looks like it was acquired from a previous registrant whose ownership against the later .edu rules had been grandfathered, therefore liable to get dropped from the zone file at some point in the future should the service ever become popular.
the company form you would typically choose is actually the Ltd. rather than a partnership; there is really nothing special to it, you can self-incorporate online for a few hundred EUR and will only need a mail forwarding agent
having gone the AG (company by shares) route before i would agree the legal expenses associated with the traditional legal forms are insane, plus you need a significant minimum amount of founding capital upfront
being in Innsbruck right now (for non-startup reasons) I wonder what brought you here?
socialism, risk aversion, retarded labor laws, few adequate computer programmers, tiny private equity market, most startup investors are not well-connected outside their immediate environment thus add little value
I want to take information trading (e.g. CFD and betting exchanges, think tradesports/ cityindex/ betfair/ etc.) to the next level beyond its current primitive incarnations. Not sure yet whether the product should be targeted at professionals, consumers, institutions, or a combination of them.
Have done the startup thing before in the founder and CTO role (several rounds of funding then sold to a competitor). Therefore I have already made many of the usual first-time mistakes (e.g. taking co-founders' top education as a guarantee for startup skills, not firing people quickly enough, etc.) and can avoid them this time around =) My academic background is in economics (PhD thesis "almost" completed) and law, with strong CS and math skills.
What I can do: technology, legal, negotiation, strategy, foreign markets, know how to get funding
Quirks to be aware of: do not believe in decision by consensus, follow libertarian ideals, unable to work effectively with mediocre people (with the realization this would often be useful)
Your qualities:
- integrity, perseverance, gets stuff done, can sleep well while taking risks
- some of the following skills: finance, PR, hiring, business development, design, technology; industry experience in gambling/betting or financial trading would also be beneficial
I believe I can handle technology and organization management pretty well, therefore I am mostly looking for someone who likes handling external relations and is also a people person (i.e. can focus on keeping everyone happy inside the company). This is not written in stone however.
Technologies:
- backend: FP (ML variants, Erlang) with some C++, message-passing concurrency, PostgreSQL, cluster protocols, looking into stream processing; all on Unix like systems
- frontend:
(1) web: html+comet/ajax, flash
(2) client: C#+WinForms prototype, maybe ML+SDL/OpenGL later if that makes correctness easier to achieve
(3?) mobile: J2ME?
Location: UK or Gibraltar ideal for a number of reasons but open to locating the business somewhere else if for good reasons
Funding: self-funded for now, the plan is to do a single round in the GBP 500k-1m range with private investors at (hopefully) a ~5m valuation; revenue should sustain growth from there; ideally I would like to make a trade sale within a 3-5 yrs time span.