On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 7:17 PM, Michael Pusateri <pusat
...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hrrm, not sure what this has to to do with Los Angeles? Or with BarCamp?
> But I've got an open mind.
> I'm sorry that you repeatedly make poor business decisions. That sucks.
> Back when I was on the Internet when it was just usenet and gopher, I
> thought of using it to send images as well (besides the alt.binaries, obv )
> But that fucker Tim Berners-Lee stole my idea and actually built it.
> I did review your site.
> I'm an electrical engineer and help oversee television and radio
> broadcasting in addition to other technologies. From what I read on your
> site, you have no real understanding of the complexity of starting a
> telecommunications company today considering the regulation and spectrum
> coordination required. All for a phone that won't work outside of the city
> of Portland.
> Enjoy becoming an ILEC. Enjoy the FCC. Enjoy the competition.
> Honestly, if you've got a real passion for this, try working for an
> existing telco, or a repeater installer, for a bit and see what it's really
> like. Also, a good therapist will help you work out your unresolved issues
> and anger.
> Good luck, and never, ever post to this list again plz,
> Lastly, I am friends with Andy and take personal offense to you trying to
> drag his name through the mud. So please go fuck yourself with a pineapple.
> Sincerely,
> -Michael
> On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 5:36 PM, John Pratt <jpra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I used to run Fundable.com until a few months ago, when I decided to
>> shut it down against the will of my business partner, who allowed some
>> serious programming errors and customer service issues to take place
>> without informing me. The final straw was when he said, "John, you
>> should sell your part of the business to me because the Austin Police
>> department is thinking about filing charges against Fundable. Get out
>> while you can." That's when I shut down the credit card processing
>> and took the domain away from him.
>> For those of you who insist on thinking that the truth always lies in
>> between two accounts of a situation, I urge you to drop that misguided
>> notion, especially for this situation.
>> I feel that this story is important to tell you because
>> Kickstarter.com copied us. I tried for 4 years to get people to take
>> Fundable seriously, traveling across the country, even giving a
>> presentation to FBFund, Facebook's fund to stimulate development of
>> new apps. It was a series of rejections for 4 years. I really felt
>> that I presented myself professionally in every business situation and
>> I dressed appropriately and practiced my presentations. That was not
>> enough. The idiots wanted us to show them charts with massive
>> profits and widespread public acceptance so that they didn't have to
>> take any risks.
>> All it took was 5 super-connected people at Kickstarter (especially
>> Andy Baio) to take a concept we worked hard to refine, tweak it with
>> Amazon Payments, and then take credit. You could say that that's
>> capitalism, but I still think you should acknowledge people that you
>> take inspiration from. I do. I owe the concept of Fundable to many
>> things, including living in cooperative student housing and studying
>> Political Science at Michigan. Rational choice theory, tragedy of the
>> commons, and collective action are a few political science concepts
>> that are relevant to Fundable.
>> Yes, Fundable had some technical and customer service problems.
>> That's because we had no money to revise it. I had plans to scrap the
>> entire CMS and start from scratch with a new design. We were just so
>> burned out that motivation was hard to come by. What was the point if
>> we weren't making enough money to live on after 4 years?
>> During those 4 years both of us had to take full-time jobs from time
>> to time. Neither of us were that well-connected in the tech community
>> or Fundable would have grown a long time ago. It wasn't for lack of
>> trying to reach out to people. The company was making barely enough
>> money for us to cover expenses and pay ourselves on the side. Our
>> server space was donated during the entire 4 years.
>> I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch 5 assholes take your idea
>> and run with it and not even give you credit. I hate all 5 of them
>> for that. If I see them, I may punch each one of them in the face.
>> If you have never started your own company and then had someone else
>> steal the credit for what you worked hard to develop, you don't
>> understand.
>> The Fundable/Kickstarter fundraising model matters. It's huge. It
>> could change the development of funding the arts as well as the
>> political process. We had an idea of this 4 years ago, but it was
>> very difficult to bridge theory to practice. To be honest, I didn't
>> even know if it was going to work most of the time and I sometimes
>> wondered if I was wasting my time. We laid the groundwork for
>> Kickstarter to exist. Don't forget that when you use it. If you were
>> in a similar situation, I would remind people of your contributions as
>> well.
>> If you have met me in L.A. and you dismissed Fundable before or you
>> failed to return my calls or you flaked on me in person or just said,
>> "oh that's a cool idea" and then left our conversation, don't make the
>> same mistake this time with my new project, located at PDXCell.com.
>> PDXCell is an entity that will produce a decentralized wireless phone
>> service for the city of Portland, where I now live. The goal is to
>> establish a very low cost wireless system that provides quality
>> unlimited internet access and local wireless phone service for around
>> $10 month, very likely through WiMax. That's the goal.
>> The details can be found at PDXCell.com. You are welcome to help, as
>> this is not a web startup or a non-profit. This project is not a
>> startup. It will require the collective desire of many people to make
>> it come into being. I think, however, that if you read the web page
>> you will become and advocate.
>> I got burned with Fundable in a lot of ways, but at those times I get
>> a better perspective on the situation I am not very bitter because I
>> realize how much I learned and how much I got to experience. More
>> importantly, all Kickstarter projects are Fundable projects, I just
>> don't receive any money from them. The Kickstarter founders know
>> this. The web community knows this. Now you know this.
>> I won't be making the same mistakes with PDXCell.
>> Be a part of it.
>> -John
>> --
>> BarCampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
>> BarCampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
>> BarCampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en
> --
> BarCampLA Wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLosAngeles
> BarCampLA Blog: http://www.barcampla.org/
> BarCampLA Group: http://groups.google.com/group/BarcampLA?hl=en
