rickcecil

To be perfectly pedantic, it’s an initialization. Acronyms are initializations that can be pronounced as words.

CE means “common era” which refers to the same time period that AD does, which stands for Anno Domini and means “the year of our lord,” which is rooted in the Christian faith.

You will also see “BCE” and it means Before Common Era, which replaces BC, which means “Before Christ”.

The newer terms are more inclusive.

A couple of things to consider. ADHD is more than the lack of focus, it also affects your emotions as well. People with ADHD tend to feel things more deeply and react more strongly. Meds can help.

And if you think: that’s not me. You may be right. But you may also not realize that you’re actually playing life on hard mode and while it may work now, it is unsustainable in the long term. Better to find something that helps now rather than wait until you are in crisis.

If by X, you mean religion, sure, I'll agree with that.

And, ultimately, you have no right to police what I teach my children.

there is also marketing value. features that may rarely get used but many potential customers won't give your product a second glance if you don't have them.

After much digging, here is what I have found. It surprised me and I learned a lot in the process. Very excited to share.

The Divorce Rate is not a measure of the chances of your marriage ending in divorce, though many people use it like that.

The Divorce Rate calculation is a measure of the number of divorces in a given year compared to the number of new marriages. If we accept that at face-value, we're okay. I would like to see it broken down by first-time marriages to first-time divorces; second-time marriages to second-time divorces. I have not been able to find this data, but didn't look exceptionally long ... as I need to get back to work. ;)

There are a lot of blog posts about the myth of the 50% divorce rate. They are attacking this statistic as representing something that it does not. (Even though it is not far from the truth.)

Still, I think it would be worthwhile to evaluate the usefulness of this statistic. Sure, it's an easy number to track. But why? Especially when everyone assumes that this is revealing something that it is not.

Now, onto the chances a first-time marriage might actually end in divorce.

Your baseline chances for divorce in a first-time marriage are calculated using a Life Table and the chances vary depending on a variety of factors. Age, region, education, and I am sure there are others. And if you input all your data, you get the chance that a first-time marriage will end in divorce.

Here's a great, simple description of the Life Table: http://contemporaryfamilies.org/marriage-partnership-divorce...

Ultimately, the chance for divorce remains around 50-60% on average, but can be as low as 20%. According to this article

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2012/the-myth-of-the-high-rate-o...

"...a woman who is over 25, has a college degree, and an independent income has only a 20 percent probability of her marriage ending in divorce"

The article does not cite a source for this statistic, but it does cite various requisite factors in calculating a first-time marriage chances of ending in divorce.

More reading from the CDC about first-time marriages and divorce: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf

The 50% number is actually horribly exaggerated. It is closer to 30%. I'll dig up sources later, but basically the divorce rate is calculated by dividing the number of new marriages with the number of divorces in a given year.

This doesn't account for repeat offenders (people on their second, third, or tenth divorce) or age or region or any number of factors that can affect your chances of remaining married.

Is it all javascript based? So it would integrate with any codebase? Rails, Python, Java?

Very excited about this. Social is such a critical aspect of many systems these days, but it's another piece of the puzzle that doesn't actually distinguish one product from the competition.

The more great services like this that get built, the more great products are going to get built.

I am very excited to see what Hull can do for companies like mine that need this kind of functionality, but have been focused more on our unique value proposition.

Who can we bribe to get into the beta?

One of the things we learned a lot about at TSF was a beach-head market. It's the first market you take on to get traction (however you're measuring traction). So, I'd suggest talking about "knowledge management and collaboration" as your beach-head and WHY you've selected that as your beach-head...and, possibly most importantly, why traction within this beach-head will allow you to tackle some of the other markets you have on your radar more easily.

Also talk briefly about the potential market size of your other target markets. You don't have to have all the answers for your other markets -- after all, they are not your target market, yet -- but you should show some knowledge about those markets and be able to talk convincingly about how your product solves a real problem in those markets.

