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Hacker Noon 2.0: Origin Story And Raising Funds
by State of the Noonion for HackerNoon ShareholdersNovember 1st, 2018
Too Long; Didn't Read
What makes Hacker Noon truly stand out is the fact that we are independently-owned & community-driven. Our community drives our editorial, not just our traffic.People Mentioned
Companies Mentioned
Coins Mentioned
Invest In Hacker Noon
Imagine you want to read a story about the most recent Facebook privacy scandal or how Bitcoin actually works - what site would you go to? Some sites will give you clickbait headlines and the same old recycled arguments. Other sites, even credible ones, offer unremarkable second-hand accounts. Rarely do you get to hear the in-depth story from the first-person perspective from the best tech professionals.
Hacker Noon delivers an independent tech blog with honest and unfettered stories and opinions written by real tech professionals, with:
- 7,000+ contributing writers,
- 200,000+ daily visitors,
- 8,000,000+ monthly pageviews
Our traffic is ranked in the top 5K of all websites worldwide and in the top 3k of all US websites by Alexa. We publish ≈ 20 stories per day from around the internet. Hacker Noon has been consistently profitable for 2.5 years and is now raising funds for the first time.
Hacker Noon can become a much better destination for tech publishing with your help today.
Hacker Noon 1.0: The Story
Hacker Noon began in January 2016 as Hacker Daily on Medium and became Hacker Noon in April 2016. The site, run by the husband and wife team of David and Linh Dao Smooke, started to gain momentum in October 2016 with stories like How it feels to learn Javascript in 2016, The Ethereum-blockchain size has exceeded 1TB, and yes, it’s an issue, I’m harvesting credit card numbers and passwords from your site. Here’s how., and Why Everyone Missed the Most Mind-Blowing Feature of Cryptocurrency.
In 2017, to create a steady revenue stream, Hacker Noon started a weekly sponsorship package and worked with tech companies like Pubnub, Manifold, Pusher, Segment, Mixpanel, & Amazon's Bot Division, educational organizations like Edx & Full Stack Academy, and blockchain companies like Odem, Ingot Coin, and Dmarket. 52% of companies had renewed or committed to renewing with us.
In the Fall of 2018, Medium, our Content Management System (CMS), decided to ban all 3rd-party ads. This meant that our revenue stream would be cut off and frankly didn’t make much sense to the Hacker Noon community. How can Medium, a 3rd party to Hacker Noon, keep their own ads on hackernoon.com? Medium made an offer to buy hackernoon.com, but the offer was rejected.
Our stance on ads
We don't want to advertise the shoes you've considered buying around the web, we do want to surface sponsors that are relevant to the subject matters being read, such as blockchain sponsors on blockchain content. We believe sponsorship is not evil, if done right. What's evil is surveillance. Our sponsors will be either site-wide or by subject matter.
We think there is a major difference between a “sponsor” and an “advertiser”:
- Sponsors are long term. Ads are short term.
- Sponsors say why they're here. Advertisers distract from you from being here.
- Sponsors care about demographics. Advertisers care about individual user data.
Hacker Noon runs on sponsorship promotions, never personalized ads.
Our promotions are like billboards - relevant to the content and not the individual reader. Without sponsors, we can't make the site free for readers forever. Our sponsorship placements are minimalistic & non intrusive. No sidebars, no popups, no video ads. We care about reading quality and will never take that experience away from the reader.
One of the main reasons Jonah Peretti left Huffington Post and started Buzzfeed was because the ad system was not baked into the tech. By increasing the ad duration and having no sales middlemen, Hacker Noon has been able to offer customers better rates and better relevancy, and we’ll have healthy margins with longer term customers. We want to own the relationship with the brands and have quality brands that validate the content. We have been extremely selective in choosing which brands to be Hacker Noon sponsors and will continue to do so going forward.
Hacker Noon 1.0: Our Success to Date
Hacker Noon's traffic has been extremely stable & growing at a steady pace
Source: Google Analytics (excludes all RSS traffic)
Hacker Noon is comparable in traffic, audience and quality to these older sites
Source: Similar Web (Oct.2018)
Hacker Noon audience is younger, wealthier & more educated than the internet's average
Hacker Noon leads in story quality comparing to 4 similar tech media sites
Hacker Noon brings more traffic to Medium than Medium to Hacker Noon
Hacker Noon 1.5: The Start of New Revenue Streams
Medium’s latest pivot was a wakeup call. We were overly reliant on a 3rd party, and we need to evolve. Their ads remain on our site... for now.
