I prefer the old adage of focus on what you're doing and ignore what others (including competitors) are doing. It takes away from your focus and spreads yourself thin. It is just as important to focus on a select few things you want to do well as it is to remove all other things that may come up. The more things you introduce may become more noise you have to deal with. In any given startup environment, there is already a LOT of stuff to do, probably more than you can keep up with much less add to that pie. That said, I'm sure your teammates keep up to date on a bunch of tech sites as well here and there.
Steve Jobs does have kids. I'm sure they're groomed from birth (kidding). All jokes aside, only time will tell if someone else has the chops and vision Steve Jobs does will step up to lead Apple on the same path or if it'll become stagnant. Speculating at this point doesn't really do anything or change anything.
1. There isn't a shortage of companies including startups looking for programming talent. They are everywhere.
2. Just because the above fact is true does not mean they will hire just anyone, degree or not. Having a CS degree is great, but that doesn't make you or anyone else a great programmer. People have graduated from CS with a high GPA no less and still can't program worth squat.
3. Not talking about large companies, startups in particular, look for more than just raw programming skills. They look for culture fit, are you a passionate hacker, fast learner with great potential for more than just writing code, etc... At the end of the day, there are TOO MANY FACTORS to consider beyond just the simple fact that you have a CS degree to determine whether or not you fit the position in which these companies are hiring for.
My best advice here is find out what you may not be seeing and keep trying. You will eventually find that programming position but you first must understand what it is you may not be seeing that's preventing you from landing that job.
Where are you located and what type of position you are looking for?
I assume current monetization is by in-app ads? I came to this assumption base on the fact that the app is free and I have yet to download it. Either that or you charge people to be in your app.
It's going to be difficult to find many places that have four bedrooms in that area much less affordable. Most in that area are two bedrooms with some three bedrooms. If you guys don't mind doing like a two two-bedrooms, the Avalon isn't too bad. They got like three buildings and all are in a row, across the street from the Caltrain for easy access to the Valley.
I don't have direct examples but as a long time marketer, I can tell you the elements on a page is more important than if the site looks pleasing. Ugly designs can convert extremely well as any good looking design. It's more a matter of the details in button shapes, color choices, etc etc that matters in my experience
Where are you guys pulling the business open hour data from? (I hope not Yelp since they're hours and filtering are all wrong in my experience).
This is something I've been trying to look for, for awhile now, especially late nights (not so much during the day for more obvious reasons but it does have some use during the day in some cases).
Few things to note. Since you have location and neighborhood set already, I would probably get rid of the request for location upon arriving. This will annoy a lot of people and you're only serving up SF to begin with, that doesn't seem like there is a need for that even if it maybe useful later.
The second is if you're planning to expand to other cities, why choose opennowSF (emphasis on the SF) in the domain name. Why not go with a more generic name to begin with rather than rebrand later?
The design isn't bad but I would maybe rethink the blue font for the results and have alternating background color for each result so its not blended so badly. I like that it displays how long before the business closes but I'd also like the business hours for the entire week listed so I can get a quick overview.
Also if the website has an online menu or website, include that. Not exactly sure if I'd use the share feature which btw I didn't even know was meant for sharing X restaurant was open till I clicked on it. First impression was I thought it was the twitter or facebook page for the restaurant. Also maybe have a simple sorting system such as sort by name (alphabetically) or by remaining business hours, etc.
The part you left out for joining a startup that is also important is the learning experience. Besides getting rich and changing the world, the experience itself is valuable. You can go on to find riches and change the world later. I wouldn't come into a startup expecting either/or.
LOL I don't think you could get Steve Jobs to leave Apple even if you offered $10T much less $10B but I kid.
On a more serious note, I agree a large part is due to how much you're willing to pay. But even then, and don't get me wrong, there are lots of applicants. The problem isn't finding people willing to go for the job or paying out market rate. It's finding people that are a fit. As they say, good talent almost never look for a job. And that's where the issue comes in...
Open source is fine but internships (free), for example in the state of California, are restricted to work that does not get added to an employer's profits. If it does, it violates the law.
Paid internships of course are treated differently. Again, depends on the area.
I looked at your original question than the one you ended up asking about (which I think differs slightly from just the general idea of the title itself), so I'll try to answer this in two ways...
I am not sure I would call Steve Jobs a social entrepreneur the way most people define the words "social entrepreneur". He certainly doesn't make huge donations or contributions to many non-profits, but does his work impact millions of people and drive innovation greatly? Yes. Even if its not the kind of work that solves problems relating to global warming or poverty, it has it's own kind of impact. Does all that work vastly help improve technology as well as the quality of life in some way? I think most would agree that the answer is a definite hell yes regardless of what they think the definition of the word social entrepreneur is.
I may not be doing something like Sal Khan with the Khan Academy or anything like Bill Gates with his foundation, so in that sense I'm not a social entrepreneur, but I'd like to believe that what I am doing (or trying to do) does have impact in people's lives and help make some people's lives better albeit not to the extent of Steve Jobs or the greater social good. I don't believe I'm just aiming at some profit number and blindly ignoring my fellow man either. I think that solving a problem and making someone's life better is still a social impact, albeit not in the way people would think of a social entrepreneur, but that's fine by me.
That said, I view the definition of what constitutes an "entrepreneur" does not matter whether they are doing something noble or not. An entrepreneur to me is anyone taking the risk to run their own business. That is the general definition in the vaguest (is that even a word?) sense. A startup entrepreneur or a social entrepreneur are specific types of entrepreneurs. Nothing more, nothing less. Of course this is all personal opinion.
I met my previous cofounder for our last startup through a mutual friend long before founding the company together. We were introduced to each other base on the fact that we were both so business oriented and our friend just wanted us to meet. A few years later, an opportunity for a business idea came up and we decided to partner up. The company was later acquired and we decided to pursue different interests after but still keep in touch practically every day .
In hindsight, natural settings of meeting someone who have similar interests to you either through friends, work, college, etc... is much easier to find compatibility as cofounders than actively hunting down strangers at meetups hoping to find a cofounder that will work well with you. I believe PG or someone else mentioned something about how if the only reason you guys are together is to work on this startup idea and nothing else, there's really nothing holding you together and there is a higher risk of failure (not in those exact words).
The other problem you'll be facing too is that you're trying to sell your dream to someone else which is harder than joining someone else on their dream. Most people from what I've seen wants to work on their ideas rather than the ideas of others. Of course there are those that do join on with someone else's idea but for the most part, people you run into at cofounder type events are mostly biz guys looking for a technical guy to execute on their idea. It's really hard to find a compatible "friend" you can call a cofounder outside of just your startup dreams.
I don't use the actual rental service. If I ever have any time at all, I'd generally browse the streaming service to see if there is anything good on. It's more of a luxury service than one I actively got to use.
This varies greatly by location among several other factors. The range can be quite large. It's like not answering the question at all. Would be helpful if you provided more details.