I recently discovered a startup called PlateJoy that offers meal delivery (but the meals are not cooked — they provide ingredients and recipes). Technically, the ingredients (in my case) were delivered by Instacart. That went flawlessly: somehow the deliveryman even managed to get inside my apartment complex (“The door was still open,” he said) and…Continue Reading…

I decided to print some postage from Stamps.com for a package that I was sending via USPS. I didn’t have a printer handy, but I decided I’d try the printing function anyway. My plan? Print to PDF, and then later print that PDF with my next-door neighbor’s printer. Unfortunately, the Stamps.com website doesn’t use the…Continue Reading…

Batch 6, the latest cohort, concluded 2 weeks ago. Some might say that my startup has graduated. Indeed, it’s a bit like finishing school. Since then I’ve contemplated how to wrap up my 500 Startups experience. Back when the program started, I wrote about Week One. That was a fairly text-heavy post with just one…Continue Reading…

I’m in Montreal for the International Startup Festival. There’s my flight ticket. Serendipitously, I was on the same flight as DMC. We didn’t coordinate this, honest! Something special’s going on. While I was walking down the street, I randomly spotted a huge crowd of girls lined up on the sidewalk. I randomly asked one girl…Continue Reading…

iOS offers a few ways to visually design your User Interface. You can use a xib (sometimes pronounced nib for historical reasons), a Storyboard: … or code. For large multi-person projects, code is the way to go. Here’s why. Your UI, like every other part of your app, will change. You need to be able…Continue Reading…