There was Betaloft (coworking), but they closed up shop about a year ago. The guy who started Betaloft has mentioned starting up a new space in Ogden.

I've been watching closely, but haven't seen anything recently. I personally would love a "third place", preferably in Salt Lake.

If you need to be convinced, you probably shouldn't do it.

Like what melling said, if you need convincing, you're probably not in the right state of mind.

Personal experience, I just fucking did it. No talk, no post on HN on whether I should or not. A little less conversation a little more action please.

Lot of variables here. Assuming you've already vetted that its a great business idea (talked to vc's, peers in the space, domain experience, etc) and that you have the skills and potential team in place to make it work, fucking go for it. Make sure you are passionate about it and make sure you're comfortable raising your daily resting heartrate by about 10 bpm. A bit of my own path follows: http://www.warandtheentrepreneur.com/uncategorized/stop-bash...

Instead of travelling from point A to point B, go live in another place like Thailand. Costs are cheap (you can live well on $500 a month) and you get to experience more of the culture rather than just travelling through.

The problem is that it will take sacrifice and hard work to get your startup off the ground. If you half-ass it, you probably won't succeed (I've seen many failed attempts from others and myself).

If you want to travel, volunteer, and do crazy stuff, that's fine, but you probably won't be able to run a successful startup at the same time.

It is hard to change the world if you're not standing on a solid foundation. I speak from some experience - I run an all volunteer organization that has actively saved lives, and improved others. We're in a very quiet state because I failed to build that foundation.

I regularly try to convince people who are new to emergency services that they have to take care of themselves if they want to care for others. If you're on shaky ground physically, emotionally, or financially then you're likely to fail just when the person (community, group, client) that you're trying to save (serve, help, support) depends on you the most.

Wanting to change the world is a great thing. If you're already profitable, you're in a great position.

But please don't dismiss somebody for being a bit focused on how your business will make money over the short or long-term. If a co-founder wants to join up with you and doesn't ask you some really tough questions about your plans to make real money, you shouldn't be happy about this: you should question his experience, competence, and judgement.

Any decent developer has already been approached by many startups: most of which claim to have ideas that change the world and most of which have no real business plan and are destined to fail. Somebody who has been through this before is likely going to grill you hard about money and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

You're creating a false dichotomy.

There are plenty of startups and small businesses that aren't set up to change the world but aren't looking to make a quick buck due to a bubble either. Say, a company making UI mockups or bingo cards. They're just small businesses exploiting a niche market.

I would like to know more.

I'm a server-stack guy looking for something to get into.

I am in a similar situation. Good luck to you.

actually it looks like more than 200 donations so far.... A VERY BIG THANK YOU, folks!!!

It's tough earning contract programming dollars in Hobart so be generous :).

" it may complicate existing and future legal matters"

Hope that's not going to be one of those "I invented the CD" type legal cases...

Yes, this was a popular topic of discussion around 2001. The net result is that your home computer is so unreliable and has such little bandwidth that its spare resources are worth zero. Specifically, repairing data lost due to churn can easily consume all available bandwidth.

http://www.slideshare.net/emery/tfs-a-transparent-file-syste... especially slides 21-23)

http://www.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/TFS.pdf

http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs

Check out CrashPlan: http://www.crashplan.com

There is nothing fundamentally different about a RESTful API compared to any other type of HTTP request.

Use SSL to encrypt all sensitive data during transit, and think carefully about the best authentication method for your circumstances: you could consider the use of OAuth2 so that developers can authenticate your users, without requiring the users to expose their credentials.

There are a few ideas here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7551/best-practices-for-s...

Clickable links:

Getting designers to contribute to open source projects:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267861

Mockup of "ideal" notification for iPhone:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2298585

myBalsamiq:
http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups/mybalsamiq

I'm eager for myBalsamiq too. At least, I was in 2009. And in 2010. Now I've kind of given up on it.

Go to potential customer. Tell them you want them to be your primary partner in developing/finishing this software. Here's the deal: they'll put up $xxx,xxx - half of it RIGHT NOW - and in return they'll get a free perpetual license to the software and all updates, and you'll work with them to make the software absolutely perfect for their needs.

You're selling a future revenue stream at a discount for an upfront payment. Company benefits, you benefit, you gain one visible user, who hopefully is happy with the product and is willing to provide quotes for your advertising materials, and so on.

Whatever you do, don't bring on contractors for the last leg of a complicated project.

My questions for you:

1. What do you mean by "confusingly high-tech"? Does the
product solve a problem that is known to the customer?
The best product is one that gets out of the way. This
part sounds like the root of your problems.

2. Does your product actually have
that many different uses/market
segments? If you do,
I'd recommend you talk to Sean Murphy (I heard
him over at TechZing podcast where he was
explaining how to
repurpose or repackage and reprice a product based on
different value propositions). He is ex-Cisco manager,
and now advises small high-tech start
ups which have a high
engineering focus (i.e. not in the social spaces).
You need someone who has some emotional distance
from your product to give you impartial advice.

3. Is the following a dead certain assumption "I feel it must look polished for a customer to buy"?
For example, if the sponsor/champion think you are on the right track and closest to what
they need for their business, then you might convince them
to be the pioneer/reference customer, where in exchange for
a steep discount and/or deferred payment until all bugs are
fixed, they get to steer the product in the direction their
particular industry needs. You have already said that it
has application in several industries, so there is no way
your competitors can focus on them all. Try to find a niche
where you can get buy-in and then focus on it.

   Remember. At this stage, you are a nobody. No matter
   how polished your product is, there is no track record.
   The person making the call to buy this is risking his
   professional career to support you. He needs to be 
   convinced that you will be there watching his back,
   fixing bugs, and supporting him.

4. What do you mean by "Time is running out"?
If you are running out of money, then
make sure the other 2 founders understand the concept of
vesting. This way, if they leave, they'll lose
their share
in the business. A single founder can survive off the
fumes of an oil rag and push the project along.

Take the prototype to as many customers as possible. Gather feedback; see if interested in alpha program. Close whatever deals possible. Get the relationship started and have them committed to you.

This probably gives you leverage should you approach investors shortly after.

Apply to Y Combinator.
Apply to Angel List.
Apply to 500 Startups.

Look around your local area for incubators.

Depending on what you're doing, Silicon Valley might not be the right place to go. More appropriate investors and mentors might be located elsewhere.

How long do you have left?

One option may be to get one of your customers to give you an advance in exchange for a discount on the final product, or take an equity investment.

Take the lead.

