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What are some must-dos to maintain sanity of a UGC site | ivankirigin: User moderation is very useful, as are editors. Filtering NSFW content by tagging it and requiring users opt-in to see it makes sense. There are also copyright issues that are important. You want to make it easy and fast to identify copied material and yank it, in case of a DMCA takedown notice.You could also let users tip content, and get the data from tipjoy as another ranking tool. Email me ivan@tipjoy.com for more info. |
What are some must-dos to maintain sanity of a UGC site | vaksel: automate it, suspend posts that gets tagged a lot with "spam!" then give the original poster ability to dispute. It'll cut down the effort on your part big time, since spammers most likely won't bother appealing |
What are some of the best Tutorials/Resources on How to Build an IPhone App? | larrykubin: I've been reading the new Pragmatic Programmer book, which is still in beta form. The final printed book will be released in December 2008. It's pretty good, and walks you through step-by-step. I must admit, it's been difficult so far since I had zero experience with Objective C, XCode, Cocoa, etc., but hopefully the concepts will click soon.http://www.pragprog.com/titles/amiphd/iphone-sdk-development |
What are some must-dos to maintain sanity of a UGC site | Harkins: Bozo filter. When you ban someone for posting crap, don't delete their crap, just flag it and only display it to that user. By giving the crap posters less feedback you reduce their ability to evolve new crap-posting abilities.On the reverse side, you must also identify your best posters. It's easy to forget while dealing with the obvious problems with crap, but you must find the content that is highest-rated, that draws the most traffic, that most contributes to your business goals. Praise them in public. Send them swag. Make sure your customer service system highlights them, so you're responsive when they have problems. The best users are around 100x more valuable than average. Identify and cultivate them. |
What are some must-dos to maintain sanity of a UGC site | iigs: I'm assuming free-form textual data here, if you're doing something more constrained (like CDDB data) this will probably not be helpful.You can push the problem around with technical features, but I believe this is a meat-space issue and needs to be treated as such.Hacker News (so far) is one of the best run sites I've seen in this regard. My belief is that the community is focused on a small enough segment of content that it doesn't bring in contrarian intellect points (i.e. OMG LOLCAT, political bickering black holes). Explicitly defining a charter for the site -- giving users a target to moderate to -- is probably the single best thing I can think of. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | ericwaller: Something that took me a number of projects and maintenance type work to realize is to use "helper" functions wherever possible.For example, a profile link: <a href="/user/profile/<?=$user->id?>"><?=$user->name?></a>
Write a simple function: function user_profile_link ($user) {
return '<a href="/user/profile/$user->profile">$user->name</a>';
}
And use it: <?=user_profile_link($user)?>
I used to think the extra code upfront wasn't worth it, but after dealing with a bunch of 300+ line templates for a while, I can tell you that it definitely is.Also, you can see a use of string interpolation (a common use case for sprintf), ie "count is: $count" |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | texec: If you want to review very clean code you should better look at the Zend Framework. It's very good object orientated PHP 5 Code. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | pwoods: Don't look at other frameworks. I did that and found it a complete waste of time. The best I found was to loosely follow the Ideals of a framework you like. I say loosely because frameworks always have the best intentions but they can't be built for everyone. So sometime I've had to cheat. I've seen code where somebody has made a work around instead of cheating and it's a mess.Other than that my personal preference is to use jquery for form submits and manipulation, smarty for templating and everything is tied together following MVC ideals. Class inheritance is where it's at too. Simple one is that your Page class inherits the functions in your DB access class which inherits your config class. Silly I know but it works great for me. Which in the end is the point. |
ASK HN: How should I set my company up? | qhoxie: To my knowledge, there is no perfect way of transferring a merchant account. Your best bet is the advice Ryan offered: choose the biggest, most prevalent merchant account provider you canAlso, this is not particular to tech or startups, but keeping solid documents will make any sale much smoother. Use something like gnucash, mint/wesabe, quickbooks, etc.If by company you mean incorporation, I believe that Delaware LLCs are generally considered the best option. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | shaunxcode: fluent expressions (when uses appropriately) can be great for constructing DSLs. Also any time you see boiler plate code take the time to refactor to eliminate it - often times figuring out how to do that will make new abstractions apparent. As a matter of practice search for the coolest things you can do in python (list comprehensions etc.), lisp and ruby and figure out how to do things in a similar way (if possible) in php.Such as: //python version:
noprimes = [j for i in range(2, 8) for j in range(i*2, 50, i)]
primes = [x for x in range(2, 50) if x not in noprimes]
//phparrayplus version:
$noprimes = xR(2,8)->for_each('xR($x*2,50,$x)->out()')->flatten();
$primes = xR(2,50)->diff($noprimes);
//common lisp:
(loop for x from 0 to 100 if (> (* x x) 3) collect (* 2 x))
//phparrayplus version:
$C = xR(100)->if_only('($x*$x) > 3')->for_each('2*$x');
//factorial in phparrayplus, nothing else to compare this too - just cool:
function fac($n){
return xR(1,$n)->reduce('$x*$y');
} |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | DanHulton: I've had trouble for a while now with chained ifs, as in: [CHUNK A]
if (chunk a succeeds) {
[CHUNK B]
if (chunk b succeeds) {
[CHUNK C]
if (chunk c succeeds) {
echo 'yay!'
