Top all-time · #3719
Jed Christiansen
Personal blog · blog.jedchristiansen.com · on HN as jedcstartupsbusiness
Jed Christiansen's personal blog at blog.jedchristiansen.com covers startups and business. Since 2008, 21 different Hacker News readers have linked it 43 times, most often “Copying Y Combinator - Why and How”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog as an archive of Marc Andreessen's 2007-2008 blog posts and for analyses of seed accelerators, Y Combinator companies and 37signals' finances. Comments mostly cite it as support.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A few thoughts
Most-linked posts?
- Copying Y Combinator - Why and How5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2009-09-21
- A Marc Andreessen blog archive4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-10-15
- 37signals is one hell of a profitable business ($8 million/year)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2008-11-25
- Estimating 37signals revenue and profit - $8million in 20082 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2008-12-04
- Looking back – 1.5 years since “Copying Y Combinator”2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-02-23
- The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters (2009)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-05-23
- $20B raised by seed accelerator companies; 75% to just 4 programs2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-10-14
- Pmarca archive has moved - no longer on Posterous2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-04-26
What Hacker News says?
This reminds me of jedc and his MBA research about startup accelerators and how, and more importantly, when to clone. His #1 point was: > You need to be unique, where unique is not just a seed accelerator in a different city Imagine K12 is unique in their knowledge and connections. What a fascinating proposition. http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2011/02/23/looking-back-1-5-...
Comment linking /2011/02/23/looking-back-1-5-years-since-copying-y-combinator/
on “Imagine K12”Submitted Copying Y Combinator - Why and How as a story · 48 points
HN discussionThanks... I'm the someone who put the archive together. :) He wrote so much good stuff, and I wanted to make sure it was saved and available to entrepreneurs. The full story is on my blog at http://blog.jedchristiansen.com
Comment linking /
on “Marc Andreessen - Guide to personal productivity”Submitted A Marc Andreessen blog archive as a story · 40 points
HN discussionI had no idea who Marc Andreessen was until this post. I clicked through to http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/10/15/a-marc-andreessen... and discovered a whole new universe of "how to get funding" He seemed to have written some posts in conjunction with Paul Graham
Comment linking /2009/10/15/a-marc-andreessen-blog-archive/
on “Marc Andreessen - Guide to personal productivity”Submitted Location-based apps: Flook, Gowalla, Foursquare - a review as a story · 14 points
HN discussionhttp://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/09/21/copying-y-combina... Looks like he wrote a thesis on "seed accelerators" using YC as a model.
Comment linking /2009/09/21/copying-y-combinator-why-and-how/
on “List of YC Companies”Submitted Introducing Seed-DB: a database of seed accelerators and their companies as a story · 9 points
HN discussion"You won't get rich" Says who ? Some estimates peg 37Signals as being profitable to the tune of $6 million per year. Divided equally between the 12 employees that's $500k each. Not bad for a year's work. For more see: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2008/12/04/estimating-37sign...
Comment linking /2008/12/04/estimating-37signals-revenue-and-general-profitability/
on “Acquisition condolences ”Submitted 37signals is one hell of a profitable business ($8 million/year) as a story · 8 points
HN discussionI'd say they're more than "fairly" successful: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2008/02/25/37signals-is-one-... Especially since we all know that they've turned down lots of buy offers, and only accepted an investment from Amazon to have access to Bezos. How dreamy. Not that that proves their assertions are universally applicable, however, they certainly prove that side projects CAN be a (much less treacherous) path…
Comment linking /2008/02/25/37signals-is-one-hell-of-a-profitable-business/
on “Keep the day job and build it on the side...”Submitted $10B – has been raised by seed accelerator graduates as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAlso really valuable are his blog posts from 2007/2008. He's since took his blog down but they're archived here: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/pmarcaarchive/pmarca-archive...
Comment linking /pmarcaarchive/pmarca-archive-has-moved-here/
on “Pmarca Tweets as Blog Posts”Submitted Startup accelerators in 2011 as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI was the one who did that analysis. I updated it at the end of 2008 here: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2008/12/04/estimating-37sign... My model was largely based on a few key numbers they had published and a general freemium business model. Since then, they've dramatically reduced the prominence of their "free" option and also stopped posting any details of their business, so I haven't been able to realistically…
Comment linking /2008/12/04/estimating-37signals-revenue-and-general-profitability/
on “DHH Commissions his own Supercar - the Pagani Zonda HH”Submitted Copying Y Combinator – WHY and HOW as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI don't think so, and I don't think they should share that information, but they've given some "clues" (potentially false) over the years with references to things like "over 1 million users." (Though "user" is a vague term considering how their system works.) In response to a similar question in 2006, Jason Fried said: We’re a private company so we don’t disclose this information. A few years ago, someone tried to…
Comment linking /2008/02/25/37signals-is-one-hell-of-a-profitable-business/
on “DHH Commissions his own Supercar - the Pagani Zonda HH”Submitted $20B raised by seed accelerator companies; 75% to just 4 programs as a story · 3 points
HN discussionCompletely agree. I wrote a blog post about it a while back [0], but to me the killer feature is being able to pin items as to-dos (or create new todo's unassociated with an email), and then flip the switch so that you ONLY see these pinned items. I love it because I can only look at my pinned items and focus on knocking a few out at a time, and only occasionally flipping back to the regular inbox view. (Which I fin…
Comment linking /2014/12/02/the-super-magic-productivity-button-in-the-new-google-inbox/
on “Inbox by Gmail: now in more places”Submitted The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters as a story · 3 points
HN discussion2009: OK you're right, this is a bubble http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/pmarcaarchive/ok-youre-right...
Comment linking /pmarcaarchive/ok-youre-right-it-is-a-bubble/
on “The CEO of a $1 billion 'unicorn' startup admits we're in a bubble”Submitted Estimating 37signals revenue and profit - $8million in 2008 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttp://blog.jedchristiansen.com/pmarcaarchive/ask-pmarca-why... "Private"
Comment linking /pmarcaarchive/ask-pmarca-why-the-p-in-pmarca/
on “The Pmarca Guide to Startups (2007)”Submitted $20B – and a relaunch of Seed-DB as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI wrote a master's thesis on seed accelerators, and this was exactly my conclusion: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/09/21/copying-y-combina... http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2011/02/23/looking-back-1-5-... As you said, it's the next logical extension. The "Ivy League" of seed accelerators has largely been established. But other programs can become top-tier programs in their niche quite easily.
Comment linking /2011/02/23/looking-back-1-5-years-since-copying-y-combinator/
on “A “Y Combinator For Education Startups””Submitted The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, Part 1: Opportunity as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIf it helps, I tried modelling 37signals' revenue a while back. Based on some of their posts and a few guesses I think they've got about 10k paying Basecamp customers, and across all their products will have about $8million in turnover this year. My original blog post is here: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2008/02/25/37signals-is-one-... You can play around with the spreadsheet I created, though I hope to update i…
Comment linking /2008/02/25/37signals-is-one-hell-of-a-profitable-business/
on “Ask HN: Does the SaaS model really work? Really?”Submitted The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters (2009) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHere is a link to the spreadsheet, https://spreadsheets0.google.com/ccc?key=t_toYuVyy6fci0MAiIa... Also the original analysis post, http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/09/21/copying-y-combina...
Comment linking /2009/09/21/copying-y-combinator-why-and-how/
on “Ask HN: What percentage of Y Combinator apps are successful/profitable?”Submitted Pmarca archive has moved - no longer on Posterous as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