Since they banned our sponsorship package in early September, we have:
- acquired the Crypto Disrupted podcast & launched the Hacker Noon podcast,
- created the Hacker Noon job board,
- pre-sold 2019 sponsorship inventory, and
- hired an awesome interim CTO.
Hacker Noon Podcast
With upcoming guests like Tracy Chou of Pinterest & Project Include, Gary Tan of Initialized Capital Partner, & Suhail Doshi of Mixpanel, The Hacker Noon podcast, hosted by Trent Lapinski (formally, Crypto Disrupted) will explore new mediums for delivering the truth about how the tech industry actually functions.
While Hacker Noon is primarily text-based, in a recent Hacker Noon survey, 71% of readers said they would like to listen to a Hacker Noon podcast. The community asks - we listen. Hacker Noon is on the path of diversifying our content and scaling our voice.
And yes - this podcast is also run on sponsors. Our lineup includes Datadog (a repeat customer), Harbor & Treehouse Tech Group.
Up next: quality video content on YouTube.
Hacker Noon Job Board
The Hacker Noon job board is where tech leaders hire, and the brightest people in tech find jobs. This marketplace is a natural extension of our publication. What's a better place to hire tech talent than where people already read about tech & tech talent?
This job board stems from our need to hire our own tech talent in anticipation of the transition off Medium. Instead of paying for a talent acquisition service, we create our own! So far, we have had over 100+ applications and we have interviewed 30+.
Some great companies are already hiring on our job board, like Decent, LeafLink, Noson, the Nakamoto Terminal, the Gritti Fund and yours truly (front end developer & backend developer).
Up next: Jobs integration with Hacker Noon contributors' stores.
Hacker Noon's Interim CTO
product iteration with Dane Lyons
The founder of v1labs & Techstar-backed Knowtify, Dane is one of the best product minds around. He is joining Hacker Noon as interim Chief Technology Officer. Hacker Noon CEO David Smooke previously worked with Dane's company Knowtify before it was acquired by Kissmetrics. His primary responsibilities will be evaluating tech talent (front end & back end) and working with the new team members to build our own infrastructure.
“To build a good product, you’ve got to embrace change. When you have a product and you change something about the product, there’s really only three outcomes. It’s going to get better, it’s going to get worse, or it’s going to stay the same.”
Dane Lyons
i-CTO, Hacker Noon
Up next: a full 3-person tech team led by Dane to build our own CMS.
Hacker Noon 2.0: The Vision
With your help, here's what we will offer in Hacker Noon 2.0:
To Our Readers:
- Tech stories (from actual tech professionals)
- Free to read forever
- The choice to not share their reading data
To Our Writers:
- Quality distribution
- Community driven editorial line
- Multiple ways to monetize content & earn coins
To Our Sponsors:
- Top navigation site wide takeovers
- Branding of relevant writers, subjects & stories
- Minimalistic tech stories
To New Visitors, We Do Not:
- Track readers
- Force readers to login
- Run intrusive ads
We strive to provide a forum to learn about and publish what matters in the tech world.
We care deeply about our contributors. What makes Hacker Noon truly stand out is the fact that we are independently-owned & community-driven. Our community drives our editorial, not just our traffic. By staying true to our spirit (publish what the community wants), we naturally become one of the most trusted blogs in blockchain & cryptocurrency. Going forward, we will harness the power of our community even more by empowering subject matter experts to become verified writers and community editors (more below).
We live in the beautiful internet space between corporate blogs and the New York Times - providing tech professionals a raw destination for what is actually happening in the tech industry. By having a niche - technology - we will always have more focus than past contributor networks like Medium and the Huffington Post.
“Hacker Noon can be a much better destination for readers and contributors than it is today. For the first time, we’re raising money.
Readers want to read more and writers want to write more. Support will go a long way with this community. We made Hacker Noon into a staple of tech media with a lean team and we are primed to expand. I made a questionable publishing partnership with Medium. Our goal is to build a new infrastructure that is optimized for how people use and want to use Hacker Noon.
I'm looking forward to becoming the best place for tech professionals to publish."
