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Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | kapauldo: great idea, very clever. i posted this to pikk: Thrive or Fail? Send And Receive Credit Card Payments Through SMS Text Messages [VOTE] - http://www.pikk.com/297fd |
what's the best business you've ever seen? | Travis: What makes a business good?To me, there are multiple inputs: profitability, efficiency, building value for customers, ethical behavior, innovative-ness, leadership, brand.Companies like Swoopo / C4G are really profitable, but they score very low on everything else (except perhaps brand). They prey on people's ... |
What are the best places to publish/sell downloadable software? | k0ban: Another option is to use PAD. That stands for Portable Application Description. Read FAQ here http://www.asp-shareware.org/pad/padfaq.phpOnce you got PAD that describes your software, you could use PAD submitter tools to submit it to a lot of shareware sites.HTH |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | fjabre: This is almost exactly how Paypal started - except they 'beamed' it over instead of using SMS.Eventually they realized that people were much more interested in using their website to transfer money, hence what we have today.. |
What's the best first business book for a programmer? | HeyLaughingBoy: Three of my favorites are How Much Should I Charge Don't remember the author, but she reinforces the point that most small businesses are undercharging for their product/service and shows how to solve the problem.The E-Myth Revisited kinda starts where the above one ends in that it points out the tragic... |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | prpon: Nicely done interface. A minor nitpick, if you send SMS to 646-863-9557, shouldn't the second screen have a different phone number?
Or does all of the interaction you show there happens on the person sending the money? |
Have you noticed that link submissions rank higher than non-link ones? | tokenadult: That sounds like a very good idea, a feature rather than a bug. |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | zackattack: Word.1. I am confused if I text a shortcode, or if I have to text that 646 bullshit?2. I should be able to click on step 1/step2/step3 in your animation in case I want to review the information contained in that slide a little longer.3. You have to be EXPLICIT about fees on the front page. |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | jakarta: Take some time to read about what Vernon Hill did at Commerce Bancorp.Hill came from a non-banking background, he was an owner of Burger King franchises. As a result though, he really figured out that one of the keys to creating a thriving bank was to make a bank that had great customer service.Mostly, innovat... |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | dkokelley: To start, my Bank 2.0 would do a lot to change the way credit/debit cards are authorized. clawrencewenham had some great ideas about this here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=948965Basically the owner of the card would have final control over charges on it. The bank could automatically call or text you ... |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | hristov: That will work only if it is guaranteed that the sender phone number in an SMS message cannot be spoofed. Is this the case? Does anyone know? |
what's the best business you've ever seen? | petervandijck: Ringtone companies are highly profitable, but not elegant and scammy. Good question, haven't seen many good answers yet. |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | wmf: Semi-related: Does anyone know why credit card transactions can be authorized in seconds but ACHs (or whatever underlies online bill payment) take days to go through? |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | vaporstun: One thing that irks me about banks is that checks don't appear on your balance sheet until they are cashed.More and more people these days aren't balancing their checkbooks and simply using the bank website's readout of available money to determine whether or not they have enough money in their account to pa... |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | sophacles: First I would cut the "Checks take N days to clear", "electronic transfers take 3 days", and other similar crap. Second I would allow the creation of multiple sub-accounts which can be used for single transactions, single receiver, or rate limited transactions. Think ING Orange sub-accounts but with externa... |
what's the best business you've ever seen? | rwhitman: In-N-Out Burger, Trader Joe's, Ikea |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | zackattack: I would eliminate overdraft fees on DEBIT accounts. |