A team must be flexible enough to compensate when sh*t hits the fan and a founder still has priorities to hit the road and continue to build corporate infrastructure, secure investments and make sales. There is no choice--giving your "baby" to unknown parties at a critical stage is introducing too much risk into the equation with no known potential for success.

Before departing, have a strategy session to collaborate and prioritize issues with the technology. If possible, call in as many favors as possible to bring spot expert assistance on core issues (i.e. a database guru for multi tenant join optimization) to give your existing team a boost.

Try to sell it to a customer and get paid in advance.

Apply to Y Combinator

Hmm. Hackerspaces.org has been running global livestreamed hackathons monthly for over a year now:

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Synchronous_Hackathon

Indeed it will be the same weekend as your event... not to discourage you or anything. Lets see what you've got!

Sounds fun, I'll probably give it a go.

Are you having a theme? If so, consider revealing it a few days before (like maybe the Thursday before).

Clickable: http://www.hackonday.com/

Hamming said the same thing:

  Most great scientists know many important problems. They
  have something between 10 and 20 important problems for
  which they are looking for an attack. And when they see a
  new idea come up, one hears them say "Well that bears on
  this problem." They drop all the other things and get after
  it. Now I can tell you a horror story that was told to me
  but I can't vouch for the truth of it. I was sitting in an
  airport talking to a friend of mine from Los Alamos about
  how it was lucky that the fission experiment occurred over
  in Europe when it did because that got us working on the
  atomic bomb here in the US. He said "No; at Berkeley we had
  gathered a bunch of data; we didn't get around to reducing
  it because we were building some more equipment, but if we
  had reduced that data we would have found fission." They
  had it in their hands and they didn't pursue it. They came
  in second!

  The great scientists, when an opportunity opens up, get
  after it and they pursue it. They drop all other things.
  They get rid of other things and they get after an idea
  because they had already thought the thing through. Their
  minds are prepared; they see the opportunity and they go
  after it. Now of course lots of times it doesn't work out,
  but you don't have to hit many of them to do some great
  science. It's kind of easy. One of the chief tricks is to
  live a long time! 

"You and Your Research"

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

The implied second step to this method is that you have to be constantly on the alert to hear or read about new tricks. In Feynman's time this was much more difficult in industry than in academia, but nowadays thanks to the Internet I suspect it is applicable even if you work a desk job at a software development firm.

Found in Rota's lessons, here: http://www.math.tamu.edu/~cyan/Rota/tenlesses.pdf

http://www.geekdesk.com/ is much cheaper alternative. Still $750-$800 though.

I echo other people's recommendations of getting a tall desk and a high chair. It's not quite the same as sitting at floor level, but it's pretty close.

Can't help you on the standing desks, but;

Have you considered using an exercise ball instead of a chair? Am I correct in assuming that you just want a standing desk for the health benefits? If so, exercise balls are pretty good for you as well (at least better than a chair). They are a lot cheaper than standing desks.

http://www.gearfire.net/10-reasons-to-use-an-exercise-ball-a...

I've been using a standard dresser for years, and I often use a balance board while working, so it is more of adjusting the height of the user than the desk.

However, I've also thought about building my own adjustable height stand-up desk.

I thought that I would get two adjustable height bar stools, like this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NVT1GU/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp...,
remove the seat, and mount a desktop in their place. The two stools will provide a stable base, though you may need to add a third for stability depending on where the weight is on the desktop.

Then I figured I'd connect a rod to the adjustment bar so that the stools move up and down together, or else you're going to dump everything off your desk when adjusting the height.

I haven't gotten around to doing it yet, but I'm moving in a few months, so maybe I will then.

Just curious... Why not get a 40" high desk, and an adjustable height chair?

A generic welcome message doesn't improve the communication of a product's offering nor improve functionality in this case. This is valuable real estate that is being given up. Additionally, you want the product to appear stable, successful and applicable to the perceived user's problem regardless of where the user comes from. In short, it looks desperate and inefficient.

What I would do is subtly tailor an interface to two major user's persona expected to visit on press day. Then set up A/B testing on conversions and use the traffic to your advantage.

Addressing people as "blog readers!" doesn't feel very personal, to me. It'd be one thing if you had a page for each publication, but pointing them all to a generic one isn't as good, IMO. Might have made more sense to just tailor the content to what you think they'll be looking for, and leave off the semi-personalized greeting.

As somebody who's never heard of the product, I think that the IDEA is gold -- however, there is significanly more information on the regular ol' landing page.

I'm guessing if you split tested them, it would convert better by a lot.

Regardless, I'm eager to hear the results.

live links: http://www.edulender.com/march8 and http://www.edulender.com/

drop.io is a well known, recently sold to Facebook.
path.io changed to path.com
boxcar.io is an awesome iPhone notifications app.
pen.io is a new startup from the Launch Conference.

Thats just off the top of my head... If you find any more please add them to this thread :)

we are called ginger.io

ep.io for Django hosting

My $0.02 - free advice is often worth what you pay for it - caveat emptor ...

Tell him you'd love the job, and can provide a portfolio to show that you've done this sort of work before.

Then quote a price to provide the broad outline, and make that a deliverable. Then quote for any given solution to a problem. Make sure that you get paid for each piece of work before you do the next. Make it clear that you always do this until you have a history with a client - it's a clean, clear and professional way of working, especially remotely.

Provide your work in small, valuable deliverables. You're doing work - charge for it. Make it clear that at any point he can take what you've done and go elsewhere, and then charge at a rate where you'd be happy if he did so.

Make it clear that you're doing work, you're spending time, you're using your expertise, and you're happy to do so and get paid for it.

Be cheerful, constructive and helpful.

Not sure if this will help, but this is how we operate at the web design company I manage:

1) Prospect gets in touch with us via email or phone.

2) We send them a "Project Planner". This is a questionnaire with key questions (i.e. "What's the goal of your project?") that we've put together.

3) We quickly review the project and send the prospect an estimate of how much it will cost to develop and an estimated timeline. We make sure to make the prospect know the quote and timeline is based on the ideal that it doesn't includes revisions. Something like: Each revision will extend the delivery date by XX days.

5) If the prospect accepts we send them a contract and ask for a 50% payment before we do any work. If they are not comfortable with that, or the project is too big, we ask for 25% and then setup several payment deadlines as the project moves forward.

6) After the retainer has been paid, we send the (now) client a new questionnaire, called "Client Worksheet". Here we get specific to get to know the client better.

6) Once we receive payment, we make some research on the project and provide some wireframes along with simple explanations on how we think the goal can be achieved.