David Smooke
Founder & CEO, Hacker Noon
Hacker Noon 2.0: Empowering the Contributors
Writer, Verified Writer, & Community Editor
The structure of Hacker Noon 1.0 leaves much to be desired. Users either have admin access to every single page of the site (as an editor) or none at all and can only submit stories for review (as a writer). In Hacker Noon 2.0, verified writers earn the right to hit publish & community editors earn the right to control the site's curation.
Writer
A writer is someone who can submit stories for publication on Hacker Noon after an editorial review process. Based on the quality and performance of their stories, all writers can become verified writers.
Verified Writer
A verified writer is someone with proven track record in an area of expertise. They will not be subject to the normal 3 business day review process. They can automatically have their stories published.
Community Editor
A community editor is someone who can curate pages and publish story submissions. For example, if they are an expert in blockchain, they can curate, edit & distribute stories related to blockchain.
- says Hacker Noon's CEO David Smooke
Future Benefits for All Contributors
Ultimately, Hacker Noon contributors want - and deserve - distribution and choice. The contributing writers are at the heart & soul of our platform and we want to serve them first and foremost.
In Hacker Noon 2.0, the contributing writers will have the opportunity to gain:
- Audience & Community
- Lead Generation
- Freebies
- Points and Coins
Audience & Community
We will double down on quality story distribution, and improve how contributors gain value from that exposure.
In Hacker Noon 2.0, we want to better how we help contributors scale their own communities. For example, instead of gaining followers on our site, we will replace the 'follow' button with a 'give email' button. We prefer contributors email their community through us, but they are more than welcome to take their emails and communicate with their community how they see fit.
Lead Generation
Contributors earn the right to have their stories optimized for their own call action - we will encourage design that drives real business activity.
In Hacker Noon 2.0, embeddable call to actions will be baked into the site. We will also build minimalistic stores so that contributors can capture interest for things related to their stories. Use cases for these leads are: software demos, software purchases, email newsletter subscriptions, ebooks, long-form reports, consulting services, jobs, and more.
Freebies
We will leverage the brand and aggregate of the community to provide additional benefits to the individual contributor.
This will start by systemizing activity that is already happening around Hacker Noon, such as free tickets to the best tech events.
Starting with verified writers and community editors, Hacker Noon 2.0 can move into additional benefits, such as free software and even the Airdropping of tokens, a la Earn.com. The best tech brands want their products and services in the hands of top tech influencers.
Points and Coins
We will also make it simple for readers to tip the contributor with fiat and crypto, and earn points for their contributions.
All contributors will earn hacker points, and in the future these points could serve as the basis for not only site influence, but also a hacker noon cryptocurrency. It will be an iterative process to map points to value. More tangibly in Hacker Noon 2.0, our design will make it simple for contributors to collect appreciations from their readers in the form of fiat and crypto collections.
Some of Hacker Noon's Contributing Writers
Entrepreneur & 8x Winter Olympic Medalist
First-hand accounts by Alibaba's tech team
Author, Futurist and Thinker
VP, Early Stage Practice at Silicon Valley Bank
Venture Investors at CRV
Software Engineer at Facebook
PhD, Social Psychology
Software Engineer & Photographer
President, Y Combinator
Chief Decision Engineer, Google Cloud
Chief of The Exponential View
Managing Director at Foundry Group
- says former Wired writer Joseph Flaherty
- says Dimension Data's Global Head of Talent + Innovation Antony Shaw
Engineering Leader
Author of Hooked
Founder of Orbs.com
Snapchat Software Engineer
Web Engineer
CoFounder Tribe Capital
Share knowledge [partnership]
Sharing Economy Author
Authorito Capital CEO
Satirist and Founder of Platformer Marketing
Mirror AI Founder & BioHacker
Bitcoin is. And that is enough
- says Huckletree Full-Stack Developer Alex Hughes
- says Hack Mental Health Founder Stephen Cognetta
Managing Partner at DormRoomFund
Play Labs @ MIT
Tilburg University Professor
Engineering Manager at Conde Nast
Stories for Generation T [partnership]
Co-Founder at Chronicled
VC at FirstMark
GP at MetaStable Capital
Head of Bloomberg Beta
Senior Program Manager for Microsoft Azure
Founder of Femgineer
Magician & Hacker
Hacker Noon 2.0: The Budget
For Year 1: From Fully Subscribed Crowdfunding Round ($1,069,993.40)
The plan starts with a new infrastructure where more revenue opportunities are baked into how it's made - we plan to use approximately half of the funding to build a profitable site without Medium's Content Management System. We plan to use the other half of the funding (in addition to interim revenues) to amplify what’s been working. To achieve this goal, here is the anticipated breakdown by function:
The Offering
We are raising $1,069,993.40 for 14.32% ownership of the company with a $6,404,200 pre-money valuation. If this crowdfund round is fully subscribed, Hacker Noon's post-money valuation will be about $7.5M.
