This is what I thought. I'm surprised Squadmail (link in opening post) has posted their product more than once on HN and has gotten nearly no comments or upvotes.
I believe a taboo has slowly been growing among the entrepreneur community regarding selling startup businesses. I think it started with Mark Z. turning down offers from major tech players and it has continued with Dropbox turning down an acquisition from Apple.
I am not taking sides on whether entrepreneurs should sell their companies. But I think there is a problem when bringing up the subject is frowned upon on. I am unsure whether this is a problem with Hacker News' moderation system or it really is a taboo.
I believe downvoting is only available to users with high karma. This makes me believe that downvoting is meant to fight misbehavior. Unfortunately there is no way to report misbehavior of downvoting. If you already have high karma you have a conflict of interest in reporting downvoting misbehavior.
It may be poor advice but it is an option nevertheless. pud asked for what to do next and selling the site is a potential road to take. I'm disappointed that some people have down voted this to death. I am following the rules of the site. I feel bullied after expressing an opinion.
The site is still raw but I decided to put it up to get feedback. It's a file marketplace mixed with a referral system. I think people should be rewarded for sharing.
I built BuyMyFile (http://bmf.cm). BMF is a file marketplace that rewards buyers with discounts for referring sales. Please let me know if you find this service useful so I can keep working on it. Thanks patio11 for feedback on this.
The upcoming JOBS and CROWDFUNDING acts are close to becoming law. This means that non-accredited investors will be able to invest small amounts of money in startups that advertise through funding portals. Think Kickstarter but for capital raising. I wouldn't be surprised to see Startup Index Funds that invest across many startups thus making everyone an angel investor.
Today there are many more startup accelerators than five years ago. MassChallenge and Start-Up Chile offer mentoring and seed cash without taking equity stakes in founders' companies. Instead these accelerators are attracting talent to their area: Boston and Chile in these cases.
Is it fair to say that YC has decided to step up their offering by guiding founders through the idea brainstorming session? Instead of playing the bidding game of taking smaller equity stakes or coughing up more cash, YC has decided to give founders something much more valuable: an idea. It is always refreshing to see companies focus on innovating the product and not the pricing. Kudos to YC! I expect other accelerators to follow through.
I think it's important that founders match primarily on personality compatibility and not on the project idea. The idea will most likely change. In a way, the project application idea is a means to get past the YC judges.