7) After the client is happy with the final wireframe and signs it off, we proceed to design the mockups. We already know what he likes so usually a couple of revisions is good enough to get final approval.

8) Once the design has been approved we start coding. Most of the "how will it work" has been already discussed through the wireframes, so it's pretty easy at this point.

9) Testing, final payment and launch :-)

Hope this helps!

It is possible he is using you to learn. Dealing with that is very common in consulting.

There are a few things you can do.

- Find out who will be making the decision. Insist that you will provide more information as you meet the decision makers.
- Find out what alternatives they are considering. Use this knowledge to better position yourself.
- Explain that are many important details still to be considering that will be addressed as you continue the project.

I am very rusty. But read about Solution Selling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_selling

No, absolutely not.

1) Unless the client has already signed a contract (and I hope you require a down payment) don't give away the farm. Meaning, don't give him planning, architecture, design, etc. things that hey should be paying for before you are in a contractual relationship that requires him to pay you. You have to protect yourself.

2) Don't work on spec (speculation), ever. That means that if the client wants to see a design before deciding to work with you, walk away and don't look back. No exceptions. This is a giant blinking red signal telling you that this client will not and does not respect the skill that goes into your work, and will be a pain in the ass for you. These people are almost never worth your time or what they are paying you - if they pay you at all.

Respectfully tell this client that your policy doesn't permit spec work. Check out http://no-spec.com for resources and details on how to explain this to your client.

You can tell him WHAT you are going to do but not HOW. I used to have a client who would keep asking me for solution with the lure of a project coming up, but then said thanks, problem solved. I had to jokingly say I need to start charging for consultation for providing solution, but eventually had to fire the client.

But on the other hand, I have clients whom I gave detail proposal on WHAT to be done in the projects and the projects were awarded.

Thank you very much, everyone :) Your comments have given me a lot of clarity on how to filter good clients and how not to fall for spec work.

RiderOfGiraffes is absolutely correct. I often do quite a bit of documentation upfront to make sure the client knows exactly what they are going to get. From wireframes to technical summaries, each is a step in the overall project process (and completely billable). Don't be afraid to shoot down something you think is considered "spec" work such as a bit of UI demonstration or data modeling. They either see your previous experience and trust you or not. Otherwise run away - could be a shitty client.

In answer to your specific case - explain to him that the first deliverable is a "project brief" which summarizes the project and proposed "high-level" solutions. Again - totally billable.

Been there done that.

The key is he wants all this detail before committing. This guy is never going to pay you anything, why should he, he is getting you to do everything for free. I have been there hundreds of times and not once has it lead to anything. For all you know, he is another freelancer who is having you do the design work for HIS client by asking these questions. That has happened to me before.

Detailed work requires a retainer paid in advance. Treat this as a lawyer or any other such professional would. Clients get a 30 minute free consultation wher eyou come to understand their problem and if you can help them. Then they make a decision to to hire you or not. If they want you, based on the interview and your reputation, they start by writing you a $5,000 check and you start billing off it. If there is money left over or they change their mind they get a full refund of the amount not spent.

Never do spec work. Never.

Show him your portfolio and examples of solutions you have solved that are similar. Unless a contract is signed, don't do anything more than a nice proposal.

Why not charge him for the consulting? You are providing him a service solving these problems (or proposing solutions to them). Make it fair to you and him. If he's not satisfied, you can both walk away. If the project continues, you'll be starting from a pretty good position.

Sounds exactly like what you're afraid of. He's milking you for free consulting. Tell him no designs will be forthcoming until he signs a legally binding contract and/or the first payment is made, depending on how you operate. I would assume that if you give him everything for free, he won't turn around and pay you after the fact.

There's no such thing as a client you have never worked with before until there is a signed contract. In other words, the person is a potential client, not an actual client.

In my opinion, you just write up a proposal that covers your interests and see what happens - try not to spend more than 1/2 a day on the proposal per $10,000 in revenue.

If you are a developer start creating small things. Don't go jump into a large web app. Small bites will help motivate and create a momentum so you can start doing bigger things.

For example, last year I created a couple of jQuery premium plugins, I putted a price tag on them and offer user support. Some of people said "no way, your plugin will make it, there will be free version of it anytime soon".

Guess what ? Almost one year has passed, there aren't any full featured alternatives and I'm making a $xx bucks on a daily basis. I'm not making $50, but it's close tho. For the effort I've put into it I pretty happy with the outcome. Clients appreciate the fact that I offer support, and the best thing is, I haven't yet give any support because none of my clients have request it so far.

In a nutshell, my best advice for you is:
- Start by doing small quality things.
- Create a solid client base, keep them happy and show them what you are doing currently

Soon enough your will start see some profit.

Don't sell yourself short, all of these options could easily bring in more than $50 per day.

Think about your current skill set versus what you would like to learn that would help your career and future earning potential. Balance those two items to help you choose.

If you have an interest in all three develop all three ideas over time.

For the short term I would pick the area that you are most skilled in so you have the best chance for success.

Digital content probably has the best chance for success depending on your knowledge base and target audience. An e-book could be put together fairly quickly. Pick something you are passionate about and put one on the market and see how it goes.

Web Apps are great for reoccurring revenue, the software as a service model is one of the best business models out there. Find a problem and solve it with a web application.

Apps would be the most difficult to break into and have a money maker the first time. It's definitely a high demand skill and something you should develop for the future if you have an interest.

Recommended listening for inspiration:

http://mixergy.com
http://37signals.com/podcast#episode5

My advice to you is... try as many small ideas out as you can, see what does earn a bit. It's not that hard to get something earning a couple dollars/day, just doing it again and again is the hard part.

> ebooks on easy to learn and write about topics

This can provide some very interesting options (and lucrative, affiliate) revenue streams; possibly generating passive income for years to come.

People (read super aff marketers) have written eBooks on this very topic i.e. how to build long-term, passive income streams with eBooks - if you scout around a bit, I'm sure you'll find a few.

HTH

There are tons of ebook money plans/schemes - go hunt around blackhatworld.com and read some of the threads there. Some are nonsense and some are legit.

Why is your goal to make $50 a day?

Donated. As a closeted gay teenager, Trumpet was the software that got me in touch with the people who literally saved my life. I could never thank this guy enough.

(Edit: if you felt like making another worthy donation, the Youth Guard mailing lists are the people I'm referring to -- http://www.youth-guard.org/youth/ . I cannot overstate the impact they had on my life.)

