m311ton's comments

I've always thought that live tweeting during conferences was incredibly lame and obnoxious, both as a presenter and an attendee. Rarely do people add value with their live tweets. And when I do want to find something of value at a conference by looking at the tweets, I have to sort through all sorts of crap where people just repeat what the speaker said.

I'm not sure you would find many that disagree with this argument. But this movement, like many others, has been hijacked by people who aren't quite aligned with that message. The purity of it has been disrupted and that becomes the story that is told to the world.

Keeping others down with immense resources is not a new problem to the United States or humanity. Throughout the history of mankind those in power have attempted to use their resources to stay in power and the result is some sort of social, economic, or socioeconomic battle. Ultimately the winning course has always involved reinventing the game in a way that changes the rules and neutralizes the resources of those in power.

The point of the article, which is an opinion not a formal piece of journalism, takes a roundabout way to recommending more reasonable courses of action. The way I see it, if you don't like what the big banks are doing, for example, you do have options to get around dealing with them. If enough people organize around that vision, instead of protesting, you create a much more powerful market force.

With all the make-money-online blogs and programs out there, it is good to see someone taking a little time to also highlight the temptations and challenges that you'll face. I'm afraid the 4-Hour Workweek mentality has been sensationalized a bit too far and this is a good reminder that there are pros and cons to whatever you do and however you do it.

Interesting idea. I think it is best-articulated with the phrase, "Choose the path of least resistance in order to complete your degree."

Finding a developer is very difficult. Have you thought about pitching the idea to one college and seeing if they will front the cash to develop this for themselves? I could see a nursing school wanting to use this for lead-gen purposes. Structure the deal properly and you'll get the cash to develop something now and an opportunity down the road to roll it out without any exclusivity. Maybe not ideal, but an opportunity nonetheless to get the ball rolling before securing a partner. Having a customer developing your first product would go a long way in your recruiting efforts.

Doesn't this all fit into the category of a leveraged buyout?

All depends on the complexity of your project. We tried using open source BI but it just didn't accomplish what we needed. QlikView, on the other hand, has been a great solution. My only concern with QlikTech is that they're a bit arrogant and don't know how to price or write license agreements that support scalability.

You're exactly right. The barriers to entry are significantly higher when trying to innovate in "real world" problems (vs entertainment based ventures). Hopefully incentives, incubators, and resources will come into play to help navigate those challenges. Some are there already but don't really receive the media coverage to inspire others to follow suit.

Unfortunately not. Half my problem might be that I'm located in the anemic Midwest. St Louis to be exact. Are virtually connected co-founders very prevalent?

Startup speed dating is a cool idea in my opinion. The single hardest thing I've ever done is trying to find a co-founder. Two years in I'm still looking for that partner. Anything to help alleviate that pain point would be tremendous.

Flying solo is convenient at times because you don't have interpersonal drama and the risk of a nasty split. But on the whole I would never recommend anyone go solo.

Congrats on getting your idea up and running. That's always the first and most important step.

I'm not quite sure I get it though. Can you share an example of what I'm supposed to do with your website? It really needs some instructions and samples. Otherwise I feel like this is madlib that I'm filling out that really makes zero sense at the end.

Why would StockYoyo picks be better than one of the million other investing sites out there? ... My impression is the real value of this website is play versus plan. Other sites are more heavy and technical but this one is more light and fun.

I like the concept. It's light and fun and I could see how it would become addicting especially given your game mechanics setup. Are you using a third-party platform to run that?

From a marketing perspective, this might be something to pitch to high schools with finance classes. It's a bit lighter than some of the more technical stock simulations but I could see teachers using this as an intro to investing and a way to engage students. I think understanding how you're positioned relative to the heavier simulators like VSE would be valuable.

My one request would be for a demo or screenshot or something on the front end before I register. I like to see what I'm getting into before I give you my email address and create a username.

Stickiness does seem to be a challenge. I love the idea of becoming "employees" of a company based on how you predict their stock. But beyond that, I'm not sure what else there is to do. I make a pick and wait to see what happens. What do I do in the meantime?

http://springwise.com is another website I use to discover new and interesting ideas. Reality is you need to keep your ear to the ground in a few places.

It might be buggy. There are things you could and should change soon. But the fact that you know this and are ready to start the iteration process already means you're really a million paces further than most bootstrapped startups that are still vying for perfection. Congratulations on the launch and best of luck in the most exciting, anxious, and valuable time in your startup!

I don't quite get it. I arrived at the site and didn't know what to do. You might want to add some visual clues that better explain what the user should do. Good start though I think you could do well with this, even focusing on more than just rural areas.

There are some great comments here. I don't need to repeat what's been said, but would like to add that you should not go for a big launch yet. Instead, invite some people who fit the definition of your core audience and ask them to test the site out. Use services like uservoice.com and survey.io to collect user feedback and make sure your product has a solid market fit. Doing this will make sure you don't miss the mark at launch, while at the same time providing some key insight for messaging to be used with a more prominent launch. Good luck!