Startupboy
startupboy.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Startupboy is the blog of Gary Rieschel-era startup writer Tim Brown? No: an entrepreneur writing about startups, hiring, and Bitcoin.
What HN saysHN links it for essays on Bitcoin as a protocol layer and startup work habits; one commenter calls its view of startups narrow.
56HN people shared it
16linked it in comments
48stories submitted
1.3Kstory points
6 years agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Bitcoin Model for Crowdfunding6 people · 114 points · first shared 2014 · 34 comments on HN
- 2The Fifth Protocol (2014)5 people · 93 points · first shared 2014 · 21 comments on HN
- 3Why you can't hire4 people · 318 points · first shared 2011 · 72 comments on HN
- 4Bitcoin – The Internet of Money4 people · 183 points · first shared 2013 · 63 comments on HN
- 5The 80-hour Myth3 people · 33 points · first shared 2009 · 6 comments on HN
- 6American Spring3 people · 32 points · first shared 2016 · 18 comments on HN
- 7American Fall – The Sequel to American Spring by Naval Ravikant3 people · 6 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 8The returns to entrepreneurship2 people · 97 points · first shared 2009 · 24 comments on HN
- 9The 80-hour Myth (Your best work is in bursts, surrounded by periods of dullness and inactivity)2 people · 37 points · first shared 2007 · 12 comments on HN
- 10There is No Angel Bubble. There are Many Angel Bubbles.2 people · 16 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 11Craigslist is Worth More than eBay2 people · 7 points · first shared 2007 · 5 comments on HN
- 12New VC Service Level Agreement2 people · 7 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
- 13Who has time for meetings?2 people · 3 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 14The Unbundling of the Venture Capital Industry2 people · 3 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 15Securitize Citizenship2 people · 2 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
Harj · 2008-12-28
that's a very narrow and unrealistic view of a startup. some of the most phenomenally productive people i've known and worked with don't pretend to be working every hour of the day. they work in short intense bursts in the knowledge that they'll still get more done than the people who kid themselves into thinking that sacrificing everything so they can be staring at their screens for 12 hours a day is the only way to be productive.
the best blog post i've found on this is from naval ravikant, http://www.startupboy.com/journal/2005/11/29/the-80-hour-myth.html
wallflower · 2008-04-03
I had a sense of Deja Vu reading this. Old "analysis". http://www.startupboy.com/journal/2006/2/6/craigslist-is-worth-more-th…
DanielRibeiro · 2013-11-28
Naval, founder of Angel List, has described[1] this and many other excitign usages of Bitcoin, going beyond basic money transfer:
Everyone has a copy of the Bitcoin block chain, so anyone can verify your transactions. You can write software that will crawl the block chain and generate automatic accounting histories for tax and verification purposes. You can engaged in “Trusted Timestamping” – take a cryptographic signature of any document, timestamp it, and put it into the block chain. Anyone can verify that the document existed at a given time. If you sign the document with your private key and another party signs it with theirs, it becomes an undeniable mutually-signed contract. This entirely eliminates notaries and websites like https://www.proofofexistence.com/ are showing the concept. The Namecoin project is building a distributed Domain Name System that allocates and resolve Domain Names without needing ICANN or Verisign, by using the block chain to establish proof-of-ownership.
Really worth a read.
[1] http://startupboy.com/2013/11/07/bitcoin-the-internet-of-money/
jclemenson · 2012-01-09
NYC - Lead Developer / Founding Engineer (Ruby) at Centzy (http://centzy.com)
Centzy is a comparison shopping engine for local services (http://centzy.com). What Kayak does for flights and hotels, Centzy does for the everyday services in your neighborhood like haircuts, dry cleaners, and oil changes. It's a large, untapped market, and we are funded by great investors who share our passion: Lightbank (Groupon's original investor), ff Venture Capital (Klout's original investor) and ER Accelerator.
