51–60 of 113 posts
What is this mysterious drivel? Who is brianvan5155 and why hasn't he made any comments? How has this made it to the front page? What can it all mean?
Who are these women and brown people interrupting the sanctity of our hacker space!?
Do you also read tea leaves?
Everyone here should think long and hard about what can be done to prevent a community from degenerating to the point where it is colonized by trivial attention whoring.
In fact, whoever thinks hardest might just make the next billion dollars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh I'm stoked someone called us an API for social games. Usually people call us wildly less accurate things. YAY! We are technically a suite of tools (which you know depending on your executional ability is an API, or a set of SDKs, or us hand holding you through using them) for brand managers and marketers to build applications and games with their own data. Layer up content + actions and out pops your very own cus…
I'm in the industry so I get what you're saying here - but I'm pretty sure most VCs and your customers are going to be mighty confused. You should try and simplify a 'what we do' message that is easier to understand. The first 30 seconds of introduction to your concept is the most important - make sure people can understand it!
Speak plain English and explain in a nustshell what you do for whom.
Investors and brands are busy, make it easy for them.
What is this mysterious drivel? Who is brianvan5155 and why hasn't he made any comments? How has this made it to the front page? What can it all mean?
I'm a web producer and developer. I'm an early commenter from Slashdot, Ars Technica, and Gawker. I've been using online communities for 22 years, longer than some people around here have been alive. I've read quite a few threads on HN and respect this as a news source, and I haven't felt fit to contribute until now. I've been talking with Julie about her experiences as a like-minded professional and I also remain ba…
I cannot imagine how many people's 20's have been wasted in the last decade chasing some mythical social web 2.0 dollar. We need to understand that most of the Instagrams of the world got lucky simply because of the bubble and the confusion over what's a viable business on the Internet not because they've actually created billions in value.
They won a damn lottery, they aren't creating models for new business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
remain baffled why her extremely sensible business plan continues to go unfunded despite an aggressive half-year VC campaign while the most harebrained ideas in the world Maybe cuz it's an API for social games. No Silicon Valley VC will fund anything that has to do with games these days. Untried harebrained ideas at least don't have dismal track records yet.
I'm oversimplifying and muddying things by referring to funding, so let's bring this back to what it's supposed to be about: I believe, from what I know, that this is a company with strong fundamentals. (You can inquire more if you are interested, but I don't feel at liberty to provide specifics for a private firm) But you're right: "No Silicon Valley VC" will support an idea that fails to appeal to their biases. And…
That said, it seems like SV isn't really into the media agency industry, either. Even Apple's marketing is done mostly in Los Angeles. Maybe this particular company would be better off in NYC or LA?
I've been reading Hacker News since 2007. This is the single most worthless post to ever grace the frontpage. Everyone here should think long and hard about what can be done to prevent a community from degenerating to the point where it is colonized by trivial attention whoring. In fact, whoever thinks hardest might just make the next billion dollars.
Nice post. I'll take revenue and profitability over media hype and "it" status any day of the week. It's kind of shocking how many early stage companies have absolutely no plan for revenue/profit, and point to outliers like Facebook and Twitter as their playbook for success. There are meaningless debates about 10 millions users being the new 1 million ( http://www.businessinsider.com/10-million-users-is-not-the-n...…
"I'll take revenue and profitability over media hype and "it" status any day of the week." All that is fine of course and true. But there are side benefits to "it" status. For one thing it can help you attract talent and get the type of attention that can lead to success. Let me give you an example. I've helped both high profile people and people who are nobodies with advice. In general the nobodies are much more tha…
I think OP's issue relates to the weird, self-referential culture of Silicon Valley, where success is measured in buzz and money raised. It goes something like:
Build free software product -> ? -> profit
where ? = Get lots of buzz/hype, grow userbase quickly, raise VC money
Or course, this is similar to another business plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a web producer and developer. I'm an early commenter from Slashdot, Ars Technica, and Gawker. I've been using online communities for 22 years, longer than some people around here have been alive. I've read quite a few threads on HN and respect this as a news source, and I haven't felt fit to contribute until now. I've been talking with Julie about her experiences as a like-minded professional and I also remain ba…
Well this makes sense to me in a way that the post didn't. I didn't identify 'tech' as meaning 'VC ruling class'. I guess I'm just obtuse.
Also, getting all emo and throwing a public temper tantrum railing against the people whose help you might need someday isn't doing you any favors.
Get back to work.