The Pinboard Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud

http://static.pinboard.in/prosperity_cloud.htm

by adulau • 14 years ago

486 171 14 years ago

static.pinboard.in

danso• 14 years ago

Before I joined it sometime this year or last, I thought Pinboard seemed like the silliest, most likely-to-peter-out trifle of a service. But now it stands alone from all the other pinning services I used to use, including Instapaper.

In other words, I trust this guy with knowing how to execute (and to the point, probably recognize) successful minimally-viable products.

programminggeek• 14 years ago

Ok, I'm in. I have an idea that will cost precisely $37 dollars to start. This is such perfect timing.

mrkurt• 14 years ago

It seems like that might be too much money. You're in danger of having people coast along with no real hunger.

jfb3• 14 years ago

I like the name. Too, I love the service.

rtfeldman• 14 years ago

My application: "I'd use the $37 to buy $20 worth of stamps and envelopes, then $17 for a disposable camera and photo development costs. I'd photograph myself putting the stamps on the envelopes and get the photos developed. Then I'd put the photos in the envelopes and mail them to you."

wilfra4• 14 years ago

Mine:

"I just received an email that Buddy's Cannabis in San Jose is having a special. 27 different strains are on sale for $29.99 per 3.5 grams. I think I'll go for that, and give the remainder to the first homeless person I see."

toomuchtodo6• 14 years ago

Instagram Clone: check

jfb3• 14 years ago

"It's Instagram for paper."

potench• 14 years ago

If you manage to get a photo of yourself sealing the envelope with said photo of you sealing the envelope inside of the envelope... then we might have a winner. Could call it EscherGram

tptacek3• 14 years ago

I would like to take this moment to announce PICPC-VC, which is an automatic follow-on investment, structured as uncapped convertible notes, of $50 available to any founder accepted into the PICPC program.

toomuchtodo6• 14 years ago

I would like to take this moment to announce PICPC-VC-2, which is an automatic follow-on investment, structured as uncapped convertible notes, of $500 available to any founder accepted into the PICPC-VC program.

jspthrowaway2• 14 years ago

I like where this is going. The next step is $5,000, then we've entirely lost the plot.

buro92• 14 years ago

At this point I'm out.

This much money, I mean... what would I do with it. I think I can build a sustainable business but I fear at this point that the sums involved are forcing me to give up too much control and to grow faster than will be sustainable. I have legitimate concerns that this will ultimately be bad for the company and that it's helping to fuel a salary bubble.

citricsquid• 14 years ago

Are you sure investing this much capital in young startups is wise? There is precedent for it leading to messy disputes.

tptacek3• 14 years ago

I'm just the follow-on investor. The disputes are Maciej's problem.

pmarca3• 14 years ago

Andreessen Horowitz will match your $50 with another $50.

dbul• 14 years ago

Excellent. Not too long ago I asked a partner at a very well known VC firm if they would consider investing a small amount ($x00) in many "startups" to see if the founders would use the money effectively and follow up with a more serious investment if so. He looked at me as though I was asking sarcastically rather than sincerely.

I'm confident that these six new Pinboard/Ptacek/A16Z companies will have excellent return on investment.

Humor aside, there are many smart founders but being brilliant and being money-minded are orthogonal.

rdl8• 14 years ago

I wonder how much having any amount from a top-tier investor like a16z is worth (since you don't need to reveal the amount, at least initially, and once they're already talking to you...). Presumably that $50 is worth more like $5-10k, unless someone reads this thread.

bravura2• 14 years ago

Does that mean that recipients can legitimately tell the press and other investors that a16z is one of their investors?

Assuming that the recipient can keep a straight face?

EDIT: Perhaps having a16z as the only VC in your seed is a very bad idea. Chris Dixon (now a partner at a16z) cautions enterpreneurs against the risks of having a sole VC in your seed round:

http://cdixon.org/2012/04/02/revisited-big-vcs-investing-in-...

