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What do you think of my startup idea?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#21

Post by dcurtis »

bootload wrote: post #19
steffon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my thought too so I have a demo under development. Unfortunately, it won't be ready by Oct.11, and of course, it's all about the right team anyway which is what I'm really interested in. The main reason for posting this idea is to find like-mided entrepreneurs interested in the idea so we can build a team and, as you said, "demonstrate the idea by showing...build an app".

"... The main reason for posting this idea is to find like-mided entrepreneurs interested in the idea ..." Now I see. Even a mocked up static demo is better than nothing. The Oct 11 date is plenty of time. Now I get what "your going to have to work real hard" comment means especially when you come up against fixed dates.

Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like.

http://quarkfactor.com/topiat_example.png

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#22

Post by ardit33 »

utter crap. Go back at the drawing board. Make something more tangible, enough with the pies on the sky.

These are concrete ideas:

Facebook, just like your silly school book, but online, and you can add friends

Google - search engine

Yelp - reviews of restaurants and businesses

las.fm - music recommandations from your friends

pandora - discover music according to your tastes

reddit/digg/news.yc -- recommending news and stories

Yours is not a tangible idea. Narrow it down to one sentence the main idea, and just one paragrapsh on how it will work, and then you have something more tangible.

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#23

Post by blader »

dcurtis wrote: post #21
bootload wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... The main reason for posting this idea is to find like-mided entrepreneurs interested in the idea ..." Now I see. Even a mocked up static demo is better than nothing. The Oct 11 date is plenty of time. Now I get what "your going to have to work real hard" comment means especially when you come up against fixed dates.

Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like. http://quarkfactor.com/topiat_example.png

Dude, just want to say you have a great sense of design.

Are you applying for YC this round?

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#24

Post by dcurtis »

blader wrote: post #23
dcurtis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like. http://quarkfactor.com/topiat_example.png

Dude, just want to say you have a great sense of design. Are you applying for YC this round?

Thanks. And yes.

Send me an AIM IM: quarkfactor

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#25

Post by dcurtis »

ardit33 wrote: post #22

utter crap. Go back at the drawing board. Make something more tangible, enough with the pies on the sky. These are concrete ideas: Facebook, just like your silly school book, but online, and you can add friends Google - search engine Yelp - reviews of restaurants and businesses las.fm - music recommandations from your friends pandora - discover music according to your tastes reddit/digg/news.yc -- recommending news a…

I don't think you described those sites very well.

Facebook: Digitize your real relationships

Google: Find websites based on keywords

Yelp: Find restaurants, share experiences about restaurants

Last.fm: Discover new music based on popularity

Pandora: Discover new music based on constituent pieces

reddig/Digg: Discover news based on popularity

This idea: Discover new things based on constituent pieces, popularity, and relationships.

Seems like a natural progression to me, even if it seems complicated in the description.

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#26

Post by bootload »

dcurtis wrote: post #21
bootload wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... The main reason for posting this idea is to find like-mided entrepreneurs interested in the idea ..." Now I see. Even a mocked up static demo is better than nothing. The Oct 11 date is plenty of time. Now I get what "your going to have to work real hard" comment means especially when you come up against fixed dates.

Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like. http://quarkfactor.com/topiat_example.png

"... Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like ..."

Better. Now make some more that demonstrate your key points and that will also help you start building. Wish you'd put this up first as it starts to put flesh to words (idea description).

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#27

Post by omouse »

alaskamiller wrote: post #17

sounds like it can be taken care of by mahalo. machine learning or... i might have said that because i want to discourage you from using this great idea and save it for myself... hmm...

i'm also not seeing a business model.

Could say the same about Mahalo?

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#28

Post by oditogre »

steffon wrote: post #9
oditogre wrote: post #6

Sounds like IRC. Once you find a chan you like and kind of settle in, you realize that the actual convo rarely relates to the title of the chan, but is still of interest to the people who regularly go there. IRC is pretty popular, I don't see why your idea wouldn't be among the less BitchX-inclined internet crowd. ;-P You'd have to be brutal with the 'influence' system, though, to keep the trolls out of the 'ponies a…

Here are two large differences between IRC: 1.) One of the main problems I am trying to solve is in your second sentence: "Once you find a chan you like..." It's time consuming to find new content you like, especially in a setting as nebulous (for most people) as IRC. With the discovery engine, all a user needs to do is rate recommendations based on what they are interested in, and they are immediately connected with…

Of course. I only mentioned IRC because there are some similarities that seem to indicate your idea could work.

>only get recommended that content which has empirically shown is wanted by people that think like them

Seems like an OK idea, but I think the site might suffer if this is taken too far and the groups just become echo chambers, walled off from each other entirely. I just think a site could be more popular if it focused on finding common links in disparate groups instead of isolating them based on common differences. Think of it like radio: in my music directory, my biggest artists are The Crystal Method (41 songs), NIN (112 songs), and Sarah McLachlan (85 songs). No single radio station, AM, FM, or XM, that I am aware of covers a range like that. Wouldn't it be cool to find a place that let you keep close to your core group, but at the same time gave you tips on what other groups thought was cool, just in case you agreed?

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#29

Post by whacked_new »

This is kind of what I tried to do many months ago. It was also based on the premise of transparent authority, many-to-many content and user connections, categorization on multiple dimensions, and such. I also approached it from a sociolinguistics angle. The problem with sociology and the like is that the metrics themselves are very broad and hard to quantify.

The application's complexity spiraled out of my control. I still believe in the core concepts, but execution of this thing in particular is very tricky. Theoretically speaking it could be the end-all recommendation engine, and that is, from my own experience, almost as lofty as building a Turing Machine. Granted that you have user input, it probably only needs to be half as strong, but that is already very strong, and very difficult (at least for me).

Now logic is one thing. One the same level of difficulty is how to make it user friendly; for this app, regardless of how hard the AI is, the UI is probably half the battle.

I'm not sure what kind of app you have in mind specificially. dcurtis's mockup is real slick and to the point. My implementation was a lot more passive, but I suspect internally the structures share commonalities with your proposal. If you are interested we can discuss. I won't be applying with my implementation though, because this the kind of site where without 100k users, a VC won't even bother. And no matter how good it is, it is much harder to get traction today, hence higher uncertainty, higher burn.

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#30

Post by mercurio »

dcurtis wrote: post #21
bootload wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... The main reason for posting this idea is to find like-mided entrepreneurs interested in the idea ..." Now I see. Even a mocked up static demo is better than nothing. The Oct 11 date is plenty of time. Now I get what "your going to have to work real hard" comment means especially when you come up against fixed dates.

Here's a very rough mockup that was put together with some brainstorming, just to give an idea of what the first user introduction might be like. http://quarkfactor.com/topiat_example.png

You are too modest. That mockup was great. I couldn't make out from the thread if you and steffon are working together?
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