Becoming a Real Company | Hacker News Reader

Becoming a Real Company

hardba.co

51 pointsbrault15 comments

Open articleView on HN

It sounds like you're a startup in some sort of financial industry.

Why do you even have company snapchat and instagram accounts?

They can surely be nothing but distractions from your goal of actually doing financial stuff.

They're building an audience for a mass-market investment educational product.

Instagram and snapchat makes perfect sense here.

"I believe that management processes are a tax on organizational obesity."

Fantastic metaphor.

I would say inefficient management processes are a tax on organizational obesity. To be quite frank, good management is worth the $$$ when you have it. Even if you have 3 people, you need to oversee the dynamics. You might outsource management by (for example) adopting "Agile" for a software dev team but when you adopt a particular process, you have created an implicit management process.

I used to be one of those "lol marketing lol management" guys but after having spent many years doing those very things, I have great respect for those who do it well.

it's a tax on organizational size

and well spent taxes aren't a bad thing, in fact, they're a great thing

Exactly. Essentially, it's an investment into the future of the company and will increase the chances of maintaining your culture and productivity.

Nice post and congratulations on the progress, my only suggestion on the growth metrics is to only include ones that actually directly, or will soon, affect turnover/profitability.

Facebook likes, Snapchat followers etc are not that useful for you guys right now I wouldn't think. Newsletter subscribers are valuable to a point, if you don't know the conversion rate to paying in some manner (hopefully via some kind of automation campaign) then that is also just a vanity metric.

I'm enjoying the series of posts to keep it up

Is this per minute? "Revenues: $150 (total: $1400, growth: 12%)"

That way I could understand the title.

No, the million is the goal. They're at $150 now.

Got you to click, though.

Yeah, I hope my click will add to their success and growth :) I also don't get how can they have 6 people working on this full time with no investment and marginal revenue.

> company was officially incorporated on August 28

It's a new company.

But they still need the 3000$ / month / person pocket money to burn.

I am wondering this as well since in one of his previous posts he says he has no money. He seems to move really quickly, though, and it would be impressive if he got 5 people to work on this full time for (currently) free.

My 2 cents: - I don't like the logo, it looks like you just picked a font on google fonts - The whole brand identity seems completely disconnected from 'hardbacon'. It's a strong name, why have it then? - I don't get it, are you a content site for financial advice? With comparators? What's the business model, referrals?

Don't mean to be a dick, just trying to offer my sincere view. Good luck!

I think this is useful. You have researched brokers and robo-advisors serving Canadians and presented it as a comparison. Some suggestions that I have:

1. It would be useful to include info on what APIs are offered for automated electronic trading. Similarly, what real-time data, tools, and research is offered by each broker?

2. Info about options and futures trading would be useful as well

3. You cover robo-advisor and brokers ... consider adding fee-based and commission-based investment advisors / private wealth managers.

4. Consider adding comparisons of bank savings products, like GICS, notes, mutual funds, etc.

5. Consider adding life insurance company wealth management products, like seg funds, annuities, etc.

6. The "compass" is kind of gimmicky ... I think it puts credibility at risk, and I think that it adds no value to your apparent mission of connecting people with brokers/robo-advisors/[other?]

7. Don't try to educate people on picking individual stocks (P/E ratios, etc). Promoting stock picking and trading is something a broker might do to increase trading volume commissions, but you don't have the same incentive to do this. There are also already a ton of resources on this topic, including the entire equity research industry. You can't compete here and you don't need to. Listing some useful books and websites would be valuable, but your original content on this topic is lacking and taking away from the real value in your site (the comparison tables between brokers, etc)

8. What you should do is educate people on financial literacy. What is a broker? ETF? Mutual fund? Robo-advisor? How and why should I pick a provider from your lists? There is a need for this and it fits more naturally with your site's core service. I have seen wealthy family members (with non-financial backgrounds) talking to an advisor at their bank and coming back completely confused and bewildered about basic things, like what is a mutual fund, how do I choose, what is safe, etc. These are intelligent people (eg doctors) but they have not had time or knowledge to deeply understand this stuff. And the advice they get from their bank is never balanced (the advisors at banks are barely qualified to advise on investing and just push their higher fee mutual funds). If you add life insurance agents pushing wealth management products and talking up tax efficiency then it gets complex enough for even sophisticated investors to be confused. The marketplace is very confusing and it is far from transparent, and is being disrupted. If your can properly captivate a young audience and become a "digital" distribution channel then you have a lot of leverage.

8. Consider a name change. You are alienating people who don't eat or like bacon.

9. Clearly state what your site does at the top, in one clear sentence. I visited it on mobile and it took me a long time to understand what you are offering. You burried the lede by putting the robo-advisor list at the bottom (and all then compass/stock picker fluff at the top) ... and I didn't even realize you had a broker comparison list until I found I can click a button to switch from "robo-advisor mode" to "broker mode" ... look up a UI design concept called "no modes"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com