Ask HN: Heard of any good startups?

52 points by markchristian ↗ HN
Three times a week, I write about a new startup at Venture Pimp (http://venturepimp.com/). It's actually really hard to find cool things that haven't gotten much press.

So, as always, I'm on the hunt for interesting startups. If you've got a startup, or have heard of something nifty, let me know. I'd really appreciate it. :)

Happy Sunday, folks.

94 comments

[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] thread
@markchristian

Sending you an email with more info, but in the meantime, check us out http://www.repustate.com

And we're Canadian, too. Double-double anyone?

I would kill someone for some Tim's at this point. ;)
Wow. I must be the only person living in Canada (though not Canadian) who does not like Tims. Though timbits are a different story.
I assume you are talking about Tim Hortons, which is the only Canadian thing I know named "Tim".

I've been there once (I'm American). You guys got it right up there. Who doesn't want drive thru muffins?

Tims coffee is gross, brown water.
I Live in the UK, but I get some Timmies imported. I dont even drink coffee, but try The French Vanila Coffee, Abso. Awesome!

And Don't forget the Garlic Cream Cheese Beagle,Apple Fritter, Boston Cream, Blueberry Fritter.....

Why have you done this to me!!!!

So glad I popped into this thread and discovered repustate. Really cool API!
Where was this a couple of years ago?! I had worked on a project with a friend and we were looking for exactly this to support it. We dropped it because we would have had to build what you offer plus our service. Your API looks clean and simple. I just might have to play with this still.

Oh and I'm 1/4 Canadian, does that make me cool too? :P

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TaskRabbit is neat if you haven't written about them yet.
It sounds a bit risky to put your medical records in the cloud.
Our credit info is online, our home addresses, our banking info, our friends and family photos, what we buy, what we search for, where we go, where we are. What's so risky? :D
The idea is that with your medical records in the cloud, an ER doctor in europe treating the ankle you broke skiing in the Alps would know right off the bat whether you were allergic to any particular meds. It would prevent the need for redundant tests if they had your access to your health data, thus saving money in an industry fraught with wasteful spending. I personally think this is a great idea, and to encapsulate the service in such an elegant and refined user experience is the stuff of startup success.
Hi HN, I'm Director of Marketing & UX at CareCloud, if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them!
Well, im from midwest...Chicago to be exact...i started TuneCloud.fm (though we are not live yet). But some other midwest music startups im cool with are merge.fm, g2.fm, and bln.kr. Check em out. By the way, I read and subscribe to VenturePimp...sweet. Keep it up
Stormpulse http://www.stormpulse.com

Bootstrapped, just went profitable, 2 co-founders, recently hired employee #1 (me) and #2.

When I move the map the new parts take some time to load. Is it possible to preload some of them? Otherwise, great site.
The tiles or the "data"? Tiles are served over S3 (non-CloudFront).
How do you guys make money? Sorry, didn't have time to explore the entire site
Looks like they have a 'pro' account, which gives you access to a lot more data (radar maps), plus email alerts.
Advertising and Pro accounts (b2c & b2b).
<raises hand>

Loggly - http://loggly.com/ is a cloud-based log management service funded by True and Trinity. Logs are normally a real PITA, especially on something like EC2, but we make dealing with them fun and easy.

Basically you point your logs at our servers where we catch them and store them safely away. We apply a fulltext index to the logs to make them searchable. Results can be processed with custom scripts you write and then run from our shell-in-a-browser interface. Our API provides a way for you to programmatically view raw data, searches, facets of searches, or results of MR jobs to drive charts, graphs, or other mashups. We'll also support streaming of logs in via a persistant HTTP connection (and Mongrel2!) so you can send data from webapps or other client based applications.

We're planning on launching a public beta in the Fall, and we have a fun madlibs form you can fill out to be notified when we're getting close to release: http://loggly.com/signup/

Out of curiosity: Do I have to install a cron or something to automatically scp my logs to your server? How does that work?
Actually you just run syslog-ng or rsyslog and point them at our servers by changing a few lines in your config file. If you need to monitor a file which isn't feeding into syslog, it's just a few extra steps.

For most of the AMIs on Amazon, you'll have one or the other of these services already installed on your machine. It takes about 2 minutes to set up the configuration.

Nice idea, but how do you handle privacy concerns?
any chance of some early beta action?
Just a quick point: Your beta signup form (http://www.loggly.com/signup/) requires far too much thinking in order to complete.

After almost a minute of figuring out how I can fit what I want to say into your pre-structured dialog, I gave up.

