Where is moviepups headed

The basic idea of moviepups is that users vote for the movies they like and the most popular movies show up on the front page. Additionally, they can write reviews, watch videos, and create a network of friends to share movies with.

The vision for moviepups is to build a movie recommendation engine that will suggest new movies to the user, based on their interest and interaction with their friends. But its a long shot currently.

Current music: Farhan Akhtar - Tum ho toh

Moviepups.com is up!

a very initial version of my app is live - http://moviepups.com
things are still very much under development. and, your feedback, suggestions, tips, ideas etc. are welcome at http://moviepups.com/feedback. or just send me an email at ak [at] moviepups [dot] com.

Current music: Guns n Roses - Dont Cry

Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Speech

Some updates

There has been some good discussion about my last post 'Calling Y combinator' at YC News. Read it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150033.

In other news, we have more or less decided what we'll be working on and have started working on refining and polishing the ideas. Awesome times ahead!

Current music: Hey There Delilah by Plain white T's

Calling Y Combinator

The biggest advantage that comes with being a Y Combinator startup is that it brings many aspiring founders together which leads to a healthy exchange of ideas and information. It helps the startups find their way across any interruptions and steers them in the right direction.

One thing that YC wants its participating founders to do is to move to their location for 3 months. This becomes a limiting factor when it comes to people wanting to start startups in countries other than US.

It seems YC is already thinking about expansion plans outside US:

Actually, the seed funding business may even be international. We'll see. But for now at least we're waiting to decide what to do about other countries. (source: http://ycombinator.com/faq.html)

It will be interesting to see YC expand into international space and help more and more startups flourish. IMHO, YC should start conducting Startup School at international locations, at least on an experiment basis. Who knows where they find next Google?

Current music: Scientist by Coldplay

Startup dream

I quit my job.

37 Signals, Paul Graham and like have had a big influence on me; among the obvious influences by Google etc. I always wanted to work in a startup (read: dorm room) like setting. But finding good startups [1] in India is hard. And starting one even harder; with no concept of angel investors or YC-equivalent.

Nevertheless after working at big-banner technology companies for about 3 years, i finally decided to take the plunge. I quit [2] my nice paying job to start working on my own startup. Lets see how it turns out. Success or failure, it will sure be fun, and more importantly, a learning experience.

Any suggestions/guidance/++ are welcome.


[1] Some cool startups are coming up lately. But i was, anyhow, more interested in starting one myself.
[2] Note to self: Self, If you ever succeed in building your own company, please let people leave whenever they want. No notice period crap. Instead work to keep the company interesting enough to attract good people.


Current music: In pieces by Linkin Park.