"I can think of about 15 founders I’ve spoken to recently who tried or are trying to raise Series As but are seriously hampered by the fact that a big VC invested in the seed round but isn’t participating in the Series A."

staunch• 14 years ago

Shit just got real.

huhtenberg2• 14 years ago

Yuri Milner will match with his usual $150K... because that how they print them US money in Russia

solutionhn3• 14 years ago

I guess people didn't get the joke! Atleast it should have ended here.

Heck, I will wager $37 that submitting your startup idea to HN will get you more exposure than posting on Pinboard's blog.

quellhorst• 14 years ago

I'll match the $50 in development services from AbtainLabs.com as long as Ruby on Rails is used. Small sites could actually host on Heroku for free.

jarek9• 14 years ago

Can someone more in touch with corporate finance explain what an uncapped convertible note means for ownership and operation of a company? Serious question.

wilfra4• 14 years ago

In overly simplistic terms:

That $50 would be converted into stock at the time of their next fundraising. Uncapped means there is no cap on the valuation at the time of the next round. So if one of the founders raised money at a $100,000 valuation later, the $50 investor would get 50/100,000th of the shares.

If it were capped, say at a $50k valuation - the investor would get 50/50,000th of the shares, regardless of the valuation.

downandout• 14 years ago

People seem to be missing the point. While the $37 is a gimmick, the reality is that this investment, in the form of advertising, is worth perhaps tens of thousands of dollars (I am not familiar with the intimate details of Pinboard's traffic, so I could be high or low on this). Google should adopt this model, since they have more advertising inventory than anyone and have the power to instantly propel promising startups to success. They could quickly obtain equity stakes in a vast number of startups that they deem to be promising, and throttle their "investment" based on analytics.

wilfra4• 14 years ago

I applied. Anybody have tips for the interview??? Can any alumni put in a word for me??? What if I use my product to deliver a 6-pack to one of the pinboard founders, will that improve my chances??? Please help!!!

tptacek3• 14 years ago

I recommend sending him oyster mushrooms instead of canned beer.

aeden• 14 years ago

Would canned oyster mushrooms work?

lazerwalker2• 14 years ago

I've developed iMaciej, a PIC-PC interview simulator. It can help you prepare for your interview by asking you the same sort of hard-hitting questions Maciej has been known to ask in previous batch interviews such as "What?" and "I don't understand" and "Where's the tea?".

justhw3• 14 years ago

Is there a get-together day to meet fellow applicants? Perhaps a dinner?

jarek9• 14 years ago

A hang-out on IRC

itslogic4• 14 years ago

That's $37 on Internet fees.

matthuggins• 14 years ago

Yes, but it costs $37.

evv• 14 years ago

I'll wait for the blog post inviting hardware startups too, followed by a post about how $37 gives founders too much runway, and half as much ought to do it.

geargrinder• 14 years ago

This is $1 less than it takes to sponsor a child for one month through Compassion International (an organization that supports 1.2 million children in the most poverty-stricken areas of the world). Would the money be better spent sponsoring a child or sponsoring a startup?

shantanubala• 14 years ago

http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gj/efficient_charity_do_unto_others...

bmelton• 14 years ago

What if this sponsorship enables an IT project that is then able to save the lives of two poverty-stricken children a month. Does that make it worthwhile?

More abstractly, what if this sponsorship enables an IT project to build a new kind of internet, that then enables Compassion International to work much more efficiently such that they are able to sponsor 200% more children on the same donations they currently receive?

justhw3• 14 years ago

If you get rejected, shoot us an email pinboard@funnelpanel.com for a forever free funnel analytics platform.

itslogic4• 14 years ago

I will apply twice and get one rejected on purpose. Funnel for free FTW!

justhw3• 14 years ago

Btw this is a play on mixpanel offering for YC rejects, no real site exists.

nthitz• 14 years ago

> Is this a joke?

It is not a joke.

> I have no understanding of the concept of humor...

So it is a joke.. Or at the very least tongue in cheek. (With some exceptions,) I doubt hosting is what most VC funding is spent on.

Edit: as he said, "The biggest obstacle to creating something useful is finding the time to build it and attracting an initial pool of paying customers." If you have access to those you probably have $37. I get that he is trying to say technical costs can be negligible for startups. I fail to see how Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud helps anyone in anyway. And thus, I think it's a joke (even if the funding is real).

jfb3• 14 years ago

"I doubt hosting is what most VC funding is spent on."

