It was a little easier as the founder was from the US and I met him here, and then he returned to Africa to continue running the operation. Wish more African founders had the opportunity to raise money here.
Hi, I was too at the unreasonable institute with Michael and had the same opportunity. Great exposure and we are closing our second round with investors we met through the same channel in March.
If your sentiment is common, then there is an opportunity for someone to arrange introductions and bring African entrepreneurs to the United States for fundraising.
I believe that instead, the opportunity is to guide US investors to invest in African companies. An organization to vouch for the reputability and asses the risks of these companies to allow for greater, less risky foreign investment.
I personally would love to start such an organization.
I understand the difference. Either way, though, personal connections and legwork would have to be done both in the US and in Africa.
It's been on my mind since I made the comment; if you've interest I wouldn't mind discussing it with you if you'd like to e-mail me at the address in my profile.
I do! I have been thinking about this much like you BjoernKW.. my dream is individual bid able pivotal tasks, that are part of a coherent whole agile project. When organized the right way, the fastest person to complete them on a distributed team wins, and there would be no limit of team size.
I actually ran a request on Bountify, and it was cool. There was some pushback for programmers who thought it was too much of a project for low $, while others enjoyed completing it for the challenge (and actually got paid).
Plenty of challenges (in making this really work for companies), but I believe Bountify has a good start here.
The total #s are pretty embarrassing but the growth rate actually looks good, at around 10% currently - except the rate of growth of the growth is decreasing.. how meaningful is growth rate for such short time periods?
In my case I'm closer to the first stage of just making a product people want, but seems useful to keep track of this rate already.
Einstein invented the atomic bomb? That's funny. Not very HN level of knowledge there buddy.
And yes.. that is almost exactly the reason (US vs Germany developed the first atomic bomb). 1000x the resources and scientists, applied to a know physical possibility, supported by: the government, and infrastructure via the army.
Sorry, late night comment. My point is that there's nothing magical about infrastructure like roads and bridges.
How do you account for other advanced economies that have invested more than the US (presumably a cumulative number over the past 50 years, excluding WWII rebuilding investments, per capita) and yet fail to produce the same wealth (again per capita) as the US?
Clearly, other factors outside of individual effort are involved, but I'm sorry, I'm not buying that they are roads and bridges.
In fact, I don't think the X factor is anything the US has intentionally invested in. And I don't think government gets the credit, any more than someone who plays "slop" in pool.
Shit, look at all the so-called startup hubs that are trying to recreate SV via infrastructure investments. Can you show me one that's worked?
Or look at startuplandia: startups choose different cloud hosting services, and as far as I can tell, the particular one you choose (or even the choice to use cloud vs. colo) is not predictive of success.
I don't know... maybe on a national level you have evidence (perhaps a scatterplot of cum infrastructure investment per capita against wealth per capita by country) showing the two are causal (or even correlated), but I have yet to see it.
Here's my 2 cents as someone who founded and sold a business for 8 figures:
Businesses succeed or fail because a) founder/exec's intelligence, b) ability to execute, c) luck, d) x-factors-that-government-didn't-build.
I think the above post was pointing out that Germany actually spent incredible amounts on infrastructure and business. I have a hard time believing the US had 1000x the resources. Germany had the Silver Arrow Mercedes race car that was doing 250mph back then. They also didn't have much restriction on what scientists were allowed to try.
>>1000x the resources
If you look at the scientist working on it was about that. They had Heisenberg. And about that money wise (don't have the exact numbers.)
The Abomb is a really bad example of not needing government. It was almost entirely an example of what can happen with total government support.. unfortunately that usually comes during a war.
Well, this was in 2005 to be fair.. and that was the rate for VB6 on Windows. In Moldova, a place I've never heard of. I didn't pick the price, just paid it. Not the going price anymore I'm sure.
I meant to have a lot of qualifications in the submission: Faster than google by being slower!
- you need to find a price
- you need to find a image
- you if google front page doesn't show you that, you have to count browsing to the link, opening it up, finding price.
When I googled Apple Iphone 4, google still wins, as one of their ads shows me a iphone 4 with a price.
But for some more unique brands, something more interesting, often it takes a browse into the site to get an image and price. Google will always get initial results faster.
Sorry, I had a big comment/explanation when I submitted this, but looks like it was lost.
That is - mightbuy search is faster than google by being slower. For example, search for "Khunu Chimera" (a yak wool sweater) on mightbuy.it/search. It should return picture and prices (much more slowly than google).
But you don't have to navigate to the sub links. And google.com/shopping doesn't have the Khunu chimera at all.
I invested in this African company: http://unreasonableinstitute.org/profile/mwilkerson/
It was a little easier as the founder was from the US and I met him here, and then he returned to Africa to continue running the operation. Wish more African founders had the opportunity to raise money here.