Suggestion: pay him by Mass Payment. You end up kicking in $0.50 in paypal fees, he doesn't have to pay to receive. It ends up that more of your donation reaches him net (if you donate above, let's see, $7.25 or so).

You'll need to save a text file. I think you guys can probably manage, but to make it copy/paste easy:

---

payments@petertattam.com (tab) 25.00 (tab) USD (tab) winsocks_rocked (tab) This is a totally optional comment.

---

Thanks for Winsock, by the way. You saved me hours of frustration when I was trying to get Compuserve and Warcraft 2 to work together, back in middle school. Crikey I feel old.

I too have fond memories of Trumpet. I remember even then (I must have been 15 or so) thinking that this software was so important and likely undervalued. Of course, I used it and never donated as I didn't have any money - something I intend to rectify now! For a while in those days, I was behind a SOCKS firewall, and I convinced Peter to add SOCKS support to the stack itself - something which perhaps ignited my love of somewhat abstraction violating clever hacks! And of course it helped start my career in computing, as did APANA and a bunch of other very kind Australians.

I can confirm that the email is the one I passed on to Jacques. The PayPal account is a legit one I have used in the past and is registered under the business name Tattam Software. If I encounter any problems I will look into the other option.

Thanks all... I had honestly thought the Internet had forgotten about me.

Peter

Just a warning, if it's a new paypal account and there are a bunch of donations, PayPal will lock the account and keep the money for themselves until he runs their gauntlet.

Actually, they'll sometimes do that on accounts that are a decade old, but new accounts especially.

Maybe use WePay instead with a target amount?

How much did a license for the original Trumpet Winsock cost?

Nevermind, in 1993 a single license for Trumpet Winsock cost $25 usd. Adjusted for inflation that is $38.10 today.

Great idea. With all the Paypal horror stories out there I honestly hope you've set up the account so that it doesn't get wrongly frozen if the donations start ramping up.

New update here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2303337

I feel like Dr. Sam Beckett, travelling back in time to put right what once went wrong.

Donated $38.10, the amount declared as the inflation-adjusted registration fee. My message:

Thank you for my career.

I've run open source projects, built e-learning systems, helped charities in Colombia work together, worked with people revolutionizing journalism and (once, by accident) made a large number of Utah Mormons very angry. None of this would have happened without the software you created. Thank you.

Update: I've created a very simple site you can refer people to.

http://thanksfortrumpetwinsock.com/

Hacker News giving Reddit a run for its money? Bravo.

Peter never received any money from Microsoft.

Donated.

BTW: What was the original cost of Trumpet? (for an end user)

You rich folks in the 90s.. all my computer could run was DOS so I used the then-popular KA9Q by Phil Karn. If anyone wants to start a donation drive for Phil... ;-

So, how do I?

I don't have a PayPal account, and I'm trying to navigate their site to find out how to do a donation, but I can't find anything like it? The closest match is making an "International Payment", is that the one? And why do I need to select which country he is in?

Or should I sign up and perform some other action when logged in?

Demon internet used this, and I think maybe still do: http://echannel.www.demon.net/helpdesk/technicallibrary/sdu/... Funnily the images on the page actually show that they are using an evaluation copy!

I've sent them an email referencing this story to see if they step up and at least make a donation.

Would be great if some more people could email them as I don't see them taking a random email like I've sent seriously.

EDIT: Demon internet is an ISP based in the UK.

Literally don't have any extra money right now (and I used a Mac back in the day), but I tweeted this to help get the word out, and want to at least my thanks to you, Peter, for your important early role in the internet (I heard about this, even if I didn't use it as a Mac user), even if I can't give money, let me say: well done.

Pat yourself on the back and know your efforts were useful for a great many people. Well done, good sir!

I lived on Winsock + SLIRP + a university terminal account in 1994. Donated!

Truly one of the unsung heroes of the Internet. Actually met him at a BoardWatch conference where he received a well deserved award.

Fondly remember Trumpet as the key that unlocked the door to using Mosaic. Jumping from text only to a browser was like going from black and white to technicolor.

Is there a way to make a donation without needing to create a PayPal account?

Donated. Thanks Peter. I had no idea that all of that mucking around trying to get things connected back then would lead to my career for the last 15 years and my own business for the last 13 years of that.

I used to wake up in the middle of the night and sneak downstairs with my brother, lugging our family's first computer, a Compaq Presario all-in-one (similar to the gumdrop iMac) onto the dining room table so we could connect to the internet. With a 486DX2/66 and 4MB ram, we'd load up Tabworks and use the /worst/ browser in existence (don't recall the name, but it was probably a rip off of Mosaic) and dial out to IDT.net to connect to the internet.

Later on, after saving money to upgrade to a whopping 12MB ram and Windows 95, that same computer allowed to to play multiplayer Diablo, which was my first taste of IRC. Naturally it was all downhill from there, and I played Diablo for two years straight.

There were a lot of fights in our household over phone bills and busy dial tones, and I'm sorry that my sister was left stranded at school with no ride because I was busy downloading FreeBSD, but now I'm a successful software engineer and budding entrepreneur in the education space, and it's all thanks to those formative moments panicking at 3 am, trying so hard to muffle the sounds emanating from my 9600 kbaud modem as it connected me to an exciting new world.

Thanks, Peter. Thank you so much.

XP and later has a built-in IPv6 stack, but I remember reading that Trumpet Winsock later provided IPv6 implementations for older versions of Windows for the few people still using them.

Donated.

Donated.

Even though I was kicking around the net on my Macintosh SE/30, using MacSLIP/MacTCP, this is a great idea.

Is there an official story from Peter about how all this happened?

Donated. Winsock + Slirp - truly life-changing.

Donated.

I'm happy to be able to say both that I realized how awesome Trumpet was back in the day, and that I made the choice to send Peter the $25 registration back when that was a harder choice than it is now. It's nice to be able to remember and renew my license, as it were. :-)

This actually sounds like a job that WePay would be better for.

Donated. From one Peter to another.

Hello HN.
Here is a campaign I set up today for this cause

http://vinatta.vinattaengine.com/Email/EmailInvite?campaignK...

It might help to get the message out to a wider audience.

Shameless plug: This is a part of my Internet Startup. You can opt in to have your name (or alias) published.

I had to pester a schoolfriend for weeks until he copied me this onto a disk when I was a poor 14 year old (no idea if he paid for it, but I doubt it given his rep!)

I probably would've gone into this field without it but I got a big head start regardless. I'm donating.

I should probably send some money my parents way too. Long distance modem calls weren't exactly cheap back then!

