eytanlevit

This happend just 24 hours ago: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.606531

"The incident in which the four IDF soldiers were killed near Nir-Am occurred at about 6:30 Monday morning, when at least 10 Palestinians entered Israeli territory from the tunnel and split into two groups, one tried to make its way to Kibbutz Erez and the other to Kibbutz Nir-Am."

Kibbutz == a civilian community or village.

Also, in a different tunnel incident: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/...

"According to the Israeli military, the purpose of the militants was not only to kill but also to kidnap, as was evident by the equipment they carried, which included, arms, syringes, tranquillisers, plastic handcuffs and even IDF uniforms."

These are the rockets being shot from Gaza: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/images/ham...

In early years they mainly shot the ones of the left, in the recent years and mainly in the current conflict they're shooting military grade Fadjr5 and M302(the two on the left) that have a serious kill payload(greater kinetic energy + warhead size).

Israeli here, and this is not going to be a very subjective opinion, but rather a simple observations after being through a few wars with thousands of rockets shot each.

In the 2nd Lebanon war(2006), Hezbollah shot ~120 rockets/day at north Israel and Haifa, and the destruction was both visible and painful. 44 civilians dead. Multiple buildings in Haifa destroyed. I remember the pictures, so many of them. We had the alarms, we had the bomb shelters then, but still, the rockets destroyed and killed.

In the current conflict, almost zero dead, almost zero buildings destroyed, and this is while Hamas is shooting roughly the same number of rockets(~120/day), bigger rockets and to a far more densely populated areas than ever targeted by either Hamas OR Hezbollah(Tel Aviv, Rishon Leziyon where most of Israeli population and commerce is).

There is a reason why Hezbollah and Hamas equipped themselves with tens of thousands of rockets, because it used to work, but not anymore.

I've even had a discussion previously today with my dad that if accuracy of Iron Dome would increase to 99%, we could actually turn off the siren system and maybe just ignore Hamas rockets, keep living normally, thus preventing the need to use offensive military force and prevent casualties on both sides.

Unfortunately we've recently learned that Hamas has already developed a new tactic, building tunnels under the border into Israeli towns and have 10-20 Hamas soldiers come with handcuffs and syringes with anastasia to kidnap Israeli civilians. We've already discovered ~15 such tunnels, and there is much talk that we need an "Iron Dome" for discovering tunnels in the very special geological structure of the sand around Gaza.

I personally need an Iron Dome for my soul, after seeing so many pictures of Israelis and Gazans dead, having difficult conversations with my kids and having a difficult time building my startup when all I can think of is this war. Fucking war.

(While writing this I was interrupted due to 3 rockets shot at Tel Aviv, 2 intercepted, 1 hit a house, the first time for central Israel in this war.. the irony).

hey.. just reload, every time we go off air we come back after a few seconds. And it's going to be fixed the next time it happens(we're switching phones). Thanks and sorry :)

I suggest you develop on whatever your personal phone is.

It makes your apps better as you understand the more subtle things of the OS and how apps usually work on it.

epic

I search YouTube for the term "Full Album" and am surprised each day about the full albums that got uploaded there.

I also listen to soundtrack mega mixes(songs of 4 hours+ that mix various soundtracks).

An excellent, excellent point.

A very interesting read indeed.

The question that keeps bugging me is that maybe this guy is blaming the platform, but the real problem was that they built something people didn't really need.

Look at http://any.do, these guys launched mobile first and hit millions of users in an extremely crowded market(todo lists) because they've created a great product a lot of people want and use daily.

In the end, it sounds like(and I don't know their story from close, only judging from things written in this post) they raised too much money early on because they are a YC company(raising a lot of money actually makes you much slower), launched a product with a shitty signup funnel and took a lot of time to fix that.

Apple taking their time to approve new versions isn't new, anyone(especially a YC company surrounded with top mentors) knows that a/b testing in a mobile app is a problem that should be tackled upfront.

Personally, I'm tackling that problem by testing everything I can BEFORE I even start to write code.

I'm running ads on FB/Google, testing CTRs for different value propositions/positioning, driving users to a landing page where I'm testing different mockup ideas I have for each value proposition, testing the icon, testing price, testing feature list.

I'm talking with as many customers in my customer segment I can not only to understand their needs and problems, but also to create an initial user base that likes me enough to agree to install my app BEFORE I launch it in the appstore using TestFlight.

This will enable me to discover a lot of UX problems upfront and to test a very very very important question - Is what I've built a painkiller or a vitamin, which is the most important question (I think) mobile app devs should ask since it's clear that most apps are downloaded and then forgotten in the abyss of unused apps.

If someone has read this long reply and has more ideas on how to test this question before launching, I'd love to collect more ideas.

pure gold, going to try this tomorrow.

thanks!

1. Talking with your potential users looking for problems - warning: it's gonna be hard but with a very high ROI. 2. I've recently used Google Consumer Survey - you can get a $150 coupon by sending an email request to: pmcdonald@google.com 3. I'm now working on a survey to send to people I know that will be willing to fill in many questions.

In general your time should be spent: 50% problem team - finding more facts about the problem you are solving. 50% solution team - building a very minimal product(aka mvp) based on current data problem team has discovered.

This kind of work should get you into a feedback loop where you not only research but also test - these two together should make you move faster and wiser.

feel free to ask more.

