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Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

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Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#111

Post by Grimblewald »

mnky9800n wrote: post #65
typesarecool wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume all these "I am 16" type posts are just ways to help market, unless the account exists for some time before the Show HN with clear evidence they are in high school (I have seen many younger people talk about high school internships, for example - if they then have a Show HN I will believe it!)

Even if they are 16 years old it's hard to imagine someone didn't at some point tell them to leverage the fact they are 16 years old. I don't know any teenager that wants to be seen as a teenager. They all want to be seen as an adult.

Right? Most teenagers would go through great lengths to assume an identity in their 20's at least. They spend their entire life thus far with age being a factor robbing them of credibility. Why now would they advertise what throughout life has been a thorn in thorn in their backside? Something they will have associated with a lack of perceived professionalism. Something associated with not being taken seriously.

to me the whole thing reeks of marketing ghouls. This reeks of a group of talentless marketing ghouls trying to launch an unoriginal vibecoded product but absuing our heartstrings.

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#112

Post by Grimblewald »

WilliamCranna wrote: post #77
matt3210 wrote: post #52

What if they’re really a large group of businessmen and investors pretending to be a 16 year old?

I’m not, you can see my journey on Twitter @willcranna

Your "journey" as far as i can tell is just your marketing journey. Youve just joined two months ago, and show nothing much beyond marketing posts or requests for help with marketing.

not selling me on not being a bunch of old dudes using a kids image to sell a unsafe and poor quality product.

if you genuinly are a kid, i'd recommend not using your age as a selling factor. Thats something someone would do to appeal to other kids, but rarely to sell to a serious crowd. It would at best tug at heart strings and get attention but thats will work once, maybe twice. I'd make sure i have a really good product before i waste those free and easy marketing chances.

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#113

Post by hnlmorg »

Grimblewald wrote: post #109
hnlmorg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nah, I don't buy it. Theyre good enough at higher level skills / comprehension that such enormous failures in more foundational skills makes no sense It wouldn’t make sense for a scammer to make those mistakes either. So you’re not proving anything nefarious by pointing out those mistakes. All you’re proving is mistakes have been made. You might be surprised to learn this, but people makes a lot of mistakes at the…

I've already pointed out why a scammer might make this mistake - adding credibility to the "im 16" angle. lets take the HN account, created 9 days ago. No "2008" or anything of the sort. Only in the prominantly displayed email. Only to help support the lie that helps gain attention. It reeks. It reeks of the marketing tactic along the lines of "my brother is autistic, here's my subpar contribution of "their" work to…

I do appreciate that your post is genuinely trying to come from a good place, but I can’t say I agree with any of it.

By that I don’t just mean the analysis of this specific submission but also your tangent points about AI. People have used tools to enable creativity for the entirety of human history. The definition of what tools are acceptable and which are cheating is a subjective one and often defined by the age of the person (ie what was the norm when you were in your 20s).

I’ve seen the same debates time and time again. Whether it’s Ableton vs vinyl (DJs), search engines vs directory listings (research), internet vs books (research), VSTi’s vs instruments (musicians), automatic vs manual shift (cars), Photoshop vs traditional photography effects, CGI vs animatronics (movies), I could go on and on.

Even dumb things like a central payment till in restaurants (eg McDonalds) was heavily criticised in the UK when it was new because the “correct” way to serve food was via table service…or so people over a certain age believed.

Most people hate change. I know because I’m old myself and have seen enough change first hand and how people react to it. But change doesn’t make a compelling argument for why this 16 year old shouldn’t be helped in their endeavours to build an app. Nor is it proof that this individual isn’t who they claim to be.

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#115

Post by Grimblewald »

hnlmorg wrote: post #113
Grimblewald wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've already pointed out why a scammer might make this mistake - adding credibility to the "im 16" angle. lets take the HN account, created 9 days ago. No "2008" or anything of the sort. Only in the prominantly displayed email. Only to help support the lie that helps gain attention. It reeks. It reeks of the marketing tactic along the lines of "my brother is autistic, here's my subpar contribution of "their" work to…

I do appreciate that your post is genuinely trying to come from a good place, but I can’t say I agree with any of it. By that I don’t just mean the analysis of this specific submission but also your tangent points about AI. People have used tools to enable creativity for the entirety of human history. The definition of what tools are acceptable and which are cheating is a subjective one and often defined by the age o…