You might be surprised.

munger2• 14 years ago

Consider something like the start of instagram - no revenue and huge data transfer costs after getting tons of users. Although I realize OP is suggesting building something with revenue that is sustainable.

skrebbel• 14 years ago

> I doubt hosting is what most VC funding is spent on.

I doubt that was the point.

kryptiskt• 14 years ago

This is the value the winners get: "What else will I get?

I will feature the six successful applicants on the Pinboard blog, and give them whatever additional help I can in making contacts in computerland and attracting an initial pool of customers."

His point is that a lot of money isn't needed, but publicity is (and a cool service of course).

msbarnett2• 14 years ago

>If you have access to those you probably have $37. I get that he is trying to say technical costs can be negligible for startups. I fail to see how Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud helps anyone in anyway.

You've managed to recapitulate his point while simultaneously missing it.

As you say, costs are negligible. Time to build something is hard to find, but nobody can help you find it.

Attention is what's really valuable and really hard to get, as a startup. Maciej is highlighting this by making an offer to startups that puts what's really valuable for building a sustainable business (I'll drive attention your way) front-and-center, while mocking the valley's mentality of take-huge-wads-of-funding-cash-and-bet-it-all-on-winning-the-growth-lottery approach to business creation with his "I'll throw in $37" offer.

zdgman3• 14 years ago

Thinking of applying as a single non-technical founder. All I have is an idea but I am sure with the $37 dollars I could hire an awesome programmer to put it together for me!

EDIT: Seeking technical co-founder to help build out idea. Must be prepared to sign NDA before equity can be discussed.

zdgman3• 14 years ago

EDIT 2: Funny/telling this is my highest rated comment on HN.

ececconi• 14 years ago

Is $37 an ode to 37 signals?

troymc2• 14 years ago

See http://www.thirty-seven.org/

notatoad• 14 years ago

most important bit from that link: "37 gets used a lot because it somehow feels random"

jarek9• 14 years ago

six successful applicants at $37 each = $201

kitson• 14 years ago

6 x 37 = $222 #justsayin

solutionhn3• 14 years ago

It's an insult linking a respectable firm like 37signals to this drama.

biot• 14 years ago

The funding amount is paid out in dollar bills: 37 singles.

mmelin• 14 years ago

Watch out for the PICPC Mafia.

bobfunk• 14 years ago

Great idea :)

From Webpop we'll offer a free project and a startup template (http://app.webpop.com/themes/startup) for anybody accepted into the program.

For some people this might be enough to completely skip the Linode and buy one more beer.

brackin2• 14 years ago

I actually quite like this but what scares me is I see no mention of an export. A startup could never use this if there is no simple way to leave at some point in the future.

jarek9• 14 years ago

You can check out anytime you like

lucisferre• 14 years ago

> How is this different from other incubators?

> Participants receive almost no money, and are expected to do everything themselves.

So not really all that different than many (most?) incubators.

tibbon• 14 years ago

Someone should start a similar fund, but instead of just throwing large amounts of money at the companies like PICPC, they should help introduce them to their vast network of highly engaged people... perhaps on Twitter.

danielpal• 14 years ago

It does seem like cost are negligible today, but on deeper analysis theres a lot of costs beyond simply hosting.

Just from memory for my startup (Authy.com), initial costs were:

Domain: $1000+

Design: $3000

Video: $3000

Hosting: $400

Depending on your skills this initial costs will vary. An although I agree you don't need external investment to cover them, you should at least plan to invest $10,000US to cover your initial costs.

codewright5• 14 years ago

I was looking at Authy the other day.

What does it do exactly? I couldn't figure it out from the website and I churn through a lot of landing pages.

gaborcselle• 14 years ago

It's a way to add two-factor authentication to your website or app. Instead of having people log in with just username and password, they'll also have to enter a code. They get the code from the Authy app on their phone.

