rickcecil

To be perfectly pedantic, it’s an initialization. Acronyms are initializations that can be pronounced as words.

CE means “common era” which refers to the same time period that AD does, which stands for Anno Domini and means “the year of our lord,” which is rooted in the Christian faith.

You will also see “BCE” and it means Before Common Era, which replaces BC, which means “Before Christ”.

The newer terms are more inclusive.

A couple of things to consider. ADHD is more than the lack of focus, it also affects your emotions as well. People with ADHD tend to feel things more deeply and react more strongly. Meds can help.

And if you think: that’s not me. You may be right. But you may also not realize that you’re actually playing life on hard mode and while it may work now, it is unsustainable in the long term. Better to find something that helps now rather than wait until you are in crisis.

If by X, you mean religion, sure, I'll agree with that.

And, ultimately, you have no right to police what I teach my children.

there is also marketing value. features that may rarely get used but many potential customers won't give your product a second glance if you don't have them.

The 50% number is actually horribly exaggerated. It is closer to 30%. I'll dig up sources later, but basically the divorce rate is calculated by dividing the number of new marriages with the number of divorces in a given year.

This doesn't account for repeat offenders (people on their second, third, or tenth divorce) or age or region or any number of factors that can affect your chances of remaining married.

Is it all javascript based? So it would integrate with any codebase? Rails, Python, Java?

Very excited about this. Social is such a critical aspect of many systems these days, but it's another piece of the puzzle that doesn't actually distinguish one product from the competition.

The more great services like this that get built, the more great products are going to get built.

I am very excited to see what Hull can do for companies like mine that need this kind of functionality, but have been focused more on our unique value proposition.

Who can we bribe to get into the beta?

One of the things we learned a lot about at TSF was a beach-head market. It's the first market you take on to get traction (however you're measuring traction). So, I'd suggest talking about "knowledge management and collaboration" as your beach-head and WHY you've selected that as your beach-head...and, possibly most importantly, why traction within this beach-head will allow you to tackle some of the other markets you have on your radar more easily.

Also talk briefly about the potential market size of your other target markets. You don't have to have all the answers for your other markets -- after all, they are not your target market, yet -- but you should show some knowledge about those markets and be able to talk convincingly about how your product solves a real problem in those markets.

As for market expertise: I think it comes down to two things. How long have you been working in that industry and how many contacts do you have so that you're not jumping in cold. If you don't have either of these, it's going to be a big red flag. I'm guessing you have had some way of validating the problem, so I am going to focus on the network problem. Find an adviser that works in the industry that is well-connected and can tell others that your solution is heads-and-shoulders above what's out there now and is solving problems in new ways that add 10x more value than current solutions. I use 10x as you're going to have problems convincing people to switch unless you are able to provide a ton of value.

Anyway, just my $.02. The other thing you'll learn about, if you get into TSF or any accelerator: mentor whiplash. You're gonna get a ton of advice and most of it conflicting. So take these suggestions for what they're worth: one person's feedback based on your 5 paragraph post. ;)

As a co-founder to one of the companies (ruzuku) that went through the Triangle Startup Factory, I can't recommend the program enough.

Chris and Dave are amazing. They have lots of experience working with startups and they are well connected to the local and national startup scene.

They connected us with a couple of amazing mentors that saw some of the potential that Abe and I had missed and helped us realize that fairly quickly. We've now got a new business model and are kicking ass and taking names. :) And even though the program has ended, our mentors are still involved.

Pitch Day was great. They spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks really helping us refine our pitch -- ended up with a couple of solid pitches. One more of a story meant to generate excitement and another rooted more in the market and financials -- all the details that an investor would be looking for.

Not sure how many people showed up, but there had to have been 200 or more people -- at least, that's what it felt like up on the stage giving our pitch. We're now busy following up with potential investors and executing our new business plan. Crazy, hectic times. And we get to squat at the American Tobacco Campus in the TSF digs at least until the new class arrives.

Their application for the Fall class is tomorrow. You don't have to be located in the Triangle to get in -- at least one of the companies (Berst) was from Chicago and I know several of us had people living and working from other places in the country.

Happy to answer any questions about the program for those considering applying. Also willing to give any advice on how to get in.