}
else {
echo 'boo!';
}
}
else {
echo 'boo!';
}
}
else {
echo 'boo!';
}
This gets messy if there's anything interesting in those chunks. Instead, take advantage of short-circuiting and put those chunks in functions. Then you can rewrite the above as: $success = do_chunk_a();
$success = $success && do_chunk_b();
$success = $success && do_chunk_c();
echo $success ? 'yay!' : 'boo!';
Also, use the ternary operator EVERYWHERE YOU CAN - you'll clean up so much code with it. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | agotterer: You should learn how SPL (standard PHP library) works. Most PHP developers don't even know it exists! In my opinion its one of the most powerful parts of PHP if you can learn to use it correctly.http://us.php.net/splhttp://www.php.net/~helly/php/ext/spl/The documentation on php.net is pretty lacking. Heres are some tutorials and examples:http://www.phpro.org/tutorials/Introduction-to-SPL.htmlhttp://devzone.zend.com/article/2565-The-Standard-PHP-Librar... |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | rshao: This is a bit of a specific one, but the array_shift function is really slow on large arrays. The workaround I found is to use array_slice and unset the array index afterward.Overall though, I find out about a lot of cool things just from the comments on the php.net site. For example, I learned how to use pcntl_fork from the socket_accept page, and then I found out about socket_create_listen from one of the process control pages.My approach is basically just to figure out what I want to do on a higher level, and look for sample code on all the individual parts. Then who knows, I might discover something amazing. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | run4yourlives: As both someone who has been hired, and someone who has hired, I have no problem with resumes that are 1+ pages, provided there is relevant content. Nobody else I know would expect everything to be on a single page.This is especially true in IT, where I want you to explain the projects you worked on, your role, and the eventual outcome. That means a paragraph in written form, and two or three of those take space.This all being said, I'm not going to read any novels. Let me scan your history easily, but then get details if need be. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | ilamont: Paper resumes are fading. Most employers now read them on a screen, either through an online job service, LinkedIn, or an email attachment.As someone who is in the process of hiring two people, I think the on-screen equivalent of one page is too short. I can handle scrolling down for another page or two, but any more than that makes me suspect that it's a data dump, and will require extra effort to glean the important points. Often I receive resumes in batches (20 at a time, delivered by email), so opening a bunch of excessively long resumes would start to drag on my time. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | nostrademons: Mine's two pages and seems to be generating interest at the places I've sent it to.My sister does recruiting for ConocoPhillips (admittedly, a very different industry) and also ran a resume-writing workshop when she was in grad school. She was adamant about not going over 2 pages. The reason is that your resume will likely be printed out, handed to other people in the department, thumbed through, and taken to your interview. If it's on 1 or 2 pages, it'll fit on one sheet (single or double sided), but if it's on 3 or more, you need a stapler, and that's really inconvenient for people whose daily responsibilities don't include shuffling paper (i.e. anyone in scientific or engineering departments that'll actually be making the hiring decision).When I looked over resumes at my last employer, I had the same opinion: 1 or 2 pages is fine because we've got an industrial-strength printer that can do double-sided printing, any more than that's a pain. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | qhoxie: It depends on a lot of factors like duration and type of experience. I would say that people are moving toward a don't cut out important details school of thought. One approach I have seen and enjoyed is compiling a common single page resume and then having a second/third page as deeper explanations of past positions. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | auston: Have you looked through this: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/ ?It has a lot of a lot, so you don't have to write so much native PHP. Even Rasmus recommends it as his "framework" of choice (although he does not "like" frameworks). |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | DanielBMarkham: I've been many times on both sides of the desk.What I found as a resume presenter is that the readers, many times technical folk, (at least once you get through the gatekeepers) always want detail. Lots of detail. Except when they don't.So I gave up on one page resumes. Instead, page one has a bullet list of benefits I bring to the job that nobody else does -- sales points. The rest of the pages list jobs, technologies, and roles. Being somebody who gets around a lot, this section runs on for several pages.I haven't heard any complaints. Usually the wordy part of the resume generates enough keywords to hit on database searches, which is step 1. The bullet list scores the initial interview which is step 2. The initial interview is just a technical "smoke test" and an attitude/availability check, then we're on to the tech interview, which is step three. During the tech interview, it's usually technologies and industries, with me quoting from the wordy part of my resume as the reviewer pages along.I haven't been in the market for many years (it's all word of mouth after a while), but this format, along with the right experiences, put me in the top few slots at most places I competed. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | yummyfajitas: 2 pages is fine. Just don't try to puff it up with irrelevant crap to inflate the page count.Awards:- Math genius prize at University- ...