(PS I'm not affiliated with Authy, just trying to be helpful.)

notJim3• 14 years ago

"Authy is a simple API to add two-factor authentication to your website or app"

Two-factor auth is a thing where when you log in to something, you also get a text message, or open an app on your smartphone, and type that into the app you're trying to log into. The purpose of this is that even if someone figures out your password, they can't get access to your account, because they don't have the 2nd form of auth (hence two-factor.)

notJim3• 14 years ago

A lot of the things that you seem to think of as mandatory are not.

Domain: or get something longer for $9. E.g., authyapp.com or getauthy.com

Design: http://themeforest.net/ $15-$25, or DIY (depends on how much design matters for your niche--for Pinboard it clearly doesn't)

Video: You don't need no stinkin' video

Hosting: Maciej is recommending http://prgmr.com/xen/ for $32 (but can you actually run a modern app stack on just 128 MB of RAM?) Anyway, even if you need a gig, that's $100.

codewright5• 14 years ago

>(but can you actually run a modern app stack on just 128 MB of RAM?)

C/Golang/Lua/Vala/SBCL/Ada/Pascal and an embedded datastore like bdb!

Why in my day we used to write little apps with C and bdb that used less than 5mb of memory! (Sqlite didn't exist yo.)

Heck these days you get (ENTERPRISE) choices like LevelDB and BangDB.

Edit: Who wants to have a datastore-backed c10k contest on prgmr machines? :D

munger2• 14 years ago

Not unless you consider every request needing to use disk swap "running" which I can assure you is orders of magnitude slower and terrible.

In my experience on Rackspace cloud 512MB instances are the minimum you should use for tiny production apps. Also, they're discontinuing 256MB on OpenStack - these were suitable for single-user dev instances, but I got more swap and or locking if ever attempting to run publicly with traffic. 512MB instances solved that issue.

Edit: Also I should mention I'm assuming you mean wanting to run a fairly standard stack, not a stack targeted toward tiny memory footprint.

xentronium• 14 years ago

> can you actually run a modern app stack on just 128 MB of RAM

Depends on what you call modern.

I think fitting nginx / embedded lua / redis should be possible (considering your dataset fits into 32 megs).

Actually, that sounds like an interesting challenge!

c1sc0• 14 years ago

I agree that getting things done "properly" still costs money. But every single item on your list can be done for at least one order of magnitude less in the MVP stage.

* Domain: $9 * Design: $50 (Themeforest) * Video: $5 (Fiverr) * Hosting: $0 (Pick your choice)

I've been thinking semi-seriously about this & I came to the conclusion that with $37 you can actually get a LOT done.

itslogic4• 14 years ago

Design 0 ( use bootstrap) Video 0 ( who needs video to get started?)

Seriously, why over complicate things?

stevewilhelm• 14 years ago

When hosting on Heroku, first dyno per app is free!

whichdan• 14 years ago

Unless Heroku has changed, you absolutely should not host a production site using a free account. If your site doesn't get any traffic for a certain period of time, they spin down your instance. This means that the next subsequent view will have an abnormally long load time as they wait for your EC2 instance to spin back up. The $20/mo at Rackspace (or any other provider) is well worth it.

huhtenberg2• 14 years ago

Your logo is very SquareSpace-ish.

il• 14 years ago

"The project aims to draw attention to the fact that if you have access to technical labor, the startup and operating costs for an online project in 2013 are negligible. The biggest obstacle to creating something useful is finding the time to build it and attracting an initial pool of paying customers."

Good thing that in the brave new future world of 2013 labor and marketing are completely free of all costs, opportunity and otherwise.

samstokes• 14 years ago

"Dear angel investor, I need to raise $500k to cover my opportunity costs while I work on this startup."

rdl8• 14 years ago

Fortunately opportunity costs can be paid in equity. Rent, car insurance, and groceries can't.

pc• 14 years ago

Stripe will happily waive the first $37 in fees.

akavi• 14 years ago

PagerDuty will similarly offer a $37 credit towards an account with us.

marcamillion2• 14 years ago

5KMVP will offer $37 off the building of your MVP.

zdgman3• 14 years ago

Now, what would be really great is if all of you guys were offering these services for $37 for the first month or so :)

obilgic• 14 years ago

I just sent my idea, let's see he agrees with me to spend my entire winter break just working on this idea... Mostly, because of motivational purposes

rdl8• 14 years ago

Will you be offering $1.12 in expense reimbursement for the interviews? Will you do checks or cash?

