I don't work out of the NYC office, but if you're interested in checking out www.getharvest.com, I can see if one of my co-workers would be willing to chat you up.
My first impression of the home page was that it's way too busy. The "Use Onista To" type information should be front and center followed by search for products. The social networking stuff is cute, but not the major function (or at least shouldn't be -- I'm not looking to make friends, I just want to buy/sell something).
Agreed with the comments on you need to hit critical mass fast. I may return one more time, but if there's still a bunch of zeros next to all of the categories, I'm not coming back again. Same's true for sellers. I won't bother posting my item for sale here if nobody else is because chances are there's no buyer traffic.
Another idea might be to "lower the bar" for getting started. Yes, you need people to register to buy/sell, but you should take sellers through posting their item before you slap the registration/login form in front of them.
As a minor thing, some of the graphics are poorly executed (the Join Now graphic has a white border around it), and the HTML/coding is a little sloppy (but it was done in Dreamweaver, so that's to be expected). You can probably do better in terms of SEO if you re-structure your pages.
The problem with reseller hosting is that you have absolutely no technical control. You sell hosting to a bunch of people, and then if the server(s) crap out, you start fielding a ton of angry phone calls. There's absolutely nothing you can do to get things back online except wait on the (sometimes shoddy) hosting technical support.
I just found internetsecure.com when I was looking for the same. Best I've found so far.
Paypal makes me uneasy because they've already locked my account once "for suspected security reasons". If I'm running a business, I can't just have my payment processor arbitrarily lock my account without further explanation.
"If we build a prototype or beta do we have enough for an investor to invest in our company/website?"
Investors tend to invest in companies/people and less in ideas (unless the idea really is something revolutionary). Get your prototype in order, but also do a little business legwork. Are there competitors? Who is the market? What's the revenue potential? How are you going to market the idea?
The lesson learned (and I'm sorry if you had to read between the lines a bit) is that Techcrunch and the other major outlets aren't the only course for marketing your product. I could have busted my ass making putting together everything I'd need to make Arrington raise an eyebrow, or I could focus on trying to get the word out in locations where I was more likely to get conversions. I chose the latter.
To be honest "There’s no glamorous future for Mailmanagr, as well." pretty much sums up this article. It may be a good product, but its aim is not to be a high growth start-up and technically its just a component to an existing app.
Yes, it is just a component to an existing app, but it's a component that customers seem to want, and that the original app's developer didn't seem interested in building (but who can ever tell with 37signals).
Vancouver's pretty pricey too. You may want to check out Vancouver island/Victoria instead. Either way, there's plenty to see & do, and really, they're only an hour apart on a boat (it might save you some money though).
The west coast stays pretty temperate year-round (even up here in Canada), but heading south is never a bad idea. You might want to drop some Mexican destinations in there at the end (beaches never hurt)
Another idea might be to see if you can lease/borrow/buy an RV. Sure, the gas issue sucks, but there's a ton of nice camp grounds up and down the coast, and it will help with your budget.
If you do make it up north, I'm out in the Southern Gulf Islands (Mayne Island, Google Map it). If you're up for a day trip sometime, I'd be happy to show you around.
I'll second that. All of the low-cost payment processing solutions are so unprofessional looking. It's terrible having a professional looking site, and then having to send a customer off to Paypal or some other ghetto service.
It's hard to gauge your level of expertise from your post, but if you're a fairly non-technical person (don't mean to offend), you may be better off looking at some sort of pre-built option. Amazon offers "stores" where people can go set up their own shop. eBay's another option (although they're kind of ghetto these days).
If you're determined to go it on your own, take a look at some of the really great open-source e-commerce packages out there (Google it). After a few clicks, you're usually in to adding products.
Especially with E-commerce, it's better to test the waters with something before you invest a ton of time in it. Don't build something from scratch at this stage.
I'm not sure if you've read any of the content on this site, but it's not really a "hacker" site of the meaning you're implying. Hacker News is more like a digg.com for people with more than a handful of neurons.
It might sound a little slimy (but no worse than what this developer has pulled on you), but you've given her a 35% stake in THE COMPANY, not the product, no? You could always shut down the company, sell off the assets (your prototype) to another company that you start for a dollar and start fresh with 100% equity.
I assume that the 35% equity doesn't actually give her decision-making power? There's probably a couple of loopholes you can exploit here.
Once you've got your equity back, follow some of the advice here. Get yourself a real developer, try to get a little more money and release a version 1. Barring that, cut your features down, and rethink what you really need in order to get you to the next stage. Something small and simple may be all that is really essential.
Hey, I take exception to the bad weather comment! We're currently having a very nice spring. Lots of flowers.
Yeah, I think the Valley has a certain magic to it, but if you're outside of there, and have no plans to move, it doesn't really matter where you end up.
I've got a friend that moved to Panama (not to do a startup, but to work remotely). He loves it because his cost of living is low, it's got great infrastructure and a very nice climate.
I didn't say that Facebook has failed, I said Facebook has failed us. There's a huge difference between the two statements.
I would imagine that the average reader of Hacker News uses a few web apps already. The point of my article was that Facebook doesn't play well with anyone else. They do an amazing job at their core function, connecting people, but they should give it a rest with all of these half-assed implementations of existing functions and focus their efforts instead on making it easier to integrate with Facebook.