As for market expertise: I think it comes down to two things. How long have you been working in that industry and how many contacts do you have so that you're not jumping in cold. If you don't have either of these, it's going to be a big red flag. I'm guessing you have had some way of validating the problem, so I am going to focus on the network problem. Find an adviser that works in the industry that is well-connected and can tell others that your solution is heads-and-shoulders above what's out there now and is solving problems in new ways that add 10x more value than current solutions. I use 10x as you're going to have problems convincing people to switch unless you are able to provide a ton of value.

Anyway, just my $.02. The other thing you'll learn about, if you get into TSF or any accelerator: mentor whiplash. You're gonna get a ton of advice and most of it conflicting. So take these suggestions for what they're worth: one person's feedback based on your 5 paragraph post. ;)

As a co-founder to one of the companies (ruzuku) that went through the Triangle Startup Factory, I can't recommend the program enough.

Chris and Dave are amazing. They have lots of experience working with startups and they are well connected to the local and national startup scene.

They connected us with a couple of amazing mentors that saw some of the potential that Abe and I had missed and helped us realize that fairly quickly. We've now got a new business model and are kicking ass and taking names. :) And even though the program has ended, our mentors are still involved.

Pitch Day was great. They spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks really helping us refine our pitch -- ended up with a couple of solid pitches. One more of a story meant to generate excitement and another rooted more in the market and financials -- all the details that an investor would be looking for.

Not sure how many people showed up, but there had to have been 200 or more people -- at least, that's what it felt like up on the stage giving our pitch. We're now busy following up with potential investors and executing our new business plan. Crazy, hectic times. And we get to squat at the American Tobacco Campus in the TSF digs at least until the new class arrives.

Their application for the Fall class is tomorrow. You don't have to be located in the Triangle to get in -- at least one of the companies (Berst) was from Chicago and I know several of us had people living and working from other places in the country.

Happy to answer any questions about the program for those considering applying. Also willing to give any advice on how to get in.

Surprised no one has mentioned the Eden UI on Notion Ink's Adam. It allows you to run three apps side-by-side in compact view. Pretty slick, really. See: http://notionink.com

Wouldn't that be one that you sell for $50 million?

Being in the same boat as you, I found the following to be worthwhile

1) Evaluate yourself and the skills you bring to the table. It's all in how you sell yourself. Even though I can't program, I understand experience design, business, visual design, and can get my hands dirty with some HTML and CSS.

2) Network locally. You're probably not going to find anyone worth working with online. Especially if you start out: "I have a great idea, but can't code. Wanna help?"

3) Be open to new ideas; people generally want to participate in the idea construction and product design. They don't want to pick up something that's been thought completely through.

4) Be willing to plunk down some cash. Get a tech lead for your project who can manage people you pay to build your system. If it's simple enough, you can build a decent app for less than $10K.

But, I would say, you have to take it with the right teacher...someone who pushes you to find your own understanding of the literature. This usually doesn't happen until the 300 and 400 level courses.

Of course, there's always the path to starting up without going to YC. You just might not be a good match for YC. Doesn't mean that you can't be successful, it just means you're going to have to find alternative routes to success.

Yeah, I'm already starting to feel it and am working on ways to cut back at work -- especially with baby coming.

Thanks for the advice!

I'm taking the first two weeks off from work, and my mother-in-law will be here, so I'm hoping that I can really spend more time with my wife and new baby without sacrificing on the startup. Plus, the project's schedule should be such that my role during that time will be diminished somewhat and my partners will be working a bit more.

I don't want to say that I'm completely prepared for LAB (life after baby), but I'm as prepared as I can get.

My wife of 10 years is pregnant with our first child and I have finally screwed up my courage to its sticking place and am making the leap with my own startup. I am continuing to work my day job--which can suck up 50-60 hours a week while working on the startup another 16-20 hours a week. Both suck a lot of time away from her. I am definitely concerned about this--especially with a child on the way. But, I have a wonderful wife who understands why I want to start my own company and is nothing but supportive. (Plus, she understands that the path to wealth in the US is not through working for someone else so if she wants to be rich, she has to be willing to take the risk of starting a company.)

