http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3680207
I could also use some 1-on-1 advice via chat if it can be spared.
edit: Thanks to everyone who has commented and emailed me thus far! All of your advice is wonderful and really encouraging. I still appreciate new comments, and I'd really love to hear from Atlanta-area Python/JS hackers.
We got beat by 4 days. But, screw it, we're going to launch anyways because we feel we have a better product.
Though, of the 14 competitors in this space, these guys flew under the radar pretty damn well.
Also do you envisage any way of helping fund less glamorous projects?
What is the harm in someone putting their own money into a pseudo-science experiment? It will fail if it's an incorrect hypothesis either way.
In fact, the feedback loop between a "believer", their money, and reality, seems like a feature not a bug.
We are doing a first pass at vetting in the sense that we are looking for projects that we think the public will be excited about, run by researchers with good credentials / affiliations, and that don't include obvious "junk science."
Ultimately, though, our model puts the power to pick projects in the hands of the public!
Matt Salzberg: http://www.petridish.org/users/2 Ilia Papas (me): http://www.petridish.org/users/1