Hacker News Reader

amacon We're bringing Pebble back

Hardware is hard. Great to see!

amacon Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon

The right decision.

amacon Bench accounting services shutting down

Poor.

amacon Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

I'm working on https://www.worksapp.com/ - a simple, easy to use project management tool for marketers.

Never say never adding chatbot like functionality but for now, no AI.

amacon Ask HN: What companies have blown you away with their customer support?

Hugely impressed with Mercury (bank) and Stripe. Attentive and efficient.

amacon Ask HN: How do you know the problem you're solving matters to people?

This is a good point. I'm super worried i'm "They front-load the problem with objectivity" as you put it.

My problem is more like I've potentially found a way to streamline/improve this process. Concern is however will it be important enough to get users attention, let alone monetizing down the line.

amacon Ask HN: How do you know the problem you're solving matters to people?

Thanks for sharing. Will check out that material.

amacon Ask HN: How do you know the problem you're solving matters to people?

It's a problem I discovered in my previous role over a number of years. And the issue is there's no clear pain point, it's numerous, and it affects more than one party i.e brands, users and media.

amacon Blloc – A Minimalist Smartphone

Smartphones help people do more. Why would anyone buy one to do less is not that clear to me.

amacon Ask HN: I'm going to China. What privacy precautions can/should I take?

Wechat is your friend.

amacon Ask HN: I'm going to China. What privacy precautions can/should I take?

Wechat will be your friend.

amacon Shenzhen may have grown too fast, too soon, for its own good

Lived in SZ for 2 years, the comments in the media are too negative. Shenzhen is losing manufacturing, all the while the city's GDP continues to grow. Why? Because it's moving into more higher value areas such as software. I don't see any downside for SZ, it's location at the heart of the region, between HK, GZ etc, makes it well placed to continue to thrive.

amacon Giving Up on the Current MacBook Pro Keyboard

Likewise. Don't regret the decision.

amacon Poll: As a founder, what is your salary(2016)?

$0.

amacon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (January 2016)

SEEKING FREELANCER

Legend Technologies Ltd | http://www.legendwearable.com | Remote

We are looking for a digital marketer to help us launch our brand and first product. You will be working with the founder on a contract basis.

Email am@legendwearable.com for more information or to apply.

amacon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (November 2015)

SEEKING FREELANCER

Legend Technologies Ltd | http://www.legendwearable.com | Remote

We are looking for a digital marketer to help us launch our brand and first product. You will be working with the founder on a contract basis.

Email am@legendwearable.com for more information or to apply.

amacon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2015)

Legend Technologies Ltd | http://www.legendwearable.com | Remote

We are looking for a digital marketer to help us launch our brand and first product. You will be working with the founder on a contract basis.

Email am@legendwearable.com for more information or to apply.

amacon Ask HN: Anyone used a PR person or company?

Thanks for the reply. We haven't really got a sufficiently large budget for marketing as it is so perhaps we should try and see how far we can go without one. (knowing we'll need one later anyway)

amacon Ask HN: $500k revenue business – Shopify vs. Custom website?

> People build their own still for a multitude of reasons, one of these being may be that they don't want to be locked in to a single platform. If Shopify shut down tomorrow, would your business be in trouble?

This is correct and sums up the hosted vs self-hosted arguement. It really depends on your needs and resource - if you have Devlelopers/IT folks for example then building out your own site would be sensible. Yet if you have less of those and more marketing people, hosted might make more sense.

amacon What things do you do to stay healthy and happy?

I run. For me, sometimes you need to clear your head and running does it for me though I live in Hong Kong which makes it easy. (amazing weather)

amacon What's the simplest way to build a website?

Wordpress or Squarespace. Both are hosted. Wordpress is especially nice as you can export and deploy your own self-hosted site with all of your content later.

amacon Ask HN: What mouse do you use? What are its pros and cons?

I like Logitech, I use the older MX but it's still precise and reliable.

amacon Ask HN: Should I maintain a daily journal of my thoughts?

Yeah, start a journal or blog. I've maintained a journal (journal.alexmacgregor.com, runs on tumblr) for a couple of years.

amacon Ask HN: How do you start a project?

Ask people will they buy it. If they want it, you have something. From there, it's fairly easy to setup a CMS or Ecommerce store - either hosted/self-hosted - and you can get immediate feedback in the form of orders or messages of interest.

amacon Ask HN: Cheapest and best MacBook?

MacBook Air. Great design, really lightweight and should be good enough for coding. (editing photos etc will require a pro)

amacon Ask HN: How do you manage Wordpress?

Open an AWS account, install WP on a server and just install the updates within WP as neccessary.