what's the best business you've ever seen? | guiseppecalzone: Meetup.com. They are social network that involves real people physically interacting with each other. |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | rsingel: There are A LOT of rules around money transaction services and the feds have only gotten stronger in their enforcement of them post-9/11. You'll need to watch out for so much fraud from carders. Best of luck, but perhaps you should talk to the textpayme guys, who did some very fancy things to avoid regulation... |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | joubert: In South Africa (I moved to New York five years ago), it is common for people to transfer money from their bank account to that of a friend's electronically - either online or on your phone.I was quite surprised coming to the US that it is not common here as well. |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | lsd5you: It's perhaps more a matter for regulation, but the current disparity between the value of the service and the cost should go. The customer should pay small, reasonable fees for everything. It is highly distortionary and is symptomatic of a dysfunctional market for banking services.In the UK a few years ago the... |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | nzmsv: Never call me on the phone. The promise of that alone would make me want to switch banks. Calls for security reasons are fine.Seriously, the number of times my bank calls me is ridiculous. Usually it's to sell me extra stuff. Sometimes it's "to make sure my experience is satisfactory". It would be satisfactory i... |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | jeffiel: I tried it out, it's super viral... I think it'll spread very easily, just like Paypal did. |
Is there a cheap way to get money from customers (Not PayPal etc) | jsteele: I have found the best non-PayPal solution to be iTransact (http://www.itransact.com/marketing/referral/S33oOO). They combine the gateway and the merchant account, and have lower fees than their competitors. |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | maxdemarzi: Marketing Idea - Make checks "Viral":
Add "Deposit this check into a new account at X bank and receive an additional $100". is for the disclaimer on back with legal requirements. $100 or $50 or whatever you think your new customer acquisition costs should be.Different way of banking idea:
Get rid of checkin... |
Have you noticed that link submissions rank higher than non-link ones? | dkasper: Take a look at the source code ;-) |
Is there a cheap way to get money from customers (Not PayPal etc) | seanb: https://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com/Payments to you from your customers are free, and it's free to transfer money to and from a bank account.Apparently AmEx is buying Revolution Money... hopefully they aren't planning to kill it off: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=948464 |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | DTrejo: and we use advanced encrypting algorithms to protect the financial information stored in our system.encryption algorithms |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | eli: If ingdirect.com had paper checks (even for a fee) and a branch I could visit (if I really wanted to talk to a person) it would basically be perfect. |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | orblivion: If it's a service that holds any large amount of money, I'd want to make sure it's associated with or somehow endorsed by a major, trusted organization. The site looks nice and all, but still like a small business.Also, doesn't Paypal offer this? |
Rate this Start Up - half2you.com | tdoggette: The site looks ... shady. It doesn't inspire trust.The text logo, the generic dinosaurs, the post-it telling my to register. A block of text in the middle instead of a clear, simple explanation and a call to action. The site layout looks generic, and the list of categories looks like every other list of shop... |
Any hackers from the UK (or Europe)? | davidw: Europe is great, but I wouldn't recommend it for startups. It's fine for tech (especially open source), but the marriage of tech and business that exists in the US in certain spots (like SV) just hasn't gelled here yet. |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | mseebach: My bank 2.0 wouldn't be a bank as such, it would be an infrastructure provider with APIs for everything. Anyone could then build their bank-service on top of that. Want that debit card, this checking service and venmo.com for mobile micro payments? Just authorize them to your account, and you're going.Any wit... |
Ask HN:Is it actually possible to earn money online? | datasink: Learn affiliate marketing. Seriously. With everything else, you're working very hard for pocket change. Affiliate programs like Amazon's pay you for completed sales, so the payouts are typically large. There are several companies through which you can find CPA campaigns to run, and quite a bit of material for... |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | allang: Perhaps it's a lofty suggestion, but I would definitely bank at any bank partnered with a gold mint which allowed me to convert my savings to gold bullion with one-click. After the purchase, I would be allowed to visit my own safe with the physical bullion. That would be incredible.Add a beautiful/easy online i... |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | Ennis: Check out pcfinancial.ca.Here in Canada I thought we were totally behind on just about everything the states has. That was until I tried living there. Banking in the states is so fragmented and difficult! The big banks were a nightmare to deal with when something goes wrong and merely average when everything was... |
Rate this Start Up - half2you.com | Alnoor: Fail! |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | jeremyw: I'd make that "godaddy secured" animation static. It completely distracted me from your how-it-works anim up top. |
Software Update RSS - does this exist? | yan: I know a lot of mac software uses the Sparkle framework which checks (what is essentially) an RSS feed for updates.As far as I know, nothing general like you're asking about though. |