- 8th grade spelling bee champion <- FAIL |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | raffi: I had lots of interest with a 2 page resume but found restricting myself to 1 page forced me to hit the high notes and focus on what message I want to send.I found this necessary when an employer put me through a 5 hour interview for a web developer position. I thought I was applying for a research position but someone saw web experience in my ancient history and lined up the interviewers to steer things that way. Granted I was offered the research position later, still... the interview would have benefited by skipping the web stuff.Also there is something to be said for making them want more. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | browser411: Brevity is the soul of wit.I think a 1 page resume is essential. Even Gates or Jobs could have a kick-ass 1 pager.Exceptions include a need to list technical details like published papers/books, patents, etc. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | nickmolnar: I have a 10meg PDF resume (4 pages with lots of pictures, hyperlinks, and partial nudity). It has gotten positive responses about 60% of the time, but they are generally very positive. Having a resume that doesn't please everybody, and stands out from the pack, is valuable. Even the 40% who didn't like it will remember it. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | wheels: People in general spend about 30 seconds looking at your resume. One page or not, it has to be skimmable. Use bullet points and bold to bring out the important stuff. Use lots of white space.Lots of detail doesn't impress me. Your place for that is in the cover letter where you write about the one or two things most relevant from your background that are specifically appropriate to the open position.I think one page is a good goal to have, even if you don't make it; it forces you to trim and focus on the important stuff. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | notauser: The best application I saw in a recent round of hiring was in four parts:- Short cover letter in e-mail.- Longer cover letter signed and scanned as PDF.- 1 page concise CV.- 4 page detailed employment history.HR handed out the right bits to the right people and everyone was happy with the level of detail they got.All the worst CVs I saw came from agencies - not for content, just for layout. They can start off with a perfectly sane PDF and reformat it in to some god forsaken docx with broken layout and graphics, while adding spelling mistakes and removing qualifications. It's downright infuriating - any time in future I have to apply via an agency I will try and send a copy of my CV through directly as well. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | cperciva: Pages? What are those?My CV is 214 lines long, and each line is up to 78 ASCII characters. (Before anyone asks, yes, my CV is nicely formatted with clear sections and bullet points within each section.) |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | timr: How long should it be? The premise of the question is flawed -- nobody is going to shoot you if you don't submit a one-page resume. There's no law against it.But if a resume is little more than a marketing tool, then brevity is your friend. One page is better than four, even if your career can fill ten.(One notable exception: if you're in academics, long CVs are considered better than short. Academia is not the real world.) |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | iigs: Been doing a few interviews lately. Here's my take:The following things values are logarithmic or exponential (depending on the case), not linear:1) Page count -- One page isn't a hard limit anymore. Your resume has to go through keyword systems and spends most of its HR/recruitment life as a .doc file. The computer doesn't care and you're not getting graded on making it an appropriate length.2) The value of the words on each page -- Make your first page count. I try pretty hard to read the first page or so but start to lose interest as things progress. If the resume reads like a monotonous diary of your activity over the last two decades, nobody's going to be able to tell which words they should read and important stuff will be glossed over.3) The age of the experience -- If you did something really excellent more than five years ago, definitely include it, but you should allocate more space to more recent experiences. If you have three bullets each from your last three jobs and eighteen bullets from the fourth most recent, you're going to look like you have no career inertia or that you're just looking to park. If you have ten years of experience you can skip the details of what your college jobs were -- if they're in field include enough information to show how your career arc builds, but recruiters won't care about individual accomplishments.4) Accomplishments, not tasks -- Your most recent job or two should show a few tasks but an overwhelming bias toward things that you actually did. A list of tasks you were charged with just shows what you didn't like doing enough to continue doing it. The balance should shift as the experience ages -- maybe 20/80% tasks/accomplishments in the first job, 10/90% over the next few, but blending back to 50/50% or even lower as the experience ages. Again, the older or extra-field ones should be especially short.Personally I try to walk the walk on these points, and I also maintain a couple different versions of my resume. The version that I put into the job sites has a "products used" section near each job to pander to lazy recruiters who put "solaris" into the search box when they need a UNIX system administrator. I generally do not prefer to use these resumes after making contact with the recruiters, because no human cares what versions of SQL server I touched at a job five years ago. