jdg

Completely awesome to see this happening in the midwest!

As someone that has traveled from Kansas for many years for conferences, it's wonderful to see friends from the coasts coming to Kansas!

There is a huge difference between founding a startup in the midwest and being an engineer in the midwest. I believe that gets lost in a lot of the rhetoric from both sides. I love hiring engineers in the midwest. Consistently great work ethics, etc, etc.

On the other hand, if you're an entrepreneur, you don't live in SF and you're building a consumer internet startup, you're fucked. Primarily because your access to capital is so limited it's ridiculous. Most people that live in the midwest aren't able to put in the time required to build out the relationships needed to successfully fundraise in the Valley.

To the couch for 2 months.

And then back to another startup. ;)

Cutting calories is the only way to lose weight. Cutting carbs typically means people end up eating less calories, because protein is more satiating.

"Eating the same diet, just a lot less carbs"

If you're eating less carbs, that's 4 calories less for every grab of carbs you've cut out. If previously you were eating around 200g of carbs everyday (probably on the low end, honestly) you've now removed around 800 calories from your diet.

You're still cutting calories.

Clearly you don't know Jeremie.

His best work has yet to be done.

That's also the beauty of it. You get to start with a beginners mind.

None.

Yep, $212 million in value built in an extremely short time.

Because of a good graphic designer, sure.

I pay for and prefer KISSMetrics, and also pay for Mixpanel (a separate project).

KISSMetrics, visually, kicks ass. What sucks about it? It's not real-time. No simple real-time data export/querying API.

The latter is nearly a show stopper. I mean, really? No export/querying API?

I built the first version of Boxcar (http://boxcar.io) in a weekend -- because I was bored. Started on a Friday, submitted to Apple the following Sunday evening.

Since then we've grown to 1M+ users and have delivered 2B+ push notifications. We're a team of 4 now.

For mobile apps, your tools are basically decided for you already. Eclipse for Android, Xcode for iOS. The goal of an MVP is to keep things as stupidly simple as possible. Use external APIs if they already exist, use services like Parse, etc, to give you a leg up.

MVP is less about code and more about results. If you can get away with no coding at all, that's the ideal situation. :-)

It's dead equity and at some point in most every companies life, it happens.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/iphone/faq/articles/PushBoxcar...

And we'll have a blog post up at http://blog.boxcar.io here soon too. It's a bit easier than the above now, as you can just choose "Sparrow" from the list of Installed Clients to have it work.

thanks for the mention josh. it's pretty cool that you know we exist.

-jdg

Boxcar (disclosure: I helped build it) will allow you to send remote pushes to your desktop and mobile devices. On the desktop, we partner with Growl to display messages as a pop-up.

FWIW, we also push Github notifications.

Awesome. This is what we've been building over at Boxcar, albeit outside of the browser.

As a huge fan of swole.me and long-time lurker of it - you could add in push notifications right now using Boxcar (boxcar.io). Disclosure: I helped build it. ;)

Boxcar is hiring paid interns anywhere in the world. We're a distributed team, with bases in Wichita, KS and NYC. Email jonathan@boxcar.io with what you're passionate about!

Yes, definitely. If you have an android device and would like to beta test it, email me (boxcar.io/about) and I'll send you a link.

Please help spread the word in return. :)

Boxcar (http://boxcar.io) offers Github notifications. We would love to have you as a customer.

Boxcar (http://boxcar.io) can send you retweet notifications, and I'll be reaching out to pg here shortly to add Boxcar support for HN notifications.

We would love to have you as a customer.

This does not need to be posted here. Screw TMZ.

This does not need to be posted here. Screw TMZ.

Boxcar (http://boxcar.io) started out as a weekend project. The prototype (v1) was literally built in a weekend.

Now we have a great team, have raised a seed round and are killing it in general!

We're also doing it for every device imaginable. Just haven't launched the others yet. ;)

We do have a WebSockets API that OP could hit and write a Chrome extension against. E-mail me (jonathan@boxcar.io) if you'd like access to it.

Right. You got it.

My father owned a real estate company, an ISP and a CLEC while growing up. All turned into lifestyle businesses, even though they were meant to be big exits in their respective industries.

* I learned that you're up some years and down others. The trick is to just keep pushing forward.

* Some people have it, others don't.

* You won't be able to recognize whether you have it or not, until you're actually doing it.

* Marry the right person (and make sure they have health insurance that covers you and your family).

* Keep your personal expenses low and maintain the ability to live off of your partners salary while you're bootstrapping, if that's the path you take.

Bonuses:

* You get to have great discussions around the business every time you're together.

* You're able to lean on your dad (or mom) and ask for advice about what they would do in particular situations. Basically a built in mentor.

* You have a #1 fan that in some ways are living their own dreams through you. And they actually "get" what you're doing.

You have to be careful though that you don't fall into some of the same traps that they may have. As a great example: the typical small business mindset is to never, ever give up equity. For what we do here, it's silly to think that way. Equity is another tool in your toolbox, and should be used when appropriate.

Thanks for staying around. We have some really cool stuff coming up @Boxcar.

Basecamp is not critical to the success of your startup.

Billing is.

If you're still figuring out whether or not people are willing to pay for what it is you're doing, then just use PayPal. Or mail paper invoices. Seriously.

Why would you EVER invest a ton of time in a billing system when you're just starting out? Billing is a HUGE time sinkhole. That applies to integrating with another provider (Chargify) just as much as it applies to not rolling your own.

Billing is not your product. Billing WILL make or break your product though, so once you've figured out that a reasonable number of people are willing to pay for it, then make sure your billing works and works well.

Also, if you can't afford $39/mo on a SaaS billing provider, then you're not serious about your startup and it's still just a hobby.

Thanks for sharing this.

I had just turned 19 (2 months) before my son was born. Never married, but made the choice to stick around and make sure I was there every other weekend (and more, if allowed). I didn't have the "normal" college life, because I was gone every other weekend.

I've stayed in the midwest because of my son, rather than moving out to CA or NYC. For the first 6 years of his life, I never missed a weekend visit. For 3 of the 8 years he's been around, I drove 6 hours roundtrip every other weekend. The rest of the time it's just been a 4 hour roundtrip.

And, I've yet to regret it. I've been shown more opportunity than I could have ever dreamed of. No idea if that's karma, but it wouldn't matter anyway because the time with him is time well spent.