Any hackers from the UK (or Europe)? | revorad: I'm just starting up in London. I only know one startup here, but that's just because I haven't bothered to look yet. My guess is that in Europe, London is one of the big startup hubs. Last.fm was based here. Cambridge also has a decent startup scene. HN user pclark's startup www.broadersheet.com is based ther... |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | makmanalp: My bank does this for free, and I can also withdraw the money from any of their ATMs as cash instantly if I want. |
Rate this Start Up - half2you.com | carpo: Interesting idea. I'm using Firefox 3.5.5 and the dinosaur images are positioned over the FAQ and Contact Us buttons, so that only the bottom half of them are clickable. They can still be totally seen, but the transparent part of the images are stopping the hover and click events. |
What's the best first business book for a programmer? | gcheong: "Bootstrap" by Kenneth L. Hess and "The Knack" by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham. |
Bank 2.0. How would you build a better bank? | elmindreda: Give people interest on their savings. |
Anyone suffering from ADD? | wajiw: I have a severe case of ADD, which directly impacts my programming. I was diagnosed in college and realized I've been living with it since I was around 12. I don't take Ritalin or Aderol, though my psychiatrist strongly pushed me to do so.To deal I take Ginko Biloba. About 400-500miligrams/day. It take about... |
largest number you've had to store in an application? | kbob: 1000000! took me about an hour to calculate on a supercomputer in 1988. It's roughly 5 million decimal digits. |
Rate this Start Up - half2you.com | spokey: Interesting idea.I think the feedback thus far is a little harsh. There's room for improvement but I don't think your average user will be put off by the design. I'd reconsider the "Register Now" post it though--the font feels a bit angry and the post-it image is a bit pixelated.Here's a few more general though... |
How to hire a small network installation contractor | Travis: Have you tried craigslist in the freelance section? I'd interview them on the phone before hiring, but if you have some technical competency you should be able to listen through a bad contractor's BS. |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | chrisstanchak: Whoever makes mobile payments ubiquitous will make billions. |
Software Update RSS - does this exist? | nreece: Please checkout our service, Feedity - http://feedity.com for creating RSS feeds from virtually any webpage. |
Any hackers from the UK (or Europe)? | authentic: comparing SV and the UK (where I live atm), it's very different.in SV you will be meeting people working on a startup idea of some kind literally everywhere, people are focused on maximizing potential upside rather than minimizing downside, employees are willing to take some risk, and you have an actual mark... |
Why downvote? I honestly do not get it. | Raphael_Amiard: >I cannot see how that is different than someone throwing a stone at another person just because they do not agree with them.Can you really not see the difference ? |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | astartupaday: This is a hot space, note that Gartner just released a list of the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012 and Money Transfer via SMS is #1: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1230413 |
what's the best business you've ever seen? | winstonwiener: strip joints. i mean seriously - $30 for a bottle of water? i went there for a bachelor party and walked out. |
How to write a Memorandum of Agreement between founders? | petervandijck: Treat this as an exercise to get expectations straight. Have each person write down what they expect the other should do/own. Then compare and discuss. |
Ask HN:Is it actually possible to earn money online? | etherael: This is more a question along the lines of the above but with a specific example. Tferris' 4Hww, for those that haven't yet read it, the basic process is this;Build an end to end business in which you control the distribution channels for a product that has high demand as evidenced by various keyword search t... |
What's the best first business book for a programmer? | azgolfer: Secrets of Consulting - Gerald Weinberg and
48 Rules of Power - Robert Greene |
Rate this Start Up - SourceCow | patio11: SourceCow answers the biggest question we've all asked ourselves- why is that person following me?I sort of doubt this is, in fact, the biggest question for most people. Or even most people among those on Twitter, who are a small fraction of the total population. Or even those users of Twitter who have falle... |
Rate my site. | eam: Fellow HN readers, please review my college-based website. I've been working on it in my spare time. Forgive me if it doesn't look that great, but I am the sole programmer/designer for the site so I can't just focus in one thing. For the most part the basic functionality is there. All feedback is appreciated, than... |
Anyone suffering from ADD? | webghost: I went to the psy and their telling me I have ADD symptoms and are depressed to.Her approach is to treat the depression first then the ADD. I'm frustrated since Is now going to take longer to treat my focus and everything related to the ADD.Any thoughts on this treating depression first than the ADD? |
