Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

Working for a small, Vancouver-based web startup (we call ourselves a company now, though), you come across a lot of articles about how to succeed. The following are just the ones I came across recently, missing one I've lost in the shuffle:

• The Cost of Bootstrapping Your Web App
• Boompa.com Launch Postmortem, Part 1: Research, Picking a Team, Office Space and Money
• Talk by Mark Fletcher of Bloglines, formerly of ONElist
• Pretty much every article by Paul Graham mentioning the word 'startup'

There are countless others, and there will be even countless more in the next couple of years. I have no doubt that someone will consider collecting the best such writing into an anthology a la Best Software Writing I. (Joel Sposky, the editor of that volume, has announced the forthcoming second volume. Who will step up to the plate and edit an anthology called Best Hardware Writing?) As usual, it's better to experience working for a startup to learn how they operate than it is to read about how to start one. It's certainly easier to work for a startup than it is to start one, my never having done the latter (and never planning to).

Paul Graham advising Web 2.0 startups: “Never make users register, unless you need to in order to store something for them. If you do make users register, never make them wait for a confirmation link in an email; in fact, don't even ask for their email address unless you need it for some reason. Don't ask them any unnecessary questions. Never send them email unless they explicitly ask for it. Never frame pages you link to, or open them in new windows. If you have a free version and a pay version, don't make the free version too restricted. And if you find yourself asking "should we allow users to do x?" just answer "yes" whenever you're unsure. Err on the side of generosity.”

On the democratic nature of Web 2.0: “The most dramatic example of Web 2.0 democracy is not in the selection of ideas, but their production. Usage has not yet evolved to reflect this: the only phrases we have to describe the phenomenon are ones that implicitly assume the superiority of the old order, like "user-generated content," or "blogging" (neutral in itself, but revealingly condescending in its over-broad use).”

You won't find most of the second quote in the regular version of his essay: it's "commented-out" of the HTML. Always view source on Paul Graham's essays after reading them. A quibble with this particular essay though: Google set off the Ajax boom with Gmail, not Google Maps.