japherwocky's posterous

I live in a mostly black, ghetto Michigan town, across the lake from
Chicago. I have a nice home, and friends and family. I'm part of the
community around here that is slowly bringing this town back to life.

I've been working for startups for the past 3 years or so, in LA and
SF, and maintain a few sites that I built for local clients.

I have a pretty good resume, though I'm a bit of a generalist, which
looks a little less impressive.

So, I'm having a bit of a dilemna. There are lots of jobs that fit
me, in San Francisco. I'm speaking with a few YC companies, and they
seem interested in hiring me - if I move out full time.

I polished up a mailing list tool, with the idea of being a solo
founder. I think it's doable, but trying to handle coding, design,
and sales has got me stretched pretty thin. The market is crowded,
I'm gaining traction slowly, and I don't think it will make enough $
to be ramen profitable before my savings run out.

I was hoping to convince a company to let me split time between a
city/office and my home. Maybe a week a month in Michigan? I
telecommuted for the last salary job I had, and it seemed like I was
as productive as I was in an office environment. But nobody is
interested in telecommuters, at all.

Am I hunting for a mythical job?

I just don't really know what the right path is here:

Do I pick up a bartending job to cover my food budget, and try to hack
on my projects on the side?

Do I go live in SF for a few years and work with a startup?

Maybe I should borrow some money from my father and try to pivot my startup?

Or should I try to hold out for a part time telecommuting gig?

I'm interested in your thoughts, internet. There isn't really anyone
locally who understands much about the tech/startup scene; I am very
grateful for any advice or perspective

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I think the interface would work pretty well; it's quite usable on my
touch. Big form elements and minimalistic designs scale nicely to
different resolutions. Sadly, it doesn't look like they signed up, so
I guess I'll have to ask the next one.

with the comment: "This band is fo' real! Enjoy"

Internet economics are kind of magical.. Diaspora?! So, let's give it a shot

Architects have certain advantages:

YC is like a single studio. As in, they get some arbitrary set of
conditions, design a really elegant and beautiful solution, iterate at
least a half dozen times (modelling and presenting each time), stay
awake for a final week straight pouring their hearts into something,
have it mercilessly criticized in front of all their peers, and then
take some pictures, huck it into a basement, and move on to the next
one.

Architects go through at least four of five of these, usually more.
Then they get in the real world and do it some more.

Except in the real world, you get to play with real money. And if you
fuck up, it's out of your lunch (so you don't fuck up).

A sort of nice house will cost like $2 million. You'll iterate a few
dozen times before you finalize the design. Then you'll hire and
coordinate a few hundred people for a few months.

Architects have been through some intense training. All of these
pearls of wisdom that the PGs of the world are dropping: architects
have been doing this for years. Tens, of thousands, of years.

With $2 million dollars, I could go to demo day and build every single
one of those startups by January.

Seriously. It's a small house. I've done that. I've done way bigger.

And in January, whichever of the YCs is doing best - give my clone
$500,000 for advertising, and we'll sell the rest on flippa.com

Because I can not only get things built faster and cheaper than these
newbies, I can spot their flaws and improve them.

gimme a chance:

_call to action_

(download)

Click here to download:

untitled.ogg (3.36 MB)

Who needs a second take?

I have a simple mailing list tool at http://supermailer.pearachute.com
and I've set it to send users through a "tip jar" page based on usage.

Is it a ridiculous idea?

J