The real take away use supply and demand to your advantage.

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 (http://www.housefed.com) on HN. No big deal; another will be along later.

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.

Wait, can you explain the part again about MIT programmers who weren't in demand?

It appears as though they weren't in demand. The demand is for good programmers (school isn't relevant). These weren't 'good' programmers for a number of reasons.

1. They didn't have a degree. Technically, they weren't MIT programmers at the time.

2. They didn't have 10+ years of experience with Java. Good programmers are often confused with experienced programmers.

I still think my point still stands though, go find out where your supply (start up opportunity, applying new technology to niche community) is disproportionately in demand.

I find it hard to believe that CS grads (or soon to be grads) from MIT would have a hard time finding a job because they don't have 10 years of Java experience.

These people always had the option of graduating and finding another job. Instead, they chose to work for this startup (and dropout I suppose). I don't think they 'settled' for Siteadvisor because of lack of job opportunity.

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

True.

But then wasn't it Twain who said, "In the future 80 percent of all quotations will be attributed to Mark Twain"?

Nope, that was you. Congratulations on being in the 20 percent.

Exactly why after I read the first line I stopped reading. The real author didn't show up.

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.

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.