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I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

catonmat.net

11–20 of 106 posts

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#11
Looks really impressive, congrats. I don't really see why it is called VM though, did you actually implement an emulator? How does this differ from online remote desktop solutions (say logmein)? Also if you want to reach beyond the geek community you might want to focus on a few of the ideas instead of the many ones that you currently have. For example, making the screencast great or making the demo of an application on a StackVM great. If you don't come up with a particular use case you might need to compete with giants like VMware or XEN.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#12
I was skeptical from the title. My first thought was "isn't this what EC2, and every other VPS provider does?" I have to admit, your pitch won me over - this looks interesting.

On second thought, you did say "web", not "internet". I'm so used to people treating the two as synonymous that I didn't make the distinction myself. So I'd say make that more clear.

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#15
post #8

Nice. I'd suggest demoing Windows XP before the Linux OS - not only is it more widely recognizable but there may be more users who have old desktop XP (or 98, etc) apps that could use your software.

Thanks for the suggestion. Well, can't change this video anymore but I'll note that for future videos we'll be making!

Re: I am doing a startup (putting virtual machines on the web)

#16
post #9

I can see a few use-cases where this can be quite useful especially if easy to use. To me the more interesting aspect of it is the - Complete open-source , idea-open and source-code open. For a startup looking for funding (applying to YC) , this is new, i wonder how it would gell with the investors.

Yeah, it is one of the big unknowns we are testing with this startup, but for us it makes a lot of sense. By being open about our technology, we hope to gain eyeballs, traction, and goodwill from fellow hackers who might be our future customers. By being open about our ideas, we expose them to criticism so that we can reform them to be more realistic and to exploit new opportunities that we hadn't considered.
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