fluffernutter Pie. :) I'd love the
key lime pie (without meringue). Thanks!

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abraham
We hippies aren't so into the fluff.

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therealcaro
(Although I do have a jar in my cupboard at the moment... Don't tell Mom...
:p)

Oddly enough, I didn't know about fluffernutter pie until just a little while
ago, reading a cooking blog that's written by a New Englander. Funny what you
learn about your heritage when you're no longer in it! In any case, I'll
gladly make one for you, if you'd prefer that over the key lime--it'd be a fun
challenge :)

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nostromo
Sorry to be a downer, but you just took the spot of someone who cared enough
to think ahead the tiniest amount, and now you can't go? Seems like not a very
nice thing to do...

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abraham
When I applied I fully expected to be able to go but sometimes things don't go
as planned.

If it becomes certain that I won't be able to make it then I will RSVP no and
Startup School can invite someone else.

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nostromo
That makes sense. Maybe I misread your post as glib when that wasn't your
intention.

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jonhendry
Take a bus. Or Amtrak. It's not like you're coming from Florida. Or Estonia.
Or Australia.

~~~
abraham
Greyhound says $230 for a round trip ticket with 48 hours of travel time. Four
hours of flight time is hard enough for someone that is 6 foot 5 let alone 48.

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jonhendry
Bummer. And there don't seem to be any services like BoltBus or MegaBus who
are dirt cheap, offer wifi, and I'd think probably are more comfortable. (One
of them was offering $2 fares between Boston and Philadelphia a while back.
Right now it's $29. Not quite as far as SEA-SFO, though.)

My bad. As you were.

~~~
abraham
I definitely miss MegaBus from when I was in the Midwest.

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HeyLaughingBoy
Can't you just like, um, get a job?

Seriously, work at McDonald's for a week, mow a few lawns, wash a few windows,
pick up dog poop off someone's front walk, rake leaves, etc. It's not hard to
make $300 in the US once you decide to get your ass off the couch.

~~~
abraham
McDonalds is not going to interview hire and pay me in less then two weeks. No
company will. I am looking into odd jobs though.

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HeyLaughingBoy
I know; I just threw that out there.

Here's the problem I have with what you're doing. You're going to a _Startup_
conference and asking that someone "sponsor" you. See the mismatch? You're off
to learn about starting businesses, but really aren't showing any ambition or
entrepreneurial thinking on your own. Someone sponsoring you has no reason to
think that it would be a good "investment."

$300 isn't much to make in two weeks. Seriously. Around here you can charge
$30/hour easily to scrub toilets/clean houses. I'm sure the rate would be
higher in Seattle: just target rich neighborhoods and be polite. I just spent
an hour on my riding mower and I'd have paid someone $20 to do the same thing
using my equipment and my own gas.

~~~
abraham
How is what I'm doing any different then what you are suggesting? Instead of
targeting a rich neighborhood I choose the HN community and Instead of lawn
mowing I choose web development my current practiced profession.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It could just be the way you phrased it, but your initial post came across as
"here's this cool thing I want to do, can anyone send me some cash? Oh, BTW,
maybe I can do something in return."

I don't know if that's the way you intended it, but it's certainly how I
interpreted it.