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | speby: In general, 1 page is still the norm, for several reasons, not the least of which when you print it out (for any reason) you don't have to staple or keep multiple pages together.Secondly, there is very little reason that your resume (not the totality of your experience) can't fit on one page if you tailor it specifically for the position you are applying for. In fact, the best candidates are the ones that are most prepared because they thought critically about the position, its requirements, "good to haves" and any related experience that pertains being able to contribute in that role and thus customized their resume specifically for that position.So, net effect is you should tailor your resume specifically and customized for every single position you apply for, anywhere. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | noodle: one page, with major points extremely visible (larger, bold, etc). well-designed and easy on the eyes. and you should modify your resume to each specific job you apply for.why? two reasons (this is information i've obtained from HR personnel that i personally know, it isn't simply heresay):most resumes go through non-technical HR people. they aren't involved in the department doing the hiring -- they're just there to screen the resumes. if a resume _appears_ irrelevent, they will trash it. if they have to read it in full to effectively screen it, they will trash it. some HR reps will trash multi-page resumes just in principle. the point is, they will spend less than 30 seconds per resume and any obstacles to that time limit will get your resume screened out.second, you don't want to tell your whole story in novel form on your resume. your resume is your hook and you want to reel in employers to get you on the phone or in person. that is where you get to talk to them in detail about what you do, what you've done, and get to impress them. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | Locke: The goal of a resume / cover letter are to land an interview. It's not an autobiography.I can say from personal experience that one does not completely read hundreds of resumes. When I was hiring I would get just as much info from a short resume as I would from a long resume. The key difference is that with a shorter more focused resume you have more control over what I actually take away from your resume.So for that reason I use a one page resume that's tightly focused on what I want to do, not everything I've ever been capable of doing.But I don't want my resume in some HR or recruiter database, either. A long resume make work better if you prefer the shotgun approach to finding work... |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | gearslips: Some of the stuff you've mentioned is really good old-school stuff, like list and sprintf, that's fallen out of vogue.With regard to suggestions to check out Zend Framework, my advice is: Don't. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | makaimc: One of the Booz & Co. partners I recently talked to said he has two piles of resumes: 1 page and 2+ pages. He reviews the 1 page resumes for good candidates and puts the longer resumes in the garbage without looking at them. A resume's purpose is to get you an interview- not describe your life's story. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | speek: 1 page.Simple.Eye-catching. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | dfranke: dfranke@feanor:~$ wc resume.txt
99 620 4016 resume.txt |
best/most popular hosted server monitoring services? | run4yourlives: This was the first result in google for "uptime monitoring": www.uptimesoftware.comGiven that they have a free plan, why don't you just sign up and see how reliable they are for your self prior to buying? |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | yan: Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman (or anything else by Feynman is very relevant)Understanding the Linux Kernel is surprisingly thorough not just in its coverage of the Linux kernel, but also architecture and OS design in generalThe Design and Implementation of FBSD book now covers 5.3, which is much less dated than the 4.4 text.Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach is one of my favorite CS books and covers AI topics with surprising clarity.The Design of Everyday ThingsLinkers & Loaders, I'd hesitate to call this a bible of any sort, but it's a rarely-referenced gem that covers a topic few others do and it's relevant to me, at least.Probably others I'm missing. This is a very good list though. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | misterbwong: A general rule that I've read is that two (maybe three page) resumes are OK but the most important information MUST be on the first page.In essence, if I were to take a multi-page resume and the last pages were ripped off/somehow went missing, the first page would still be strong enough to make the applicant's case. |
Review my Weekend Project - VotetheSite.com | KrisJordan: I would love to see a live, updating vote count on the front page.In the next election cycle it is probably worth getting this out earlier though not sure how to keep driving traffic over an extended period of time without content that keeps you coming back. As a voter it'd be neat to see how other people's tastes compare with mine - maybe an auto email which runs stats after the election.Campaign sites should not do what this guy did: http://crowley08.com/(Also, there doesn't appear to be a clickable link. The website is http://www.votethesite.com/) |