This is our first round of funding. While we don't plan to make fundraising a habitual exercise, we have plenty of equity available to do another crowdfund or venture raise if we choose. As we publish a lot about cryptocurrencies and blockchains, our contributing writers have given us plenty of ideas about how we could create a Hacker Noon token. A token raise is the most probable and highest-ceiling route for Hacker Noon 3.0.
Our company is entirely common stock (#equality), but as a matter of logistics, all crowdfund shareholders will grant their voting rights to the CEO.
Investment Details
$8.20/share│$6,404,200.00 pre-money valuation│$106.60 Minimum Investment
Perks*
All investors can have their stor(ies) of choice reviewed by a human editor for publication on Hacker Noon, as well as free access to all Hacker Noon content forever or as long as there is Hacker Noon (hopefully that's as long as there is internet). Free content is actually true for anyone who visits the site, but as many sites take readers' information, attention and/or currency in exchange for consuming stories, we want to remind you that by supporting Hacker Noon, you support one of the internet's best principles - freedom of information.
$1,000+ — all the above, plus access to the company’s quarterly overview and quarterly investor video conference
$3,000+ — all the above, plus “investor of the week” feature atop our weekly newsletter to 175k+ ppl, linking to your social media of choice
$10,000+ — all the above, plus an interview by a Hacker Noon contributor; and 2 stories published about you or your company on Hacker Noon
$25,000+ — all the above, plus a guest appearance on the Hacker Noon Podcast
$107,000 — all the above, plus a limited edition Hacker Noon t-shirt (#painfullygreen). Isn't the startup life too much about schwag? If you invest the max, we'll give you a day. Just let us where you live and what you do then David our CEO will go to your city and place of business and work on your tech, your media, your story, helping build whatever it is you're building in whatever way we can help. We hope people considering investing $107k would do the same for us. At this level we're looking for partners who want to spend time bettering Hacker Noon. Yes, we are not kidding about the t-shirt. It is painfully green and it's all yours.
*All perks occur after the offering is completed.
** If any of the perks isn't applicable to you, the green T-shirt is yours.
Early Bird Discount
- Investors who invest on or before November 5th, 2018 - November 6th, 2018 (11:59pm PT) will receive a 10% early bird discount on the price per share ($7.38)
- Investors who invest on or before November 6th, 2018 (12:00am PT) - November 9th, 2018 (11:59pm PT) will receive a 5% early bird discount on the price per share ($7.79)
Why invest in Hacker Noon now?
We at Hacker Noon have created a successful tech blog, providing free stories for readers, quality free distribution for writers, a community-driven editorial line and high performing campaigns for sponsors.
Your investment can help us grow into the #1 independent tech blog on the web and keep us free of platform dependence. All platform dependence and venture investment create bias and vested interest. We want to amplify voices based on merit of their work and their story.
We believe NOW is the best time for you to invest in Hacker Noon, because:
1. Top 5k sites in the world rarely have total raises this low. There are 644 billion sites in the world & publishing platforms in the top 10k global Alexa ranking have a median Total Raise Amount of $28M (see chart below). We can and we will greatly improve our valuation when we successfully build our own content management designed around our workflow.
Hacker Noon v.s. other Media Sites: Amount Raised vs. Global Alexa Ranking
Source: Alexa (for ranking) & CrunchBase (for amount raised)
*We believe Amount raised is a factor in having an idea of a company's valuation.
** For Hacker Noon: assuming that this crowdfund is fully subscribed
2. We have been profitable & cash-flow positive for the past 2.5 years. It is rare for an early-stage startup to be immediately profitable like us. (see our Profit & Loss chart below).