I'll second this feedback, and add one other minor point: I wouldn't use the acronym (or is that an abbreviation since it is not pronounceable?) "IaaS" as part of that signup form. I do a lot of work with SaaS and it took me a minute to figure out what you were talking about. (It didn't help that in your chosen font upper case I and lower case L look quite similar. At first a thought you mean "logging as a service" which seemed like a strangely narrow expression.)

For what it is worth, I would either spell that out, or even better, change it to something a little less jargony, such as "cloud based services" or something like that (which is still a little jargony).

TimeInB5 - http://www.timeinb5.com

This is an angel backed startup from Grand Rapids, MI. The idea behind the site is to build a communication platform for mass transit (namely flying). The site allows semi-anonymous posts between those waiting around at the same airport. There is a chatbox feature for live anonymous chatting.

GuruFi - http://gurufi.com/ : Service for directly connecting essay editors with clients.

We are still very much an alpha site, but we are bootstrapped and breaking even. We hope to add transparency to an otherwise obscured industry and to generally give people a chance to get writing help from experts.

This is a great idea. A while ago, I had brainstormed something like oDesk + Etherpad for writers that would be based on reputation/ratings, and it looks like you're well on the way to something similar. Best of luck. :)
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My own startup: Visual Website Optimizer http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/

And, yes, we haven't gotten much press. Proof: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1520001

I like the design, but it would seem a call to action to signup would be best put at the top of the page.

What do I know though? You're the one with the A/B testing hammer! :)

Yeah, the call to action has been under serious experimentation :)

One hypothesis for not having Plans & Pricing button upfront is because it works great if your software is priced at sub $50 level. But VWO goes for $49, $129 and $249. So, unless visitors watch a video and get familiar with what exactly we offer, such prices will scare them into not learning more about the product.

Oh Hi. It's funny who you run into here. :-)

I'm a developer at 99designs and we've been using Visual Website Optimizer to do A/B testing. Our marketing guys love it.

Hi Dennis, glad to find a customer here on HN!
We're launching this week (Sleep.fm) an updated site (http://sleep.fm/coming-soon/) to announce our iphone app.

We just learned & became skilled at Objective-C; stoked to finally be releasing a product outside of web browser. Appreciate any/all feedback on new site UI/UX.

The "Stop" button, used when testing, needs to be more... conservative.

Until I click "Set Alarm" I have no idea what those icons at the bottom do. Title them so that I can also click them. It will save users a bunch of time.

I know I shouldn't, but if I type www.sleep.fm/[special_char] I get a 503 page. Make that fancy or forward it with htaccess.

I really like the voice, as well as, it telling me my flight, weather ect. All of that is awesome.

Hi thanks so much for the feedback.

Re: icons at bottom yeah they are just static - they add color to our dark design. Though I have heard this comment before, so I'll c how it looks without & a bigger clock window.

Re: [special_char] ... when it goes live will get our alarm links working as they do on live site (http://Sleep.fm/7am, http://sleep.fm/8am, etc). Maybe that' what u meant?

Not sure what you meant by "Stop," button. Is it too big?

thnx again

and hey cool you went or are going to my Alma Matter. MTSU - though Baltimore is hometown and where I reside now.

Recording Industry major. Fun times!

A fellow Raider! I'm doing my final semester of Criminal Justice, along the way I learned how to program and I'm too lazy/far in to change majors.

Here is a rough idea of what I had in mind: http://imgur.com/5HHOQ.png . The Rooster is active so the "Test" link appears under it. When you click "Weather Alarm" a test link will appear under that and disappear from the under the Rooster. You can arrange the icons any way, but I think labeling them would help the user know what they do.

I wasn't aware you weren't fully live yet, it looks nice so far. I would recommend creating a nice 404 page so that users who go to http://sleep.fm/<>; or http://sleep.fm/7 are either directed back to the homepage or to a pretty 404 page telling them they messed up.

>Not sure what you meant by "Stop," button. Is it too big?

Yes :). A simple stop would be more than enough, although the big button did work- i.e. I knew how to stop the test alarm.

I see potential here. The name is awesome, there are some nice design aspects. Give it a few more features- tweet the alarm time, intergrate pandora/last.fm/grooveshark- and I think you have a nice piece of work.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the helpful feedback.

So what languages are you skilled in? Feel free to say hi im ryan@sleep.fm or ryanspahn on Twitter.

I'll throw in my own startup here as well:

www.adsreloaded.com - It's an alternative iPhone advertising platform.

I'm a 21 year old student founder, and am always open to answering any questions you might have, just let me know.

http://www.gogyc.org

How about non-profits? We're focusing on using web and mobile technology to help microfinance institutions extend loans to youth.

www.isocket.com -- Commission free direct ad sales, works with adsense too.
Hey, I work at isocket - thanks for the shoutout! I didn't recognize your username though?

To the OP, ping me if you have any questions at alabut at gmail.