

Ask HN: Founders taking the leap? - riskish

I've been to events here and there, and I have found that the ycombinator community represents the web start up mind set very well better than most places. I wanted to start this thread as a way to exchange instant messaging addresses (IM) with founders that are just now taking the leap to start a web start up with their own experience. This can be a good way to stay motivated and help one another.
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DTrejo
hang out with us on #startups on freenode :)

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harnhua
Went full-time last August to work on an FPGA test/design tool
<http://www.plunify.com>

Probably sounds very focused ;) but there are so many things that can be done
in this space.

Feel free to message me at harnhua (at) gmail (dot) com

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bdickason
Call me stupid but what'an FPGA application? You reference it tons of times on
your site. Is it one of those things where if we don't know what it is, the
software probably isn't for us?

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jallmann
Will be working on my startup fulltime come August. It is a twilio for video
calls, basically. If anyone is interested in the telephony or the video space,
I'd love to talk. Gtalk is joshua.allmann

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markbao
Hi! I'm building a bunch of businesses, like <http://genevine.com> ,
<http://branchr.com> and <http://supportbreeze.com>. Get in touch -
mark@markbao.com email+msn, marktbao on AIM, @markbao.

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corruption
Mark, a little advice. Focus is underrated and oh-so-powerful. Pick one. I'd
choose branchr.

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astrofinch
I disagree. My intuition is that if Mark was to focus on only one of his
startups, it would only become about twice as successful. I think it makes
sense to work on them all simultaneously if they all seem equally promising.

Mentions of the "80/20 principle" make me wince, because both 80 and 20 are
stated with 2 significant figures too many. But the idea behind it--"there's a
lot of variation in the effectiveness of activities you classify as 'work'"--
is correct. If Mark does just the most promising tasks for each startup, he'll
be doing pretty damn good.

Your comment is a good example of a HN user suggesting a simple heuristic for
answering an important question, which I find annoying. Another example would
be Paul Graham's advice to make a product that scratches your own itch. Your
domain expertise should definitely be a factor when choosing between two
startup ideas, but I could probably think of three other factors that are at
least as important.

I guess I could live with the simple heuristics if they were accompanied by
detailed justifications explaining why they're better than most conceivable
complex heuristics, but they never seem to be. Simple heuristics are sometimes
correct, but there are so many people spouting simple heuristics just because
they like simplicity that simple heuristics have a large burden of proof to
overcome, in my mind at least.

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corruption
Parsimony.

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astrofinch
Why is parsimony good?

\- Simpler principles make better mantras.

\- Occam's razor--all else equal, you should assume the world is simple.

I can't think of anything else.

Both of those considerations seem weak compared to other factors.

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bdickason
I'm building Salon Software at <http://getmochi.com>

My AIM: its495time My MSN: dickason@purdue.edu My Twitter: @flashmen

Would love to talk to ANYONE especially people building subscription-based
software for industries that are 'sleepy' or slow to adopt tech.

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kranner
Hey, I'm working on <http://codeboff.in>. It's just a landing page for now but
there's a blog at <http://blog.codeboff.in>.

My IM is karanvasudeva@gmail.com.

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eduardo_f
I quit my job 3 weeks ago to work on a Gmail migration app. It's in beta:

<https://apps.improffice.com/migrationbeta/>

Get in touch @123Edu, eduardo at improffice dot com

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lachyg
I'm working on a project, bringing front end code to unsavvy designers, I've
got the guy who designed SimpleGeo's site doing design work, but I'm looking
for a technical co-founder

AIM: lachygroomgle (don't ask!) gTalk: lachygroom@gmail.com

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guiseppecalzone
I'm building HelloFax.com.

You can ping me at joseph (at) hellofax.com.

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acangiano
Looks great. One suggestion: create a desktop client for less tech-savvy
people. All they have to do then is right-click that word document, and select
"HelloFax it!" (or "Send it as a fax").

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guiseppecalzone
Thanks for the feedback! That's an awesome thought. Makes me think of oneway:
<http://goto11.net/oneway/>. If you need to fax and run out of pages, ping me
and I'll refill your account.

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acangiano
<http://ThinkCode.TV> is the first project of my startup and it's not a web
application, but feel free to get in touch. My IM is acangiano@gmail.com.

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Tawheed
I'm quitting my day job to work full time on <http://braintrusthq.com> and
<http://toutapp.com>.

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zakkap
originality goes a long way... try not to rip off 37signals'
<http://basecamphq.com/> website so closely.

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Todd
I understand your point, but they don't own the hq suffix. I see many sites
these days with the join or get prefix. The fact is, as any of you know who've
spent the hours at your favorite domain query tool, it's getting near
impossible to find anything. I see more sites using dashes or resorting to
.net, .org, or .me (myself included). It's just the current state of things.

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mindcrime
Does it _have_ to be a web startup? :-) How about an enterprise software
startup? Anyway, my IM address is motley.crue.fan@gmail.com (XMPP/GTalk).

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ryanhuff
...or mobile start-up. Really, just about any software driven start-up would
be a fit.

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bdr
Cut off everything else and became full-time in May. Building a chat site.
Contact @andrewbadr on Twitter or gmail in my profile.

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voidfiles
I am building <http://wacchen.com>

My IM is: voidfiles@gmail.com