Hacker Noon Quarterly Revenue, Expense & Profit (Jan 2016 - September 2018):
Source: Source: Hacker Noon's Quickbook Intuit
3. Our team is extremely lean. Most other tech sites with similar traffic are much larger than us (see chart below). Going forward we will continue to stay lean with a team of 5.
Among 400+ publications/blogs that rank 1k-10k globally by Alexa, only 14.4% have fewer than 10 employees
4. We have never taken any investment because we didn't need to. We don't even own a business credit card - 100% of our operating cost has been derived from our revenue. To build our own CMS, we are raising money for the first time. And what better way to showcase the power of our Hacker Noon community by doing an equity crowdfund first?
5. Our community of 7,000 contributing writers (and growing) is our biggest asset. The new site will offer more benefits to contributing writers. Our contributing writers will actually gain their followers email addresses, have the opportunity to earn coins, and the call to action to their related business will be baked into the design. We will give our contributors choice & distribution.
6. Over 52% of customers have renewed or committed to renewing with us. We've already pre-sold sponsorships for Hacker Noon 2.0 in 2019. This is possible because we believe sponsorship if done right is not evil. What's evil is tracking users.
7. Over the past 3 years of publishing 20+ stories every single day, we've cultivated rare industry knowledge of how to publish wildly successful content. Our library of ≈ 25,000 blog posts is something people keep coming back to. We will curate that knowledge in a cleaner way with the new site.
8. We are one of the internet leading publications in cryptocurrency & blockchain. We saw the rise of blockchain through our own growth & we believe tokens are the future. We have the industry knowhow, the community & strong connections with blockchain companies. We are also introducing Points & Coins in Hacker Noon 2.0 in preparation of a potential coin offering.
9. Support independent tech media for a better internet! As many media sites take readers' time, information, and currency in exchange for content, we want to remind you that by supporting Hacker Noon, you support what the internet was created for - freedom of information.
Hacker Noon PLUS: Additional Digital Publishing Assets
When you invest in Hacker Noon, you are investing in a culture of experimentation. We are always looking for new ways to make better publishing destination and tools. While future experimentations will be under the Hacker Noon hood, this experimentation first culture has produced additional digital assets (with varying degrees of traction) that can help grow Hacker Noon.
ArtMap Inc (dba Hacker Noon) owns a number of digital media sites, publishing tools and social media accounts, including but not limited to:
Media Sites
Pageviews over the last year (in parentheses):
- ARTplusMarketing.com (2,120,000+)
- FutureTravel.Today (624,000+)
- FitYourself.Club (740,000+ )
- SmallBusinessForum.co (67,000+)
- MyStudentVoices.com (820,000+)
- 42Hire.com (182,000+)
- ResponsibleBusiness.co (21,000+)
- TheLacesOut.com (46,000+)
- FestivalPeak.com (120,000+)
- HealthcareInAmerica.us (248,000+)
- Medium.com/Athena-Talks (792,000+)
- KeepingStock.net (789,000+)
- ExtraNewsfeed.com (5,129,000+)
Publishing Tools
Functions of these sites, and learnings from their performance, will be in Hacker Noon 2.0:
- PaidStory.com is a contributed content service and branded content marketplace .
- StoryLicensing.com is a marketplace to republish high quality blog posts. Also own related domains: storylicense.com, bloglicense.com and bloglicensing.com.
- AMIpolls.com is a site for our savory twitter polls.
- AMI.network is a search engine of the AMI library.
- WeeklySponsor.com sells Hacker Noon Weekly Sponsorships.
Social Media Accounts
Twitter (75,000+ followers):
@ami, @hackernoon, @artmapinc, @athenatalkssf, @hackerinsights, @fityourselfclub, @thesmbforum, @mystudentvoices, @42hire, @keepingstock, @extranewsfeed, @lacesoutson, @movietimeguru, @americanhcare, @techtalented, @assesstalent
@startuphires, and more.
Hacker Noon has its name reserved on other top social platforms that we plan to expand on: Youtube, GitHub, Twitch, Minds, Instagram, Reddit, Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Pinterest, Linkedin, GIPHY and Facebook (17k Likes).
In the Press
Extreme biohacking: the tech guru who spent $250,000 trying to live for ever
In September last year, the young Silicon Valley entrepreneur Serge Faguet posted an article on the tech website Hacker Noon. It was headlined: “I’m 32 and spent $200k on biohacking. Became calmer, thinner, extroverted, healthier & happier."
