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My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

gabrielweinberg.com

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Re: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

#31

Post by mthoms »

Gabriel,

In Googling "namesdatabase" I've come across some old claims of allegedly dubious practices of the site that occurred while you were running it. I know your reputation is stellar here and that you contribute much to the community so I was more than a bit surprised.

May I ask, have you addressed these allegations somewhere? I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I'm wondering where I can read your side of the story. Is there an HN thread or blog post you can point me towards? Many thanks.

Re: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

#34

Post by epi0Bauqu »

mthoms wrote: post #31

Gabriel, In Googling "namesdatabase" I've come across some old claims of allegedly dubious practices of the site that occurred while you were running it. I know your reputation is stellar here and that you contribute much to the community so I was more than a bit surprised. May I ask, have you addressed these allegations somewhere? I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I'm wondering where I can read your…

Happy to answer questions. I think these address most things:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/bdlri/dont_want_...

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/cnce8/duckduckgo...

http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/cncn2/a_search_engin...

http://ye.gg/mixergy

I think a lot of it stems from either misunderstanding, edge cases (http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/02/one-in-a-million...), or just a fundamental problem with the idea of referring friends.

Re: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

#35

Post by jacquesm »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #25
netaddict wrote: post #16

Why did Google blacklist all of your Tldscan sites? Was it just because your sites' content was updated automatically? Or was it because you did something wrong for SEO?

Here's my (completely unsubstantiated) theory. It happend literally the day after crossing $500 & 50K views in adsense. I'm guessing one of those was a trigger for manual review by some contractor, perhaps overseas. They looked at my sites for 3 sec, found them to be cookie-cutter and decided to blacklist the account. I get the impression they shoot first, ask questions later. I didn't feel like dealing with it all o…

I wonder how many otherwise viable little businesses fall victim to this heavy handed approach.

Is this one of the reasons DDG got started?

Re: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

#37

Post by epi0Bauqu »

sdizdar wrote: post #29

Very very inspiring post. I've built and released only two web sites and just a couple of C++/C projects in storage area (of course nothing successful), so I have way to go... It be would interesting to know what did you learn of each these projects? Which project do you consider the most important from learning perspective?

It's all very incremental. I certainly learned a bit from each, but probably learned the most from my first "real" startup, learnection. It was first major failure (really ever) and I took it pretty hard at the time.

Re: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

#38

Post by epi0Bauqu »

devmonk wrote: post #30

I'd like to see how much was made or lost on each of these, enough to do angel investing after all of that. I know the $500/day was mentioned, but just curious. Was the bulk of the money made that is now invested from these startups, or some other income?

Not counting my time here, I lost about 30K on learnection, 5-10K (not sure) on Twenty Questions, 10K on Kangadoo. Other than that, it didn't cost me anything to start the others. As for upside, made a few thousand on the ebook, 5-10K on nth Club, and not sure the total on Tldscan (the $500/day max) one. Nothing else made much besides selling NDB.

Re: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

#39

Post by mthoms »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #34
mthoms wrote: post #31

Gabriel, In Googling "namesdatabase" I've come across some old claims of allegedly dubious practices of the site that occurred while you were running it. I know your reputation is stellar here and that you contribute much to the community so I was more than a bit surprised. May I ask, have you addressed these allegations somewhere? I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I'm wondering where I can read your…

Happy to answer questions. I think these address most things: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/bdlri/dont_want_... http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/cnce8/duckduckgo... http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/cncn2/a_search_engin... http://ye.gg/mixergy I think a lot of it stems from either misunderstanding, edge cases ( http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/02/one-in-a-million... ), or just a…

Thanks for the links and your transparency. I will read up. Just to clarify - the reason I see this as relevant is because I'm a regular DDG user and put a lot of trust in your privacy claims (no logging of queries, etc).

Re: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

#40

Post by epi0Bauqu »

mthoms wrote: post #39
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to answer questions. I think these address most things: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/bdlri/dont_want_... http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/cnce8/duckduckgo... http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/cncn2/a_search_engin... http://ye.gg/mixergy I think a lot of it stems from either misunderstanding, edge cases ( http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/02/one-in-a-million... ), or just a…

Thanks for the links and your transparency. I will read up. Just to clarify - the reason I see this as relevant is because I'm a regular DDG user and put a lot of trust in your privacy claims (no logging of queries, etc).

Yup, I understand. If you're ever in Philadelphia, feel free to stop by and I can show you no logging in real time. As for NDB, the biggest points from my perspective are that:

--you could opt-out from emails or remove yourself from the database at any time.

--you could see a detailed explanation of how every aspect of the site worked before signing up, on a page I spent countless hours writing and tweaking.

--similarly, there was a vast support system that answered almost any faq.

--you could see the whole database on our static site before signing up.

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