Just when i think nothing can impress me more, i find that in HN you can, i'm not technician, not a programmer and not and entrepreneur. I follow HN because i like the news and mainly the discussions, seeing different points of view, etc ... and from time to time in HN you make a thing that surprises me and show the power you have inside you. Like now from a video , came a comment about the old days , you found the person and so many years after you organize a tribute, because apart from the money this really is more of a tribute to a man whose work you admire. HNers you are great. Maybe the vets say that this is not the original HN but i think the spirit of HN is there.

Donated. Warm thoughts, Mr Tattam.

There is a big difference between thinking of doing something good and actually making it happen. Kudos to the guys who arranged this. It's great to see everyone donating. Just goes to show how many lives Peter impacted with his work.

Being online via Trumpet Winsock was how I downloaded my first Linux distribution.

Knowing Linux at the right time (1998) was how I got my first job.

Donated.

Donated.

Thank you for opening up the online world to me, back in the days when just trying to connect to the Internet was a bit of an adventure!

I'm Daryl Hatton, CEO of FundRazr. As an "old guy" in this industry, I really benefited from Peter's work. I've set up a FundRazr campaign on Facebook to help collect money for Peter. The money goes directly to Peter's PayPal account. I will refund our portion of the PayPal fees back to Peter when the campaign is finished so that this doesn't make us any money.

Check out the campaign at http://bit.ly/fDzVOF

Make a donation but, at the very least, share it with your friends so that we can get Peter some of the money he deserves.

I would be happy to donate to Peter personally, except that Paypal is will likely freeze his account in the next few days specifically due to a high volume influx of varying dollar amounts from a variety of sources without a physical product or service provided. So my donation must go elsewhere than him personally, and that makes me very sad :(

Donated.

Donated.

Donated. I never used Winsock, but I worked for Netscape, which would've been worth a lot less without Trumpet getting users online.

Donated.

Donated.

Donated.

Trumpet was a truly magical piece of code, basically the gateway to the world we live in today. Donated.

Donated! Trumpet Winsock was the gateway to my first internet experience. Thanks Peter!

Well, it appears that I cannot send the money I wanted because Paypal has assigned my credit card to another account.

Thanks, Paypal, I didn't authorize that. I do not WANT you to lock my account, or have anything to do with you and your freezing account policy crap. I just want to donate to worthy causes.

That said, I'm in Finland. US-Only solutions don't work for obvious reasons (among them, outside the US we don't have 30-day-waits for check cashing...) so I'm looking for a way to set this right that I can use here.

He should do a reddit AMA

I never knew what a 'winsock' was, but at my college in '97, we used dial-up to connect to Demon on Windows 3.1, and it worked great. I used to FTP Amiga demos.

Will donate!

Donated. Ah, the memories of surfing the real web in 1994. (Not some Prodigy/AOL version of it)

Donated.

Donated.

Donated

Donated

Donated.

I love this.
Donated.

donated and twitted around

Nice work; donated.

Donated

I love it, spread the word people! +1 donation from me!

Donated

I wanted to contribute a couple things that probably won't get mentioned by others, especially because there are likely not too many new mothers on here.

First, find out the percentages of cesarian birth and breastfeeding for both your obstetrician and your hospital as compared to the national average. If the numbers don't look good, don't hesitate to switch (even if you like your doctor but they are affiliated with a knife-happy hospital). You can adjust your parenting style as you go but the window of opportunity for the birth and breastfeeding experience - which will lay a foundation to the mother's happiness and the baby's health - is literally hours. (The breastfeeding window is minutes after birth - the longer you delay, the harder it becomes, for both mother and baby, so if your wife ends up with an unnecessary c-section and cannot breastfeed due to post-op issues, or if the hospital doesn't have any nurses to show her what to do, you may lose that window for good).

Second, don't go crazy on parenting do's and dont's until the baby is at least 3 months old. They won't remember anything so there is no reason to do sleep training or any other training. If the baby wants to sleep with mommy, let them, and if the baby cries to be in mommy's arms, let them. (Research shows that babies who get lots of mommy time are more independent later on, as opposed to getting used to it as disciplinarians will suggest). I think one of the nicest things you can do for your wife is let her know that you won't judge her if she is being a bit of a pushover for baby. Keep telling her she is a good mom - every time my husband says that, it makes my day.

Third, be understanding of her need for some untouched time. I mean that literally. It's draining to have a baby holding on for dear life 24/7. Don't take it personally. Go out constantly for the first several months, it's an amazing luxury that will not last forever.

Lastly, buy her a moby wrap. It works for a newborn with no head control, it keeps the baby and mother close and happy, and it's amazing for weight distribution, especially if she is a wimpy 100-pounder like me. It's just as good for "wearing" the baby at home. Seriously, a total back saver.

(I also second @kerben's motorized swing/cradle).

I think it will be a great experience for both of you. It sounds like your head is in the right place and she is lucky to have you as a partner. My husband is a rockstar daddy as well and that makes a huge difference. Everyone talks about sleep deprivation and all that but my experience has been "baby rainbows" (a term I've come up with to indicate the opposite of "baby blues") and he is largely to thank for that. I wish you the same.

P.S. Apologies for the TMI (non-parents feel free to stop reading) but I thought I must mention something else since you are having a boy. If she is breastfeeding, they will put her on special contraceptives in order to avoid dosing the baby with estrogen. These will be an absolute killer for her sex drive so I highly recommend that she look into a copper IUD instead. No hormones, no daily pill popping, and no side effects such as mentioned above. Daddy happy too :)

The two most useful pieces of advice we got were:

1. When baby sleeps, mommy sleeps.

2. When baby cries, he's hungry.

Sleep while you can. I've heard stories about newborns who sleep 8 hours at night, but I've never personally seen it. I hearken it to the yeti.

The system that worked best for sleep schedules for us was splitting duties. Mommy was on 'input', i.e., feedings, and I was on output. It gave Mommy a sense of relief (because she will almost certainly feel overburdened) for me to take the baby, even if just for a short time.

Clean the house -- your wife will appreciate every single thing that she doesn't later have to do.

If you cook, try to cook enough that there will be leftovers. Even better, if you can make any re-heatable meals that your wife can find and reheat during the day, that'll be gold.

As for the actual child-rearing, the only advice I can think of particular to me that seems to have worked is that we never spoke 'baby-talk'. We always spoke in full English. Anecdotally, we believe that contributed to our daughter's ability to speak significantly younger than expected.