I also appreciate where you're coming from and it's likely we wont agree, due to a difference in fundamental values (neither being better imo, just different), but i value the discourse and world view broadening that conversations like this offer no less. So let me preface this with the fact i value your input and think your point is not just valid, but true if i allow myself to evaluate all this under a different value system.

that being said, even if i shift my values in this way, one problem remains - the nature of creativity.

so, under this value system tool use is irrelevant, if it makes creativity easier cool, doesnt diminish it non.

so lets evaluate this purely on a novelty / creativity angle.

marketing wise: tactic / style taken from a youtuber they reference in their twitter account

product: idea contributes jothing novel to a saturated space of ai learning tolls

tool use: tools used, and the way they were used, is about as basic as it gets

insight: no real novel or interesting insights into tool use, or the problem being solved

wholisitc interpretation: all together, what appears novel in all this, is applying a particular marketing strategty to hn, one that is usually aimed at children. This raises a few interesting questions about shifting demogrpahics on hn among other things, but this post is interesting in a meta way, not a direct way.

as an example, writing text like this, in a digital way, is not special anymore, by anyones reakoning - and yet if you apply this skill creatively, be it a story or poetry or solving a novel problem etc. Then that comment still has creative merit, even if the skills underlying it are no longer noteworthy. The same is true here, the skills underlying what was done are no longer noteworthy, and so we must evaluate on content alone. The content is derivative. So it stands on nothing.

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#116

Post by WilliamCranna »

Grimblewald wrote: post #112
WilliamCranna wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not, you can see my journey on Twitter @willcranna

Your "journey" as far as i can tell is just your marketing journey. Youve just joined two months ago, and show nothing much beyond marketing posts or requests for help with marketing. not selling me on not being a bunch of old dudes using a kids image to sell a unsafe and poor quality product. if you genuinly are a kid, i'd recommend not using your age as a selling factor. Thats something someone would do to appeal t…

If i'm selling to students (kids) would they not be more interested in an app made for them by someone like them?

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#117

Post by WilliamCranna »

Grimblewald wrote: post #109
hnlmorg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nah, I don't buy it. Theyre good enough at higher level skills / comprehension that such enormous failures in more foundational skills makes no sense It wouldn’t make sense for a scammer to make those mistakes either. So you’re not proving anything nefarious by pointing out those mistakes. All you’re proving is mistakes have been made. You might be surprised to learn this, but people makes a lot of mistakes at the…

I've already pointed out why a scammer might make this mistake - adding credibility to the "im 16" angle. lets take the HN account, created 9 days ago. No "2008" or anything of the sort. Only in the prominantly displayed email. Only to help support the lie that helps gain attention. It reeks. It reeks of the marketing tactic along the lines of "my brother is autistic, here's my subpar contribution of "their" work to…

You're right I have no coding skill. But testing out Lovable and bringing my idea to reality made me realize this is something I want to learn so I've already began taking a course learning how to code softwares of my own.

People should't be "scared" of these LLM's it's just a tool that shows coding to a wider audience.

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#118

Post by WilliamCranna »

Thanks for checking out my app, even if you showed support or really hated it, all feeback is needed.

Lot's of people were questioning my credibility on wether I was 16 or not and many other things, if this is such a concern to you I post on Twitter @willcranna where there's a demo video of my product.

Once again thank you, and I hope to post here again. Hopefully next time majority enjoy the product, lol.

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#119

Post by jameswhitford »

WilliamCranna wrote: post #74
jameswhitford wrote: post #10

How are you keeping data private as stated in your FAQs? Is the data not shared with an AI company in order to generate all the smart features?

It’s shared with OCR, and gpt o3 but they don’t save any of the information and the ai doesn’t learn from previous uploads.

Okay that checks out. I would suggest removing the claim that your user's data is never shared from your FAQ:

Is my data private? Yes. Your uploads are secure, never shared, and can be deleted anytime.

Re: Show HN: I’m 16 years old and working on my first startup, a study app

#120

Post by typesarecool »

WilliamCranna wrote: post #75
typesarecool wrote: post #27

The sign up verification email points you to localhost https://llrnghrthzeonfuakaew.supabase.co/auth/v1/verify?toke... Hahahaha, I can't believe I found the meme in the wild!

First time making an app lol. Thanks for letting me know.

If you're actually 16, this is really nice and you are way ahead for your age, congrats :) You got a little stick here because some people have used this claim falsely for marketing and are actually not 16.

If you are, keep going - you will smash it :)

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