Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

news.ycombinator.com

91–100 of 148 posts

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#91

There is a large pool of MS engineers in Israel as the IDF is run on MS. Startups tend to be influenced by this talent pool. I'd avoid an MS based startup myself, an open source startup seems to me, more likely to have more innovation potential. If anyone believes that Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Salesforce, or any other big internet company that has become prominent over the past few years was developed using…

I'd say 50% of the shops in Israel are Microsoft based (.NET, VS C++).

The remaining 40% are Java.

Python has a sizable, but still small community.

Tiny Ruby-on-Rails community.

And Erlang ... I think I'm the only full-time Erlang developer in Israel (oops I moved temporary to Sweden).

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#93
My dad was a partner at LetsGet.net, specializing in online ordering for restaurants. They were acquired last week, and are based entirely on VB.net.

He and the founder were both in their 40s at the start, and had a decade of Microsoft-based consulting under their belts. I'm not surprised to see very few people in a similar demographic on HN.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#94
We're using the full stack and it's been a lot of fun, actually. Visual Studio is still the shit, and the release cycles on the tech we are using have been more than sufficient (.Net, C#, Silverlight, Prism). I find it amusing that it's a little rebellious in the YC community to use MS tech. So, as has been mentioned, MS startups are out there, and they exist per the skills of the group and the needs of the customer base. Just like anything else...

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#96
post #24
post #19

I think it's just 'fashionable' to not talk about your tech if you're using microsoft tools (aka .net framework). Mainly it seems that HN is very pro anything else. I'm actually the lead for 2 Denver start-ups myself (also a BizSpark member); I'm building everything on the back-end in c#/sql and using web-services to consume the data in my web and mobile apps. For me it's just a speed issue since I have 10 years C# e…

I don't think it's just a matter of fashion. Only a handful of the startups we've funded use anything from Microsoft.

Your applicants filter themselves quite a bit. The cofounders of the healthcare software company that I work for would never have come to you for instance.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#97
post #9

as it has already been mentioned -- having to pay license fees means ramen profitable is even further away for your average, small bootstrapped startup. there are some good startups based on the MS stack, but they're generally startups done by people with money, connections, or extensive experience in the MS stack.

With BizSpark or WebsiteSpark, you have three years. Then, a Windows Web Server 2008 R2 license only costs $469. If a business can't manage to scrape $469 together after three years, they probably have larger problems.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#98
First, don't make a decision based on what other people are doing. Don't make a technical decision based on the job market either: that's an argument commonly used for Blub. If you have a cool and interesting project, people will not mind learning a different language to join you, even if they're mostly hobbyists who would never touch MS Software on their own.

There are some caveats, however: you should have a solid reason why you're using this product ("it's what I know how to program" or "it's easy to hire for" is not; "we have a large codebase and we can't just stop feature development and do a re-write" is), it has to the an acceptable tool for the job (e.g., you're not doing machine learning in PHP) and you have to be flexible enough to use other tools when they're right for the job (e.g., Facebook writing services in C++ when needed vs. forcing everyone to work exclusively in PHP). If you fit these criteria, you'll be able to hire hackers (although I personally wouldn't join a company that required me to run Windows on the desktop, which is very likely to be the case if your product is on .NET).

Now as for why I don't use MS tools:

F# is pretty amazing and C# is fairly bearable compared to other languages in Blub Central (of course it's still a Blub). If Mono were more usable for the server side, I'd be writing projects in those two languages. I'd very seriously consider Gtk# or Cocoa# + Mono for writing a desktop application (as opposed to using C++ + Qt or Java/Scala + Swing/SWT). Nonetheless, Mono is just not (yet) usable for a server.

I'd flatly refuse to use Windows for either a server or a development machine as it's simply an environment designed for the masses and not for hackers. I am many times more productive with Perl/Python UNIX shell + Terminal than I am with a GUI and Powershell (which is a lot better than the Microsoft tools I grew up with).

If Microsoft actually targeted hackers and developers as opposed to IT departments of non-technical firms I'd consider their products. Problem is that they're not a charity, but a corporation with a legal obligation to generate profit for their shareholders. Their current strategy works well for them and I don't see that changing. When I see a company using a proprietary stack, I first assume that the company is mostly "business guys" and wants warm bodies. I'll have to convinced otherwise, which is possibly; I am not close minded: you can't just judge people by the architectural decisions they made without knowing why the made them.

I am glad to see Microsoft support F# and Scala on .NET, but I am not sure how far this will go. I'll stick with an open source/Linux stack for all my hobbyist programming and I can't imagine building a start-up on anything else.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#99
post #3

Perhaps its not trendy enough :)! http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/Connect.aspx

With BizSpark startups dont have to pay any licensing costs for some time. I also think that licensing is discounted when you become profitable. BizSpark aside, I think hosting costs/maintenance is much more. For a $20 512 Linode it would cost a hell of a lot more to run MVC.NET + MSSQL.

You can run a MVC and MSSQL site on DiscountASP for $20/mo ($10/mo if you don't use MSSQL).

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#100
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just grabbed the first driver and it worked although it feels really awkward to me (especially coming from years of parameterized queries / sprocs). It looks interesting though. Have you used both?

I've only tried NoRM and I liked it. I liked that they were working on full LINQ support, but I'm not sure where that ended up since Conery no longer contributes to the project and that was his thing.

Well - it's Andrew's thing... I just helped out as I could. Just ran out of time :)
Post reply on HN