Not a YC-specific question, but I was wondering what advice you have for someone who lives outside of a major technology center and doesn't have the ability to move? I'm eager to get something started here in the next year but I'm pretty much on my own, thanks!
I have a slack channel I'm growing that's open to all aspiring developers and entrepreneurs to eventually solve this exact problem. Check this page for more info, http://www.openmindedinnovations.com/about. Just email me at jbhatab@gmail.com if you're interested :).
Very cool, love the layout generator! There's also http://buttons.cm/ for non-image buttons and http://backgrounds.cm/ for background images, both are cross-client compatible (even with our friend Outlook!).
I've always loved content for content's sake, and seen design as a nice to have rather than an absolute necessity. HN is one of my favorite sites because it has highly targeted content, a large pool of contributors, and a wonderful forum of discussion.
One of my biggest issues with Tumblr is the way they handle analytics. If you don't spend a couple minutes ahead of time setting up filters, you end up seeing all your own visits to a ton of admin pages like edit, themes, new and a few others. They make it pretty hard to accurately track your metrics.
Of course, with Posterous, you can't track your metrics at all, unless you use Google Analytics. Any JS embedding, including tracking snippets are not supported.
This is great, thanks for the insight jbail. I want to clarify using an example (not using real numbers):
I am granted 100k options at exercise price of $0.10, so the total amount it would cost me would be $10k to purchase them. The company is sold with shares being valued at $10 each.
I spend $10,000 purchasing the shares, which then I would see a return of $990,000?
But AFAI understand before the IPO you can't buy anything, even if the shares are valued some value in some company to company transaction. AFAIK it's not about company being sold, it's only once it's on the market (and other conditions you have are met) that you can execute your options. Then you don't have to worry to even have the mentioned 10K USD, you'll be able to get the difference between the real price of that number of shares and the strike price of your options.
You can buy before the IPO, but you won't have anywhere to sell them. Buying before IPO is risky because you may face taxes on the difference between the strike price and fair market value, but not be able to turn any of the paper profit into actual cash to pay the taxes.
Wouldn't a website like secondmarket.com allow you to unload stock before a liquidity event? That assumes that someone would want to buy the stock from you.
No, it's a private company, and part of the ownership contract will prevent you from selling your shares to people outside the company. You might even be precluded from selling them period. That's why most people don't buy until the company's exit.
Not a YC-specific question, but I was wondering what advice you have for someone who lives outside of a major technology center and doesn't have the ability to move? I'm eager to get something started here in the next year but I'm pretty much on my own, thanks!