Next Steps In The Integration Of Artificial Intelligence And The Blockchain
An article on Hackernoon lists some of the latest projects integrating blockchain and AI technologies to create cutting-edge solutions. Some of the more notable ones include SingularityNET, an AI marketplace where enterprises can acquire AI capabilities on a global scale to enhance the growth of the
Lauren Glass, “Mastering Python Web Scraping: Get Your Data Back,”Hackernoon, September 12, 2017, https://hackernoon.com/mastering-python-web-scraping-get-your-data-back-e9a5cc653d88.
Publishing Wildly Successful Content Online with David Smooke of Hacker Noon
Today I’m talking to David Smooke, the creator of a very popular tech publication called Hacker Noon. David is one of my role models. And I think it shines through in this conversation, because I end up asking him an almost relentless barrage of questions about how to be successful at producing cont
A Pro-Crypto Gamer Hid Free Bitcoin in No Man’s Sky
Looking to find some free bitcoin? A pair of planets on the No Man’s Sky action survival game are hiding 0.004 BTC, according to Hackernoon. Players can claim the bitcoin by finding the corresponding communications stations in the game.
All Hacker Noon stories on Mashable
Spotify, Silicon Valley and Not-So-Tiny Desks
The Eightfold Path of the Legendary Trader (Hacker Noon)
Irrational Exuberance Revisited: Is Crypto The New Dot-Com Bubble?
In his thoughtful analysis published on Hacker Noon during the first downward tide of the year, Noam Levenson argues that the digital asset market has not yet reached the levels of adoption and capitalization needed for a proper ‘popping.’
Where There's Smooke There's Fire: Interview With David Smooke Founder of Hacker Noon
There are people in the world that you meet that are very special human beings. Their professional talent is the catalyst to crossing paths, but once you get to know them you realize they are much deeper than that. David is such a humble guy and doesn’t care about the spotlight.
Why Ripple May Still End Up on Coinbase
In mid-December, Coinbase indicated a need for expanding its office space by more than six times in order to keep up with increased demand, according to Hacker Noon. Perhaps the lack of infrastructure helped to explain why Coinbase added bitcoin cash to its limited offerings; the addition would help
"Explain Delegated Proof of Stake Like I'm 5 – Hacker Noon". Hacker Noon. 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2018-09-25.
Hacker Noon turns out to be part of a network of Medium publications called AMI. AMI’s network includes sites like Art + Marketing, Future Travel, and Fit Yourself Club–all of which are distinct syndication platforms. David Smooke is the CEO of AMI, and he joins this episode to explain...
Cyber Attacks: 3 Essential Tips to Protect Yourself
Here are a few tips to help you follow breaking cybersecurity stories: Check major news outlets for cybersecurity updates on a weekly basis Read popular tech publications like TechCrunch, Wired, and HackerNoon for in-depth reporting Pay special attention to institutions you do business with, such a
Hacker Noon is the Internet’s 14th Best Tech Blog
Discover your next favourite blog, aggregator, or community - sign up and see who's trending weekly.
Hacker Noon is Internet’s 16th Best Tech Blog
Hacker Noon is the 6th Most Subscribed Medium Publication
Product Hunt launches no-spam tech news digest Sip
The app will have to compete with traditional tech sites and their emails, the constant flow of Twitter and other social apps, various newsletters like Hacker Noon, and reader apps like Feedly and Flipboard. But Sip is set apart by boiling down the news into snackable nuggets.
I Tracked My Screen Time In iOS 12 & Here’s What I Learned
Overall, I spent 18 hours and four minutes with my phone over the course of four days. According to Hacker Noon, which aggregated data from multiple surveys and studies, my phone usage is pretty middle of the road as the average person spends at least four hours a day engaged with their phone.
iOS 11 Is Full of Tiny Design Inconsistencies
Disappearing comma, vacillating font weight. Photo via Hacker Noon. Over at Hacker Noon, designer and iOS 11 beta tester Ryan Lau has detailed the myriad design errors he’s noticed in Apple’s latest mobile operating system.
This Is The Truth About The Shortcut To Entrepreneurial Success
Article BY DANIEL TAWFIK, originally published on HACKER NOON
Cryptokitties had a glitch that allowed for unlimited automatic likes
Robert Durst, a ‘full stack engineer with a slight blockchain obsession’, described his experience of ‘hacking’ Cryptokitties on hackernoon.
