The Startup Foundry

Welcome to HN.

It is a pretty popular web site with a part of the technical crowd. It gets analyzed a lot [1][2]. It also gets a lot of 'spam' (since coverage on the front page of HN can send you lots of traffic [3][4][5]) HN "scores" its participants using a counter 'karma' [6] which also affects features visible to your account (well at least the down vote button) And with any 'score' there are people who score more than others [7]. And where there is scoring there is competition.

The bottom line is that certain behaviors emerge for people who actively try to achieve a 'high score' (more karma) and people who are trying to achieve 'viriality'[8] (more exposure).

It was unkind of me to point out the behavior (usually I just note it and ignore it) and for that I apologize.

Colin (grandparent posting) has a 'thing' about stuff that gets doubly or triply or more posted. I understand the annoyance, it can get annoying. But I've also noted that he posts a lot of links :-) A number of people tend to complain when their version of the link doesn't make it to the front page when someone else's done (it's a 'I'm not getting that karma whine') And generally harmless (other than it sometimes back fires and they get down voted for whining)

[1] http://blog.rjmetrics.com/surprising-hacker-news-data-analysis/

[2] http://hn-karma-tracker.herokuapp.com/overall

[3]…

A lack of sleep and too many hours is the first thing that seems to be highlighted in a lot of startup stories. The second is a lack of good nutrition and the idea of subsisting on ramen. For example the most recent article[1] on the startup foundry has an image with the text "Ramen - Startup Flavor" and this is said about the founders diet:

His diet primarily consists of Ramen Noodles and whatever fruit is on sale

My first thought wasn't "Wow this guy is really committed to his idea and company." it was instead "I hope that's an embellishment and this guy is taking better care of himself than that." Failing to take care of yourself by eating poorly and getting insufficient sleep just compounds your problems.

[1] http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/04/06/love-of-the-game-be-foolish-enough-to-believe-your-startup-will-make-it/

Hi I'm Paul Hontz and I run The Startup Foundry. I built TSF as a place where entrepreneurs could learn and grow from each other. Often times I will cover a hot startup that is still flying under the radar, conduct interviews with founders via Skype, or share advice.

We have some fantastic content lined up this week and I hope you'll check us out. We are obviously not a techcrunch clone, but I think that's a good thing :) Say "hi" in the comments if you decide you want to hang your hat at TSF for a while. All the best, Paul.

Edit: link http://thestartupfoundry.com

Definitely have to recommend Paul and his site, TSF. I just signed up for the daily digest after seeing it on twitter a few times, and I'm enjoying it.

We haven't been able to get on there yet, but they provide a good form here: http://thestartupfoundry.com/tip-us/ , and a nice article on building up your press kit here: http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/18/make-your-startup-ridiculously-easy-to-write-about-put-together-a-great-press-pack/ .

Really good guys, doing some great work. Easy to recommend.

I am the single founder of One Day, One Job http://www.onedayonejob.com/ I'm not quite ready to consider it a success, but it is profitable enough to cover my living expenses. I recently hired some part-timers to help me grow it into something bigger.

I did an interview with The Startup Foundry a few months ago that is way too long but does a good job of telling my story: http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/02/one-day-one-job-how-a-pissed-off-ceo-became-a-startups-biggest-revenue-stream/

Along similar lines, here are some links relating to actually getting coverage in the tech press (rather than sending nasty e-mails as mentioned in this post):

http://www.martinbryant.net/approaching-tech-journalists-for-press-covera
http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/02/08/four-guidelines-to-get-your-startup-coverage-online/
http://www.copyblogger.com/irresistible-pr/

And Michael Arrington spent some time on the topic in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbUnatPfSgg