

Show HN: Started.in Seattle – 60+ Video Profiles of startups in Seattle - smedawar
http://seattle.started.in/

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winslow
I realize that the popup survey/newsletter box is the rage on literally every
website (though I don't understand it as I find them annoying). It immediately
turned me off to your website. I was watching your embeded youtube video and
then all of the sudden your popup takes up my screen and interrupts my viewing
of your about us video. Are you seeing a big engagement of this popup
survey/newsletter? Are you keeping track of how many people immediately close
it compared to filling it out?

If you are seeing a great amount of engagement from your visitors with the
popup then please disregard me as I may be an outlier.

With that said, I think your website is a great idea and you executed well. I
love the overall idea and the community is definitely there for this.

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smedawar
Thanks for the feedback winslow!

Firstly, once someone closes the window, they don't see the pop-up for at
least another 2 months. We hope this cuts down on the annoyance factor.

We are seeing pretty good engagement and tracking the numbers. Our bounce rate
for July 3rd (the day we hit HN front page) was <0.3%. I mention this day
specifically for a couple reasons: 1\. We had significant traffic and sample
size for that day 2\. 92+% of our traffic was from new users (the only ones
who would see the pop-up)

We've only been using the box for a couple of weeks and will keep monitoring
the numbers and the comments.

Thanks for your kind words!

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BlakePetersen
From my experience, working with any vendors from the pacific northwest,
they're all MS shops. Is this trend changing considering the added expense of
working with any MS Licensed software (where an OSS solution with little or no
cost could suffice)? Does MS offer incentives to local startups to build their
platform on existing licensed MS products? Or is it more of a Seattle Pride
thing? I personally don't feel the MS Business model is one the works well for
scrappy young start-ups, yet pretty much every company in the Pac Nor Dub I've
worked is completely MS'd out.

I didn't even know there was a MS service called Lync until we did a training
with Mercent (FYI, Lync doesn't work on Linux, I was shocked too).

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cnp
Living in Seattle and having worked with numerous companies I'm going to
happily contest this: Your statement is simply not true, all the way around.

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BlakePetersen
As someone who seems to have a lot of insight into this, to the best of your
knowledge, could you speak to what factors would most heavily influence this
decision (in the context of being made by a founder in Seattle)?

Was MS never even in the running or could it possibly boil down to the cost
issue I touched on or perhaps that founders or early engineers chose a
different route due to past personal exposure (and would you feel that the
financial barrier of entry is a factor in limiting these engineers to this MS
software exposure)?

Would have a bit of incentives from MS like reduced license costs steered
those early conversations in a different direction or is it simply that the
software they offer isn't up to snuff with your particular use cases?

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cnp
Not to sound snarky, but it comes down to the simple fact that Seattle is a
major American city, with many many many people, and is riding upon an
internet wave that excludes no one. Your argument _may_ apply historically,
but now --definitely not. Everyone is simply doing their own thing, incentives
or not.

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bcbrown
I'd love to see a page that just had the "What is $STARTUP_NAME" responses for
all the startups. Some way to easily browse and discover. A grid of logos and
names really doesn't allow me to anything other than jump around randomly.

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zhte415
The logos and names bit was pretty confusing for me too.

A good logo and name should, in some way, hint at what the product or service
is. Not necessarily all that directly, but some correspondence should be
there.

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canadaj
Thanks! I'm moving to Western Washington later this year and I've been trying
to find info on startups!

Thanks again!

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smedawar
Any time! Many, if not most, of the startups we profile are hiring. Check them
out!

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canadaj
Already am!

What would be really cool is a map that shows the location of these startups,
so that I can easily find ones that are close to where I will be moving!

This is really awesome, thanks again!

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zacharycohn
Google for "Seattle startup map"

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smedawar
Totally!

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akg_67
You are missing quite a few local startups such as Qumulo. How are you
collecting your list of startups? You may want to consider extracting startups
from Greekwire and FormD to build your list.

~~~
smedawar
We profile startups that apply to be profiled. We reach out to others, but the
majority are from our queue of applications. If you know anyone at Qumulo,
we'd love for them to apply at seattle.started.in/apply/.

Also, our site is not meant to be a repository, but more of an in depth look
at each startup. We only profile 1 startup each week, so you are seeing the
work of only 13 months.

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kkamperschroer
This is so fantastic. I'll definitely use this resource when looking around at
startups in the area. Thanks for your work!

~~~
smedawar
Thanks for the kind words! Our goal is to profile every startup in the area
(and world).

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smedawar
Thank you all for the amazing support! I'd love any feedback you have, both
positive and constructively negative. :)

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knykadar
Fantastic idea and great insights from leaders of the tech world!

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ladybro
No Capitol Hill startups? ._.

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smedawar
We're always looking for more. :)

seattle.started.in/apply/

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sebular
Also isn't CyanogenMod in Pioneer Square? Or is it too big to count as a
startup?

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smedawar
Nope! We'd love to see them apply!

seattle.started.in/apply/

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cmedawar
Keep up the great work, guys!

~~~
smedawar
Thanks!