I have three kids, ages 9, 6 and 3. My suggestions:

* Sleep whenever you can

* Have fun

* Be patient with your wife

* Be patient with yourself - you will occasionally want to cook and eat your brand new baby

* Make sure your wife is eating well, and let her get out of the house by herself sometimes

Congratulations on your new startup! My third daughter is now two and a half weeks old.

I think that the biggest step for you will be to come to terms with the fact that nothing will ever be the same. And I say that, knowing that you won't fully grasp that until the first time you see your child. And then you'll relearn that with any subsequent children! For me, the first time I've held each of my children, I've been completely floored and awed and instantly in love. All of a sudden, here is a person on earth that I would die for. It's amazing.

You and your wife are about to be very tired. Your son will need to be fed, changed, and burped ... and sometimes it will seem like there's no break in between! I think establishing very regular patterns is a good thing for everyone. Same time to bed, same time to get up, et cetera. It will take tweaking and modification as time goes on, but talk to your wife on a regular basis about how the patterns are working or not working, adjust, and keep on going. For us right now, the pattern is that she goes to bed earlier and I stay up with the baby, letting her get some solid sleep until the baby needs to be fed again. We're still tweaking the parameters, and we've been so fortunate to have my wife's mother staying with us, and she's a huge help, so once she's left, it will be another adjustment.

I suggest using a cosleeper. Having the baby sleep with you in the bed may very well mean that you don't sleep as well because you'll be paranoid that you'll roll over onto the baby. Or worse, you'll roll over onto the baby! A cosleeper puts the baby conveniently close.

Crying is okay. Let him cry a little bit. The natural instinct is to immediately feed / change / console. If you are solving his problems a microsecond after he announces there's a problem, then he'll expect that every time. If he's allowed to cry a little here and there, he'll understand that mom and dad will still take care of him. It will ease the transition to the day when he's sleeping in a crib, not in the same room (also highly recommended).

Take ALL advice with a grain of salt. What works for me won't necessarily work for you. Be ready to try different approaches. Note that this may be in direct conflict with establishing regular patterns!

Best wishes to you and your wife, and if you have any questions you want to run by a new dad (before or after your son is born), please feel free to reach out, my email is in my profile.

Our boy just turned 3 months old. People keep telling us we got really lucky, but the impact on sleep and personal time has not been that huge.

During my wife's pregnancy, I had a big development project eating up 90%-95% of my free time: I wanted to get it done before he arrived, anticipating the huge time suck everyone warned me about. (I ended hitting the finish line, and deployed over the two-week paternity leave, and let him push the launch button when he was 8 days old.)

In my experience -- and again, YMMV, etc. -- if you can regiment your time carefully, it's absolutely not that big a deal. Yes, our days are substantially different now, but we work together really well to relieve each other; I get plenty of development time, she gets plenty of roller derby time, and after completing the post-deploy piece of my last project, I've already picked up another major project and am getting things done.

I've always been a pretty light sleeper, and it's not uncommon for me to be woken up at 4 and just not go back to sleep, so perhaps I already could deal with mild sleep deprivation well, but I really have no complaints about the amount of sleep we're getting. Generally I'll take the last feeding of the night, since I probably won't go back to sleep after, and there were a couple days in there where I dragged a bit, but really, the impact has been negligible.

(The impact of him coming home sick from daycare is an entirely different story. It's like he's a breeder reactor for bugs. I haven't been that sick in years.)

The best way I found to take care of my wife is to get her what she wants, when she wants it -- i.e., literally stand up before she's finished her request and go take care of it, stat. She's in a ton of discomfort (both before and after pregnancy, especially if you're doing a natural birth) and will appreciate the hell out of you going the extra mile. Post-birth, being instantly ready to locate/retrieve/position whatever baby paraphernalia or etc. has been a big help to her. Before we gravitated to a nice he-eats-then-we-eat schedule, I used to feed her and myself both as she fed the baby. Felt silly the first time but it worked out great logistically.

Some random bits in no particular order...

Interesting baby hack: one time the boy was crying, and just holding him wasn't doing the trick, so I figured his diaper needed changing. As a rule, his crying increases dramatically when first laid down for the diaper change, then he perks up and stops crying after he's cleaned up. So I laid him down, took off his diaper, and found that it was actually clean. When I re-diapered him and picked him up, he stopped crying... even though he didn't need the diaper change in the first place. I think if we could find out what was going on in their little brains, we'd be pretty surprised.

Totally invest in the mechanical swing kerben mentions.

When nothing else works, a warm bath has proven to be an awesome baby-fixer for us.

You will learn many new ways to care about poop.

Just remember, baby comes first, mom comes second, and you are third. Unless you have a dog, then you come fourth.

It's a great time, enjoy it. Congratulations.

First off, Congrats.

Secondly, this is not about taking care of your wife, but just my 3 years of working experience and things I thought I would share.

Sorry, I can't help about taking care of your wife, because my wife was able to take care of herself. She had a natural birth

Second most important thing I learned is applying "Customer Driven Development" to the baby. There is a different kind of cry between baby is hungry, baby needs change of diapers and baby needs a hug. This was the basis of the Dunstan Baby Language. I can personally attest that the different types of cry is true, though I believe that each baby has their own set of cries and not a one size fit all as proposed by the Dunstan Baby Language, so you need to learn and find out. <sidetrack> I was going to develop a mobile app for that but my baby grew up too quick</sidetrack>.

Most important thing. Observe the baby, play with the baby and have fun! I discovered a lot about myself observing my baby. The one that really etched in my memory was when I saw her trying to get a toy for herself. At that time, she hasn't learned to crawl yet, but she could sit and roll. This toy was beyond her reach and it was really amazing to see how she shifted her sitting position, lie down, keep rolling till she reached her toy. At that instant, I saw the stroke of ingenuity of her in me when I was young. Trying different ways to get what I want. The question is, how did that trait in me got lost throughout my life?

One program I do recommend is "Your Baby Can Read". I let my daughter watch this show when she was 6 months and she got engrossed in it. We know she was picking up things from the show because she could sing "Twinkle, Twinkle" even though we didn't teach her, but we did encourage her to sing it to us. The magical moment was when out of the blue, she just followed the action of "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes". But she got bored of this show at 18 months and is now currently watching "Playschool" (this is shown in Aust).
You might be able to purchase some of this show on shop.abc.net.au

Another privileage we have was having my wife stay at home and look after her. The main benefit I found from this was that my wife is better able to understand what my daughter wants when she talks. For example, she used the word "wee" to mean she wants a drink prior to learning the word water. Only my wife knew what she wanted. I remembered my daughter and I both getting frustrated when she went "wee" and kept crying because I didn't know what she want. It was only until my wife overhead us and gave her the water that I realised what she wanted. I could only imagine if we sent her to childcare she had to go through educating adults that "wee" is water multiple times.

