""

Another way of putting that is:  never build anything in-house if you can expose a basic API and get those high-value users (the ones who are getting the most value out of the platform) to build it for you. On the Trello team, any feature that can be provided by a plug-in must be provided by a plug-in.

small shop out of nyc

"But it is useful to decide where you come down on the question of design in your startup, because if it’s important you’d better work on that right now and develop a consistent culture of valuing design through-and-through, and if it’s not important you’d better decide what is important and nail those things all the harder, because you’ll be competing with people who are using superior design to cover up their lack of competency in those same areas."

"How does it work? It’s actually fairly simple: after you sign up, we provide a custom, unique short URL that we encourage you to share out via email, social networks, etc. When somebody visits that URL and signs up, we can track it back to you and give you credit for it. After 3 people sign up with your link, you make our “priority access list” and we let you know via email."

"Start-ups are always short on time. Here are some tools (products/frameworks/etc) that might avoid you reinventing the wheel and save you some valuable time.We (Songkick) have found that the most useful tools are introduced to us by other start-ups. This wiki is an attempt to collect some of that knowledge and experience in one place so that companies getting started on new problems have a useful reference.This list is focused on technical tools to save development time. For business focused resources, Seedcamp have created a useful wiki here."

"Convert your links into embeddable content. We currently support more than 100 services, and more are on the way."

"Creation is entirely dependent on ownership. Ownership not as a percentage of equity, but as a measure of your ability to change things for the better. To build and grow and fail and learn. This is no small thing. Creativity is the manifestation of lateral thinking, and without tangible results, it becomes stunted. We have to see the fruits of our labors, good or bad, or there’s no motivation to proceed, nothing to learn from to inform the next decision. States of approval and decisions-by-committee and constant compromises are third-party interruptions of an internal dialog that needs to come to its own conclusions. Your muse can only be treated as the secretary of a subcommittee for so long before she decides to pack up and look for employment elsewhere. If you aren’t able to own the product and be creative, then you aren’t able to do your work, and if you’re not doing your work then you’re negating a very real part of your personality, which is no good for anyone."

"Get a CEO peer group to bounce ideas off of as soon as possible. Gail learned from a fellow CEO that calling free trial-ers would lead to a doubling in their “trial-to-pay” conversion rates. Trying this was the difference between a model that she thought was failing miserably and one that has built Constant Contact into a publicly traded company (see #3 on giving experiments enough time). If your product is strong enough, people do not need to be sold. Focus your sales teams on being coaches, not salespeople. This means focusing salespeople on making prospective customers successful, and not on near-term revenue maximization."

awesome excerpts from a Quora post

"Startups are designed for the situations that cannot be modeled, are not clear-cut, and where the risk is not necessarily large – it’s just not yet known. I emphasize this point because it is necessary to motivate large amounts of the theory of the lean startup. Fundamentally, the lean startup is a methodology for coping with uncertainty and unknowns with agility, poise, and ruthless efficiency. It is a completely different experience from the equally hard job of executing in a traditional kind of business"

Was controversial when it was published, but still very interesting.

"OK, you’re thinking, “then what should I ask them?” A better way to think about it is, what should I be learning from this interview?"

part II

"Sean Ellis recently sat down with us and explained how to bring products to market. You should listen to this interview for ideas on how to get to product/market fit, how to measure fit, and how to survey your users so you can improve fit."

"the third and last of a series on getting your start up to go fast"

"There’s a classroom exercise that’s a part of the  Stanford technology venture program hits its students with each year: If you had five dollars and two hours, what would you do to make as much money as possible? STVP Executive Director  Tina Seelig discusses the query and how budding entrepreneurs responded."

"We tried charging for our API without much success.  Then we paid developers to use it and it took off. It is such an interesting move to make on the market. In the case of TACODA, they initially built a powerful behavioral targeting solution for publishers to segment their audiences and sell them to advertisers. They sold the technology to about twenty large online publishers. But the sales cycles were long and the license fees were smaller than they needed them to be. "

"The epiphany I want to talk about is this: What are you waiting for? Seriously. I know you’ve got a mortgage and 1.5 kids, but during your sacred time when you discover that bright idea and subsequently discover that no established competitor exists… why aren’t you making the leap? I know what you’re waiting for. See, you’ve been doing the same comfortable thing I’ve been doing for twenty years. You’re obeying the structure of the organization where there are charts that describe who owns what and who owns who. I am intimately familiar with the mindset that reads: “We will complete our work by following the rules of mediocrity” Do just enough. Don’t rock the boat. Make yourself indispensable without being noticeable. And it works. There is absolutely no way to argue that following the rules doesn’t result in a comfortable life, but…"

"Then I realized why I need to start a new company. Not for the money. Not because I’m “bored”. But because a company is a laboratory to try your ideas. (The word “laboratory” is defined as a room for research, experimentation or analysis. I think of it as a sandbox or playpen.) "

"administration tool which can prevent running any application in Windows." just pass it a list of names and voila.

"Building or launched a web site/application? Check out the choices below on how to generate money from your hard work. Note that these are not mutually exclusive: consider mixed hybrid models too."

"A fairly detailed taxonomy of the existing business models for web sites. The breakdown is here. Using their taxonomy the researches than examined one Top 100 web app list for 2008 and found that: 34% use Advertising, 12% a Variable Subscription model, and 8% each for Virtual Products (typically digital downloads), Related Products (typically a large software company offering a free product to attract you to their platform) and Pay-Per-Use."

1. Accept a lower valuation. 2. Use the same lawyer as your investors. 3. Bring an advocate. 4. Identify your company’s “safe place.” 5. Don’t inflate your burn.

allows you to add audio to a slideshow tour of websites inside a player-page in your browser. like a screencast, only more interactive.

everyone should remember Buchheit's Law: "Advice = Limited Life Experience + Overgeneralization".

analyzes your Windows startup, tracking the programs that automatically run and the drivers Windows loads, to show you what processes are slowing down your startup. (microsoft tool)

set a delay time between the launch of every program to avoid overloading the system

installing and configuring an automated infrastructure management system (puppet), version control system (subversion), continuous build and test (frequently cruisecontrol.rb), software deployment (capistrano), monitoring (currently evaluating Hyperic, Ze

A great name is the beginning of a great brand. It should be memorable and create a certain feeling when heard. Here's a quick how-to on creating one and making sure it's not already used.

utilities that run in the background and watch for applications attempting to register themselves to run at Windows startup

a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn't even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents annoying programs from registering themselves behind your back.

Excellent list of startup tasks.

from Y Combinator Startup News

An entrepreneur’s guide to hacking venture capital since Persian calendar year 1386

online service that handles all of the necessary paperwork and legal documents for incorporation

One limitation of the standard AutoRun facility is the fact that it will only run executable programs; it will not by itself open document files such as web pages or text files. AutoRun.exe is designed to circumvent this restriction: it will open any numb

Startup Delayer allows you to setup how many seconds after Windows has started, to load each program. may help with missing systray icons

little nuggets of wisdom for bite-sized nutrition

The secret to building a successful business on your own

Making your own decisions. Doing something you love. Spending more time with the family. Participating in the American Dream. Starting a business is awesome. Paperwork. Legal fees. Invoices. More paperwork. Taxes. Starting a business sucks. The Particletr