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Tom Holder
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9 months ago
in Reflections of a Y Combinator Dropout: Introduction on Orian Marx's Blog
This seems to happen quite a lot, look at the Tap tap tap crew who are just breaking up over internal disputes. When people say you need a 'strong' team, it's not just a case of needing individual strong members, they have to work well together and unfortunately, only time seems to be a true indicator of if you can work with someone on a startup.
1 reply
Orian Marx
Here is a link to the tap tap tap breakup: http://www.taptaptap.com/blog/severance-new-beg...
11 months ago
in My startup’s secret recipe on Eiso Kant
This is a great idea in theory, it allows you to not only keep your idea 'secret', if you will, but it also means you have to think carefully about how it can be modularised.
Of course, in practise, I think this is a possible recipe for disaster and a lot of painful hours with desperate teams trying to stitch together flaky, inconsistent code.
I hope you've been able to successfully navigate this one through the potential pitfalls and come out with a solid product. Best of luck with your startup.
Of course, in practise, I think this is a possible recipe for disaster and a lot of painful hours with desperate teams trying to stitch together flaky, inconsistent code.
I hope you've been able to successfully navigate this one through the potential pitfalls and come out with a solid product. Best of luck with your startup.
1 reply
Eiso Kant
Thank you. Your comment summarizes the response I've had from a lot of developers and you are right. However there are a few details I should have but didn't explain. For me it's only temporary to get the foundation ready - the startup itself will have a full team. I am also doing this to give myself time to continue to talk to possible investors and decide where I want to locate.
Will I then throw away all the code and start over?
No and this is why: I have two user interfaces, one for the web and one as a browser extension, in any case they would have been developed by different people. They're two completely independent parts. As last I have the backend, a complex database structure but is setup to only accept a few easy and standard queries. The rest of the queries are handled on database level.
Looking at one of these parts you can't find out my completive advantage, looking at them all together you have my startup. I am incredibly aware of the risks I take with this and especially if I switch developers the problems that can (probably will) come up. I find it harder to read other people's code then to start from scratch and make it myself. Therefore all the complicated parts occur on database level, the code I wrote myself. So no matter what happens there will always be someone in the team (myself) who can work on that, or explain it to others.
Will I then throw away all the code and start over?
No and this is why: I have two user interfaces, one for the web and one as a browser extension, in any case they would have been developed by different people. They're two completely independent parts. As last I have the backend, a complex database structure but is setup to only accept a few easy and standard queries. The rest of the queries are handled on database level.
Looking at one of these parts you can't find out my completive advantage, looking at them all together you have my startup. I am incredibly aware of the risks I take with this and especially if I switch developers the problems that can (probably will) come up. I find it harder to read other people's code then to start from scratch and make it myself. Therefore all the complicated parts occur on database level, the code I wrote myself. So no matter what happens there will always be someone in the team (myself) who can work on that, or explain it to others.
2 years ago
in 2007/05/30/photobucket-myspace-4/ on Mashable - The Social Media Guide
That's just not the case. With the Facebook platform any number of audiences can be catered for and unlike MySpace, Facebook is highly reactive to change in your social space which pulls people back in; so, even if they only have 1/10th of the audience size it's more valuable because it's considerably more active.
1 reply
Marco Hansell
You hit it right on the head Tom, engagement vs penetration. I think it Facebook is on a path to beat Myspace on engagement...which is a metric that they can use to for better RVM's.
2 years ago
in 2007/05/30/photobucket-myspace-4/ on Mashable - The Social Media Guide
Indeed... I think the Facebook platform could kill myspace. Thank god for that!
I developed my first add-on for it last night and it only took about 4 hours from start to finish... and that involved learning enough PHP at the same time.
A big tip of the hat to Facebook.
I developed my first add-on for it last night and it only took about 4 hours from start to finish... and that involved learning enough PHP at the same time.
A big tip of the hat to Facebook.
1 reply
Kill MySpace?
Why are people comparing the two sites? They have completely different core users. The maturity and intellectual levels are polar opposites, not to mention member wants and needs. Facebook may catch up to MySpace in member count, but certainly not kill them.