We are two startup guys (one hacker, one business) and we are looking for another hacker to join us. As our first hire, we would consider you a late co-founder (http://startupboy.com/2011/12/13/why-you-cant-hire/). We will compensate you as such (equity + salary) but also expect you to take significant product ownership and to help lead the development team. We're not picky about titles, but Lead Developer seems about right. You should be passionate about building great products and tackling big data and technology challenges. You should have deep experience in Ruby, Rails and Javascript. Experience with MongoDB is a plus.
We would prefer that you work with us in our sunny office in the Lower East Side of NYC. We share a co-working space with other startups so you'll get the benefit of being part of a larger community of fun and motivated entrepreneurs.
Please get in touch with your github profile, linkedin profile / resume, and a short description about an interesting project /…
danberger · 2012-01-02
A little late to the party. I blame the hangover I had yesterday :)
Social Tables (http://www.socialtables.com), a funded, DC-based startup is looking for a Senior Developer/VP of Engineering (employee #1, wahoo!).
If you immediately thought that this startup makes databases social, you're the kind of person we're looking for and you'll fit right in. Please read on :)
Social Tables is the seating plan platform for events. You know how weddings, galas and other large events have assigned seating? Well, the biggest PITA in planning these events is figuring out how to seat guests (it can take weeks). Our cloud-based software solves that problem.
Since launching in May 2011, we've seated 43k guests at 450 different events. We're expanding rapidly through big strategic partnerships and aggressive customer acquisition.
In this role, your responsibilities will be to lead product development of our next version. We prefer Rails but if PHP is your weapon of choice, that's cool. You should also be proficient in JavaScript since things will be a little heavier on the client-side going forward.
You must be a motivated self-starter who is energized by teamwork and loves to learn new things.
Traction aside, right now is the perfect time to join Social Tables and we would love to tell you why. In addition to competitive compensation, you will get serious equity (we agree with Naval in his recent post on this issue - http://startupboy.com/2011/12/13/why-you-cant-hire/).
If this…
yarapavan · 2019-03-04
If you like this article, you might find Naval Ravikant's other posts on wealth also interesting.
https://startupboy.com/category/wealth/
kang · 2018-01-09
Naval does a much better job of explaining what the tech is about : https://startupboy.com/2014/04/01/the-fifth-protocol/
However, OP nor Naval, really understand the protocol, or wouldn't be supporting non-blockchain things like ethereum (there is nothing that you can do with ethereum but not with git).
>One of these developers, Vitalik Buterin, was frustrated by Bitcoin’s immobilism
I am amazed at how HN is selling a promo story invented for media by ethereum as a company. Digging IRC logs would reveal how Vitalik convoluted each aspect of the tech(and was often wrong)to the point that the devs stopped caring and let him be. Even technically, I have answered this on HN and other places numerous times - tell me one thing you can build with ethereum but not with bitcoin? (On the opposite, ethereum can't do money - mutable chain).
temphn · 2017-05-04
Hi Larry,
I for one thank you for your contribution. Hacker News can be a bunch of jackasses at times.
You are absolutely right: distributed version control led to git, which completely changed programming. And though Satoshi didn't cite it by name it was almost certainly also part of the inspiration for Bitcoin and the blockchain, which has led to another $30B in collective market cap.
If you want a suggestion for what to do next, or what to advise, you can probably have a lot of impact (and make money) by getting involved in some of these new distributed ledger/ICO projects. You have the technical ability and it's now possible to monetize at the protocol level. Here are some links if you're interested:
https://www.smithandcrown.com/icos/
https://startupboy.com/2014/03/09/the-bitcoin-model-for-crowdfunding/
http://www.usv.com/blog/fat-protocols
mceoin · 2017-03-17
Or perhaps they could pre-mine a coin they would be paid in: https://startupboy.com/2014/04/01/the-fifth-protocol/
patrickk · 2013-12-16
Some radical ideas: http://startupboy.com/2013/11/07/bitcoin-the-internet-of-money/
gojomo · 2013-11-22
...and then earn/buy the advice elsewhere. See also Naval Ravikant's view of the once-upon-a-time VC-package of "advice, control, and money" becoming progressively unbundled...
