I'm also looking to hire a UI designer for my Jump to Conclusions Mat. Any takers?

Ryan, the other idea you talked about here, bringing internet radio to cell phones, is much better than this... I just don't think there is much potential here and I don't like seeing you spend money on it.

His target audience for this one seems to be people who meet the following criteria: 1.) Don't have a cell phone 2.) Sleep with a computer on in their room 3.) Want to let others wake them up, but not enough to just sleep near their phone.

My post here was not asking for feedback. I already heard from you guys in this regards. Thanks...most of it was helpful!

I was politely asking if any UI designers are available and interested.

If not cool.. I just thought I'd reach out to fellow entreprenuers/designers & coders.

But what does it say that the reaction you get here, from your peers, is so harshly negative?

Not much, necessarily. What if the guy(s) behind myspace had asked for feedback in a hacker forum in 2002? It's not clear to me that many would have recognized it as a huge moneymaker.

Exactly ... I know I'm going to lose all 9 of my karma points for this, but: Michael Dell is successful in business and throughout 98, 99, and 2000 maintained that Steve Jobs should just "give up" and "stop deluding shareholders". Good thing Steve Jobs is in the habit of listening to unsolicited advice. So now that the whole world knows that even the opinions of rich, successful people can be totally off and worthless, what makes you naysayers think anybody cares what you think about their startup prospects? For all you know this guy's invented an algorithm to download terabits of video in seconds and is using this "social alarm" thing as a ruse ...

As an aside, I'd feel better about modding you up if you didn't protest that you expect to be modded down. :)

That logic is bad because Jobs and Dell were sorta competitors. This guy has well-meaning noncompetitors telling him to switch directions, which is a much different thing.

Not really; in both cases you have people who don't know what they're talking about giving unsolicited advice the value of which nobody knows a priori ...

This a brand new concept and Im encouraged by the following articles...

http://tinyurl.com/3xk392 http://krisabel.ctv.ca/blog/CoolLinks/_archives/2007/12/12/3... http://tinyurl.com/3yzeo9 (translated from French)

Also, Sleep.FM was chosen as a TechCrunch40 semi-finalist, chosen to present alongside Google, Microsoft and Facebook at NY Tech MeetUp, landing on Engadget.com (the readers comments do not all mirror comments here) and other encouraging things!

Again, i was just politely posting for a UI designer who maybe available and interested.

I wasn't going to mod any of your posts down... but then you made this one... which honestly just confused the shit out of me. You had the moral high ground (defending a guy for taking a chance on an idea), and then you squandered it by jumping the shark and insulting everyone on YC News, all of our ideas/projects/skills, and then to top it off, throwing down a completely random gauntlet to pg himself, as if he had anything to do with any of this.

I suggest you close the browser and chill out a bit. No flame war is ever worth sounding that crazy.

(PS. I still didn't mod you down, but only because I stick by my '-1 is enough bad karma' rule.)

Okay, maybe I took it too far. But if you think about it I do have a point to an extent. Perhaps I took it too far but I can't help but notice during the last year or so that I've been monitoring this thing and posting once in a while that there is definately a strong undercurrent of "look at this stupid guy and his stupid idea" here among more than a few people.

Or when a "non-hacker" is looking for someone to help out or a hacker who doesn't know a particular technical aspect looks for help, the lashing is severe. There's a difference between constructive criticism, designed to challenge but inspire the recipient, and just being a jerk who gets off trying to look the bigshot by making others feel like losers for sharing private aspects of their personal entrepreneurial struggles.

We all have more in common than differences; for example we're all surrounded by cubicle drones in this life who secretly rejoice at the prospect of us failing miserably because they're too scared to try going out on their own to do their things ... shouldn't we generally be supporting each other and keeping our morales up as much as possible?

If you don't like someone's idea and genuinely think it should be improved, say so. But what good does it do anyone to tell them, "wow your idea sucks ... it's the stupidest idea of all stupid ideas ever!"

Yeah, as entrepreneur if you believe in your work and realize hey this is the Internet people are going to say whatever you should not be deterred.

Hear the positive , rather then all the static and noise. It is good to hear feedback that maybe negative, yet it helps render a better product! That's not noise that is feedback!

But, I really was not asking for feedback this time!

Was sincerely looking for a UI designer/consultant...

I love UI design and I am a Photoshop/css pro.

stuff I made: webdevelopersfieldguide.com (currently the top story ;-P) poptakeout.com <--mobile safari web-app. stanleymusic.com

contact me through wademeredith.com if you'd like.

Ripping on someone's idea in this type of forum is a clear sign that you are an asshole. Period.

But for all of those that hate this concept, notice that Seth Godin posted the same idea on his blog, twice.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/09/alarm-clocks... http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2003/10/todays_free_...

Seth Godin's improved alarm clock has nothing in common with sleep.fm, except they both have to do with alarm clocks.

Sleep.fm is an alarm clock where your friends can send you wake-ups with messages at any time they choose.

I would never want to allow someone the power to wake me up when they want to. That would be so annoying!

