The governments of more and more countries are forcing people to start using Tails. If you have a problem with censorship in your country (because for example you're living in United Kingdom), check out this operating system!
To follow up on Omar's comment - there are some YC startups operating in Canada ;)
Some of those startups know lots of silicon valley companies looking to vet through the crowd of international talent. Working somewhere local is a great place to start.
You're right - I did lack perspective and empathy.
I never thought I'd be the busy guy without time or energy to filter through and respond to every application we get.
The problem that I've encountered is that at < 15 employees, the best hires are generally people we pursue. Literally 90% of people we've spoken to who apply through standard means are ill-fitted for the role.
This post is designed to open the perspective of myself, the "busy startup guy" as well as Amar, the "I want to be a part of a startup guy".
The idea is that everyone should go above and beyond to get noticed. Most people don't. If you don't really really really think you can make an impact in my business (and haven't shown me so via initiative) how can I really know that you're not just another tire-kicker?
Remember, a seed-stage startup is on an egg-timer. Every minute needs to be productive and every conversation needs to create value. We need to pick and choose our battles wisely.
I don't mean to be hard on you, I was really just ranting against this pervasive behavior, not specifically just you. I can see how this could happen. I just think we should all try to proactively hold ourselves to higher standards of doing business and employing people.
Everyone should experience Silicon Valley. Vidyard's investors and network of influence are SV based. I'll never negate that.
Reasons I'm in Waterloo = Availability of Talent, Retention of Talent, Cost of living, Quality of Life
We've never had an issue with young, technical talent and I firmly believe that we have the best. That's more that can be said for our Californa based batch-mates.
I'm just running off personal experience here (I've been through the Velocity Residence and Eng), but of the 10 smartest kids I know, all but one is in The Valley/Seattle. I think they plan to stay South after graduation.
Why do you think you can you get better talent? Less competition? People want to be closer to home? You can offer more in perks, salary, ect compared to local companies?
I'm still in school; just finished 3A, so ive got a pretty fresh look at things. It seems to me Waterloo's stature is rising in The Valley, and they are offering more jobs. I had about 30-40% of my class go to Apple this semester, for example.
It's great perspective. To be completely honest - 101GB is loose. Since we leverage RTMP streaming and most viewers don't watch the entire video, we end up serving less bandwidth.
We're pretty focused on avoiding commoditization by bandwidth. As you mentioned, we're about integrations, analytics and call to action - significant value adds that vanilla hosting platforms don't and won't provide.
That's a fair argument - we built the player to match a popular style that our customers were requesting.
We've also built 9 other player's from scratch. There's not much you can tweak and re-design - we've done our best to hit the product market fit for what our customers and their viewers want.