http://startupboy.com/2010/12/01/the-unbundling-of-the-venture-capital…
...which has only accelerated (including by Naval's own initiatives) in the 3 years since that post.
cheae · 2012-09-05
This is a comparison made back in 2005 and Google has a better UI than the rest
http://startupboy.com/2005/12/20/fix-the-search-interface-first/
webwright · 2012-05-30
"Equity is the founder's only payoff, so they're going to be incredibly stingy about it, while playing up the intrinsic benefits"
There's also a lot of weight behind the "this is how it's done". 1% used to be very generous when founders had to roll the dice with 12+ months of their life to get seed funding and take big dilution when they did. Nowadays, it's cheaper/easier/faster to start a company, easier to get early stage funding, etc. It might make sense to reward employee #1 with a bit more equity... IF you can't pay them market rate (you buy equity by taking risk-- if you aren't underpaid, you aren't risking much beyond opportunity cost).
See: http://startupboy.com/2011/12/13/why-you-cant-hire/
jeremynixon · 2020-09-21
Growth
Mr. Money Moustache [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/]
Study Hacks, Cal Newport [http://calnewport.com/blog/]
Tim Ferriss [https://tim.blog/]
Oliver Emberton [oliveremberton.com]
Intellectual
Farnam Street, Shane Parrish [farnamstreetblog.com/blog]
Less Wrong [http://lesswrong.com/] [lesserwrong.com]
Raw Thought, Aaron Swartz [aaronsw.com/weblog]
Slate Star Codex [slatestarcodex.com]
Edge [http://edge.org/]
Melting Asphalt, Kevin Simler [http://www.meltingasphalt.com/]
Essays, Paul Graham [paulgraham.com/articles.html]
Minding Our Way, Nate Soares [http://mindingourway.com/]
Ribbonfarm, Venkatesh Rao [ribbonfarm.com]
Overcoming Bias, Robin Hanson [overcomingbias.com]
Shtetl-Optimized, Scott Aaronson [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/]
Raikoth, Scott Alexander [http://web.archive.org/web/20140220082152/http://raikoth.net:80/]
Heterodox Academy [https://heterodoxacademy.org/]
Technology
Hacker News [https://news.ycombinator.com/]
Worrydream, Bret Victor [http://worrydream.com/]
Naval Ravikant [https://startupboy.com/]
Unenumerated, Nick Szabo [http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/]
Stratchery [http://stratchery.com/]
Statistics
DataTau [http://www.datatau.com/]
FiveThirtyEight [fivethirtyeight.com]
Simply Statistics [https://simplystatistics.org/]
Chris Olah [colah.github.io]
Economics
Marginal Revolution [marginalrevolution.com]
Project Syndicate [project-syndicate.org]
reustle · 2015-07-23
This format is painful to read, so I'm copying the content here. This is a series of tweets by https://twitter.com/balajis
--
If you are using software to go after a legacy physical vertical, we are most excited if you do it "full stack" [0].
With @counsyl, we found that one cannot live by bioinformatics alone. So built a full clinical lab + software + national salesforce.
Here is a video of our robotic genome factory: Also: insurance coverage, clearances, clinical integration... [1]
The reason to do full stack is that it's hard to replace just one layer of an outdated legacy stack. CAC & integration costs can kill.
For example, consider "restaurant powered by technology" vs "tech for restaurants". With code, reinvent industry and make better margins.
You cannot automate something till you've done it manually many times. You cannot abstract an API till you've seen many specific examples.
Need to build a site of the scale of http://Amazon.com - and encounter all the problems - before you could do http://aws.amazon.com .
Reinventing agriculture? Build new kind of farm, w/ solar panels & self-driving tractors. Control all factors, show that code cuts costs.
More examples of full stack startups.. Education: [2], Autos: [3], Hospitality: [4]
By doing it end-to-end, you see things. First, sometimes a good reason beyond tradition (eg regulatory, logistical) for legacy practices.
Second, your control of adjacent layers may eliminate the initial problem you were trying…