The only difference from a regular boring alarm clock to Sleep.FM's Social Alarm Clock, is the tone that wakes you. You set the clock and when it goes off your alarm message(s) is the tone that wakes you. Whether it's Happy Birthday, wake up old lady dont forget to take your medicine, the meeting has moved to a different location, good morning girlfriend/boyfriend/best friend i wanted to share this new song with you( you hear it), hey X i'll meet you for breakfast at denny's before work, im sorry i wont be in the carpool today, dont take i95 huge traffic jam, it's snowing go back to bed, etc, etc....

I wonder rms did you happen to view a promo vid of ours? Knowing that is helpful...

> I would never want to allow someone the power to wake me up when they want to. That would be so annoying!

It's like having... a spouse! THE HORROR. (Seriously, I can imagine the use for people that specifically need to get someone else out of bed--it's like a pager that's really, really loud. But again, that's all it is--an Internet-to-audio-pager gateway.)

So how many times has the sound of your alarm clock informed you of something pertinent to your day, made you laugh or allowed you to remotely share a moment with someone close to you? It hasn't...

For those who want to continue to wake up to just some meaningless noise can continue to do so... But, hey it's the 21st century and now through Sleep.FM we can wake up to personal pieces of communication from those closet to us or those we allow!

Did you click through to the second post? What makes you think that sleep FM wouldn't grow to include videos from your friends, weather reports, to do lists or overnight tweets?

Sure, it could, and I hope Ryan looks at that post.

I hope the salary is high, because that's still the worst startup idea I've ever seen. You should hire an idea designer.

I can't fathom how it makes money, but I could see a lot of Facebook sorts of apps revolving around your friends controlling certain aspects of your life. E.g., choosing your current music, picking the next book you read, the videos you watch one afternoon, your alarm clock music (maybe?). It's kinda like the new form of mix-tapes.

I dunno-- just brainstorming.

Maybe you could try publishing this in alt.chi. I like the idea of exploring social startup ideas revolving around sleep in general. It may not turn out to be profitable, but it's interesting.

that's mean. And quite frankly it is very low for anyone to attack people in such a manner. If you cannot say something that adds value maybe you can save the keystrokes to promoting your gambling site.

It was pretty direct, and I think I might have chosen a softer way of saying it, but I don't like the idea much myself, either. Telling someone you respect the truth "adds value" in my opinion.

Who knows though, maybe Ryan will be able to repurpose it into something cool with just a little bit of effort, and come out ahead. I hope so.

What I think I would say to Ryan if I were talking about it over a beer, and trying to be a bit humorous about it, is that it really reminds me of something Kramer from Seinfeld would be trying to sell Jerry and Elaine on. "But Jerry, it's great, it's an alarm clock and it's social!". Later in the episode Kramer would be walking around in an obviously sleep deprived state.

Why would Kramer be walking around in a sleep deprived state?

Maybe I need to be more direct, as it looks like readers get the impression that your friends have the power to randomly wake you up with their messages? That is not the case and I dont want to use an alarm clock that allowed people to wake me up to messages when they want to. Uggh, that would stink, I want to sleep until the time on my alarm clock goes off!

What's different here is the sound of your alarm clock. INstead of just hearing only a buzzer you hear some sorta of buzzer and then audio messages left from those you allow. THis is only heard after the alarm time you set passes... same principle as a normal alarm clock.

If this is clear to you cool ... though I dont understand your statement, "Kramer would be sleep deprived"

Well, it's Seinfeld, so it would have been hacked or otherwise malfunctioned to make the show entertaining. "Jerry, these kids won't leave me alone!" or "Jerry, this woman keeps leavin' me messages, and I get all wowwowah". Didn't mean to cast aspersions on how it actually works.

Maybe you should aim higher or broader...take the ability to leave messages for people and do something with that? I just don't find the idea very compelling - it's too narrow feeling. If I want to hear a friend, I want to hear from them whenever it is, not just in the morning. And if I want a fancy alarm clock thing, I simply want one that I can load ogg or mp3 files in. Messages from people might be loaded or automatically pulled in, but for me that's just not a central feature. Another thing that sort of limits its appeal is that you have to have your computer in your room with you, and on. Mine has an option to automatically wake up, but it's a fiddly bios thing that most people aren't going to want to use, and most people don't like sleeping with the things on, either - they're noisy.

So, beyond what I don't like, I wonder how you could take what you've created and tweak it to appeal to other audiences, or be useful in other ways? If you've got good tech behind it, perhaps it's just a matter of trying out a few other niches - maybe something else is what it's really destined to be.

he made a bunch of money playing poker and his current startup has obvious money making potential

Man please

It's sad to say that in the span of 31 comments, Wade Meredith was the only UI designer that offered a hand.

Ryan's post: "I am seeking a UI designer/consultant for my startup" that no one wanted to answer.

what do you mean by 'work for hire'?

Dude thanks for your passionate opinion!

LoL

Dude, please locate the reply button. Threaded comments win.