best/most popular hosted server monitoring services? | aaroneous: We've been very happy with pingdom.com. Plans range from $10-$35, they have a lot of options to verify your machines are actually up (APIs, ping, string matching, https, etc). |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | rcoder: Mine is plaintext, and probably 1-2 pages when printed. Anything that doesn't make the cut for the first page or so goes in the cover letter, or is already somewhere on my blog or in Google, so I don't sweat it.I actually used the layout of a UNIX 'man' page for a while, which got lots of chuckles, but no offers, so now it's just simple Markdown-like text. |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | yan: Also a decent list of books: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum... |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | qhoxie: Applied Cryptography - Schneier |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | run4yourlives: 1. Peopleware: http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-S...2. Pragmatic Programmer: http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master... |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | huherto: The number of pages will depend on your experience. If you are just out of school one page is fine. I have almost 20 years (ouch!) so it is hard to make it fit in three pages. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | kwamenum86: Write your own collection of object oriented php classes or use someone else's. This will speed up your projects a ton. I tend to stay away from frameworks unless it is commissioned work that involves a lot of boiler plate code (forum, blog, etc.). |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | cperciva: Talk to the experts in the field -- that is, experts in the field of web hosting, not experts in the field of startups. I'm sure people over at webhostingtalk.com will have a much better idea of what your company is worth than anyone here. |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | noodle: why don't you use your ownership income to hire someone to replace you? that way, you won't have to sell your stake at a price you don't like, someone can still be doing the necessary work you won't be doing, and you'll still have a passive income stream.just my uninformed $0.02. |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | jd: Trying to get as much money as you possibly can fits the definition of greed, but that really doesn't matter. You want to get as much money as you can without feeling guilty.There are different ways to determine the worth of a hosting company. One way is to look at revenues + growth in revenues + number of customers - risks. Another way is to look at the amount of money you'll get if you were to sell, minus the effort needed to sell.Hosting companies are worth very little when you sell them. You experienced this yourself when you bought a competitor for 60k. So by comparing the revenues + health of that company with the merged company, and you'll get a reasonable valuation. I've seen hosting companies get sold for less than $30 per customer, so the number you'll get at is going to disappoint.If your hosting company is still growing quickly you have to make an estimate of the value of the company in a couple of years, and your total contribution to that. Since hosting companies that grow too quickly always destroy themselves growth is bad indicator of value.The bottom line - hosting companies don't create much value and the little value they have is decimated when sold. You don't have any IP to speak of, and it's a high-maintenance environment (unless you outsource everything, but the hosting companies I know still had to deal with all difficult issues themselves). Your partner also has to find somebody else to take your place (I assume), which can cost up to a year's salary easily. All in all, your partner isn't getting a great deal here either.As the saying goes - if both parties are unhappy the deal is fair. And that's what it looks like from here.Postscript:- once you leave, your partner cannot leave anymore. He can't just walk away with 70k. He might not want to leave, but knowing that leaving isn't really an option can be depressing.- most hosting companies go kaput within the first 5 or so years. I haven't looked at the data since I left the scene, but chances are your company will be gone in 3 years. You didn't mention any problems in the OP, so I take it's all sunshine now. However, if you're leaving (partially) because of burn-out (boredom) then burn-out is probably not far behind for your partner. In that case, you'll get 45% of 150k, and he'll end up with 100% of nothing + a total burn out.- if the person your partner hires to replace you doesn't work out - see above. Big risk for him there too.- in his position, how would you feel about your partner leaving and having to pay him 70k? Would you gladly give him 110k (or whatever amount you had in mind)? |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | sctb: I have submitted a 2 page CV with a 1 page personalized cover letter in the past. I have signed reference letters as well, which are handy to bring to an interview. That being said, with all of the jobs that I've received offers for, the employer knew who I was and had a good idea of my background before ever receiving my CV. |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | mseebach: I read somewhere that a reasonable measure it to consider the invenstment. If you were to buy your share, you'd have to put $X down to get a return of 45%*profit(not salaries)/year. Calculate backwards to get the interest rate on various down payments, and see what makes sense.Considering that the 100k is profit and not your salaries, the share's profit is $45.000:$100.000 = 45% interest rate .. a little too nice!$1.000.000 = 4.5% interest, keep your money in the bank$300.000 = 15% interest - pretty sweet spot.Back-of-the-envelope, I'm niether an accountant or an auditor. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | neilc: One interesting idea is to format your resume as a mind map[1]. You're likely to get either very positive or very negative responses, but I'd be curious to know if anyone's tried it.