sid

Yes i agree with this. And i think should they have come in a little later they would have missed the boat so in this regard they are lucky. In terms of how they have maintained and grew twitter to what it is now, that is skill.

If connection to the internet on mobile phones was mainstream at the time twitter started the SMS gateway would have been redundant just as it is right now.

I know alot of people who use twitter now and im pretty sure none of them know you can tweet via an SMS as most of them have twitter apps installed on their mobiles.

if your looking for a Web solution there is always dating sites ;)

Feeling like what you have is the first step in your evolution ! I felt exactly the same way. Now your at a crossroads where you decide next what you want to do. First of all do what is more important. If you have the $$$ to do it, take a break, do whatever you need to do with your GF, with family so things are back on track.

Like someone said earlier, sit on a rock and decided what you want to do next (i have a warf that i did that very thing on here in sydney).

From a career point of view you usually only ever come up with two solutions. That you want to relax now, dont care about work and all you want to do is easy street. If thats your choice then find a big company, do support work get paid for your on call overtime, melt into the crowd of people and live your days out restarting applications, writing scripts and doing things that require no brainpower. Start and 9 when your shift starts and leave at 5 when your shift ends. Hey presto, all the time in the world !

Start a business, doesnt have to be a startup that is technology based or it can be. If you have a hobby maybe it can become a business, make you good income and you will have a happy life. I knew someone that actually left australia and went to bali and started a surfing safari in bali ! pays alright but he is a very happy man. Sun everyday surfing every day, lives in a modest house, no stress.

Or you can start a technology company, something along the lines of what your familiar with , work your ass off for a couple of years with the hopes of making it big and then opening the surf safari with all the money you made by either your profits or flipping (whatever you choose).

The main point is i seen those old disgruntled people who work at the large companys complaining about their bosses and how they are just viewed as a resource, yes i empathise with them but what i dont tell them is it was their choice. They could have done it when they were younger but probably didnt cause they were having to much fun or work was very comfortable that they didnt need to look else where.

Getting pushed and shoved so that it makes you realise that work is crap sooner then later is sometimes a blessing in disguise.

Thanks you for this ebook. I was actually in the process of looking for something just like it. Once i have read through it i will provide neil with the feedback :)

As much as i would like to say its this little defect, that minor defect or "i need to do abit more market research", its pretty much what tawheed said, fear that what i built isnt good enough, there are things that i didnt think of that will make it crash, people wont like it.Im over it now though, we are at our final week and regardless we gonna launch real soon

Yes thats true, but if (through no fault of your own) circumstance puts in you desperate situations you have to do what you must. And if it means making bold steps then as an entrepreneur you have to do what you have to do.

Your pretty much correct on this except for the extreme cases like markus frind and plentyoffish (if the profits claimed are actually true)

Australia down as well ... was just about to click on an exciting mail when .. pop !! you are now accessing offline mail :(

waits while twiddles thumb

I also tried it this way and it works well. i was sending back the timestamp and the current state and it was quite easy to implement using setTimeout and recalling it again x-minutes later to check if the server state is now different to the client state.

I guess the issue at the moment is we are pretty much a poor startup and worried that it would put stress on the little resources we already have by making the servers handle requests that are not actually doing anything except comparing state of the client and the server.

I was also kind worried that some corporate networks might block my IP/domain name because it may detect the polling as some sort of malicious data being sent back.

I think after V1 is released if we can become atleast ramen profitable i might start to look at implementing this functionality using gmails approach as we may then be able to afford more servers.

I had thought about this but the problem is i have set timeouts for my requests to only a few minutes because i wanted to prevnt DOS attacks as best i could without timing out to early (as there is some upload functionality).

Also i had 2 other problems which i thought may arise which kind of moved me away from trying to do it this way.

The first was if we start to get significant hits i think there would be a limit to the number of FD's i could have open on a single server and having the connection open continuously as it waits would slowly eat away at the number of FD's i would have available. Some people may leave the browser logged in and walk away (though i guess after a certain amount of inactivity you could just logout for them)

The second is, i have noticed using cherrypy the ajax requests are processed in sequance so im not sure that if i have a blocked request, whether it would hold up other requests for that session however if the blocking was in another thread it should work i think.

Maybe when i finally release my product and i start working on this functionality for V2 i will look more closely and give this an actual try instead of just thinking through it.

Hmmm, some things to try there ... Thanks for your inputs mate.

Great, thankyou for this , i will give it a try. Our product is almost done however in future releases i would like to incorprate some realtime update functionality.

I will go through this information.

Why dont you try www.alibaba.com they have manufacturers from around the world and alot of my friends that have manufacturing companies advertise there

You are very right with that !, I have a friend who is working on his product and sometimes he asks me to come over and hack with him. If i know what it is im going to hack and its more typing then actual thinking or problem solving i may come but if i need to do some serious work i never take him up on the offer.

