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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe pg mentioned somewhere that they didn't actually make anything out of the whole ordeal after paying back their investors; fees were probably the least of their concerns ;). Still, an interesting use case of eBay.
Actually we did make something like 40k a piece after taxes. So it wasn't bad (we were 22 at the time, seemed like a lot then!).
Here is a follow up email I sent to Justin after discussing a problem we were struggling with at the time (his advice was great as always, even better was how optimistic we felt after speaking with him - that IMO comes from him being in the same place as you in the past and being able to relate to what you might be going through).
Justin I know you're a busy guy and have no time for fluff emails, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and tell you how awesome your advice was and how great we feel after office hours with you today. As you know, startups run on morale and I wanted to thank you for topping off our tank.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dude, how did you build up your programming skills enough to launch an app at 20-22 yrs old? It says on wikipedia you graduated with a degree in Physics and Philosophy. I'm guessing hacking was a hobby built up from your early teens?
I had some limited programming exposure as a teen (and at Yale), but really I owe most of my programming knowledge to Emmett. Throughout the entire period of time we were working on Kiko, and then the first couple years of Justin.tv, he mentored me on programming concepts, debugged my crappy code, etc. It really isn't that hard to pick up enough programming to build a simple CRUD app if you are dedicated enough. One…
Does anyone know of anymore services like Exec and taskrabbit?
Being cool was Justin's answer for starting up. While it may be honest, he could have added other thoughtful answers. More details on his first YC interview would also be interesting, instead of saying that he didn't say much at the interview.
1) you can work on what you like, and in a way that you like 2) it's higher beta, meaning the top outcomes are higher than working for others. 3) it is a chance to immediately start working on a high impact idea that could change society. There are other ways to work on high impact ideas, but often times you need to put in a lot of time paying dues to get to the point you can work on them. 4) if you are successful, it can be a source of mainstream fame (think Richard Branson) -- if you care about this at all.
Here's a summary I wrote of my YC interview that I did with Emmett back in 2005: http://areallybadidea.com/34320844