ninjashogun: however as I mentioned to you there are a TON of sources of interest to you once you have users.

ninjashogun: to get from where I am today to an MVP will probably take me a month.

ninjashogun: for example (this is laugh-worthy) I have just used vagrant to get a PHP server up. I've never used PHP (used Python a bit, as well as C++ and Perl).

ninjashogun: ughlol, above where you agreed that you should just build it (by yourself, no funding). with a web app it should be possible. thousands of people have done that.

ninjashogun: they don't really have enough information - never give them enough information to act like an idiot.

ninjashogun: For example, notice if instead of your actual idea you had said, you have an idea for a local app based on a new way of connecting people. Then they can't object. They would sound like idiots, because there is no way that EVERY possible local app is a bad idea.

ninjashogun: you can mostly learn to keep things confidential

ninjashogun: ughlol it doesn't matter what Dimsler thinks or (more likely) says

ninjashogun: ughlol, however notice how many of those questoins are addressed if you juts create a business (with no funding) and start getitng users? Then you are already in some sense an experienced (if first-time)founder, as well as having a real track record of shipping code (sometihng benkay was asking about.)

ninjashogun: benkay - as I probably mentioned, ughlol is not "founder material", today, in several senses. He is in India, with a very poor VC network, he is currently a university student who has never run a business, and he does not have a personal network that makes him investable. I don't necessarily suggest investing in him today.

ninjashogun: BingoBoingo, but they're often aspies who develop importnat proprietary technology.

ninjashogun: BingoBoingo, that's an important point

ninjashogun: and that's with just 43 startups per year.

ninjashogun: Hell, YCombinator funds just 43 startups per year, also has seed funding of only $150K, and has already produced two billion-dollar companies (dropbox and airbnb)

ninjashogun: but my point is that out of those 10,000 companies per year, most years would have SEVERAL that become billion-dollar companies.

ninjashogun: After you do that for 100 years, do you think you produce MORE or LESS net value for the economy than IBM's current value?

ninjashogun: And we did that with not just one graduate student (or pair), but we did it with 10,000 of them - all over the world. Per year. For 100 years.

ninjashogun: benkay- here's a way to think about the 'lottery argument'. Do you think it would be a net gain or a net loss for the economy if we took IBM's market cap -- $192.19B -- converted it to cash, and then funded about $200k into a graduate student's new "company" (about the money Google was funded with).

ninjashogun: ughlol, you can interact with him here. But I woudn't solicit funding at this stage.

ninjashogun: When you buy a lottery ticket you get less than a dollar on each dollar you spend. (on average). But investments aren't the same.

ninjashogun: benkay - the lottery argument is that it's a net loss. But the whole of the PE (private equity) market is a net gain (for all participants). It's an inflating pie.

ninjashogun: and I also think that ughlol is wrong to do so.

ninjashogun: But when Mark Zuckerberg was at Harvard and scamming some guy with a map site out of $2000 that he used to partly build Facebook....

ninjashogun: that's why those people play those "retarded games".

ninjashogun: they sell their funds to their LP's (limited partners)

ninjashogun: benkay because (I heard this from a guy named rmah, active on #startups) because VC's are WAY better salesmen than you or I will ever be.

ninjashogun: The net result (the 2 and 20 basis) of VC's working 60-100 hours a week on investment opportunities, proprietary dealflow, networking, term sheets, introductions, everything.... is a return just shy of passive over the counter index investment.

ninjashogun: However, we do need to keep a few things in mind. Did you know that VC's (private VC's, managing Limited Partners' cash) get a little bit short of the NASDAQ in returns over the 10-year period of their funds?

ninjashogun: I told ughlol as much.

ninjashogun: I also consider it a terrible suggestion to ask for funding here, so on that I'm agreed.

ninjashogun: Dimsler, did you catch the fact that I posted my whole convo (where I first met him) with ughlol?

ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, yes, this is the big defense of trolls. That if it does succeed it's luck, if it fails then obviously it's because it was a dumb idea just as shown by the trolls.

ninjashogun: It was what was on his mind at the time. What you're missing is that it was on his mind due to a pain point (read news about India).

ninjashogun: "Why limit yourself to 6 billion people when you can limit yourself to FIFTY MILLION?"

ninjashogun: Facebook could be called: "A myspace based on a radical idea. You can ONLY register if you have a .edu account! They have literally just blown myspace out of the water by getting AT MOST 0.5% as many users, because at most 0.5% - one in one two hundred - people in the world uses an active .edu account."

ninjashogun: Based on my impression, the same thing could have been said about Twitter or Facebook.

ninjashogun: is the one I'm talking about.

ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, I saw your article on ughlol and think it completely misrepresents ughlol's idea and is extremely unfair. As long as it includes no identifying information, it's a simple troll and abuse of your power - which is fine. It will disappear off the Internet and nobody will read it again. However it is in no way accurate based on my conversation with him.

ninjashogun: nobody invests in the idea stage.