I wrote a bit about how we managed childbirth without epidural in my blog if you are interested http://kschua.posterous.com/tag/chidbirthepiduralbaby I believe the machine I refered to in my blog is Cardiotocography

and my thoughts about when to stop breastfeeding here http://kschua.posterous.com/tag/breastfeedingbabywean

Have fun!

The most notable thing about newborns is the sleep deprivation they cause. To prepare, get off of caffeine right now and if you don't already, take up regular exercise. These will help you be more normal when sleep deprived. Not drinking alcohol would also help.

I would read about how to calm a crying baby. There is a formula that works really well: wrapping, rocking, shh-ing, etc. I found squats worked well with my first. The second didn't like it so much.

Finally, you might underestimate how absurd giving birth is mechanically. It just doesn't make sense. A friend remarked that giving birth was "like getting butt fucked by a rhino". No rhino's were on hand to tell their side of the story. The point is to expect incapacitation.

Congrats! One thing I would highly recommend, only because it worked so well with my boys, is a motorized swing - specifically the one made by Fisher Price. It consistently helped with soothing them or putting them to sleep while they were infants, when almost everything else failed. The reviews don't lie - check out http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Cradle-Swing-Little/dp/B0...

I know its cliche but take time to enjoy it cause it goes by so fast.

And make sure mommy gets attention too (she deserves it) because baby will be the star.

Take a short break from hacker news..seriously..it pulls you :) congratulations

Go out to dinner with your wife, now! Enjoy your time alone together. Enjoy the silence and lack of any real responsibilty.

1) Buy her gourmet cupcakes

2) Listen to her

3) Help where appropriate - know your skill sets

4) Learn a new skill set to help (diapering/bottling etc)

5) Buy her more gourmet cupcakes

If you only know of Adsense, go to google and type in "Advertising Network" and you can see a huge list pop up.

You know of Adsense bc it's one of the best ones and in terms of revenue generation.

If you have a niche topic that is going viral, it could be wiser to go to an affiliate advertising network and go for the commissions - make sure you know your demographic though.

Clicksor
Adknowledge
Adbrite
Adonion
Bing/Yahoo!/Adcenter

There is a ton more...

Working in media for a full digital agency: several but below are two that might be useful to you.

Addynamo - Good traffic, good reporting, good agency commission.

Admob - Biggest mobile ad network, owned by Google, great analytics.

List on the Google Display network if you fall short of other options.

1) pick a project large and difficult enough that you don't already know how to accomplish it. I certainly will not have fun if I already know how to accomplish the task before I've begun.

2) daily progress. It doesn't have to be consistently a huge amount of progress every day, but it should be enough progress that you could grab somebody and say "hey take a look at what I did today" and be able to show them some new functionality you've added.

3) responsibility. You should feel bad if you are not making progress. If there are no consequences then it's easy to slide off the cliff.

To help myself with #3, two weeks ago I began making daily video logs (like from the movie Avatar). Every day I tell the camera what I have accomplished, and I present a quick 1-2 minute demo of the new code or functionality. But most importantly I tell the camera what I will accomplish tomorrow. And in tomorrow's video log I better either have that task completed or I have to fess up and explain to the camera why I didn't get it done.

A good way to stay focused is to quit your job and put yourself in a position where you have to make money in order to survive. Then it's going to be very easy for you to decide what to focus on.

Disclaimer: this is what I did, wouldn't recommend it to everyone, YMMV, etc...

You have to realise if you're not focused on one project your mind is going to be scattered everywhere and you'll end up with half assed products or incomplete projects. I made this mistake when i was trying to start something like 3 companies at the same time when i was 15/16, i wanted to do it all. You just can't.

For example if you had a series of essays to do in a certain amount of time, they'd all probably be mediocre or incomplete. Yet, if you had to do one essay in the same amount of time that one essay would be pretty impressive, you'd have time to proof read, spell check, change areas etc...

Pretty poor example but you get the idea.

Find one and stay focused on it.

When the idea becomes no longer fun get some feedback, nothings more motivational than feedback. There's going to periods were you just can't be bothered or were it tires you out and the next task/step is soo complex you procrastinate for weeks, you have to identify this and the fact that it happens and push forward.

On thing i do, it's pretty weird, start with really small tasks and build up til' you're in a productive state. (do the dishes, reply to emails, make breakfast lol) When it comes to the hard part (opening up the code editor and getting started) what i do is kinda' go consciously unconscious, you phase out everything, the task, every thought in your head (you might even go light headed), complete yet forced zen and just start coding, when you "regain consciousness" you'll have already started the task and it will be less of a mountain.

And prioritise.

I'm currently at university, in my first year, working on my new start up. It's more important than university to me, i haven't been a class all term and only about 2/3 lectures this term because i'd rather be designing/programming. My priorities are with my idea not with this degree, i have a load of other ideas and what i'll learn from this start up with help me with the others later on.

Just shelve the ok ideas and push forward with that one idea you love the most.

D

Good question. Imagine you are the owner of a franchise you admire (i.e 1800-GOT-JUNK). Could you build it and keep it successful?

The issue we face is that our 'ideas' are entirely unproved, while a franchise is proven, so while there is risk, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I think the absence of a 'light' allows us to drop a 'idea' and pick up another one thinking this will be better.

Feedback from a real customer.

Nothing has ever given me more focus and motivation that someone saying, "I would pay for that." Especially if it's someone who has paid me for things in the past.

Push yourself to stay focused. Do somethings you like and some things you don't each day so that you are not faced with a giant list of things you don't want to do.

Also make sure your not just looking for an excuse to not launch. Tackle something small, get it done and get it out. Then rinse and repeat. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

Focus on a project that you love: one that you truly support and one that you truly believe in. If you're 100% devoted to a cause, it will be much easier to continue pushing on even when it is no longer "fun". Remind yourself why you started, what you have achieved along the way, and what you still hope to achieve. Then just work towards achieving your goals - no matter how big or how small. Once again, if you're completely devoted, you'll take pride in your gains and this should keep you motivated.

wow, it's as if you just read my mind and wrote it down here. Do you live in Israel by any chance?

I don't.

Clickable:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=17l_q2qeseDuPE9XQK7z...

Slicehost or Linode. You get a basic, empty box, and Slicehost has some of the best documentation out there. Everything you do will be the "normal" way - so you don't need to deal with any heroku-style weirdness. Great way to learn.

