Location: South Texas

Remote: Yes, preferred

Willing to relocate: Only in Texas (San Antonio, Austin, Houston)

Technologies: Ruby on Rails, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Android, Java, iOS, Swift (beginner), Git/Github

Résumé/CV: Upon request

Email: aschuenemann at gmail

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I'm a full-stack developer, primarily in Ruby on Rails. I've also built apps in Android (Java) and currently learning iOS (Swift).

I've been a full-time entrepreneur and freelancer for the past 4 years. I've co-founded two startups, the most recent being in the edtech space called TeachTag.

List of stuff I've built: http://www.aschuenemann.com/projects.html

Willing to do full time, part time, freelance, or consulting work.

If I understand this correctly, Brightwork is essentially acting as a middleman between APIs and the developer. Are you creating new API auth tokens on behalf of each user or are you using only one token and using that to make all of the API calls? If it's the latter, how do you handle rate limiting?

Is this concept against the terms of third party APIs like Twitter/Facebook?

API auth tokens are per user per app.

I have not seen anything in the terms that would put us of of compliance.

Advertisements (specifically online advertisements) are used by companies looking to reach their target market. For example, fantasy sports sites advertise on ESPN.com because a lot of sports fans go there.

How will you get sports fans to visit listing-platform.com?

Thanks for the comment.

With the tagging system: they would look for the "sport" tag.

(Actually it wouldn't be a tag because sport is a "top-level-tag". Instead it would be a category with a dedicated website. So the users would go on sports.listing-platform.com and then be able to select tags like "football", "soccer", etc.)

and if a user is looking for fantasy sport websites, then they would lookup the tag "fantasy-sport". The fantasy sport website would publish itself on listing-platform.com under the tag "fantasy-sport".

Do distributors currently have software that you can tie into to get up-to-date stock and prices?

Are there any legal hurdles with scaling this across state lines?

A majority of small to medium distributors use quickbooks, so we could tap into that API. The larger ones have custom erp systems that could be tapped into, but it gets tricky. At the lowest touch point, we could send orders to sales reps to punch.

Yea, there are things to take into account with certain states related to pricing, etc.

Phrasing matters. If someone applies with a project management app you can say "Seriously? Another project management app? How is this different than X, Y, or Z?" or you can say "How is this different than X, Y, or Z?"

The former puts the applicant on the defensive whereas the latter encourages discussion.

I think a mini application with a few questions from the normal YC app as a comment would be helpful. I see a ton of Show HNs in which I have no idea what the product does (either because the website copy is vague/confusing or because I don't know the market). Having a comment template or something reviewers can look at without have to ask the same questions in every thread would be great.

One of the reasons we're trying this is to question a lot of our own assumptions about the best way to find a great startup. Best practices will probably arise over time on how to best apply through HN, but I'd rather we let ourselves be open to surprising ways to present a startup.

I think we'll actually learn more during this experiment with less rules on format up front.

I suppose you could look at the quality of the application (without any guidelines being set) as part of how you'd like to select companies/founders? So those who are capable communicators and can clearly explain what their business does (or will do) stand out vs those who can't.

"I see a ton of Show HNs in which I have no idea what the product does (either because the website copy is vague/confusing or because I don't know the market). "

This problem happens to me so much I just ignore most Show HN's. I open a mainstream website to find who they are, what problems they solve, their solutions in a high-level way, and datasheets or whatever giving technical specifics. Many Show HN's here are one page of stuff that I read and read all the way to the bottom before I even begin to grasp what the hell they're doing.

That could just be due to them working in a specialized niche with its jargon. Yet, I have an intuitive feeling that it's often a problem with the presentation because they're usually intending to reach (a) current, jaron-knowing users of specific tech and (b) future users who know the concepts or needs but not that specific tech & jargon yet. So, at least a few sentences or a paragraph for people in (b) might be helpful. And at the top to save time.

Yes, I came back to this thread to say I'm surprised how difficult it is to understand what it is they want to make. Also, I have read at least half a dozen and not a single one has mentioned how it's a business and how they will make money.

> I'm surprised how difficult it is to understand what it is they want to make

YC partners complain about this all the time too.

> not a single one has mentioned how it's a business and how they will make money

I hope you asked them!

Yes, and a word count limitation for the original post!

I'd rather have "standard form" comment here, so as to encourage clear introductions/pitches by opposition to the inevitable "follow this URL for a presentation". Even if that means a longer read.

I think the equalitarian thing to do would be to encourage apply hn's to be as self contained as possible to avoid biasing on the quality of the landing page or video or whatever else would profit from the exposure

Will there be a Startup School this year?

What's YC's valuation?

A lot, but it's very illiquid.

This is awesome for YC. Will he be reviewing applications?

Logistic differential equations with a focus on population growth.