Showing up

The real take away use supply and demand to your advantage.<p>They took a supply of MIT programmers who weren't in demand and leveraged it. I think this is a huge take away for startups trying to get attention online. Imagine you post your startup related to food (<a href="http://www.housefed.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.housefed.com</a>) on HN. No big deal; another will be along later.<p>However, imagine you post a food startup to a foodies forum! Bam, you have a huge demand of interest and limited supply of technology improving food. You've just found where you are in more demand and you can provide the supply side.

Minor quibble: it was actually Woody Allen who coined the "80 percent of success is showing up" phrase.

I work at an awesome start-up (iPhase3, my main income while I figure out where I want to take my own startup) and the only way I got here was because I knew someone that worked here.<p>Networking is definitely a big thing, and being in the right place at the right time. I liked the idea, and it allowed me to do what I love most, work on back-end high availability systems.

I love the guerilla tactic of repeatedly pitching to random students at MIT lunch counters. Recruiting is hard, but persistence is essential.