Hey there,

Reminds me very much of my previous startup, that recently shutdown.

I'm now working on a new company, and I have vowed to not write code until I feel I've hit a burning problem.

I've now talked with nearly 30 parents(which are my target audience) - and see the magic of that process.

After speaking with so many potential customers, I have a much stronger idea of the segmentation of the market, which apps and websites my customers use(this will be the media I'll buy when I launch), but most importantly, I'm starting to recognize patterns of problems that repeat.

I'm not there yet, but I feel I'm getting closer, and only once I do - I'll try to have an MVP - preferrably also without writing code - but doing offline things that will emulate my online solution.

Last thing, a few days ago Dave Mcclure had a lecture in Israel where he said one of the most important lessons I've learned lately: When you focus on a specific customer, pivoting is much easier because each month that passes you usually know more and more about your customer and find out more about their problems.

Pivoting around technology(what I did in my last startup), is possible, but requires much more capital and time, exactly the things startups don't have.

My two cents.

The first thing I did was "Sit Shiva", which is an adaptation of a jewish mourning ritual to startup life.

I think that a failed startups feels quite similar to losing someone.

I still tear up when I talk about my previous company, but sitting it out enabled me to better handle it and now I'm very pumped up and working on my 3rd company.

Btw, I've blogged about it: http://www.eytanlevit.com/post/32192713706/sitting-shiva-on-...

Dude,

This is a great idea, I registered and already asked someone for help.

Writing the request was a bit tedious since it is limited to 400 characters and there is no counter.. so I had to open another browser window and find an online character counter.

Great idea

Great blog, I've buffered it.

If you need any advice from a technical guy - feel free to reach out, I'm glad to help.

These guys are doing EXACTLY what you just described, great idea!

http://www.saverrapp.com/

If you are from the US, I highly suggest you go and take a look a the way WeWork has designed their offices.

Quite amazing, and people love it.

Check out http://validationboard.com/ before you start getting people write code for you, and do what it says.

It will save you huge amounts of time, money and grief.

I've recently shut down my previous company and am working full time on my new idea.

I currently have ~4 month before I dry out, and am selling one of my cars in order to have a longer run way.

I really think that working full time on your ideas makes you X10(estimated) more productive, since not only do you have more time to work on it, your mind is also empty and totally focused on only one important thing.

Focus is something that people underestimate, but it's sometimes what makes the difference between success or failure.

If you are serious about entrepreneurship, and you can sustain a few month without working part time - my personal advice is that you do it.

If you are looking for background images(e.g. I just need a photo of a baby) - I generally use flickr.

Make sure to use the advanced search and select the "Find content to use commercially" option - and also don't forget to link back to the creators of images you use.

Hey Guys,

Congrats for launching.

Feedback: I personally don't find the "via x" text something that affects the brand of the company, I guess big companies might, but if that is the case - what is the point of launching a SaaS product?

Nice design.

I think that any feedback is a form of caring, so I really appreciate you even writing a response.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing, even though I might try to be contrary, I'm still listening to everything written here in the comments, and it will be a factor in future decisions.

Anyway, I agree it's not a classy move, much more classy would be to apply with an amazing demo, paying customers and a co-founder, but this is what I think will happen when I'll apply in the next batch.

The only decision I had to make was to myself: do I want to start y combinator without traction and co-founder - and I decided that I do.

Once I've reached that decision - I allocated a week for the whole effort and did whatever came to mind to get applied.

If I don't get accepted, I hope next round I'll come stronger - tractionwise.

Cheers

I actually told about this to a few YC alumni and VCs before doing it, and got positive responses.

thanks!

Appreciate your feedback, take into account that my budget is $100 and it took me 1 day to set this up.

I actually limited the whole YC application process to 1 week, before it and now I'm talking with multiple potential customers, building an MVP and even got 2 investment offers.

Truthfully, I'm not sure if it's stalking or not, and I'm not sure if it was a good move or not, but the risk/reward here was good enough.

For me being an entrepreneur is executing a lot of different ideas I get to reach my goals, knowing that most will fail, not letting it decrease my speed.

Btw, the whole thing was worth it even if I don't get to YC, as it got some people to reach out to me and helped me solve a problem I was currently working on - how to get american parents to be interviewed by me(problem interview).

Again, I appreciate your feedback and if this move fails, it might be because your thoughts are exactly what YC partners think about this - in that case it will be another lesson learned.

Appreciate the feedback, but the contrary is true. I'm currently building a business and I find YC a great place to kickstart it from.

This is my 3rd company, in my previous two actually dismissed the value of a strong network, mentorship and sitting in Silicon Valley.

Applying to YC in the earliest stages of this company is actually me not making the same mistake I did with my previous startup(raised $350K, busted asses for almost 2 years but failed).

Just updated the post to make my point clear.

Thanks for the feedback.

Great points, totally agree.

Regarding the meditation, it's really interesting - could you tell a bit more about how it has helped you, do you do it every day, how long, what exact meditation technique and where did you learn it?

I heard it first when I was 16, listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers song called Deep Kick

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjj6ZnTAeUA Lyrics: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Deep-Kick-lyrics-Red-...

I remember... 10 years ago in Hollywood We did some good and we did some real bad stuff but the Butthole Surfers said It's better to regret something you did Than something you didn't do

Brilliant