Very cool that these guys are from Canada and friends with someone I know. Reminds me of PGs ambitious startup ideas, the more ambitious and far fetched the less competition as people write off what is possible before they even begin.
Thanks for your guidetoyc site was really useful in getting down to the stuff that matters :)
Either way things are going to move forward! Difference between Entrepreneur (finding solutions to problems) and Wantrepeneurs (wanting answers handed to them).
Yup! Was a great process trying to cut the thing down (easy when your excited to blabber on). Also died laughing making the video. See what happens next, "IF YOUR GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO..."
I commented earlier about 4HWW from Tim Ferris, but one post from the his blog has continued to resonate and help me through the ups and downs, especially when you feel like you have hit the wall.
It is actually about a letter written by Seneca a famous Stoic philosopher. Take 30mins to read, will be worth it. Stoic philosophy in general has really helped me build a framework/value system.
Excerpt:
"It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested."
I am 26/running my own distribution company + working full time sales/bus dev for enterprise tech company/side FB game project - applying for YC/Working PT as Crossfit instructor and training (exercise is a great break)/Living in Norway on my own (away from family/friends but still stay in touch online as I can).
Hi, I don't think I would, it's nice to have the URL lookup, but a tab in chrome with whois opened up is free while using trello or a google doc. Plus the market segment that would find this tool useful is quite small of start-ups. However, I would argue this would be great tool worth paying for enterprise wise, ad/design agencies have a nightmare trying to find a URL for projects, or new rebranding projects.
Check out Leo Babauta: http://zenhabits.net/ Lots of great posts about creating habits everyone is suggesting, like sleep, rest, meditation, to find balance and letting go of stress.
Thanks for the positive encouragement :) We are working more of a tool for one of our founders to find a gf (will admit it is me lol). With working and graduated from school, meeting someone in the clubs the track record is not gf material. So just wondering if other HN readers have similar trends when it comes to online dating.
However, to your points, you are right with the whole chicken and egg problem of facebook/dating concepts, along with that successful matching destroys your client base, yet with that all in mind we are tackling it from a different perspective.
Also, the insight about people have "types" vs. an algorithm is coming through so far in the survey results. People want shared interests or places they go. Just how to do it seamlessly in the background will be the challenge.
That's great to know, I guess it is a matter of get over there and deal with the visas afterwards once you get more traction on what direction you are going.
Do you know of any cases where people were accepted into say YC summer, but were able to postpone until winter?
In regards to email, google wave took a stab at attempting to change the dynamic of communications but that project has now been shelved.
The difficulty in a new "email" replacement is overcoming the hurdles of engrained habits - see http://zenhabits.net/ for more on that psychology or even www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com (people see the inbox as a to do, that they grind through in mechanical fashion).
Think to tackle the problem of email is to put a new UI layer that wraps messaging into context while piggybacking off the traditional email protocol. For example, with my own work email we tag are subjects with TASK, FYI, MEETING, FOLLOWUP, FEEDBACK, etc. indicating what action we need done, helps with searching and labels now in gmail, however take that "context" element and combine with say www.trello.com UI concept of boards/cards in a visual dashboard type of style would be stellar.
I just imagine something like this on an ipad i am just swipping/slidding through my different buckets of communication (sort of like flipboard). KILL THE INBOX :)
Hi Simon, Thanks for responding so quickly. Well one of the questions we had being from Euro (Norway based) is around the turnaround time from say interviewing end of April till starting in June. Such a short time frame must be tough to sort out visas and a place? Any advice on visas?
We are going to start getting some feedback on our application as well (have some friends in SF with friends from YC that are going to review), and there is tons of competition for the program, it would just be a shame to get in and not be prepared/able to go to SF. From what I understand Visas take awhile to process and T1 is difficult to get.