

Startup Ranking - nepstein
http://www.startupranking.com/

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steego
I'd much rather talk about startup pranking.

I worked at a startup that had a shared bathroom with a keypad on it. Somebody
had the brilliant idea to tell the new guy the bathroom code was a 16 digit
number. It worked because the only respected the last 4 digits to match the
passcode. Everybody memorized the 16 digit code and made sure they entered it
in when going to the bathroom when the new guy was around. The prank went on
long enough that people wanted to see how long they could keep it going.

It was eventually spoiled when someone from the neighboring company witnessed
the new guy entering the 16 digit code and pointed out the code was only 4
digits. As this was happening, it was witnessed by one of the architects and
his cry of "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" could be heard throughout the floor.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
Let's see:

Relatively harmless? Check.

Relatively undemeaning? Check.

Non-trivial amount of effort? Check.

Decent prank? Check.

~~~
limeyx
seems a bit mean to me honestly ... i mean I guess most people would raise an
eyebrow at a 16-digit code but still ...

Not that nice of a way to say "Welcome to the team"

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
You'll notice I said "relatively" twice there. I still think it's iffy... but
as pranks go it's decent.

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hoopism
Was very disappointed when I realized that I had misread the URL...

This is not in fact a Startup Pranking website as I had thought.

~~~
runj__
Same thing here, "Oh man, I can't wait to send them a million new fake
visitors!"

-Fake techcruch article generator

-Automated fake VC calls

~~~
simonmales
Ala Expertsexchange.com

~~~
rbanffy
It's a radical and irreversible procedure. You should go to an expert.

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chirau
I have no qualms with the address, it says exactly what the site does. Perhaps
people should read thoroughly.

What I have qualms with though, is that you got my country flag wrong. You put
a Zambian flag on Zimbabwe.

~~~
afandian
I think it's due to the fact that the human brain does not work linearly, like
a lexer. It recognises patterns of letters. And once you've seen the word
'pranker', it's hard to un-see. I think it's a particular problem with web
addresses because you know there will be several words joined together without
spaces, so you're already starting by trying to identify clumps rather than
reading words. Plus web addresses often contain made-up words.

~~~
chirau
Or it could just be that these days people just scheme through text. Just
reading from left to right, you'd auto complete 'startup' and honestly without
another 'p' ranker auto completes itself too. Which is why I am inclined to
think that people are just scheming through words now.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The brain does not read linearly from left to right, letter by letter. Unless
you're 3 years old, you see a word and parse - or rather, pattern-match - it
as a whole. And the matches depend heavily on whatever is in your head (that's
how context and anchoring work).

I too, initially, read it as "startup pranking", even though there's only one
"p" in the domain name.

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amelius
Can mailchimp be considered a startup still?

Also, why can't we just look at the Alexa stats for this?

~~~
ishansharma
Not sure about MailChimp but Alexa is not very accurate when it comes to
traffic data.

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nitishmd
Wow India comes right after US under countries, it would be interesting to see
what the startup growth has been in the past two years

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mtbcoder
Based on the data points used, doesn't this just simply favor startups that
are more adept at SEO/SEM and social media?

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holifuk
Startup RANK = boring. Startup PRANK = fun. Needless to say I was
disappointed.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
startu Prank - silly startup name for startup helping you to organize your
pranking activities.

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holifuk
Wanted to see some clever startup pranks. Disappointed.

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pelf
[http://www.startupranking.com/startupranking](http://www.startupranking.com/startupranking)

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robotnoises
It's cool that you can put an aircraft into space and still be categorized as
a startup.

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afandian
[http://listverse.com/2007/08/01/top-10-silly-website-
names/](http://listverse.com/2007/08/01/top-10-silly-website-names/)

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snake_plissken
Heh it really says something about the current macro tech environment when
that URL is misread and then everyone is actually disappointed when the site
loads and it's not about startup idea pranks.

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mavromatis
Seeing these comments I think website address does matter in some cases.

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mpdehaan2
Is this intended to be searchable? It appears it only shows the top few.

Seeing the whole list and offering filtering options might make it a better
tool for comparing social uptake and similar things.

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dlsym
I first thought this was some site about pranking startups...

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charlieegan3
[http://www.startupranking.com/nginx](http://www.startupranking.com/nginx) is
a startup?

~~~
dangrossman
Nginx Inc. is a 4-year-old Bay Area tech company that's raised $33 million in
3 funding rounds. Sounds like a typical SV startup to me.

~~~
charlieegan3
Learn something new every day :)

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dalek2point3
very basic question. where does the list of startups come from and how do you
know what country a startup belongs to? making a list like this is harder than
you think, so im curious to hear how these guys address it.

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kozak
The URL seems like it has something to do with pranking :)

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paulhodge
ThinkGeek is ranked higher than AirBnb. Sounds legit!

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joosters
...Because Klout was such a wildly-popular success?

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cypher_glyph
Start upranking what? Is this for a game?