The Single Biggest Problem Facing Ripple (XRP)
When discussing Ripple, it's important to make the distinction between the company and the tokens. They're not the same thing, as Hacker Noon succinctly summarized.
See What Facebook (Thinks It) Knows About You
But this is an evergreen topic, and it’s back in the news thanks to a HackerNoon article by Georges Abi-Heila. Anyone can download their data (on a computer, not on mobile) in a pretty straightforward way.
Here’s what Facebook knows about you, and how to download all your data
Facebook has long allowed you to download an archive of all the data the social network has on you, and HackerNoon’s Georges Abi-Heila decided to find out exactly what company knows about its users.
The world of cryptocollectibles like CryptoKitties looks like the internet’s early days
He wrote about the collaborative process that spurred this donation in a Hackernoon post titled, “How to turn 1 digital cat into 150 analogue cows.”
Or, as he wrote in a reflective Hacker Noon post this month, he “tripped and fell deep down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.”
4 Innovative Use Cases For Blockchain
InHackernoon, SteelKiwi writes that “in order to destroy or corrupt a blockchain, a hacker would have to destroy the data stored on every user’s computer in the global network. This could be millions of computers, with each one storing a copy of some or all the data.”
Hacker Noon references on Wired
Hacker Noon references on Wired
Here is Facebook, Cisco, Microsoft, Google and a bunch of satisfied writers and readers tweeting our stories
Crypto Media: What We’re Reading This Week
A 2015 review of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest said the reader would finish the work not necessarily wiser, but with a whole new life-perspective; with its thought-provoking and left-field articles, we can’t help thinking the same thing with Hacker Noon.
How a Reddit Email Vulnerability Led to Thousands in Stolen Bitcoin Cash
Theories circulated, buoyed by posts on Hacker Noon and The Next Web. It was the r/bitcoin users out to cause trouble; Or was it a Reddit admin gone rogue?
$700 Otto smart lock is the latest luxe gadget to go belly-up
On Dec. 28, Jadallah wrote an obituary of sorts for Otto for Medium's HackerNoon blog, where he blames an unnamed company for Otto's failure -- a company that offered to buy Otto, but backed out at the last moment.
Look at how Amazon has changed the Seattle skyline in the last 3 years
As Hacker Noon first discovered, the growth in Seattle since 2015 is visible from a camera atop the Space Needle. This time lapse video shows how extreme the growth has been.
Over 1.3 million anti-net neutrality FCC comments are likely fakes
Source: published on Hacker Noon
There’s a Hack That Can Win the Majority of HQ Trivia Games
Originally published on Hacker Noon.
All Hacker Noon references on VentureBeat
All Hacker Noon references on VentureBeat
All Hacker Noon references on Breitbart
All Hacker Noon references on Breitbart
WTF is the blockchain? — understanding the problem it solves before defining it by Mohit Mamoria https://hackernoon.com/wtf-is-the-blockchain-1da89ba19348
El peligro de poner tu número telefónico en Facebook y cómo evitarlo
Recientemente el portal Hacker Noon descubrió que es relativamente fácil, sobre todo en países pequeños, descubrir los números telefónicos de usuarios de Facebook que decidieron incluir ese dato como parte de su perfil; incluso si la persona en cuestión no forma parte de tus contactos. La forma de o
Recent google news
Are decentralised apps the key to combatting Digital Maoism?
DApps — or decentralised apps — could be the alternative. As Dave Matli puts it via Hacker Noon, “Imagine a world where all of these content distribution, storage and shopping platforms could be mimicked — with all the same features — but there’s no big company that owns the platform.”
Meet our team
David Smooke
Founder/CEO
David Smooke is the leader of Hacker Noon. He grew the company from a boutique marketing agency (ArtMap Inc) into a publishing powerhouse (AMI Publications) in 3 years - and for most of that time single-handedly. David is relentless in his pursuit of the story. He begins his every morning by reviewing the best Hacker Noon story submissions from all around the internet. Previously, David was part of the founding team at SmartRecruiters, the talent acquisition suite. He graduated from University of Redlands with degrees in Creative Writing & Economics. In his spare time, David reports to the actual CEO of Hacker Noon, his daughter Norah.
