this is really cool. some thoughts - a free trial would make a lot of sense for the subscription. Having the AI break things down into more variables than just significance might be helpful. For example - events vs trends. "Trump shot" vs "Shootings up X% YoY". Forward looking statements vs concrete events "Trump lays out agenda" vs "Trump signs executive order". All of those are significant in different ways. Also newness of the information is important. Top article right now is about Gazan families looking to return home post ceasefire. But that doesn't add much to the genuinely significant news yesterday of the ceasefire itself. As is, I don't get news that seems particularly different from browsing the headlines at 2-3 top newspapers.
On that list, the ceasefire article is on the second place out of the ~40k articles analyzed.
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Having more variables is an good idea. I don't have an immediate vision on how to use it in the UI (I want to keep it minimal), but will think more about it.
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I've been really torn on free trial. I currently offer a refund guarantee, but will add a trial as well soon.
random websites - hide my real name, mostly to avoid tracking
where I think it's safe and want to present my views transparently and think something positive could come from it, my real name.
That is so far the case here on HN, though I've been reconsidering that, since recently I've been harangued whenever I've mentioned my business/app in comments - having my business called scammy and so forth. Then I go and see who is doing the haranguing and often it's a profile that does not have a real name, and has a zillion karma for some reason even though you go through their comments and a lot of it is a bunch of negativity being spread and that makes me a bit miserable.
I'm curious about this question, because my app relates to games, and on one hand I really like the idea of real names (esp given my personal experience e.g. above), while on the other hand I see a huge % of comments here preferring anonymity, and generally get the feeling that 'real names' is perceived as too serious for gaming - that the expected thing would be pseudonyms/handles/avatars. One direction we've gone in is that if you want to monetize/earn money on our app, then you need a real name (verified with ID). But any suggestions/ideas very welcome.
I wonder if these investors have a liquidation preference as they would in normal VC rounds. And if it's a 1x preference (as is normal) or if a higher multiple is built in.
Sticky AI Game Maker | https://getstic.ky | Head of Marketing, Cofounder/COO, others | REMOTE
Sticky is a mobile gaming platform with an AI Game Maker at its center with which non-technical users can create a simple game in <5min with no code, publish to friends/other users, and soon will also be able to monetize. We're aiming to make creating & publishing a game as easy and fun/social as publishing a video on YouTube or TikTok. Check out the app on iOS (web version out in a few days, Android still pending): https://apps.apple.com/pt/app/ai-game-maker-sticky/id1497044...
Founded by successful 2nd time entrepreneurs, we are backed by Canary, a leading Latam VC. We are currently a small team (founder/CEO, 4 devs, 1 designer, 1 analyst), and we're looking for people who are excited by the mission and by the idea of joining an early stage startup. We have multiple positions open. I'm currently based in São Paulo, Brazil for family reasons, but positions are remote.
Top priority:
1. Head of Marketing. Requires strong experience in performance marketing including all the mess that is mobile attribution and/or in more organic content and community driven marketing for B2C digital products such as apps, games. Also looking for analysts/individual contributors in each of these fronts (performance, influencers, etc.).
2. Generalist/Co-founder/COO. Sharing management responsibility with me (CEO) as needed more generally - recruiting, managing.
We are also looking to complement our product and tech capabilities if we find the right person, so:
3. Product Lead. Ideally combines strong design sense with business sense and analytics, with previous experience in B2C mobile (apps or games). Working with our designer who is first-class.
4. Tech lead. Hands on, given the small team. Our current backend is mostly Node.js with TypeScript. Our current devs are good (mix of senior and junior) but all individual contributors.
If you like the product (give it a try) and the mission, would love to hear from you!
Please email CV + short note to [email protected]
No, they are publishing rules, citing those rules as published in court hearings regarding antitrust etc., and then covertly disregarding their own rules when it is convenient for them.
