Ganthor

Joined 17 years ago

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Member since

Oct 10

University student in Canada.

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Comment · 14 years ago

Does this differ from Goinstant (http://www.goinstant.com/ )? It was aquired by Salesforce in July 2012 for $70MM.

Comment · 14 years ago

I'm a business student and I feel ashamed the rise of non-technical people in the startup field acting like they've got incredibly valuable skills. I learned more in introductory compsci classes than all the BS in my business classes combined.

In regards to startups, technical people are so much more valuable than non-technical people. Non-technical people keep on perpetuating this: http://whartoniteseekscodemonkey.tumblr.com/ -esque mentality by saying things like this:

>"I am the nontechnical founder of several great startup ideas (I didn’t say startups) sometimes very poorly executed."

The founder of an idea? That doesn't mean much in my mind (then again, I don't know much about the author at all, nor could I did up much). Execution is key to a startup - and technical people are largely the ones that get the important shit done.

Non-technical people can add value for sure - but I think only a small margin of them have valuable skills that rival technical talent in a startup setting.

Comment · 14 years ago

While the design seems fairly nice, the idea is nothing new.

Rypple, founded in 2008, started out with an anonymous feedback application built for the enterprise (albeit, I don't think the messaging was quite as forward as it is for this service, I think it required the manager opting in). Rypple eventually pivoted into a performance management cum next-gen performance review app, but the anonymous feedback feature is still a component. It was acquired by Salesforce.com last year.

I love the idea of anonymous feedback, it's one of the aspects of Rypple that initially attracted me to work at the company (I used to work at Rypple).

However, I'm not even sure Rypple was the first mover in the corporate anonymous feedback space, there's been quite a few similar services over the years. I think an app with just this feature, given how there's been consolidation in the HCM industry and providers now often offer a full suite of HR/performance management tools nowadays, is unlikely to achieve major success. That said, there's still a ton of small startups in the space that have similar ideas to Happiily.

Comment · 14 years ago

It's not the built in functions they're trying to replace, it's using python instead of VBA to make macros.

While Excel functions are relatively robust, doing more complex operations that impact more than one cell typically require macros. I was attempting to process 50,000 cells and I tried making a function, but it was a pain in the ass given how complex it was. Since, I didn't know VBA, but did know Python, I used Ironspread to use write a script to do the job. I was impressed, it's pretty smooth to use.

Comment · 14 years ago

Joysper.com is another similar app. It's gotten quite a bit of traction at the few major Canadian universities it has been rolled out at.

Comment · 15 years ago

How did you manage to work in HFT straight out of high school?

Comment · 15 years ago

Anyone else getting a "This video has been removed by the user" message?

Comment · 15 years ago

According to his Linkedin Profile (http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/scott-h-young/1/ab2/867), he attends University of Manitoba.

I imagine UoM isn't as competitive as top universities in Ontario/BC & McGill.

His newsletter still is pretty damn good though, some pretty good content despite the sales pitches for his seminars/programs.

Comment · 15 years ago

It's the exact same thing as http://adore.ly, a Facebook app that's been out since the beginning of January.