Linh Dao Smooke
COO
Linh Dao Smooke makes Hacker Noon profitable. Since she joined full-time, Hacker Noon has grown 2.5x in traffic & 2.7x in revenue. Previously, she was head of Asia Marketing at Minerva Project ($100M in funding). Linh also founded the first creativity camp in Vietnam, CKP, which continues to empower Viet students 7 years in. Her experience in education has been instrumental in how Hacker Noon onboards, nurtures, and serves its community of writers and sponsors. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in International Development. In Linh’s spare time, she sleeps. As a new mother & an entrepreneur, she doesn’t really have spare time.
Dane Lyons
Interim CTO
The founder/CEO of v1labs, Dane has been hacking things on the web for over 15 years. Previously, he was Founder & CTO of Knowtify, a Techstars company that got acquired by Kissmetrics. Exploring new product concepts is what keeps him up at night. He will be evaluating potential hires and working with the new team to build our own infrastructure.
Trent Lapinski
Hacker Noon Podcast Host
Trent Lapinski first made his impact on Silicon Valley covering Steve Jobs keynotes in his teens, and later in his twenties building tech startups. Now in his early thirties, Trent is a future-focused technologist, journalist, hacker, and former startup founder with a successful exit. Lately, Trent's been interviewing tech best leaders for the Hacker Noon podcast.
Offering Summary
Maximum 130,487* shares of common stock ($1,069,993.40)
*Maximum subject to adjustment for bonus shares. See 10% Bonus below
Minimum 1,219 shares of common stock ($9,995.80)
Perks*
All investors can have their stor(ies) of choice reviewed by a human editor for publication on Hacker Noon, as well as free access to all Hacker Noon content forever or as long as there is Hacker Noon (hopefully that's as long as there is internet). Free content is actually true for anyone who visits the site, but as many sites take readers' information, attention and/or currency in exchange for consuming stories, we want to remind you that by supporting Hacker Noon, you support one of the internet's best principles - freedom of information.
- $1,000+ — all the above, plus access to the company’s quarterly overview and quarterly investor video conference
- $3,000+ — all the above, plus “investor of the week” feature atop our weekly newsletter to 175k+ ppl, linking to your social media of choice
- $10,000+ — all the above, plus an interview by a Hacker Noon contributor; and 2 stories published about you or your company on Hacker Noon
- $25,000+ — all the above, plus a guest appearance on the Hacker Noon Podcast
- $107,000 — all the above, plus a limited edition Hacker Noon t-shirt (#painfullygreen). Isn't the startup life too much about schwag? If you invest the max, we'll give you a day. Just let us where you live and what you do then David our CEO will go to your city and place of business and work on your tech, your media, your story, helping build whatever it is you're building in whatever way we can help. We hope people considering investing $107k would do the same for us. At this level we're looking for partners who want to spend time bettering Hacker Noon. Yes, we are not kidding about the t-shirt. It is painfully green and it's all yours.
*All perks occur after the offering is completed.
** If any of the perks isn't applicable to you, the green T-shirt is yours.
Early Bird Discount
Investors who invest on or before November 5th, 2018 - November 6th, 2018 (11:59 PT) will receive a 10% early bird discount on the price per share ($7.38)
Investors who invest on or before November 6th, 2018 (12:00 PT) - November 9th, 2018 (11:59 PT) will receive a 5% early bird discount on the price per share ($7.79)
Irregular Use of Proceeds
The Company might incur Irregular Use of Proceeds that may include but are not limited to the following over $10,000: Vendor payments and salary made to one's self, a friend or relative; Any expense labeled "Administration Expenses" that is not strictly for administrative purposes; Any expense labeled "Travel and Entertainment"; Any expense that is for the purposes of inter-company debt or back payments.
Risks
A crowdfunding investment involves risk. You should not invest any funds in this offering unless you can afford to lose your entire investment. In making an investment decision, investors must rely on their own examination of the issuer and the terms of the offering, including the merits and risks involved. These securities have not been recommended or approved by any federal or state securities commission or regulatory authority. Furthermore, these authorities have not passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this document. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission does not pass upon the merits of any securities offered or the terms of the offering, nor does it pass upon the accuracy or completeness of any offering document or literature. These securities are offered under an exemption from registration; however, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has not made an independent determination that these securities are exempt from registration.
L O A D I N G
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