

Focus your team collaboration with StreamFocus on-demand Project Management  - gibsonf1
http://streamfocus.wordpress.com/

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willarson
Sounds like an interesting idea, the work flows sound particularly
interesting. I don't know if I would spend any time focusing on what is wrong
with big management systems (you are telling them something they already know,
assuming there is a demand for your product), and would instead focus on your
functionality (which you do a good job of covering).

I would irrevocably obliterate your opening sentence, it is MBA speak, which
is to say that it is meaningless to the majority of readers. I'd say something
simpler like: "StreamFocus.com is a simple system for establishing order from
product development chaos." But thats just me. :)

I'd consider scaling back on the promised features a bit (especially the
Quicken integration) unless you are actually completing them. Its better to
deliver a great small app and add functionality over time, than to deliver a
mediocre massive app and fix functionality over time.

The gist of the issue is that the idea sounds good, but a lot of it is vague
enough that it could be fantastic, or drudge. Its hard to know without seeing
a working copy.

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gibsonf1
Thanks for the feedback :) We've been hacking on the application since early
this year, so the features here are actually just about ready to launch (Lisp
has made things go at a good pace for us). (The QB integration is already
there - I use it for billing and payroll myself)

The workflows and auto-prioritizing are the big deals of our app that no one
else yet has. It has dramatically improved productivity in my Architecture
Firm (We are up to about 40% increase in efficiency with staff able to do
higher level work with the aid of the work flow templates).

We are thinking of opening up a YC private beta in about 2 weeks to get
feedback about the real thing.

On the first sentence - an interesting point. We'll think about that (that is
effectively our 1-liner, so its a pretty important sentence)

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gibsonf1
PG: For some reason, even with upvotes, the article is not making it to the
front page. It seems to be some kind of error? Also, my partner mike_organon
upvoted it and the upvote didn't work - quite strange. I tried deleting the
original and reposting, but the same problem)

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pg
It's not a bug. The sw detected that it was your partner, basically. I don't
want to disclose the exact algorithm (it changes anyway), but in order to
protect against spam and voting rings, some votes don't affect scores, and
others affect scores but not rankings.

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gibsonf1
Oh, ok - wow. But how about the front page issue? Ah, maybe it's because 1
upvote was my wife who just joined (daniela) and the other was a friend who
just joined but plays a role in the startup, (Frode Odegard.)?

~~~
pg
Getting onto the frontpage is a variant of the code that determines ranking.
Not all votes count for it.

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gibsonf1
Is it also a factor that streamfocus is related to my id, and I posted it
rather than someone else - or would you have to shoot me if you answer this
one? (Thanks for the clarification, btw)

I was thinking about the partner identification algorithm you have, thinking
it must be pretty clever, and then I realized: the system probably just does a
check into the contact database showing that my partner and I both signed up
under 1 company for Startup school. It was a bit baffling how you could pull
it off without that as my partner very rarely posts here so there is not much
data to build from. Oh, I see: we both have streamfocus.com in our
descriptions.

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rms
My YC application partner's votes also doesn't count for my submitted stories.

pg: Let's say I run Tor and sign up for 25 new accounts over the course of a
couple days. I vote for random stories with each account over the course of a
week or two. I make two or three comments with each account agreeing with the
previous post. I submit the story I want to game onto the front page and then
vote up with all of my dummy accounts.

Will these votes count?

Is there a way of preventing a determined individual with an army of pseudo-
accounts from gaming social news sites?

~~~
pg
The way I advise founders to deal with abuse is to rule out the obvious stuff
from the start (e.g. don't give out the root password), and deal with the
subtle stuff as you become more popular. Reddit did that, and it seems to have
worked fine. Reddit is now big enough that a lot of people try to game their
way onto the frontpage, but Steve & Co still seem to have the upper hand.

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gibsonf1
Any YC comments on the idea here would be greatly appreciated :)