Reason is, it is about locking yourself up, getting through alot of the problems on your own and working on the next one. The minute you have someone there (even if they are coding as well) and when your task is not integrating it becomes more of a distraction having someone there.

For me, youtube, hacker news and sydney morning herald get me through my lonliness when im hacking away, also the odd trip to subway to get myself a sandwich and the lady at the counter :)

Freaking awesome, thanks for this mate. Once i finish the current book im reading (on the train commute to work) i will have more great reading with this 12.8meg file :P.

I have read alot of PG's essays but it wouldnt hurt to re-read some of it again .. could notice things i hadnt the first time through.

I can tell you how i found mine.

During highschool I had a friend who was always a design focused guy. He was good at painting, drawing sketching, it was a natural ability

We went to uni together also and i did a CS degree whilst he did a general science degree.At uni he did a few CS subjects and did a few electives that involved drawin, painting sketching.

After uni we went our seperate ways for a while but when i started my startup i needed a designer. I had someone in mind but my first choice had other things going on so he wasnt available.

I called my mate who i knew from highschool. I called him because i knew he had a general great eye for design, i knew he could code cause he did a few of CS classes but i wasnt sure if he could use the design tools such as photoshope, dreamweaver etc.

It took him about 6 - 8 weeks to get through the technicalities of photoshope and various other tools but after he learnt the tricks he was off.

I noticed all he needed to learn was how to use photoshope and he knew exactly what he needed to earn cause he could already see what he wanted to achieve in the design.

Now i dont know what i would do without him cause he can dabble in the JS code related to UI actions and events also.

I guess my point is maybe you need to look for someone with great design skills but not necessarily web experience. Possibly you could try the arts department or even the architectural departments of universities as there may be some hidden talent in those areas.

I know that my design guy did a few courses from those faculties also.

That is so definitely true. You dont know how many people i am working with at the consulting company i work for that would say ...

"why is this vendor charging X millions for this crappy software, i could have done this as a uni student" the software may be crappy but they dont realize the amount of work that goes into getting the application polished, having correct messages for all actions and making it generally user friendly. Also the fact that it does the job that someone needs done is why someone is willing to pay X millions for it.

The devil is definitely in the detail ...

Anything really (rock to trance), but i will turn it off when i have a really difficult problem that i havnt solved before or if i am learning something new.

im sure if you clear out your cookies you will loose your preferences. If you dont loose them then yes id be curious as to .. "how !"

40 now, seems like there is a 'Z' and an '@' there now :D Seriously even if he makes 100K, heck 10K im going to label this guy as one of my idols LOL ...

Its actually quite easy. As long as you know the timetable there is no guard at the door to make sure your paying. So if you stroll up, grab a seat on one of the lecture theater benches and just listen no one is going to kick you out.

Im pretty sure you could even go to tute classes because they just call out the roll to make sure that your there .

Some classes do roll just to make sure you dont truent more then X amount of times otherwise they may dock you 3% of your marks but your lecturers hardly remember everyones face to know you dont belong.

I would love to actually go back and do this too but i need to work. Hence i agree with one of the posters earlier that suggested to try to accumulate enough wealth to be able to spend your time learning things that you like.

I hope so, i watched the 2008 one on omnisio and learnt soooo much (this was around the time i started my startup) was able to write alot of points which i still follow now. Wish i could be there in person. Anway if it is streaming im going to be sure that i dont miss it.

Also dont forget that once you learn the language well, say you picked python, dont evanglise it as the best language onces you have fnished your first little app or program. Read about other languages also and just play around alittle. If you know one well you know where you can always run when there is a big project you want to do, but give others ago, you could be pleasnantly suprised

I know alot of poeple who picked up perl as their first language during uni and wont pickup anything else cause they are so deeply into it and say its the best language. It might be from their point of view which is fine but dont let the first language you learn be the only one you ever use also.

Like the other guys said, if your a beginner pick one, hell pick python for the simple reason that google use it (so it must be good) get used to it and then try to compare with others once you get the swing of things.

Like buying a guitar for the first time, you dont know which one is good cause you dont know what a good guitar is supposed to sounds like so you buy a fender or a les paul cause one of your idols use it !

At my previous company. A well know global airlines we just put out a tender for cargo management and loading systems. All the vendors were ie6 compliant but did not certify for ie7 or any other browser. I tested many of the demo applications on ie7 and on firefox and they totally rendered incorrectly.

Even at this time corporations are not upgrading and i guess they wont as long as vendors continue to provide ie6 compliant applications without support for any others. Goes to show how slow corporations move these days, even for something as simple as a browser (in comparision to other upgrades they make).

