A lot of today's big tech companies looked like "fluff" in the beginning. I assume YC picked the companies based on more than what their current product offering is.
London is a weird spot for property. I see it as more inline with the gold market. A "safe" investment for people who need to invest. That makes your last point more likely if anything I'm saying is true, but what happens when in London is unlikely to reflect the properly market in general, which is based somehat on fundamentals.
This is an awesome post & I'm excited to see the support from HN.
I like how you're giving yourself a solid goal and plenty of time to achieve it.
Quick question - you mention that you'd like to build an MVP yourself, do you know what product you'd like to build or what market you're interested in serving?
When you save something on NowVia, you see who else has saved it and what people are saying about it.
So imagine 19 people from around the world save a great design resource - by doing so, they discover each other's channels, and can all discuss that resource in the same place. The 20th person to save that resource also sees that discussion and can join in. The focus on connecting people through interests and trying to encourage discussion is the differentiator.
I apologize for the shameless plug, but we're at the early stages of solving some of the problems you mentioned at http://NowVia.com
It lets you create topic-based "channels" that people can follow. So you could have one for 3-D printing, and when you add to it, you know everyone following it is specifically interested in 3-D printing. I'd love your feedback if you decide to have a play :-)
Well done! I don't need a business website, but I felt a slight urge to give you my money after reading the value proposition. I especially liked the "what we do vs what you do" part.
It was so easy to try out, I thought I might as well. I had a quick conversation with a friendly chap from South Africa, rated it five stars and was on my way.
Although it was an enjoyable experience, I'm not sure whether I will come back.
I noticed this a while back. I'm guessing their blogging efforts were so successful, they decided to make it the focus and become a media business. I too would love to hear what's going on behind the scenes at Priceonomics.
I think a lot of people like me buy domains planning to do something with them. Eventually we realize that time is limited, but we still hang onto the hope of eventually finding the time to do something with the domains.
I'm guessing they are overpriced because people don't actually want to sell their domains, but they would happily do so if someone was to offer a good chunk of cash for them.
That's my logic anyway. I never bought any domains with plans to sell them, but this site was so easy to use, I threw them up there and put big prices on them, just in case :-)