Rate my site. | bugs: I can't even tell what the site is for without looking at the top of my window and then I still don't really get it. |
Rate my site. | theycallmemorty: 1) When I clicked in the 'Title, author or ISBN' box the text didn't go away. That's annoying. I'm using FF 3.5 by the way.2) I didn't know what the site was for at first glance. The banner with the University logos... is it an ad? Are those logos special for some reason? I didn't really know.3) I... |
Rate my site. | maximilian: It didn't have any math textbooks I would want. Also in Safari the search field "ISBN..etc" text didn't go away upon clicking. |
Rate my site. | NathanKP: I can't search unless I log in? Sorry but I'm not the type of person to sign up for a site just to do a search. I would use Google instead.Try to go login free if you can.(Edit: This was a misunderstanding due to the way Bulldog Byte handles search terms for which there are no results.)In addition, just loo... |
Ask HN:Is it actually possible to earn money online? | gregking: I made $2300 over the course of two months a few years back using Comission Junction through PPC arbitrage. I found the entire industry to be really spammy and full of scams (not so much CJ but ShareASale, AzoogleAds, Clickbank, etc)1. Sign-up for CJ/Azoogle/etc
2. Digitalpoint.com for YAHOO/MSN/GOOGLE credi... |
Rate my site. | holdenc: I need something cool or useful on the first page or I am gone. (Still not sure what it does) |
Rate my site. | joshu: I like the idea a whole lot. I heart markets and marketplaces.- The point of the system should be crystal on first view.- I don't get the name at all.- I'd pick a specific uni or set of universities to bootstrap and learn from before going big across all schools.- I'd scrape the universities for required books s... |
Rate my site. | profgubler: Quick recommendation on a way to make money, with this. If your site doesn't return a result for a book, why not query amazon or half.com and link to a listing on their site getting the potential affiliate fee. |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | RevRal: I'm trying to understand what you're asking.Are you proposing that browsers get more involved in a user's activities on the internet? That a browser should remember a [email address|username] for various websites... and that alone would be sufficient for the user? |
Rate my site. | DTrejo: Work on your word choice.This sounds pretty blah:
"We're a college based community networking together for a common goal."Also you might want to reread the rest of the text on your about page and elsewhere; try to make it more concise and clear. Also make the column of text less wide (and thus more readable).Al... |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | z8000: I read "Mentors" as "Mentos". Now I'm eating a mint. Thanks for that. |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | colbyolson: Well, yet another one of my website ideas in action. I wish I could pump them out a little faster.Site looks alright, I'll be sure to check it out later tonight when I get home. (on the iPhone ATM) |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | mcav: You could theoretically make an OpenID provider that does that, I think... rather than redirecting users to a website to enter your password, it just shoots an e-mail for you to confirm. |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | kortina: A bunch of you all emailed for invites--we're sending a batch out later this week. We'd love to hear more of your thoughts once you use it. A few cursory answers: everything is free for now (we're still trying to figure out what the transaction fees will look like, but they will be competitive with credit card... |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | aik: Who's Nuron? Play on words? |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | Devilboy: You could have a login screen that emails you a logon link containing a passkey or something and you can use that to authenticate? Is that what you mean? |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | jrockway: Because you don't want your sysadmin logging into your favorite dating site as you?If you are going to do this right, you need email encryption. In which case, you have a client-side certificate. In which case, you might as well just authenticate over SSL with that certificate.But hey, why do something secu... |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | nzmsv: It could be done, and pretty easily too.To log in, you type in the e-mail. The server sends an email with a link (with secret code), which in turn sets a cookie when visited. The cookie expires in a month or so, and gets refreshed with every visit to the site. So the user only goes through the login process on a... |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | favouriteduck: If you mean logging in via clicking a link in an email then it is too much of a security risk. Think of all the places that URL can end up in: browser history, bookmarks, etc.It works for password reset because the window of opportunity is small (just a few minutes) and it is a once-only operation (visit... |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | tom: 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 some real feedback once you've made some matches. Please do give us a follow... |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | richardw: I suspect one strong reason against is because it would require you to be near your email client, or to use a webmail service for all online logins. Currently that requirement applies only when you register or forget your password. If your address is a company one, without web access, you won't be able to acc... |
