Ask HN: What would you like me to talk about at Startup School? (Heroku)

10 points by jamesheroku 14 years ago | 8 comments

I'm James, one of the founders of Heroku.

For those of you attending Startup School next weekend or planning to watch the video stream, do you have any questions you'd like answered that are specific to me/Heroku?

JoshTriplett 14 years ago |

I'd love to hear about your experiences finding customer number 1, customers 2-10, and similar.

cschmitt 14 years ago | |

I agree with this.. Given the large competition for Heroku, I would really like to know how you guys got your initial traction.. what type of bare bones marketing did you do that worked and so on.

jnfr 14 years ago |

I'm personally interested in hearing any advice you have for graduating students who are deciding between:

-- working at a large corporation (Google, Microsoft, Amazon)

-- working at a (for lack of a better term) "well-established start-up" (Dropbox, Twitter, AirBnB)

-- working at a very young and small start-up

-- pursuing their own start-up

What experience should they expect to get from working at each of these "levels" and what is absolutely necessary to do/have before jumping between these "levels"?

Thanks, and looking forward to hearing your talk!

JoshTriplett 14 years ago | |

While I agree that that sounds like an interesting topic, I'd really hope to get as much interesting information as possible that will help get a startup off the ground, rather than the various alternatives to creating one. I'd hope that most of the people attending Startup School lean far enough towards creating a startup that they don't necessarily want to hear about going to work for one instead. (And with all of the Startup School presenters likely hiring, that's a serious danger.)

jnfr 14 years ago | | |

Good point, Josh! Since this is my first start-up school, I guess I'm not sure what to expect yet. I'm sure there will be a lot of impacting founders stories and hopefully my questions will encourages a new set of insights.

abbasmehdi 14 years ago |

Speak more about the downs than the ups. The press covers enough ups.

P.S. Heroku is an awesome name!

felipepiresx 14 years ago |

Tell us how hard things were for you. It helps people like us that are used to everything going wrong without quitting. And plis, tell us multiple times to "NEVER QUIT". It's very important. Thanks .

jasontan 14 years ago |

I've heard that you and your founders were all serial entrepreneurs going into Heroku. What did you learn from your previous companies?