($1.12 won't even cover the minimum BART or Muni or VTA fares now, I think, unless you're a child or senior or disabled or something)

andrewcross• 14 years ago

To take this to the next level, I vote for crowd-funding at the end of it all. I'd put $20 behind my favourite startup from the class and cheer them on. Almost like fantasy sports, but for startups.

arsey• 14 years ago

Would that as applicant idea be too meta?

troymc2• 14 years ago

I would use the money to buy signals. Since they're a buck, I could buy 37 signals.

khet• 14 years ago

We're in a bubble.

dudurocha• 14 years ago

Do you accept startups from Brazil? I would love to apply!

kanamekun2• 14 years ago

Just a note on word choices... the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was the name of the colonial empire that Japan built through conquests and occupation starting in 1940.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity...

Not sure if this is part of a joke or not, but Japan's history of war-time brutality during World War 2 is pretty extreme.

jonathanyc• 14 years ago

Noticed this as well... "Co-Prosperity _____" should sound hauntingly familiar to anyone with any amount of knowledge about WWII.

It seems like the "Co-Prosperity Cloud" is a joke, but even if it is, it's a joke in poor taste considering the atrocities committed by Japan, and not even an especially clever one (annexation and abuse for profit is not really the same idea - I hope - that Pinboard is expressing).

jessaustin• 14 years ago

Considering that > 90% of the people who witnessed said atrocities are no longer with us (and 100% don't read HN), the time for jokes has come at last. Actually there have been numerous humorous takes on WWII for decades now.

In "jokes", people often state propositions that seem opposed to what we would hope they believe.

askimto• 14 years ago

I have been looking for a good taste life coach and a cleverness tutor as well. Are you available?

rdl8• 14 years ago

I'm fairly confident Pinboard won't be raping hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people, engaging in wars of aggression on its neighbors, or conducting worse chemical warfare and other medical experiments than the Nazis. I can see how one might get confused though.

arnoldoMuller• 14 years ago

In the same way is still happening in places like Okinawa: http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/okinawa/marine-given-fou... ?

rmc• 14 years ago

I noticed that as well and thought it was in bad taste. It would be like using the term "Reich"

joverholt• 14 years ago

Check out the book Flyboys, by James Brady. (http://www.amazon.com/Flyboys-Story-Courage-James-Bradley/dp...). It gives some interesting background on why Japan did what they did (their expansion) and it also documents the atrocities committed by both sides. It was a very eye-opening book, and when you are done reading it, you will know why war is hell.

Symmetry• 14 years ago

It was the name of an empire, but it was also the name of the ostensible ideology behind that empire as well. Did you read the whole Wikipedia article you gave a link to? What Pinboard is trying to do here actually does bear a resemblance to what turned out to be the empty rhetoric of the Japanese Empire, and so I don't think it's inappropriate for people forming a commune to call it "Communist" - despite the horrific atrocities perpetuated by real Communist states.

jere• 14 years ago

How I hacked the Pinboard Co-Prosperity Cloud

jacques_chester2• 14 years ago

What I Learned From Being Upvoted on Hacker News After Hacking the Pinboard Co-Prosperity Cloud

rmoriz2• 14 years ago

14 steps to get accepted by Pinboard Co-Prosperity Cloud

brackin2• 14 years ago

Why doesn't PICPC-VC have a Dropbox or Airbnb in their alumni yet?

harichinnan• 14 years ago

Perhaps you could all use the money/freebies to fund this.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4924650

shail• 14 years ago

I am building a bookmarking site. Can I apply?

jeswin• 14 years ago

Applied! :)

Wrote a poem about it on the Collaborative Poetry app that I just launched. http://poe3.com/38

aiurtourist• 14 years ago

This is wrong for a variety of reasons.