If I'm truly scaling a project I usually go with AWS. Unfortunately this does mean setting up a load with regards to sys admin items, often including some form of load balancing if you're truly attempting to scale a site. For multiple django projects when starting and for considerable time I run them on webfaction. Webfaction while shared hosting is a pretty solid choice for django, is a reasonable deploying and you could likely follow some similar model when setting it up on Amazon.

Getting something up and running on Amazon EC2 is actually quite easy.
Had zero sys admin experience as well, but managed to run a simple app on my free micro instance in less than a day.

Another popular option is Linode.

EDIT: There's also http://stable.io/, which is kind of similar to Djangy, but it's not ready yet so keep an eye out.

For simple Django hosting, there's Djangy.com, but you have to be quick because they're discontinuing the service.

So... why would I want to use your site instead of using delicious?

Also, "It's free... for now! Users signing up from February 2011 onwards will be required to pay a small fee." - in contrast with "Bookmark for Free" in the features.

So after reading this I signed up. First thing I did was add the bookmarklets to my Chrome Bookmarks Bar, went to something I wanted to Bookmark, hit the bookmarklet and... nothing. Chrome blocked the pop-up. And to show it I have to enable pop-ups on a per-site basis for anything I want to bookmark. Not happening. So... yeah. So much for that.

Clickable: http://www.favilous.com

Not going to trust no website for my bookmarks, thank you: Import/Download your Delicious Bookmarks to Firefox 4 without loosing Tags using Slurp Add-on, http://wp.me/pkvq6-w4

Hey - congrats! I wrote an entire business plan around a very similar concept 10 years ago! Never executed on it, but still think about it all the time. Since I know this is too big of a thing for me to tackle, let me share some of my features with you that I think (hope) can help.

1. Assuming you've purchased the equipment to do mass production (i.e. automated print fulfillment center with folding/cutting/licking/stamping/etc... features then make sure you're doing address cleansing for the extra postage discounts.

2. Make a utility print driver so I can "Print To Postal Shout" -- this is VERY easy to do, at least on windows. You can get freeware, or near freeware, to act as the actual postscript or pdf driver and it will alert your application when the file is done printing - you can then kick in and do something meaningful with it (i.e. submit to your service). I've written such print wizards in the past and would be happy to elaborate if you're interested.

3. In combination with number two above, this is where you can expand your reach considerably. Forget about that template that I have to download. Through the print wizard, you pick your addresses and contacts from a list of contacts, or start adding them. Since your program is controlling the wizard, you can get the addresses in the format you want. Upon completion, create an XML doc (or similar) and call a web service or ftp service to submit the document(s) to. You can either encode the actual document into the metadata of the xml file (slower) or give it a GUID and point to it from the XML metadata. I highly recommend an FTP based approach for file transfer as it is fast and you can give your customer progress feedback or even sync in the background.

4. When using the driver, ask the user HOW the document/message should be delivered. They will build an address book over time (maybe you can even tap into an existing CRM if they have it) and offer email/fax/postal/premium). Think of this from people who want to send an email to 100 people, but only 95 of them have email addresses (hard to imagine these days, but used to be very common). Hope this makes sense. Further, it's a way of offering MULTIPLE delivery methods in one easy wizard. You get to charge for the fax and postal and maybe offer the email free. For example, I want my lawyer to see the document I need reviewed right away, but I also want to send hard copy to him and cc myself.

5. If you could somehow incorporate electronic signature / notary / SOMETHING into the documents and build up a crowdsourced delivery mechanism that would be completely disruptive. Meaning, I'm in California and I want to overnight this signed document to New York. I could send it to your service and have its authenticity verified, then you can reach out to your New York based notary/courier and have it delivered within a few hours to the New York address. Way cheaper than FedEx and if you can somehow get this implemented it would cause your service to absolutely explode in usage. Plus, it would be more environmentally friendly! :-)

6. Offer stationary / letterhead for the customers to design and use. This could be a real problem for mass printing though. At minimum, you should offer different qualities of paper for it to be printed upon. This is a "nice to have" and nothing I would focus on right away (IMHO).

7. You could offer discounts on the actual costs if the user was willing to have ads printed at the bottom or top (or inline) in the document. This wouldn't be for official correspondence, but more for the casual messages you might not otherwise mail, but since it's free, or near free, why not. The beauty of this: It WILL get opened and read by the recipient. Here you have a personalized letter sent to someone with local adverts printed directly on it. The recipient is almost guaranteed to read it and see the advert.

These are off the top of my head. I could drum up that old business plan / feature spec and give you more details if you want.

Hope these ideas are useful to you. As proven: Ideas are useless w/o execution - bad on me for not doing this myself.

EDIT: P.S. - target Salesforce.com as a market because this is especially useful for mobile sales reps who have to fax and mail from hotels all the time.

Great idea and a good pivot.

My recommendations:

- No autoplay on the video with audio. Either let me click play or remove the audio in favor of subtitles

- The logo seems small compared to the rest of the site

- May need to reword some of the taglines in the body... I should understand exactly what the site does without having to watch the video. If it piques my interest, then I can watch the video for more information.

I watched the video. It's too long: I got the point quickly, I wanted to know how much it would cost after 25s, and had to wait until 1:09 to hear that. Then 1:40 to find out my minimum investment.

That info isn't "above the fold". Stuff like: "Start now with as little as $10!" "From only 75c per letter: save on postage, envelopes, stationary & time".

And I think even the most detached exec doesn't need to be told how a letter is sent. Sure they may not know what scale their post room is (franking machines/folding etc).

Basically: get to the bottom line first - hook me in, then explain it.

Clickable:

http://www.postalshout.com

Edit:
One suggestion: the blue(ihs) portions of the logo are not very readable against the black background of the header so the word 'Postal' (in logo) does not register immediately, nor does the tag line 'You mail it, we post it'.

IMO, this might affect the engagement level of (at least a small percentage of) visitors.

HTH

Dustin & Adam, I wish you guys the best of luck. This sounds like a really interesting project!

Random thoughts:

1) Not everybody here is actively engaged on a startup. It's a common misconception that I fell victim to for a long time while I lurked. There are hopefully plenty of people to help you out on this that are either freelancing, between gigs, or what have you. Good luck.

2) Are you tied to Java? You may have better luck if you go language agnostic. I don't know if you're already entrenched, or what the decision was, but it doesn't seem like the most popular language around these parts.

I can't help, but I hope you get the guy you're looking for.