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | tptacek: There's no ironclad rule of valuation, but a normal way to go about this would be to set the whole company valuation at N x forward revenue, where N is a function of how much value is locked up in the company due to its youth and lack of sales, marketing, and distribution.Two benchmarks:A solid services company sells for 1.5-2x forward revenue; a services company making $5MM a year might be valued at around $10MM.A solid product company with a really bright future might sell for 5x revenue; a product company making $5MM might be valued at $25MM.You're definitely more towards the "services" side of this spectrum: you're an IT services company (with a productized IT service) in a totally commoditized market segment.You don't have a "right to liquidity". Your partner is within her rights to give you no money, allow you to maintain an equity stake in the company should it ever be sold, hire someone to take your place, and pay them out of the operating budget for the company.You also don't usually value a stake in (what is now) a 2 person company at 50%; a more typical structure would reserve a large chunk of the company ownership for employees, rather than diluting and restructuring with every hire.So, if you have 40% margins --- ie, you're more efficient than Rackspace --- you're aiming to gross ~400k in the next 12 months. Do the math, then discount heavily because nobody is actually buying you, and your partner is taking all the risk.For the business you're talking about, less the value you brought to the table (presumably 50% of all the work), 70k sounds like a great deal. |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | astrec: You should consider having your business audited and valued - a valuation could be as high as 4-5 x EBIT. In terms one partner acquiring the interests of another, a (significant) discount would normally be applied. |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | Kaizyn: Hello Edb,I agree with noodle's comment(s) below. Your best bet is to hire someone to replace you and retain your stake in the company. The cost of an employee will definitely reduce your annual income, but then you won't have to worry about being cheated out of your share of the company's value. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | hs: ZEROresumes never win me any job offers, neither does schooling; however, past projects and works doon topic, my 5? years old lost resume was 1 page long |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | cubix: W. R. Stevens: TCP/IP Illustrated Vol. 1-3, Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, and UNIX Network Programming Vol. 1 and 2. |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | symptic: I would try to sell 60-70% of my share and use the remaining bit to outsource the work in maintaining the work I was doing, then sit on the $1-2k coming in every month as a safety net to pay the bills and give me the full purchasing price to invest in my start up (though I'd advise investing much less to keep your start up honest) |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | johnrob: 1) Agree on ownership (you own 45%?)2) Your partner needs to start taking a salary - negotiate the amount.3) Pay partner's salary directly from the profit, and then split the remaninder according to equity.What's complicating matters is that you are splitting the company profit and avoiding salaries. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | andreyf: Cool PHP trick: write a compiler from a better language to PHP and write your code in that ;) |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | tapostrophemo: Working Effectively With Legacy Code - Michael C. Feathers |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | jaydub: Computer Architecture, Fourth Edition: A Quantitative Approach - John L. Hennessy, David A. PattersonThe Black Swan - Nicholas Nassim Taleb |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | gojomo: If he's offering $70K for 45% ($1555 per 1%), would he accept $86K from you for his 55% (a smidge more per share)?That's one way partnerships can deal with a situation where one or the other partner wants out or to go solo: have a put-up-or-shut-up binding bidding process, where whoever offers more per share gets to -- and indeed has to -- buy the other out. (The payment could be in installments out of future revenues.) Sometimes this is written into operating/partnership agreements from the get-go.Even granting that you would prefer to be in another business, if you owned it 100% for another $86K, could you then sell the whole thing free and clear for more than $156K? (If not, it's hard to argue your 45% share is already worth more than $70K.)Or, could you hire staff and become a four-hour-workweek owner collecting an acceptable return on your >$156K investment?That's the analysis that counts in tiny, closely-held businesses. There's no liquid market in their ownership and their value is often tightly bound with the owner/managers. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | skmurphy: I have hired more forty people--a mix of employees and contractors--as a manager in technology companies. One page and a cover letter/section (perhaps 100 lines total) is the most that will get read before a hiring manager decides to give you a call.Or not.Tailor your experience to the position you are applying for in a cover letter/section and in what you highlight in the resume. It's a sales pitch not an autobiography that should be designed to get a phone screen or an invite to an interview.I would focus on getting it into the hiring manager's hands with an endorsement from someone they trust. |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | satyajit: Nope, we didn't make it. Just saw the email. But we are NOT depressed. We still are believers! |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | greg_helfer: Did you get any questions from YC during the process? |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | ktom: Didn't make it,kind of crushing. I'll admit I am depressed.Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | boucher: I can say that in my experience interviewing potential candidates, everyone I worked with generally hated lengthy resumes, but I was the only one who cared enough to dock people for them.It's not that important, but ultimately, a concise resume reflects on your communication skills. Being able to summarize the most relevant information is an important skill, even in the software industry. |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | gqwu: Our group submitted 4 apps.