First, you should never accept angel investment from non-accredited investors (i.e., individuals with a net worth of at least one million cents).

Second, the real value of the investors is their network. In this case, Maciej Cegłowski's network is a collection of links featured in an indexed, polished, simple-to-use product. Why accept money from him when his network is already available for free?

Third, seeking outside investment prior to building a prototype has been heralded as a path to madness. You should at least have some sort of Bootstrap-based splash page on a .io domain before you accept his sizable investment.

chmike• 14 years ago

I don't understand people ridiculing him. This funding is for entrepreneurs and business projects with a particular profile. A project like Pinboard.

When Y combinator started the amount of money was also ridicule.

What you get with his funding is visibility and this is rapidly growing in value because everybody will now look with high curiosity what are the 6 selected projects.

It looks like he is attempting to undercut Y combinator and might succeed. Look how he targets a niche market that is discarded by Y combinator : single founder projet. He applies all the advises given by PG himself.

I'm looking forward to see how he will execute, but this is already a very good start.

If I had a close to finished project and no traction because of no visibility I would apply. Because the visibility will be much bigger than with an article in techcruch.

itslogic4• 14 years ago

I don't understand all this angel investment speak but the thing I am curios the most is simple.

I apply I make it "big"

Does pin board owns any of my company because they invested $37 a month and provided exposure?

I really don't understand who doesn't have $37 a month to be self-funded but I'm interested on exposure.

rm445• 14 years ago

I believe it is a one-time $37 investment, not monthly.

If I understood the discussion elsewhere in this thread, he states that the investment is a form that gets converted to $37 worth of shares at the next fundraising valuation.

So if you raised venture capital at a million dollars valuation, he would own $37 worth of shares, which later if the company was sold for a billion would give the investor a cool $37,000.

Basically he is trying to make a point rather than make big profits.

rdl8• 14 years ago

I'd like to take this opportunity to offer PICPCReject membership to anyone rejected by the horrible elitists at PICPC.

We don't have any funding yet, so we can't make any specific promises, but I hear the dumpsters behind Denny's have a wide variety of semi-rotten food available for "Tuesday dinners".

rmoriz2• 14 years ago

My company will offer $38 to every PICPC reject (1) as a bold signal to the industry to not undervalue the vibrant entrepreneurial spirit our community is made of!

(1) requires additional investment criteria to be fulfilled, left to our descretion

rdl8• 14 years ago

Someone needs to do PICPC-T next. That was one of the oddest things of the past 18 months.

cwiz• 14 years ago

I'm announcing microcrowdfunding flush-investment platfrom Flushstart. We all have pockets full of change by the end of the day. To participate in Flushstart you you just flush all the change down the toilet and Flushstart employees collect your investments in the sewers. You automatically get equity in all projects listed in Flushstart. I just started the platform by flushing 10 cents.

gregpilling• 14 years ago

I have emailed and offered support of $20 per startup, plus use of my manufacturing facility. I think this is a great idea, and since I started my company with a credit card I can relate to the unfunded startup.

paul• 14 years ago

This seems perfect for my recipe site. I hope my application gets accepted.

davemc500hats2• 14 years ago

this could have been so much more fun at $42 instead of $37 or $50... #justsayin

quadlock• 14 years ago

I would like to see it at $1337

GPBenoit• 14 years ago

This article is a waste of time.

scheff• 14 years ago

Maciej Ceglowski is the Flounder of Pinboard.in - http://idlewords.com/resume.htm

We all flounder sometimes, but it's good to admit upfront that it's your full time (pre)occupation.

cdcarter• 14 years ago

This is flawless. I have a little script that I've been working on that has helped my life immensely and I know it could help others too. I've been too lazy to make it into anything more, though. This is giving me just enough to actually write down what it is and why it's helpful, and if I get it will totally make me go further.

toddynho• 14 years ago

Wait, I'm confused - I'd at least expect you to mention something about us getting into the PR circle jerk as part of the program? Is that not part of it?

debacle• 14 years ago

The PR speak bit was golden. I'm thankful to have not read enough start-up news to write something similar.

The Pinboard Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud

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