This is really interesting. Our app Sticky (https://getstic.ky) has been rejected based on guideline 4.7 too. We are a social media app and included HTML5 games. Apple kept claiming that "offering HTML5 games appears to be the primary purpose of your app" which is not the case (certainly not in the update we are submitting) as we have several other features with equal weight. The changes to guideline 4.7 which allow HTML5 mini-games or mini-apps and which allow emulators were made in late January of this year, shortly before the US DOJ antitrust suit, where these issues are central, was filed (March). I imagine Apple changed the guideline for a legal or PR reason related to that suit, but does not really want to follow its own updated guidelines and so is finding every excuse it possibly can to reject emulators and apps with HTML5 mini-games/mini-apps. In our case, after the appeal, we were called up by someone from Apple who started the call saying they did not consent to it being recorded (how's that for inspiring trust?), who walked-back what they had said about HTML5 (and of course they did not put that in writing in the message they sent afterwards), but then came up with a couple of brand-new reasons for keeping our update off the store: claiming that we had changed the app concept... because our app was different some 4 years ago and hundreds of updates ago when it started! And including mentioning rule 4.7 regarding emulators... which we are not and do not claim to be! So I'm glad that you made this public, because I suspected we were not the only ones who were getting bogus rejections around rule 4.7, and you have confirmed it. If our issue is not resolved by the end of the week intend to publish the entire history of communication with App Review printed-off from App Store Connect so people can have a look and see for themselves.
Literally the first and main point on Sticky website (and a homepage of their app) is:
PLAY GAMES
Loads of fun games in one app
Free to play & no ads
I bet HTML5 games also totally overshadow both the other claimed use cases in time-spent and UI-space metrics.
They just made an app for HTML games despite Apple telling openly for years that this isn’t allowed on iOS (whether this is a good or bad policy is a different question).
Forgive the arrogant tone here. But just to speak to a moment to the poor 'non-technical founder' or 'idea person' being pilloried: If you find the article and comments depressing, ignore them. They sound reasonable, but in fact if you have the idea and the guts to go out there and try to get it built, that does have incredible value. It's a different type of value - perhaps less immediately monetizable than top-notch programming skills, but potentially with a bigger payoff long-term, and whether that is fair or not is irrelevant. Yes, maybe you'll have to adjust your strategy as you go along, whether it's looking for cofounders elsewhere, hiring freelancers, learning to do the technical stuff yourself and taking 10x as long, etc. But you have to start somewhere, and starting by asking people who can help you build whatever you want to build is not at all an unreasonable place to start. When I quit my job and was starting my first business (solo, which is another thing you'll hear on this forum you can't/shouldn't do), I was trying to hire employee #1. There was one candidate who literally laughed at me. Imagine how that feels - I had no funding - I was going to pay him out of my limited and hard-earned savings. I fear that some of this stuff here is even more insidious. Because although I felt terrible in the moment, I used that to fuel my drive. He was the image of who I was going to prove wrong. Whereas all this stuff that has a veneer of logic can potentially convince someone not to go out and build. But as I read this, the word 'problem' appears 16x in the comments, 'can't' 13x, 'no' 32x, and on and on - on a forum hosted by a startup incubator of all things! In my experience you don't even need an 'idea' in the sense of a unique insight, you just need openness to the 'idea' that yes you can succeed and opportunities are as abundant as problems.
Sticky is an integrated mobile platform for games, communities, creating & collecting & trading virtual items. We aim to be what facebook might have become if it hadn't killed its dev platform to become a walled-garden cash-cow. Or what web3 might be with more focus on user needs, less on blockchain technicalities, and without get-rich-quick schemes.
For further context - our initial approach to the above was to create the first iOS-native NFT marketplace (i.e. letting users trade NFTs with in-app-purchases). The web3 ecosystem was messy, but we believed it would mature into lots of great projects/games/clubs for our app to connect to. We have been rather disappointed on that front, so now that we are integrating games and communities into the app, we are starting with a roguelike zombie survival game we developed in-house as a proof of concept before any outside games. Our site still focuses on the former, the iOS app linked above already shows the latter. We are a 6 person remote team (4 devs, 1 designer, 1 lead), between Seed and Series A.
We are looking for someone to lead our Social Media, Community and Marketing efforts. Our own experience is in performance marketing for apps - there is a place for a bit of that here, but given what we are doing, marketing that is organic & community & mission-driven is much more important. Requirements: interest in the cause & product + prior experience fostering powerful communities + fluent English as demonstrated in CV + cover letter, portfolio or publications.
We are also interested in a Product Manager (or Designer with strong product skills) who would like to build this with us. Requirement: interest in the cause & product + prior experience creating fun B2C mobile apps or games as demonstrated in portfolio.
