

Entrepreneur Hotels, Y Combinator, and Dead VCs - nlwhittemore
http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/entrepreneur_hotels_y-combinator_and_dead_vcs

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gruseom
This would be a problem for me:

 _In return, they give up [...] a small chunk of their developer time (25%? 10
hpw?) to pro-bono or reduced cost projects_

... not because of the pro bono aspect, but because of the distraction. The
arithmetic here isn't linear- X% of my time spent on something else would cost
far more than X% of the total, because of side-effects like context switching.
Every time I do something like this, it's like letting pressure out of a
balloon. It takes time to re-pressurize the balloon. And you can't do as much
with your balloon when its pressure is low. However, I concede that I suck at
multitasking, as well as metaphors when caffeine-deprived.

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nlwhittemore
I think this is a really great point, and probably the thing that I am least
sure about. Maybe there's an opportunity that's less about actually
development time and more consulting for web strategy? Another thing that
nonprofits desperately need...

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tptacek
Consider: "ramen profitability" is only OK as long as you're OK with living on
ramen.

~~~
pg
The essential thing to understand about ramen profitability is that it's a way
to hack _fund-raising._ It's not the goal of the company. It need not even
come from the source the company's ultimate profits. All it means is getting
enough revenue fairly early that you're not at the mercy of investors.

~~~
tptacek
Sure. A great thing. You read the articles here, right? They propose ramen
profitability, along with a dorm-style living space, as a lifestyle choice.

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Eliezer
Although I'm still highly motivated and _that_ doesn't feel like it's changed,
at some point in my life I just sort of... ran out of the ability to grind
through with a low standard of living. Not at exactly 27, more like 25, but
close enough. I have friends who are the same age and can still do this, which
is embarrassing and makes me feel like a horrible selfish person.

I might be able to do it in a genuine emergency, it's just that living a low
lifestyle feels like a much larger imposition and a much huger mental drain
than it did at say age 22.

I wonder if it's hardwired brain change, or was it something more cognitive -
something I thought?

YCers beware, your ability to run on ramen may be an age-limited resource, use
it while you're young.

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tptacek
You feel that way because you're worth more than a couple cups of ramen.
Nobody wants to be a sucker.

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pg
In my experience they're not related. Robert Morris and I both retained the
ability to live like grad students till well into our thirties.

I think women may be a factor. Also exposure to living well. But above all,
perhaps, fatigue.

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Eliezer
Why yes, I did run out of ability to run on ramen around the same time I got
my first girlfriend - but the causation of the correlation was reversed, that
is, I ran out of ability to live without a girlfriend, which up until that
point I'd been doing effortlessly.

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sspencer
"Oops! A server error has occured."

Bandwidth killed by YC? Anyone have a copy or cache?

~~~
rokhayakebe
[http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:2iGISdLVdK0J:socialentre...](http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:2iGISdLVdK0J:socialentrepreneurship.change.org/+entrepreneur+hotels+y-combinator+and+dead+vcs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

~~~
sspencer
Thanks!

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danw
I worked at a branch of "The Hub" for a short while and it wasn't very good.
The idea was great but it lacked any sense of community. I guess you need to
build the community first then put it in a building.

~~~
nlwhittemore
That's interesting feedback - I've heard good things but only talked to people
in a few specific hubs.

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danw
It's likely to vary branch to branch. I would recommend Pervasive Media Studio
Bristol as an alternative in this case. I've yet to check out either London
branch.

As an aside does anyone know of good London co-working spaces?

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noodle
yeah, we (or at least, i) discussed this idea in the last thread on this
topic.

if i had more money, i'd be working out a way to make it happen, already.

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nlwhittemore
noodle, thats awesome. I know people are talking about opening up a Hub
affiliate in SF and NYC, so maybe there's an opportunity

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noodle
only awesome once the ball starts rolling, until then, just idle thoughts :X

i originally wanted to start up some coworking space, but evolved it to
include the concepts mentioned in the article.

edit: also, fwiw, i'm relocating to the atlanta area, which is a place that
has potential but is not being correctly tapped (you might recall this article
[http://blog.jeffhaynie.us/whats-wrong-with-the-atlanta-
start...](http://blog.jeffhaynie.us/whats-wrong-with-the-atlanta-startup-
ecosystem-and-how-to-fix-it.html)), which is one of the reasons the thoughts
turned towards how to make more than just coworking space happen.

~~~
nlwhittemore
I'm particularly interested in thoughts you have about how you lay
Y-Combinator type investment on top of it. What's the right strategy? Having
those folks give some development time to nonprofits is just one idea. Another
idea would be to actually have promising college-age developers have a year
long fellowship where 50% of their time was pro-bono and 50% of their time was
working on their own projects.

~~~
noodle
i will admit to two things -- one is that because of my lack of ability to
execute currently, i've not thoroughly thought through things as well as i
would like to have done before airing my ideas in public :). and two, you've
taken it in a different direction, which i like, but don't have many thoughts
on.

the concept i was thinking about was not to give any actual cash to any
company, but exchange the services of the space for equity. basically,
whatever they would need to survive for X months, including (possibly) food
and a place to sleep. would allow the company to focus on bootstrapping
themselves when they don't have to focus on paying for groceries, and by
bootstrapping themselves, they would hopefully become profitable faster
without having to worry about obtaining more funding or dying from excessive
debt.

i'd not thought about the idea of diverting some time to worthy causes, but i
do like it and would probably implement it, as it works well with the model on
several levels.

edit: added a few things

