

Ask YC: Review my Startup (HN with a business/fundraising focus) - adammichaelc
http://mystartupnews.com/

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adammichaelc
Alright, so if I understand you guys right, (1) the logo sucks, (2) it's not
really a "startup" because it's not very innovative and it's running on open
source that took me about an hour to launch, (3) the logo sucks, (4) the logo
really could use some work, (5) it's just a website, and it's crappy, & (6)
there's no reason for it to exist.

No worries, I agree with all of your comments. You're right, I should have put
"Review my website." I think I might have been tempted to say some of the same
things that were written, though I hope I would have been a bit more polite. I
think I've been so antsy to make _something_ public that I threw this together
and it's been a great learning experience. I just learned SQL about 2 months
ago & I just started with Java about 6 months ago. PHP is slowly coming into
focus as well. Although I'm not writing out SQL queries by hand or anything as
I work with this site, it has been cool to see how a database-driven site
functions. For most of you, this stuff isn't exciting because you've
progressed to a much higher level. But for me, it's awesome! And my wife
thinks I'm crazy because it's all I ever talk about. :-)

I don't know. I'm fairly new to open-source software, so when I found out that
I could launch this thing in an hour, I got excited -- didn't really have any
great ideas, so I just went with something I'm really interested in
(startups/venture capital/angel investing, etc.)

I know it will never become the next Google or anything, because (a) at the
moment there's no business model -- although Google had no biz model for a
couple years -- but they also had an incredibly simple way for solving a
really really big problem, and I don't -- not with this site anyway, and (b)
it sucks.

But for me it's a way for me to keep track of my favorite articles from the
startup community, find articles that come from similarly entrepreneurial
people but with a different focus, & organize them so that others can have
access also.

P.S. My friends and I are working on a _real_ startup also. When we have a
functional prototype I'll post it here and let you guys give a crack at it.

P.P.S. I appreciate the honesty. I look forward to that for next time.

~~~
davidjeffries
I may have been a little mean in my other comment - but you're on the right
track to having a _real_ startup. I've had probably 5 serious projects that
eventually got abandoned because a) no business model, b) no users, and c)
stupid idea. But the knowledge I gained by creating these projects? Priceless.

It's better to fail & learn on crappy projects so when you find a great idea
you can just knock it out of the park.

~~~
adammichaelc
__I may have been a little mean in my other comment - but you're on the right
track to having a real startup. I've had probably 5 serious projects that
eventually got abandoned because a) no business model, b) no users, and c)
stupid idea. But the knowledge I gained by creating these projects?
Priceless.__

No worries Dave. I don't take stuff like that personally. I have appreciated
the experience of getting all the feedback. Creating this crappy project makes
me super-excited for the next one, and I agree about the learning. I've
learned a great deal from this.

 __It's better to fail & learn on crappy projects so when you find a great
idea you can just knock it out of the park.__

Totally agree.

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wheels
Sorry, but the logo is burning my eyes out. Also, can we please go back to
calling them websites?

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rlm
Since you're calling it a startup, I might as well ask: What's your business
plan? Because it looks a lot like a webapp and not a startup ;)

The logo really could use some love from a designer. It doesn't fit into the
rest of the page at all.

The FAQ needs some linebreaks.

The site doesn't fail gracefully, so
<http://mystartupnews.com/live_unpublished.php> doesn't work without
JavaScript. I just got an empty section with NoScript :)

~~~
adammichaelc
You're right, not a startup. See my other comments.

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tptacek
Isn't HN an HN with a business/fundraising focus?

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davidjeffries
Why do so many people insist on labeling their crappy websites as a "startup"

Your website is just another clone of 1000 others out there. I could clone
your clone in about 4 hours.

~~~
ralph
That could have been put a little more politely. ;-)

~~~
SingAlong
Posting a site/startup for review means that the user is ready to take the
sweet cake "cool stuff!" reviews and even the bad "you built shit" kinda
statements right in the face.

P.S: That was just IMO. I don't know what others think of review threads.

~~~
adammichaelc
100% agree.

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Fuca
I had the same idea, still just learning PHP

Good Luck, freemium is hard.

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gsmaverick
Neat idea but I don't think there's a reason it needs to exist.

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MaysonL
Way too much whitespace, way too few articles/vertical inch.