Yes i agree, thats why when we were choosing our framework we ended up deciding between cherrypy and pylons ... i think turbogears changed from cherrypy to pylons as its core web framework module.

I think if needed you could change the framework code with django also but it just seems very large where as pylons or cherrypy is very minimilistic.

cherrypy + cheetah + sqlobjects .. basically a makeshift version of turbogears with the stuff we like minus the parts we dont :)

Great video, good insights from some of the veterans of the startup and venture world. For someone oceans away its great to still get the information and the advice that goes around in silicon valley.

About the video, i sometimes got the feeling that Micheal was cutting Paul of at times, at times it was annoying when paul was about to say something related to earlier stage startups and micheal would just cut it off.

When this happens its sometimes interesting to see the facial expressions of the person getting cut off but the quality of the video wasnt good enough to make out anything noticable =P that or paul did a good job of hiding it :)

Yes thats correct, i get the same feeling as well when working with lawyers and accounts (specially when i was incorporating). Howevers sometimes i cant help but think that as software engineers and developers we kind of do the same thing to the people we consult for. Yes some of the stuff we do might be complicated but many times our work is pretty easy and we still charge 100 - 150 dollars and hour.

Anyway thanks for these documents, expecially the compensation documents. Even though im from australia i can get an idea of how to arrange documents to be used here.

When i saw this question this is what i thought also. I was a tad unsure but when i put my application through in the next month or so i was going to discuss a general system known to everyone and how I was able to conduct myself to ensure that the system worked towards my advantage.

I guess with your comments above paul, it is something along those lines that you are looking for.

Thanks for clarification, oh and the initial question for that matter :)

I see it like this. To start a business, whatever it is you need time, money and skill. However if you have 2 of the 3 your still capable of succeeding.

If you have money and time, you can pour in those 2 aspects to get the best managers, engineers and designers

If you have money and skill for whatever industry your in you are able to be the visionary, the lead, be in control and are able to fill in your short commings with the funds you have. If you need the best materials, resources you can get them. You dont need to think twice about making do ... (to a certain extent)

If you have skill and time then you yourself can build and design whatever it is your out to achieve, you can manage and you can empower the people you think can help you to make your business succeed even though you are not yet paying them. However you need to think more carefully, negotiate more because money is not in abundance so in a way its a good thing cause it forces you to be more resourceful.

So far we have spent, money on servers (1 year upfront), test equipment, business registration and various other paper work costs to get a business started. This has probably all totalled to about $7000, not so much i guess.

But my partner and i have negotiated a pay cutt (cause we still need our day jobs but we also need the time aspect so we dont do a full 5 day work week) with our managers so that when im at my 9-5 my partner is working on our business and when his at his 9-5 im working on our business and that we also get a day where we can catchup on the work we have done.

There is also the 3-4 hours everday after the 9 to 5 that we spend working into the night (which means we cut down on alittle bit of sleep)

There are times when we cant go out when we want to cause we are close to a milestone and its just not a good time to leave even if we want to. These are not finacial costs but arguablly some are more important. I guess we have spent alot and in terms of time its been quite abit.

But i guess thats the sacrifice of starting a business. If its not money and time, its going to be skill and money and if its not skill and money its going to be skill and time.

Its got to be one of those combinations.

I guess

It really depends on your problem and the situation your in. Sometimes you cant, there are some nagging problems that can not be left and should not be ignored. I guess these things are more along the side of family and health (for me anyway).

You shouldnt start a startup if you have to address family or serious health problems with you or anyone close because they need your full attention.

However for any other problem, girlfriend issues, money problems, loss of friends, yes they are hard but can be overcome with strong will. It depends on your priority, i value family and health over anything else so i can choose to ignore the others if i need to focus.

Im really close to finishing my startup now after about a solid 1 year of un relenting work, curve balls and problems, with day job, with startup and other things personal. During the last year i could probably say that i faced 3 problems that were quite difficult to ignore however they did not directly concern my health and not directly my family (god bless) so i keep going.

There are 24 hours in the day and you just need to tell yourself that after 3 hours of getting angry or wollowing or whatever you do, it gets you no where, but 3 hours of work gets you a step closer to how you see yourself in the future which can also be something you value.

You can even trick yourself into thinking that where you see yourself in the future is a future you without some of the problems you may be having now. The approach i guess is to take a completly robotic and logical approach and kind of dehumanize some aspects that arent that important cause if you let everything get to you then you wont get anything done, not even the basic day to day things.

The side effect of this is if you dont make it (even though you poured everything in) you need to be ready so you get into a state of depression.

Its all about iron will , specially when life throws you curve balls. Good thing is, if you get through it, you will become a much stronger person.

Having said that, take time off once in a while cause even though i take a robotic approach (as sometimes its the only way) im not a robot :)