bbaker

I love how this came out....

android

Look back at every social network success, and you'll see this kind of confused, dismissive condescension, before, during, and even after the product is adopted by millions of normal humans.

Everything is suddenly an app because the world is rapidly moving to mobile, and mobile web is shitty.

There's 8 thousand startups trying to 'help you meet people.' Few, if any, work out. It's just not a burning need for real people.

Navigating the physical world around you? Huge set of opportunities.

...sorry, it's hard to hear you through that massive chip on your shoulder.

Saw this in Singapore a month ago. Clever and interesting, though I thought the commentary alongside the work wasn't very deep. Worth checking out if it's easy and affordably priced.

Instagram, and other social networks, are fundamentally different than wordpress sites in a number of important ways. 100 million users didn't join because it was an alternative to a blog.

Their funding didn't dry up. They raised a substantial round, and then were purchased by another company that had itself just raised billions of dollars. They didn't need money.

But they did want to make it. Because they're a business.

Even a hit rate of half that is pretty solid. 30% close rate on pitches is ridiculously high. Keep rocking.

Love how clean this app is.

True for harder drugs, yes, but not marijuana. Canada (and BC specifically) produces billions of dollars of marijuana per year. It's a fairly well known fact.

A little UI weakness is not going to allow disruption of a strongly networked, community-driven product like SoundCloud.

The Canadian auto industry (as well as the American one) feels that the friction caused by the current congestion is slowing down their industry enough that it's worthwhile, even to pay for it in full. The gov't feels the same way. At this point, parts make many crossings as they're built into finished cars - the industry in Ontario and Michigan is completely intertwined.

Lower cost of talent (than large tech ecosystems in US), rebates on R&D talent, delinking of health care and employment, etc.

There are also advantages to living in the US of course, where this Canadian is currently working.

I think it's great. Obviously it'll iterate as you work with more users, but it's already quite clean, and and serves a real but until now hidden need.

Yes. This is a great point. I've been involved in a startup and advisory capacity with a handful. The good ones are clearly working for their startups. They gain success through their startups. In the bad ones, it feels like the reverse - the startups are working for the accelerator. The difference was clear to me.

A secondary question is whether those interactions bring value. It's okay to be busy with engagements if those engagements are truly helping.

good call

It's a great start. Keep rocking it.

Perfect. You communicated it much better than I could. Thanks.

You've touched on a challenging question. Daniel and I spent some time trying to figure that out. Studying additional startups would help. Our guesses:

- The connections are able to and do make a large number of intros. The distribution was starkly bimodal - connectors with less than 3 intros yielded nothing, and those with over 10 intros yielded 940K. Will this hold across other startups? Not sure, but it's an interesting thing to think about.

- Several relationship characteristics influenced the downstream result: previous relationship, mode of contact, etc.

- There are many intangibles that founders can sense when they're meeting with people. Sensing their capacity and interest in a skill.

I don't think it's possible to know it exactly in the midst of the process, but focusing time and energy on the high potential connections is a good strategy.

As an aside, there's nothing wrong with post-hoc understanding that can help the next round/others in the same situation.

Good question, B

Love it. This, plus user-created apps, could be powerful.