The Importance of the X Chromosome

 Last night I attended a "white elephant" Christmas gift exchange with a group of friends, it was all jolly and fun, the gift I ended up with was a 5 lb. Tootsie Roll that was HOLLOW with even MORE tootsie rolls inside.  I'll probably get sick eating nothing but processed chocolate instead of going to the grocery store.

Homemade Tootsie Goodness

Anyways, some CHICKS asked me what I was doing at UCLA, I told them CS, machine learning, grad student blah blah, got some semi-interested nodding in response.  Then I told them about our little pet project at the URSA GUILD (which still needs a NAME), and gave them my current pitch.

These chicks got all excited and were like "lets punch some holes in this f!@#r's idea", that's an actual quote from the night without the explicit name-calling.

So I asked them what they thought of our borrower trustworthiness problem without telling them about ANY of our ideas, like having virtual currency, collateral, trades, feedback system, mutual friends, etc.  And these chicks both instantaneously jumped to the conclusion that we should have a cash deposit system for the borrower, which the lender can refuse to return if the item is damaged.  She was like "yahhh, it's like you gotta quantify your risk or whateverrrr"

Mmmm, I want me some Valley Girl Blueberries

Jk, she wasn't a valley girl.  But seriously, that was brilliant imo.  Actually, she proposed a fixed deposit fee as perhaps a percentage of the original item's cost, but I argued that it should be a variable deposit fee set by the lender, because every lender has a different appetite for risk, and places a different value on any given item.  What do you guys think? Fixed or variable deposit fee?

Anyways, only after she gave me her brilliant deposit idea did I regurgitate all of our current ideas.  "Virtual Currency?  Trades?  Collateral?  Boys are so perfectionist.  They live in their little ideal worlds in their heads.  Just make them put down money."  True, true, cash $$$ is a solid way to reduce risk to an accepted level.  And I guess us men are perfectionist, but hey somebody's gotta stay true to the vision to keep our mission pure.

The deposit is just so practical and enforces a sense of security, I think women demonstrate these 2 traits more than men. These chicks also had another great idea, have personalized profiles for each person, where users can do stupid crap like change their background colors and fonts in their descriptions, and add pictures or whatever.  Anything that makes users spend more time on the website is a good thing, WOW these chicks are brilliant.  Moreover, the personalized profiles tell a person's story, so hey, if I notice you are an eagle scout that's killed 3 bears I'll probably be more willing to lend you my bow and arrow knowing you'll come back alive next week to return it.

Seriously? At least don't fake the paws with manicured toenails.

Some other good tidbits they gave me were fliers with CANDY, marketing to the frats for undergrad domination (keg stand publicity tours), and most of all, making everything Pretty.  Ebay? ewwww so biznessy. Craiglist, are we still in the HTML fossil age?  Sure we're gonna make a feedback system, but we're not just gonna represent it with the old school number of stars, no we're gonna gonna make it new and sexy cos some awesome chicks told us so.

They also laughed really hard at my name candidate "lend-a-friend".

I wonder how many chicks the instagram guys had as testers.

Moral of the Story:  Get lot's of input on your idea, but ask friends from different places, aka EVERYONE.