A lot of people will tell you that a spouse and children will make it more difficult to start, but that is only true if you let it be true. I'm not saying they don't complicate matters, they do. I'm saying turn your weaknesses into your strengths: family can be a great source of source of support (as other posters have mentioned).

Also, when I think about the lessons I want to teach my son, "work hard making someone else a lot of money" is not something I want him to learn, which means I need to get off my ass and practice what I preach.

Regarding how your SO feels about your startup, I think it's gonna really depend on where you are in the relationship. Is it new and you want to spend a lot of time together? Or, is it a more mature relationship where you don't have to be near each other every waking second.

Also, on the SO front, if the your SO wants you to give up your dreams, there are deeper problems with the relationship that you should consider. Just because your married or in a relationship doesn't mean your desires have been sublimated for the sake of the relationship.

Bottom line: I see a lot of people telling you why you shouldn't start, and they are right--unless it's just in you to start, and then nothing can stop you.

If anyone on a founding team is ever willing to do only one thing, then they're probably not a good founding member period. This goes for hackers, designers, business folks, and lion trainers. (Well, the lion trainers might be the exception here. I learned this lesson the hard way--it's hard typing with my right arm missing. On the plus side, we didn't have to feed Betsie for a month!)

I would say that it wasn't Google's design that beat Yahoo, it was the narrow focus on search. There is very little information to design on the Google home page and the expected interaction is incredibly simplistic, so designing the UI well should have been easy.

The problem is that most people see Google as a great example of engineers doing design, but there was really /nothing/ to design. If an engineer managed to screw a single search field up, then that's just bad. (And, I have known engineers who've screwed up simple search fields.)

My recommended guideline here: as information increases in density and interaction increases in complexity, the need to have someone focus on design increases. Now, is this person a bona fide designer or one of the engineers that has some design skill? That's for the individual startup to determine.

Thought about Research Triangle Park in North Carolina? Got Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill, and NC State close by. Close to the beach, the mountains. Weather is great, though it does get pretty muggy in the summer. And the cost of living is reasonable. And it has a strong entrepreneurial community (cednc.org). It's certainly not a huge city, but it's got a lot going for it...though, it would mean moving to the east coast.

It may very well be easier for startups in Silicon Valley, but so what? Focus your attention on the specific problems you have, not on comparing your situation to other people's situations.

Having a hard time finding a co-founder? More difficulty getting funding? Look at the resources available to you in your community and take advantage of those. Don't have any resources? Create some yourself. Many times, problems can be solves with the right network. Read /Never Eat Alone/ and start building yours.

And ultimately, if you think a move out to SV will solve your problems, move out to SV. But realize that the grass is never greener--just different shades of brown that, from a distance, look greener. Out in SV, you're likely to have a different set of problems: greater competition for talent (both partners and employees), higher cost of living, greater competition for angel and VCs.

It all comes down to the realization that there are trade-offs to every situation. Challenges to every startup, no matter where you are. Focus on the challenges you're facing and find creative ways to solve them. That's when you'll be successful. Not when you're lamenting about how easy other people have it compared to you.

I don't know of any examples of successful startups who didn't have at least one hacker founder, though I hope that changes in the near future.

Neither my partner nor I are programmers--we're both researchers/designers (certainly not managers!). We're both willing to bootstrap an initial prototype--and maybe even up through the first phase. We'd like to take on a tech lead partner, though still wouldn't expect him to do all of the programming--would want someone to contribute financially and serve as a Tech Lead.

If there's anything I've learned in all my startup research, it's that if people tell you something can't be done, it probably can.

As far as VCs finding other programmers to do your project: VC's are in the investment business, they aren't entrepreneurs themselves. Otherwise, they'd just be taking all the ideas and implementing them themselves: why share ownership with anyone when you can pay programmers to build it for you?

Ultimately, I realize that I did not answer your question, but I say go for it. What have you got to lose?