Compelling read on the author's journey toward a new life and a new reality. Her first-hand depictions of short-term memory loss, aphasia and other consequences were especially illuminating.
One out of every five apps gets rejected for either “more information needed” or “did not comply with terms in the Developer Program License Agreement" which is almost as bad as not providing a reason at all.
Still, I applaud Apple for taking a (small) step forward in terms of transparency.
It was a "science fair" style expo, where all of the completed hacks were on display with one person from each team demoing--essentially over and over again for hours.
Judges came around to review and score everyone (every team had multiple judges stop by), and a shortlist of hacks made it to the final round where it was more of a traditional pitch-off, with different judges.
The expo was pretty awful, as a presenter. After being up for >30 hours working on the project, having to stand up and pitch it for two hours was rough. It also meant not getting to go around and see everybody else's projects.
If they do this again, they should shorten the expo significantly and do it in stages, so that nobody has to stand and talk for two hours.
I thought the expo format was alright but it would've been better if there was a larger space so some teams didn't have to be outside and people didn't have to shout over each other while trying to discuss their projects. It was a better format for larger teams though, as everyone could take turns presenting and looking at other projects.
I've been to a dozen large hackathons and they essentially all operate in this manner. I've been trying to come up with another way - the expo style has many shortcomings including those you listed. It's very hard to stand out in this format especially if your demo is not conducive to 10 seconds standing up at a table with 100db ambient volume. Makes the importance of designing a hackathon-friendly hack paramount.
Expo definitely favors larger teams as we only allow one person to demo from each team at a time, leaving the team members to swap out and check out all the other hacks. While the demos in front of everyone may be more fair, the expo builds community and gives people the opportunity to get immediate feedback on their pitch/product even if they dont win a prize or make it to the final round.
PennApps, LAHacks, HackTech, HackSC...all had expos. You're right in that demos for everyone just aren't feasible. But I think you understate the challenges and downsides associated with expos.
The hackathon explosion is just getting started, I'm sure things will continue to improve as these events mature.
LAUNCH had teams assigned to one of 15 groups of judges and you pitched them and the winners from each group of judges made it forward to the next round which meant one 3-5 minute pitch only. The downside was that you didn't get to see most of what everyone else built.
I agree with you, esp since it seems you were a solo presenter. It is good to have at least one teammate if you can find, because again, the statistics do not favor lone founders.
Hi there, I'm on the YC Hacks team working on this. I agree that "founder depression" is somewhat vague and potentially confusing in describing what we're doing. The intent is simply to anonymously connect people who are going through similar situations, whether positive or negative, in order to edify and support one another.
Based on both anecdotal evidence and recent articles, it seems as though people in the startup community often don't have many compassionate outlets they can leverage to talk to others who are either going through something similar or have gone through something similar before. By finding someone relatable to share experiences or learnings, they can release some of the pent-up emotion or frustration that they have and be able to move forward.
Furthermore, this is not designed to replace working with a mental health professional--not in the slightest! This is more purpose-built around finding peers who have the right context to really understand or comment on what you're going through and empathize. This isn't meant to be a counseling service.
> Based on both anecdotal evidence and recent articles, it seems as though people in the startup community often don't have many compassionate outlets they can leverage to talk to others who are either going through something similar or have gone through something similar before.
There's a huge difference between providing an outlet for startup founders to commiserate with each other and providing an outlet for individuals who believe they're suffering from depression to obtain support. Again, it's hard to criticize well-intentioned efforts, but my (hopefully) constructive criticism is that you seem to be blurring the lines. You can build a useful founder support network without focusing on depression.
Clinical depression is a disorder that has a variety of causes. Some of them are social or psychological, but there may also be biochemical causes. A startup founder's depression may have less to do with his or her startup experience than one might think, in which case focusing on this part of the person's life could be more harmful than helpful.
An individual who may be suffering from clinical depression (or an anxiety disorder) should be encouraged to obtain a professional diagnosis, and treatment should be guided by a professional whom that individual trusts.
> This isn't meant to be a counseling service.
Easily said, but harder to enforce. Case in point: one of the services you're considering using, 7 Cups of Tea, is positioned as an online counseling/therapy portal.
> There's a huge difference between providing an outlet for startup founders to commiserate with each other and providing an outlet for individuals who believe they're suffering from depression to obtain support. Again, it's hard to criticize well-intentioned efforts, but my (hopefully) constructive criticism is that you seem to be blurring the lines. You can build a useful founder support network without focusing on depression.
We're definitely on the same page and our goal is to do the former rather than the latter. Describing it as a founder depression product was ultimately incorrect and we're moving away from that description here at YC Hacks. I definitely appreciate the distinction and your constructive criticism.
> Easily said, but harder to enforce. Case in point: one of the services you're considering using, 7 Cups of Tea, is positioned as an online counseling/therapy portal.
Also a great observation -- with regard to 7 Cups of Tea, the company is an inspiration point but we are not using them and we don't believe our service is competitive to their offering.
The smartest thing I ever did was join a men's group. It's not depression-focused per se, but in my case it became something of a depression support group. I wish I had done this 20 years ago, and I say that everyone I meet who shows an interest.
"If officially confirmed, Berman’s death would make him the third Downtown Project figure to have died suddenly in the last 18 months, following the deaths of Ecomom’s Jody Sherman in 2013 and Downtown Project employee Ovik Banerjee earlier this year. Sherman and Banerjee‘s deaths were both ruled suicides."
I think your point about rapid distribution and iteration is the most compelling reason.
Anecdotally, I've heard from a number of engineers and technical leads working on mobile-first startups that they started out by building HTML5 mobile apps and driving traffic to it (vs. native first) to better understand what users want before starting native application development from a test-learn-iterate standpoint.
Being able to make rapid changes based on user behavior and feedback significantly de-risks the chance of "missing the target" at the outset.
I like the iteration idea a lot - I'm a little worried about the speed at which Moore's Law applies to networks. Yes, the devices will get better and faster, but if wireless speed is a bottleneck, that seems to improve at a slower rate.
Does anyone know if you can have a button on a website that lets the user put an icon on their home screen? Yes, they can add it themselves, but I bet you'd really like that icon.
It just points out where to click to put a bookmark icon on the homescreen (and I believe this is specific to iPhone/Safari given position of the icon relative to the screen).
It doesn't create an icon automatically for a user, but it's certainly helpful for those who don't know how to do it.