We got a PG question on two of them.
Still got rejected on all 4, sucks... |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | noodle: depends. if he's willing to pay, i'm sure he could find someone to appropriately value it.i also would say that we could probably help valuate it here.would need info like, how much he paid, how much he's making with it now, traffic it gets, etc.. |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | anand: There is a official procedure that companies can use to dispute the domain name if you're trying to hustle them that costs them about $1000-2500. I forget what its called but if you look at past cases you'll see a lot of people trying to hustle corporations and the decisions handed down. I think if Bellog thinks they can win (very possible) they would price you according to that figure.http://www.livecurrent.com/ is a pro-Domain Squatter. They may be able to help |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | fnazeeri: The key is getting a 3rd party to the table. For example, if P&G were expressing interest... It reminds me of a case from b-school titled, "Up for Auction: Malta Bargains with Great Britain" which is worth a read if you can track it down. Having a 3rd party could mean the difference between getting $10K or $1MM. |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | FiReaNG3L: estibot.comKeep in mind that its an automated estimate. But in my experience, it makes very good ones. Of course, it all depends of what the buyer wants to pay... |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | johnb: I'm surprised no one has put a link to http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/02/25/a_glimpse_a... in yet.I've been the technical reviewer on a lot of hires and found Rand's process fairly similar to mine. I think it's good that he views the document as having 2 purposes: the first being to get through all the recruiters/HR to get it into the tech reviewer's hands, the second being grabbing the reviewer's attention enough that you get an interview. |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | ra: Domain appraisal is very subjective.I'd say it's worth looking at namepros.com and dnforum.com where you might be able to get some friendly appraisals. Also have a look around for recent sales history. Try to find similar names that have sold in the past.I wouldn't recommend paying for a domain appraisal. They're generally scams but usually way off the mark.If it is a true generic domain like cereal.com or breakfast.com, then it's worth a small fortune. Like $500,000 minimum!Have a look at: http://dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm for the year to date big domain sales.Also: http://www.ricksblog.com/ Rick Schwartz has made some huge private sales in the past, and he might be able to offer you some guidance.Good luck! |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | nolanbrown23: We got a question and thought we offered a pretty sufficient response but no joy. |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | wehriam: And when all else fails, ask Google - http://www.google.com/search?q=domain+name+attorney |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | senthil_rajasek: More a trick than a best practice, heredochttp://us.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#langua...You should recognize this immediately if you have done any unix shell scripting.I use it to spit out large pieces of HTML. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | arupchak: If you're applying for a specific position, a one page resume highlighting your specific skills and past projects pertaining to the job is a good idea. The time to elaborate on a past project or experience that is not directly relevant is the interview.Remember how your resume is going to be treated (at least at a larger company). It is first going to go through a screener (a recruiter or even a keyword search), then it will go to someone technical on a team.Always remember that the main point is to get the interview, that's it.Also, please please proof read your resumes. I actually had a QA engineer with a spelling error on his resume. |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | tamersalama: This thread is yet another proof that the current recruitment process (in any and all companies) is flawed (and yes, mine have been rejected before).The reason is it is 'still' a personal taste process. No matter what you do, how you sell, what you write, how you think, it's still up to the personal taste of some person whether to give a green light or not. That taste is subject to then need, experience, skill-level, mood, coffee, <anything u like to add> of the decision-making person.It's not that I'm bitter, it's that, being a person who's passionate about what he does (as many others here), I 'know' it can be better.Resumes are the first wrong step in the process. Why do we still rely on them? Because other alternatives aren't as easy/available.Note: wrong step does not always mean wrong outcome. |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | bigthboy: Didn't make it but we're still moving forward. I mean, its not like PG and Ycombinator is the ONLY way to make a start-up work. What about those billions of them that came before YC existed? |
Good reading material for "mobile" stuff? | rscott: I would suggest any mobile tech related news site/blog/forum out there. Not much good picking up books on something that gets updated every 3 months or so. Mobile engadget, gizmodo, etc. come to mind. Howard Forums is also huge for mobile/cell phone chatter. |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | curiousgeorge: If someone sued me and then wanted me to voluntarily enter into a contract with them, I'd assign a very large figure to goodwill regardless of the appraised price of the asset.If your friend is taking a mercenary approach, a good starting point is estimating what the potential buyer is already paying in the way of legal expenses, adding his own and then applying a multiplier. |
