

Unigo: "why didn't I think of that" startup - browser411
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21unigo-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

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iseff
I'm impressed. A kid has the guts to go out, follow his idea, meet some well-
connected folks, sell those folks, get some funding, execute on his idea, and
then sell the NYTimes on it.

Reminds me of a quote I read from John Mackey, founder/CEO of Whole Foods: "I
would say that entrepreneurs are only a step up from panhandlers because
you've got to go out and hustle money, and you're mostly selling dreams and
enthusiasm."

(From a really great/long interview here: [http://time-
blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/06/former_house...](http://time-
blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/06/former_housemates_john_mackey.html))

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fleaflicker
There are other ways to start a startup. You don't need all that to be
successful.

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superchink
Good idea for a startup.... buuut it might be better if their site worked.

I tried to register and:

Invalid postback or callback argument. Event validation is enabled using
<pages enableEventValidation="true"/> in configuration or <%@ Page
EnableEventValidation="true" %> in a page. For security purposes, this feature
verifies that arguments to postback or callback events originate from the
server control that originally rendered them. If the data is valid and
expected, use the ClientScriptManager.RegisterForEventValidation method in
order to register the postback or callback data for validation.
System.Web.UI.ClientScriptManager.ValidateEvent(String uniqueId, String
argument) +159 System.Web.UI.Control.ValidateEvent(String uniqueID, String
eventArgument) +108 System.Web.UI.WebControls.DropDownList.LoadPostData(String
postDataKey, NameValueCollection postCollection) +55
System.Web.UI.WebControls.DropDownList.System.Web.UI.IPostBackDataHandler.LoadPostData(String
postDataKey, NameValueCollection postCollection) +11
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessPostData(NameValueCollection postData, Boolean
fBeforeLoad) +353 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean
includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +1194

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waleedka
It's probably under huge load from the NY Times article.

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gnaritas
Nope, that's a misconfigured server, an error that only crops up when using
multiple server without having sync'd some keys in the machine.config
properly.

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Shooter
I got the same error on a few pages, but the site also (repeatedly and
reproducibly) crashed my browser when I tried searching for a college.

I thought I would love the site after reading the article, but the actual
execution kind of sucks...not just because of the programming errors, but
because of the general site design and 'flow.'

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MicahWedemeyer
NYTimes has a history of these "All is takes is guts!"-type articles.

[http://blog.aisleten.com/2008/01/18/build-a-crappy-
website-m...](http://blog.aisleten.com/2008/01/18/build-a-crappy-website-make-
a-million-dollars/)

It takes more than guts, and it's not easy. It just pisses me off to see
article after article telling the "I woke up the next day to cash my first
million dollar check!" story.

To get the real truth about running your startup, forget about all these
fairytale fantasies and read Diary of a Failed Startup. That's the true story
of what you face.

<http://diffle-history.blogspot.com/>

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ericwaller
It's definitely a new approach but not a new idea:
<http://www.collegeconfidential.com/>

This really is a great domain (problem area, not uri) for a wiki though.

~~~
andyking
This sort of thing would be great if it was cloned or expanded to cover UK
universities. There have been an increasing number of really ropey
institutions and courses popping up over recent years and many students don't
realise they're in such a university (get 'em in, take the fees, put them
through the least rigorous process possible, print them a degree in something
like "e-Music" or "Film, TV and Radio Studies") until they're quite heavily
invested.

A site where people could frankly and honestly say "this course was worth
doing for me because" or "I feel that I made the wrong decision coming to this
uni because" would be brilliant at a time when uni education here is becoming
more expensive and people are starting to have second thoughts over whether
it's worthwhile. At present, the most popular such site in Britain is a simple
vBulletin forum. There's a gap there if someone wants to run with it!

~~~
seano
I made a little site along these lines a while back but other stuff came up
and I never got around to finishing it. I've just put it up here -
<http://www.yamooki.com> \- if you want to take a look. Never got around to
adding a review feature, I'll do that and hook it up with Facebook Connect
when I get a spare couple of days. That (FB Connect) should make some
interesting things possible, like being able to add as friends those users who
have shortlisted same course as you, male/female ratios etc.

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jamiequint
"Now Goldman goes to work every day on Park Avenue, in an office with an
interior window through which he can keep tabs on his 25 employees"

An office on Park Avenue and 25 employees before the idea has even been
proven. Madness.

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vlad
I've asked a ycnews user who was one of six Stanford students who were working
together at the start of 2007 to create a startup where students from
different colleges would record video tours of their schools, to comment. I
think they had applied for Summer Session 2007 funding, but I'm not sure.

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Kaya
There's really nothing new under the sun, but success has as much to do with
timing and luck than with skill and perseverance. When I was 17 I founded
soc.college.admissions for a related purpose. For those of you who don't
remember USENET, think of it as the poor man's web. Mostly text only, and
uncontrollable, it was eventually overrun by spammers and eclipsed by the Web.
And does anyone remember sixdegrees.com in 1998? It was the first
LinkedIn/Facebook site to see major publicity. The not-yet-ready public was
horrified at the privacy implications, and it died.

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kobs
TheU.com pretty much did the same thing -- not sure what happened to them. The
site was pretty decent (more so for entertainment purposes) when I was going
through the admissions process.

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initself
unigo.com has some serious issues on Firefox:

If RadComboBox is not initially visible on your ASPX page, you may need to use
streamers (the ExternallCallBackPage property) Please, read our online
documentation on this problem for details
[http://www.telerik.com/help/radcombobox/v2%5FNET2/combo_exte...](http://www.telerik.com/help/radcombobox/v2%5FNET2/combo_externalcallbackpage.html)

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bkj123
how does it make money?

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Shooter
Advertising.

