tom

7 ms·

1.
by tom 7y ago
I just engaged a local class company who’s Yelp reviews were atrocious. The reason was, 3 of the 4 were reviews of the guy’s driving, not his skills at changing a windshield. I went to FB, and saw reviews with pics of work and overwhelmin
2.
by tom 14y ago
$9 isn't the new black, variable pricing is. Happy to spend (and write off) more to learn some new stuff and support projects like this. I'd love to see a blog post about the pricing in a few weeks / months.
3.
by tom 15y ago
I hope this signals the end of folks walking on egg shells around Arrington. He's no longer a "newsman". He's no longer going to make or break every startup that ends up on AOLCrunch. He's just an investor hoping for deal flow. An inves
4.
by tom 15y ago
While not the case in this instance, it is completely normal for raising a round to take six months. The "check that day" folks are very, very, very outside the norm. Fundraising is almost always a slow slog.
5.
by tom 15y ago
This is a great example of 2 keys to success for startupts. 1. Hustle. Many people told Alex no before he got that first check, but he kept at it. Hit this milestone, get these sales, blah, blah, blah. He kept improving, kept serving cu
6.
by tom 16y ago
Boomerang rocks. It's the simple functionality that I've wanted in my inbox for YEARS. I get a cubic butt-load of email and the problem with it, is it's all on the schedule of someone else. I need to deal with things, but not right now,
7.
by tom 16y ago
We've been users of Mogotest since they first launched their beta. Amazing time saver (especially if you dev on a Mac). I run automated tests across three sites as well as on demand after major pushes. It's especially helpful for our IE
8.
by tom 17y ago
Hiring? Does that imply a salary? Cause yeah, we don't have that quite yet, but we're working on it. What do we have? Small, fast, potential insane team going after the temporary staffing / contracting match-making market. It was $86B i
9.
by tom 17y ago
I think this is an interesting concept, but man, making a mentorship match is HARD. You have to really hit it off with the person, on more of a personal level than anything at first. Then the rest works out. I'll be interested to hear so
10.
by tom 17y ago
Do you know how many of these have been awarded in the last six months - especially with the stimulus package? Seriously, this is intractable. Find folks who are doing work that interests you, and then try and find their grants and their
11.
by tom 17y ago
What you're describing is the life I left to start my latest co. I worked at a big research university having not had bio since college .. years ago. The key is to find ways you can help, find someone who needs what you have to offer, and
12.
by tom 17y ago
Also, just because you have no chance of winning, doesn't mean you can't have a very large impact on the outcome of the game ... Here's a hint, don't sink your wife - even if she totally deserved it. :)
13.
by tom 17y ago
Holy cow that's a big ask at the end of the Michael Prichard pitch, but man, best of the bunch. He told us what the problem was. He personalized. Why HE had to solve it. He ate his own dog food (literally). Explained how it would chang
14.
by tom 17y ago
It's a shame it was edited though. As it's hard to really get a feel for the flow due to the weird cuts. Of course, it might have been too long without it. :) What was really successful about his pitch though was his tone. He is VERY be
15.
by tom 17y ago
You're drawing conclusions where they don't exist. The "startup life", the life of a startup founder is in fact, hard. Building a product is hard. Building a company is hard. Building anything of value is hard. It has nothing to do with
16.
by tom 17y ago
Interestingly enough, many of the folks I met remarked that they had 1. mentors who helped them get their first, second, nth company off the ground deal with problems, and just plain succeed, and 2. had sought out others doing the same thin
17.
by tom 17y ago
While I don't agree, I'll admit that you may be right, but this is impossible to know. But why make all the same mistakes? Why have to figure it all out on your own? Why reinvent every wheel that's already been built and can't get any more
18.
by tom 17y ago
It's not news, or hacking, but something that's as important to the success of a startup - the startup life. It's an acknowledgment, or maybe an admission that doing this is hard, that there are definite commonalities among those who pull
19.
by tom 17y ago
I didn't take that from this article. The key question was : “Is getting an office space going to help grow my business?”. Sure seems like David's saying that if you never answer a firm yes, you never need one.
20.
by tom 17y ago
We love Unfuddle! Not too complicated, no too simple. Pleasantly integrated.
21.
by tom 17y ago
My in-laws gave me Monopoly: the .com Edition when I started at my first startup. We get a game going about once a year. The best part is that the denominations are HUGE. That's a part of the bubble they really captured well and leads t
22.
by tom 17y ago
You can show it - you should always have access to your app, whether locally on your pres machine or remotely via the hosts internet, but never, never, leave the presentation demo up to chance. There are enough risks in this process, why a
23.
by tom 17y ago
Screencasts are just plain smart when you have your demo, your single shot, your company, on the line. Don't count on the internet working anywhere (especially not a VC's conference room), or EC2 staying up, or your server on your laptop s
24.
by tom 17y ago
NDA's just aren't going to happen. And you're going to expose yourself as a noob if you ask for one. No VC (at least here in the US) will sign one. If you really have something that special, get your IP in order first. Provisionals at l
25.
by tom 17y ago
Required reading: askthevc.com the middle column, scroll down a bit for the categories list. A goldmine. Jason and Brad have done a huge service to the community with this site.
26.
by tom 17y ago
This list is worth more than spending $5K with these folks ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=861767 ). Seriously. I'm pretty tapped into the Boston scene and I had no idea there were this many great opportunities. Thanks Don!
27.
by tom 17y ago
Ok, I'm going to be unusually harsh for me, but here goes. If this is really going to be quarterly, that's just shy of $800K in fees per year and 392 startups pre-paying for "services" and 10% (!!!) of your co. Yeah, no thanks. Anyone in B
28.
by tom 17y ago
Have you launched something yet? Paid service? Free? Freemium? Without launching and looking at real, initial numbers just assume you'll be like 99% of the startups out there and get none. That's what your potential jnvestors will do u
29.
by tom 17y ago
Why not just rsync -auvz? Avoiding a small bit of initial frustration in setting up Capistrano, SSH keys etc, in order to have what feels like an easier deploy is a wonderful case of penny wise and pound foolish. Take the time, do it righ
30.
by tom 17y ago
Interesting to actually look at this. 6:20am - One year old wakes up. Grudgingly, I do to. 6:25am - Change diaper, PJs if they're wet, make a bottle, feed the boy, try to keep eyes open. 6:40am - Catch up on email on the iPhone while the b

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