Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

images.businessweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–39 of 39 posts

Re: BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

#31

Post by veritas »

freax wrote: post #22
jgrahamc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the TC article on the investment you'll see where they plan to spend it: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/etsy-raises-27-million-... —Buy $5 million worth of hardware and hosting over the next two years. —Support more currencies and languages other than the U.S. Dollar and English. —Fix the checkout system (there is none now, every buyer has to pay every seller on an individual basis. There is no Etsy…

That explains a lot more. They just raised most of it. But after $4.6 mil they don't even have a checkout system?!? Or search? Or customer service? Or even competitive wages?!?

I'm not sure of the checkout system, but I assume right now that the payments are left for the sellers and buyers to deal with and Etsy would instead like to establish their own system that makes it dead easy to buy and sell with Etsy as the middle man in the transaction.

Search is hard. They have search already, but they want it make it better and more relevant to the user's taste and buying history I imagine.

Customer Service => manpower => salaries => money => funding.

Competitive wages: I'm sure Etsy pays it's employees well, but I doubt it's at market value (although it's probably damn close). But they want to take care of their existing employees and hire new ones and pay them all well, which I think is admirable.

The funding isn't absurd. Etsy can and probably will be huge. I've seen nothing from their execution and growth so far that indicates that they're a mirage or about to tank.

For a company with a revenue model, growth, and a large market to raise a 30 million series B isn't exactly earth shattering.

Re: BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

#32

Post by veritas »

freax wrote: post #30
run4yourlives wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're obviously new here, so let me give you some unsolicited advice. 1. The crowd here is very business savvy. If you aren't, that's cool, but understand that many of the terms we use here that you might not be overly familiar with. Here's the first result in google for the keyword "nesting": http://www.parentingweekly.com/pregnancy/pregnancy_informati... 2. Trends and stereotypes are important factors in marketing…

> but understand that many of the terms we use here that you might not be overly familiar with I was making fun of you. Why do you insist on being enduringly stupid? > I didn't actually say that "especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting". There's such a big time gap there it's like saying "as soon as they graduate sixth grade and start college", which, as far as I know, only applies to…

I think you're making a big deal out of what, at worst, was a poorly worded phrase.

Relax a little :)

Re: BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

#33

Post by freax »

veritas wrote: post #32
freax wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but understand that many of the terms we use here that you might not be overly familiar with I was making fun of you. Why do you insist on being enduringly stupid? > I didn't actually say that "especially with women as soon as they graduate college and start nesting". There's such a big time gap there it's like saying "as soon as they graduate sixth grade and start college", which, as far as I know, only applies to…

I think you're making a big deal out of what, at worst, was a poorly worded phrase. Relax a little :)

I'm pissed off they took my points!! I was saving those!!

I don't think it was merely a poorly-worded phrase, but betrayed a sexist view and was demonstrably wrong, to boot.

When someone is sexist, rather than letting it grate in your ears, turn it around and grate in theirs. I suppose it's not surprising that a sexist person would also be oblivious to the sarcasm. It rather spoils the fun of ridiculing something stupid, though, when both the target and the audience are also stupid and don't realize when you're making fun of it.

Re: BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

#34

Post by byrneseyeview »

freax wrote: post #29
byrneseyeview wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you thinking of this person: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=167383 ? I didn't say that. Unless you're addressing an autistic audience, it is acceptable to say "Women do X" when you really mean "Women do X more frequently than non-women, although of course some women do not do X at all, some have never heard of X, some hate X, etc." For example, I am rarely corrected if I say "Five-year-olds are taller than f…

> Are you thinking of this person Yes, apologies. I hardly got any sleep. Change "your" to "the" as in "the actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted" and the rest applies. But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

>But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

That's a very strange thing to say. You acted shocked that someone would suggest that women tended to 'nest', and then brought up ducks. I have no way of knowing your intended tone. It would be very rude to assume that you were being sarcastic if you were actually a non-native speaker who was legitimately confused about the idiom. Perhaps, whether you are a native speaker or not, it is considered acceptable to make fun of people for using words when the meaning is apparent but another definition could be used where you are from. So one could say "The music was haunting," and someone in your social circle could respond "Ghosts are a silly superstition!" I bet it's a blast.

Did you have a response to the content of the comment, though?

Re: BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

#35

Post by freax »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #34
freax wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you thinking of this person Yes, apologies. I hardly got any sleep. Change "your" to "the" as in "the actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted" and the rest applies. But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

>But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square. That's a very strange thing to say. You acted shocked that someone would suggest that women tended to 'nest', and then brought up ducks. I have no way of knowing your intended tone. It would be very rude to assume that you were being sarcastic if you were actually a non-native speaker who was legitimately confused about the idiom. Perhaps, whether…

> if you were actually a non-native speaker

That's an excellent point. Oops!

I thought however that it was pretty clear from context that I understood the stereotype of wanting to pop out babies right away and was objecting to that as being factually inaccurate. "Workforce, not nests".

> Did you have a response to the content of the comment, though?

My objection was to the sexist and incorrect nature of the original statement. You appeared to be in support of it, but your arguments were actually separate.

Re: BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

#36

Post by freax »

veritas wrote: post #31
freax wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That explains a lot more. They just raised most of it. But after $4.6 mil they don't even have a checkout system?!? Or search? Or customer service? Or even competitive wages?!?

I'm not sure of the checkout system, but I assume right now that the payments are left for the sellers and buyers to deal with and Etsy would instead like to establish their own system that makes it dead easy to buy and sell with Etsy as the middle man in the transaction. Search is hard. They have search already, but they want it make it better and more relevant to the user's taste and buying history I imagine. Custo…

You make good points.

My internal calibration might be off. It's probably been biased downward because of things like CraigsList (no outside investment) and micro-investments.

Re: BusinessWeek: Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs

#39

Post by davidu »

iamelgringo wrote: post #3

First off, congrats to the guys who made the list. It's hard work being an entrepreneur, and I'm glad that you guys are getting some good press. But, I do have a problem with how it seems that these businesses are being selected. It seems that the level of funding that these people raised is used as a hallmark of how good the entrepreneur is. Isn't the mark of a good entrepreneur how much they can do with how little?…

I don't think BW cares about the amount raised. They didn't ask me until after we were already confident that I was going to be selected. It was like, "Oh, we forgot to ask -- how much money did you raise?"
Post reply on HN