In the summer of 2009, I built a web-based IRC client as a hobby project. It was a surprising success and over the past two years my passion for chat has become Convore, a small startup funded by Y Combinator. This talk will cover the joys of creating your own company and how to avoid the pitfalls.

1. Passion → Startup
Leah Culver
Convore
Re:build 2011

2. convore.com/rebuild-2011

3. software hobbyist

4. school

5. jimmy ball

11. teddy bear remote control

12. Kevin Rose
Daniel Burka

13. you can do it

15. doing what I love

16. t-shirts

17. users

18. acqhired

19. interlude

20. work

21. Django Dash
Rails Rumble

22. idea

23. desktop → web
google non-core product

24. minimum viable
product

25. * join a channel
* send and receive messages
* see who is online

26. * rearrange the channel order
* someone mentions your
name
* send a private message

27. sketch

28. research

29. divide up work

30. go!

31. polish + fix bugs

32. (Demo)

33. side project → startup

34. not so
easy

35. catalys
t

36. Eric Florenzano
chat + forums

37. Y Combinator

38. releases of improvement crash of ineptitude

39. pitfalls

40. run out of money

41. team

42. disagree on vision

43. marketing + competition

44. bad timing

45. convore
trough of
sorrow

46. pivot
core use
case

47. thanks!

48. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/
3196761470/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jm999uk/
182396960/
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3918036690/
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3731391794/
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395300487/
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72157606633391933/
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5394616925/
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android1.jpg
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