perldiver

(This was half-written but not posted yesterday. Here it is in all it's technical "glory" today.)

kokoinai and I have been talking about how to manage the LifeThunder.com alpha; specifically, how do we (a) make people want to try it out and (b) prevent too many people from seeing it while it's still in a (to be polite) "unfinished state" (*). Obviously, problem (a) is more likely to be an issue, but (b) matters as well.

Two words: invite codes.

( Read more... )

Re: our YCombinator application: denied.
( Read the rejection letter (short) )
Actually, this is what I expected--they get a huge number of very qualified applicants, and our idea has no baked-in viral component which always seems more attractive--and the rejection letter is much nicer than I expected. I would definitely apply to YC again. In a couple of days, I'll respond to them.

A few weeks ago, kokoinai and I applied to YCombinator for "venture capital" funding of LifeThunder.  I use the quotes because YC doesn't really do VC in the traditional sense; they invest $17,000 in a 2-person startup (like us), and their value is more on the business and networking side.

It's a four stage process:

1) Apply
2) Hear back that you have been invited to demo for them
3) Hear back that you have been accepted for investment
4) Profit!

(Ok, step 4 may not *necessarily* follow....)

Today is the day that we hear whether or not we've been invited to demo.  And no, I'm not compulsively checking all three of my email accounts (since I forget which one I gave them).  I mean, after all, they're in CA and therefore 3 hours earlier than me.  It's 11am here, so they are probably just getting started with the final reading of applications.

Huh, I wonder if the email came in since I started writing this....<click>

We are in the process of setting up the LifeThunder.com website.  This includes a lot of very unglamorous jobs like "install the web server and make it go." 

As I type this, the site consists of nothing but a single page that says: "It works! AND it's modifiable! (Still)".  Tremendously life-changing, I know.  This is what you get when someone (namely me) is installing and testing web server modules one at a time while tracking down a syntax error in the config file.

Here's the thing, though--I pretty much expected that, since we haven't listed ourselves on any online directories, and we haven't submitted to any search engines, and we HAVEN'T ADVERTISED ANYWHERE WHATSOEVER (aside from verbal discussions with some friends), that I didn't really need to worry about what the Internet would think of / do to the site while I was working on it.

Hoo boy, was I wrong.

Checking the access logs, we've been getting hit since yesterday.  Google and Yahoo have both tried to crawl the site.  How did they find us?  By trolling whois.net for recently registered domains?  Google might have found us because we signed up to host our company email on Google Apps, but where did the hits from Yahoo come from?

On the one hand, I'm glad to get the exposure.  On the other hand, it's going to be a pain in the neck as they spam the logs and (shortly) index a site that is still in alpha.  On the gripping hand...hey, exposure.

To the many people on my f'list with more artistic talent that I have (which is essentially all of you :>):  I'm looking for a picture of a cute hippo.  Specifically, one that would be suitable for use as a logo.  If you felt like doodling such a beast and mailing it my way, I would be enormously grateful.

Background: A friend and I are doing a startup.  We decided to name it "Life + X" where X would be the collective noun for a group of animals.  After going through all the collective animal names to see what we liked, what was available as domains, and what a limited number of test surveyees liked, we are currently going with LifeThunder (a thunder of hippos).  Personally, I was really hoping for LifeRomp (a romp of otters) but that did very poorly in the test survey.  Which is a shame, because I'm pretty sure that even *I* could draw a cute picture of an otter.  (Indeed, short of giving it a bloody butcher knife and hockey mask, I'm not sure it's possible to draw a *non*-cute otter.  Hm....actually, I think it might still be cute even with the knife and mask, just in a rather psychotic way.)