ASK HN: Hacker Bibles | bayareaguy: The Algorithm Design Manual - SkienaPurely Functional Data Structures - OkasakiAlgorithmics - HarelThe Practice of Programming - Kernighan & PikeConcurrency Control and Recovery in Database Systems - Bernstein, Hadzilacos, Goodman.Recovery in Parallel Database Systems - HvasshovdACM Turing Award Lectures |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | sunkencity: if speed of execution is relevant, just use echo (which takes any number of arguments), and single quoted strings (concatenating, or parsing double quoted strings is slower):function user_profile_link ($user) {
echo '<a href="/user/',
$user->profile,
'">', $user->name,
'</a>';
} |
Are one-page résumés passé? How long is your résumé? | paraschopra: 3 pages |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | aquarin: Place to resolve such disputes is WIPO
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/ |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | astrec: The results from recent auctions are instructive: http://marketplacepro.moniker.com/auction/index.htmlWe used an NYC based lawyer who specializes in premium domain acquisitions to secure a domain for USD$400k last year - if your friend is interested interested I can dig up the name. |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | haasted: I think it would be a better idea to look at an application than a framework. It will likely match your future work better.MediaWiki has in my experience a very well-written codebase, so I would designate it a good candidate for code-reading. |
How to get out of a startup cleanly to start a startup? | markessien: Don't leave. What if your startup does not work-out, what's your backup plan? |
PHP Tricks and Best Practices? | thwarted: list() isn't a function, it just looks like one, just like array() looks like a function but isn't. There apparently wasn't enough syntax to spend on making things like this less ambiguous, but now we do have \ as a namespace separator. |
What do you think of our new app? FutureTweets.com | davidw: Might it get you banned from twitter if you're not careful? |
What do you think of our new app? FutureTweets.com | bigbang: Good idea. Thought of the sameAlthough I thought sendible.com which also does this was more comprehensive in this arena. |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | SBev: Simple its as valuable as he wants it to be. If the company has filed suit and went to court they have already spent $25,000 or more just to file the paperwork. He should ask for the world and slowly go down from there.In a prior job the company I was with renamed itself. The branding consultants and executive management found the perfect name and started moving forward with all the changes. Then they asked my VP about the websites and such. Of course the name was already registered. After approaching the domain owner about the name he requested $50,000. After haggling the domain owner happily took $20,000. My VP was actually authorized to spend $5 million to acquire that domain.Point of the story, obviously want that domain badly so your initial amount should be painfully large. Just keep reminding your friend how (s)he felt the day all the legal paperwork was handed to him. |
What do you think of our new app? FutureTweets.com | pt: this is neat, i just used it on MAKE for a daily sub code discount. i'd like to have a feature where it can do a count down... for example each day the tweet could say...there X number of days until Y ... blah blahhandy for events and other things i'd use it for. |
What do you think of our new app? FutureTweets.com | joshsharp: Nice looking site! However you also have competition from http://tweetlater.com. I hear that's what most people use for scheduling tweets at the moment. |
Valuation of domain for sale to large corporation? | patrickg-zill: It is just another line item for them in terms of cost, so don't be shy.Remember that if they are going to use the domain for marketing purposes, they will be spending millions upon millions of dollars in advertising; so even $500K or more for the domain name is not a big deal to them. |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | rodmaz: We didn't make it. We seriously believe we have a strong aplication: experienced people (developers), revenue model, an advanced demo, and already very very good reviews from other people.
I am sure now that YC looks at two things basically:
-a team larger enough to have at least 2 guys working full-time until Demo Day (we had only one)
-younger coders (20-28) at most. We are 29, 31 y.o.If you don't have those two things, you probably didn't make it in this round, since it was more competitive, even if you had a demo and your solution was very interesting.Needless to say, we will move forward faster than ever now.
Most of the negative things I got in life turned out to be positive later if I look backwards. I hope it's true with YC rejection too. :) |
Passed the first selection for YC 2009? Share your joy and your project | fernyb: How do we know if we made it? I didn't receive any email. Though I did receive a call from a blocked number last night, but I didn't hear it ring and no voice mail was left. Maybe... I doubt it though. |
What do you think of our new app? FutureTweets.com | ryanmahoski: "have an alibi..."
...that ends in "sent from Future Tweets." |
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