Poll: Startup grammar question

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=414758

by cperciva • 18 years ago

11 33 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

mikeyur• 18 years ago

"I is a startup."

ph0rque• 18 years ago

I started a startup.

transburgh• 18 years ago

I'm working at a startup

timf• 18 years ago

I am starting a small business.

babyshake• 18 years ago

I can has startup?

bootload• 18 years ago

"... I can has startup? ..."

I kan haz startupp? ~ because cats are not that clever & can't spell

gravitycop• 18 years ago

But, they're not cats. They're lolfounders.

lionhearted4• 18 years ago

A thought not directed to anyone in particular: When clever comments and internet memes start becoming the highest rated comments on a piece, the signal:noise for information goes down a bit. As the site grows more and more, eventually we're 80% clever quotes with the hardcore practical actionable info buried in the gaps.

Is that what we want as a community? I try to delete about half my comments right after I write them. The question I ask myself is, "Would anyone's life be seriously worse if they didn't read what I have to say?" I try to kill my own comments that don't fit that criteria.

davidw• 18 years ago

I'm curious what job titles people give themselves.

staunch• 18 years ago

I started out in my own startup as an unpaid intern, but I'm quickly rising through the ranks!

davo11• 18 years ago

Managing Director.

Hay it's fun handing out business cards and seeing double takes - there has to be some reward to working for nothing at the moment. I must admit it felt a bit silly at first, but I preferred it to CEO, Managing Director has a solidity to it I like, which counteracts the nebulousness of IT/Web stuff a bit. Owner / Chief Architect were others I tossed up. MD seemed to be the best.

lionhearted4• 18 years ago

"General Manager" gives you a lot of flexibility to be what you need to be to different people. If you're CEO, COO, etc, it's harder to say during a negotiation "I've got to check with so-and-so and I'll get back to you" to cool things down. Lower titles obviously convey lower authority for people who want to speak to someone higher up.

Source: A mentor of mine who runs one of the most profitable architecture firms in the Middle East.

vaksel• 18 years ago

I run a startup

axod• 18 years ago

I'm avoiding cubedom.

tptacek• 18 years ago

"Brains. Must eat brains."

webwright• 18 years ago

Have you been playing too much Left4Dead?! :-) I know I have.

Raphael• 18 years ago

Boy, don't you startup with me again. Y'hear?

vlad• 18 years ago

I hate the idea of starting up. It sounds like a lame egotistical cliche. I'd rather make stuff people might want to pay for that also helps me increase my technical aptitude, channel my creativity, practice self-control, develop a track record, learn by doing, and allow my users to be an important part of each iteration.

ryanwaggoner• 18 years ago

Cute girl at party: "So what do you do?"

Vlad: "I make stuff people might want to pay for that also helps me increase my technical aptitude, channel my creativity, practice self-control, develop a track record, learn by doing, and allow my users to be an important part of each iteration."

long pause

Cute girl: "Cool. Well, I'll see you around."

seiji2• 18 years ago

You wrote yours while I wrote mine. Yours gets the point across better.

seiji2• 18 years ago

Yes, but if someone ask "what do you do" or "where do you work" you have about three seconds before they trail off and stop listening. Self-righteous rants tend to be off putting.

Just give in and say you are starting up a web 2.0 powered widget syndication platform for the next-gen WebOS.

wensing• 18 years ago

"I've been working on this website that ..."

Easier for people to wrap their heads around.

papa• 18 years ago

I'm living the dream ;-)

(more like jumped off the corporate cliff into the scary, vast unknown)

swombat• 18 years ago

Q: What do you do?

A: I run my own business. It's an online start-up that helps architects to work better.

(practiced condensed answer, the result of introducing myself countless times)

captainobvious• 18 years ago

>helps architects to work better Is that proper grammar (I have no idea, but it sounds wrong).

I would have used: >helps architects work better

tokenadult• 18 years ago

Either of the first two.

What I like about using the word "start-up" is getting people thinking about start-ups. That is a good thing.

http://paulgraham.com/notnot.html

http://paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html

answerly• 18 years ago

I prefer to use "Internet company" instead of startup as in:

"I run an Internet company that does XYZ for consumers/businesses".

Startup means something specific within the technology community that I think is potentially lost on those outside of it.

brentr• 18 years ago

How about: "I've freed myself from the tyranny of working for someone other than myself."?

tworats• 18 years ago

Plastics. I'm in plastics.

ivey• 18 years ago

I wish I had more votes to give.

lionhearted4• 18 years ago

"At (time), I started a company to (xyz), and... (cool flashy thing)."

Usage:

"I started a company in 2006 to create software to make accounting painless for small business owners. We got rated top 10 small business software by Inc magazine!"

"A few months ago, I went in with one of my best mates to create a new kind of social network for pet owners. It's very cool, because even though it's a small niche area, we've been able to get to profitability very fast by making commissions on sales of pet training, tools, and you'd be surprised how lucrative advertising in the niche is."

"I've been working in small business since 2005 - I've taken a variety of projects and my main focus has changed a couple times, but I've always made it about making online business really appealing and aesthetic. People need gears and stuff to work well, y'know, but things sell much better if there's great presentation. It's been a joy working with designers, artists, photographers and linking them up with business owners."

And so on. I have no clue why adding timeframe makes things go over so much better, but it's really been quite big in my experience. Add a time, even if it's only a couple months ago, and it goes from being a whimsical thing to a real, legitimate tangible thing. Don't forget the cool fact - that's what people remember and talk about.

lionhearted4• 18 years ago

Ah, I should add to this. The above answer stimulates discussion and gets people asking you more questions. If that's NOT your intent, then you want to be specifically ambiguous. If you get sick of having the same conversation every single time you mention what you do, or you're playing the modesty thing in a crowd that wouldn't appreciate someone whose "made it", then give an answer that seems very specific but isn't interesting.

"I work in accounting."

"My background is in management information systems."

"I work at a small company coding software."

I don't care for simply "I have a startup", because it stimulates discussion and you get the same questions all the time - what specifically do you do, what field, how long, profitable?, etc. Might as well knock half of those out right away if you want to talk about it.

And if you don't want to talk about it, you're going to need to give someone a specific answer, so when someone's wife asks "What's cperciva do?", your new friend can say, "Oh, he builds computers or something like that."

dpifke• 18 years ago

I'm working on a startup.

Poll: Startup grammar question

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