Bare careful of too many cooks in the kitchen. It's tough to make quick, strategic decisions when you have so many people with an equal say.

Ask yourself if all these key people are really founders, or just the first employees with stock options?

>> Ask yourself if all these key people are really founders, or just the first employees with stock options?

This. Pick 1-2 "key people" out of the pool, and invite others as employees. Don't make things ambiguous, you should prepare and have everyone sign simple contracts outlining the conditions.

Mobile Developer @ Frank & Oak in Montreal, Canada.

http://www.frankandoak.com/about/jobs#job12

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Enhance, build, optimize our Frank & Oak mobile application Ensure strong optimization and functionality and monitor app technical performance Work with our UX specialists to ensure optimal experience Analyze, review, and modify, mobile systems by designing, maintaining, documenting, testing, developing, and monitoring

REQUIREMENTS:

Bachelor/Master degrees in Computer Science or Computer Engineering is a plus Solid knowledge of mobile development technologies (iOS, Android) Great knowledge of web development technologies (PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, HTML) Ability to work independently. Ability to manage multiple tasks, deadlines and priorities. Proficiency in both French & English is a plus

What do you guys think of the "personalized shopping" concept?

Yeah, that's a great point. But I like that Apply is copying too. All the mobile OS platforms should copy each other's best features. It pushes them to make even cooler platforms. In the end, the users win.

Yeah, I totally agree, and thanks for that non-divisive non-flamey take on the issue! I personally have had a really hard time deciding between iOS and Android devices, which is a pretty great problem to have.

I just enabled Super Cache for WordPress so it should be working now. Sorry about that :)

In the browser and on my phone I use: Google Reader, Twitter, and a little bit of Facebook. My Google Reader has something like 150 sources and I generally skim the headlines of all them together. If I've tapped that source I'll head to Techmeme and HN directly.

On my iPad I subscribe to The Economist and I also use Flipboard (again, with Google Reader).

Via shared links on Twitter and Facebook I generally end up on the NY Times a few times a week, as well as the WSJ and Wired.

Is the Xoom available in other territories? I thought it was currently US only (although I believe it comes out in Canada today).

I'm not convinced. Isn't HN the new Digg, and Digg was the new Slashdot?

These 3 sites (HN, Digg, Slashdot) are all user submitted stories. Techcrunch is just one source of many for those stories.

Digg is nothing like HN. Granted, they are popular user submitted story sites with comments, but it's about the community. I visited Digg for a few weeks then stopped going because there was frankly lots of crap and trolls on the site. That is not to say that HN doesn't have some bad cookies here and there, but I got fed up with Digg when I saw lots of ignorant comments that were just meant to be hateful rather than for a positive discussion (particularly in the religious domain). HN for the most part, stays on the topic of startup/tech news, and has reasonable discussions.

True, but going back a few years, Digg had a very similar community to HN. As it branched out into other topics it really lost focus and is the site we never visit today :)

Many HNers are former Diggers. It's just been a few years.

Ah well I guess I saw the site post focus loss.

Great word: "hobbyists" -- there's a lot of these types who attend events and are curious, but aren't true hustlers.

Thanks man. I find hobbyists aren't fully committed and look at entrepreneurship as "fun". Hustlers, also think and know entrepreneurship is fun...but its in their blood, they can't sleep at night. Or if you are like me...you email yourself ideas while lying in bed at 2 am haha.

I guess I was thinking of the first few weeks/months of a startup where all the efforts are really around building the product. What does the business guy do? Definitely there are things to do, but if you had to dedicate all man hours to something, building product would be of paramount importance.

And when you think of technical founders like the Google guys, Bill Gates, etc, they started as technical and acquired the business skills as things developed. So yes, business skills are super important. But they can be acquired.

I'm not so sure that a business guy will just learn some technical skills in the early days of a startup. So the tech guy can learn business, but the business guy can't learn tech.

Ok, from a timing standpoint, I'd say that's fair. In my case, I've been hacking away, by myself, on the code for around a year now... and it's only now that I'm starting to get close to the point of wanting a "business guy."

That said, I think there could be a role for "business guy" even earlier in the process, depending on the details. If you're "scratching your own itch" and you know what you're going to build, then that's one thing. But if you're doing the "find a problem somebody has, and solve it" approach, then you could start the Customer Development process from day 0, and a guy/gal with experience in marketing / product management / etc. could be valuable then. Especially if he/she has some domain knowledge in the field you're working in.

I'm not so sure that a business guy will just learn some technical skills in the early days of a startup. So the tech guy can learn business, but the business guy can't learn tech.

I think it just depends on the individual. And when I say "business guy" I mean "business guy with some technical knowledge, particularly relevant domain knowledge." Which is one reason that finding the right person has been a challenge. I joke about finding a "used car salesman" and teaching them about software, but realistically, I'd like to find somebody who has experience selling enterprise software already.