boringkyle's comments

boringkyle | 12 years ago | on: Offer HN: Dale Carnegie Book "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

[1] to escape the daily grind - consume information (news, downloading the top apps in the app store, HN, etc), help someone in need (volunteer at random soup kitchens), write (code and/or blog posts), play (drums and/or keyboards), get some sun (offer to run errands for a friend) - this all gets me out of my bubble working 12-hour days indoors

p.s. any chance of scanning the copy? I would much rather read this version than the one you could torrent now.

boringkyle | 13 years ago | on: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

Love that you have a functional page and not another one of the launchrock sites I had to click through.

One alumni told me that YC was all about picking billion dollar, not million dollar businesses. In that case, could you say juniper would scale to the billion dollar market? Could your users track their usage with a recurring Google calendar entry? (I know women that do). Why not scale to include other high usage products - toothpaste, toilet paper, etc? (I know of one startup in stealth mode doing this, so it's probably a feasible plan). Sorry for playing devil's advocate - really like what you got so far though.

boringkyle | 13 years ago | on: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

Context: We sent an application in for S12 and S13.

Interesting that you mentioned "serious." Looking back I don't think I was a whole lot "serious" the last time I applied, but I think my application might have been better (see my comment below - got more video views last year, but that could have been an anomaly).

In any case, I wonder if being in school this time hurts our chances. Most of our founders are graduating, and the rest have signed on to jobs. But we are more serious about it this time around - hacking away on public transit, on campus and pulling all-nighters to get features out.

boringkyle | 13 years ago | on: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

We had 4 views from the west coast the day after we applied. Another 4 this week. Last time we applied, we got over 20. PG says they only look at the videos if the application seems promising. So I guess my application got worse?

boringkyle | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: How do you stop regretting?

The best advice I got was:

  1. Never compare your beginning to someone else's middle
  http://www.lifewithoutpants.com/someone-elses-middle/

  2. Don't look to the past. It's all dead back there.
Also, one way my accounting friend explains it to me is that anything that's already happened is a sunk cost. Like in business, you shouldn't worry about the "could've. would've. should've." What you evaluate are the future costs/benefits of your decisions. I've been there man, and I still get into that mood now and then. It's normal. It will pass. Smile. Get sunlight. Do something good for someone. And sleep and wake up early. These are the things that help me still.

boringkyle | 13 years ago | on: Save your eyes, start using f.lux

Does flux practice readable colors on their own website?

It seems like they do - I just returned to HN from reading flux's pitch, and my eyes did not take too well to the higher contrast on HN. Can anyone confirm if the colors on their website change over the day?

boringkyle | 13 years ago | on: I want the world to scroll this way

Did you just compare scrolling to a black swan? :-)

A good effort, I didn't realize it was a pitch for the magicscroll extension till I read it a few times.

boringkyle | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: What is the best way to get into a good startup accelerator program?

They look at:

  - qualities of the founder/team
  - the product you're pitching
  - traction (growth rate, # paying clients, etc)
If you're at the idea stage, stress how you can monetize, and how much the costs are to get to a proof of concept / prototype. Most importantly, validate that there is a market for what you're pitching.
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