Rate this Start Up - SourceCow | tptacek: I'm confused. What does this program do that necessitates a browser plugin? |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | tptacek: If you take this idea and strip out the silly email part, you have the core idea behind OpenID. |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | jasonlbaptiste: we sort of did this with Ramamia. ACtually in the first version, there were NO passwords. You would create a family, then register your email to it. From that point on, the cookie kept you logged in or you clicked the email login link. People liked it, but enough also wanted passwords that we added ... |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | mdemare: Realistically, browsers aren't going to implement this, whether it's a good idea or not.But I could see this working for websites in the lowest tier of security (like HN). Set a cookie for a year, and if you lose it or move to a different computer, receive a secret link via mail. |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | dpcan: I like the direction you are going.Access to your website stays in my control. I'm not depending on a 3rd party service, OpenID, or anything else, it's my own personal email account, and that email account's ability to receive email is all that's required for it to work.1) I enter my email address on your site.... |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | daeken: My problem is the following: I have quite a bit of knowledge and I like to help, but have no idea how to start actually being a mentor. I've "mentored" quite a few programmers in reverse-engineering, but it's never been a formal thing, just helping out from time to time. I guess these are the questions I have... |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | codeninja82: This is an interesting concept. I would like to see the quality of relationships that Nurall will be able to generate.Mentoring is a give/take relationship and is a Hard Problem to solve. |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | mooism2: Why not just have the browser remember your password? Much easier to automate --- none of that messing around with pop/imap. |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | avinashv: Actually, 1Password, a Mac-only app (I think) that I use reminded me of this.For the unaware, the app basically plugs in to your browser and with a "master password" recalls all your logins. I basically go to a webpage, hit the 1p button and I'm golden. If it's the start of a session, I'm asked to enter my ma... |
Compiled and Interepted language? | njn: Yes it is possible. There are countless examples. ghc is one. |
Compiled and Interepted language? | ErrantX: Although it's not quite what you mean there is Cython - it's a Python extension to Distutils that lets you convert Python code to C & compile it.We actually use this in the way you describe - using the interpreter as our test bed but compile it via Cython (for code protection and speed reasons) on deployment. |
Rate this Start Up - Venmo.com | sunkencity: Pretty cool, but I don't like the logo, it's hard to read. V & e have too similar colors and the "Ven" part is too tight above each other. |
Compiled and Interepted language? | jpr: I think Common Lisp standard requires implementations to have both interpreter and compiler, but allows some freedom how to do it. Some implementations compile to byte code (I think CLISP does this), and some compile to native code on the fly (SBCL). Haskell and OCaml also have both interpreters and compilers avai... |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | david927: It's a nice idea; I hope it works. Dear god how I could use a business mentor. |
Compiled and Interepted language? | pmarin: Actually the different between compiled and interpreted language is very weak. For example, when you compile a C program the result is a code in a machine language and the machine language is "interpreted" by the Control Unit of the processor but if you are running the machine code in a emulator it is actually ... |
Compiled and Interepted language? | towndrunk: I'm not so sure skipping compilation is going to give you rapid development. |
Why not log into web sites via email without any password? | fara: In some cases why do we use a password at all. There are many times that I register to a site to download something (a pdf in scribd, a sdk in nokia) or to see a post or a link, in any of this cases I dont care if anyone wants to log in with my username and what are the chances that someone will log in with my us... |
Anybody looking for Mentors or willing to be a Mentor? | arihelgason: Good idea. Consider offering it to organisations that have mentoring programmes.My old university has an alumni mentoring scheme, but the web app that does the matching is so broken that not many people use it. |
what's the best business you've ever seen? | mpf62: Red Bull. An Austrian spots Krating Daeng in Asia, buys a license for all continents, designs a can, puts some carbonic acid in that “syrup”, positions Red Bull around extreme sports … and is now a billionaire (according to Forbes: No. 151 of the richest people). And his company doesn't even have a production fa... |
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