atldev

Great link on app dev/design process from the post: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2608-ryans-talk-at-future-of-...

Working on some UI improvements and wanted to bring some structure to my process. Still working on it, but this helps.

Fantastic post. I'm an ATL-based entrepreneur registered for StartupRiot, hope to see you there.

There were some great examples of open, honest communication from technical teams during these outages. I think it is a good trend. Etsy wasn't mentioned in the article, but they had an excellent letter to customers after an outage in mid-September. I forwarded it to my team because I thought it articulated perfectly the way I feel when our service goes down:

http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/09/17/frank-talk-about-site...

They chose Tumblr as the "Best Little Company" for 2010, and their track record for this award is pretty good:

2009: Aardvark

2008: Zoho

2007: Twitter

2006: YouTube

2005: 37signals

2004: Flickr(Ludicorp)

Look at these "little companies" from just a few years ago. I love the new speed of business.

If they are being bought out, seems like a sloppy way to handle the communication. At a minimum it's confusing to existing users, which I assume Salesforce would like to keep.

Hi: I got a reply by mail, then a follow-up call with a very friendly chimp. My project is probably not a perfect fit, but it was designed to help startups and I had planned to subsidize the service to free with the funds.

It's been a week or so with no follow-up, so probably not in.

But, I love this movement of successful companies giving back to the startup community. Good press, good business, good will with future customers.

MailChimp rocks. Good luck to everyone that applied.

Reminds me of Jason Cohen's post on real competitive advantages:

"What happens when employee #2 makes off with your code and roadmap and marketing data and customer list, moves to Bolivia, and starts selling your stuff world-wide at one-tenth the price?"

Rest of the article here: http://blog.asmartbear.com/unfair-advantages.html

I applied for kdk access when it was first announced in January. Never a word. I think Amazon moved too slow here, because now I don't really care. I've moved on and enjoy building for the iPad.

Yep- that's the one. Thanks!

I was never able to listen to music while coding until someone here on HN suggested creating an Abakus channel on Pandora. Now it's Pavlovian, and I find I'm able to get into flow sooner. Even if it's psychological, I'll take it.

I'd love to get this book in Kindle format. Anyone know if an ebook version is coming?

This applies to enterprise software as well. I was an architect for a large CRM project with Siebel and software from a company called Yantra (acquired by SterlingCommerce). The difference between the two? Siebel "bolted on" an API layer and Yantra consumed their own API for internal, core functions.

The difference was night and day. As expected, the Siebel API was practically useless. Yantra's was rock-solid. No better way to make sure your API is solid than to use it internally.

I'm at the PhoCusWright conference where Adam and Steve announced this today. They did a fantastic job and I'll be shocked if they're not selected as the summit winner. They weren't afraid to take friendly shots at the established players (like Kayak), which was very refreshing.

I think there is an important lesson to be learned here. We've been searching for flights online for over a decade, and yet there is still room for what (now) seems like ultra-obvious innovation. You can bet that flight search is not the only market where looking at a problem through the lens of "what's best for the user" can lead to a winning business.

Moment of Zen from Adam's presentation: why does Orbitz even have a checkbox for "I prefer nonstop flights"? (Worse, it isn't even checked by default!) Got a big laugh from the crowd- nervous laughter from some, I'm sure.

You can predict the response based on a similar move made by Zendesk back in May (http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/zendesk-pricing/). Spoiler alert: there will be backlash.

It also strikes me as a dangerous strategic move. The reason I originally selected Chargify over competitors like Spreedly and CheddarGetter is because they had the lowest entry cost. I can experiment and find product market fit. By that point, I don't care so much about the monthly cost (and I'm locked in to a product that I like, which helped me reach my goals). The new pricing model is extreme enough to make me revisit the decision. I'm sure I'm not alone.

I find their product and support to be great, and I'd like to see them keep a similar model. Maybe they should lower the thresholds (free up to 10 paying customers, for example). I'm sure there are other models that will work for them and their customers.

Disaster can also be a great teacher: Long ago, I started work at Oracle with 2 cohorts. We were asked to install the product locally as a sandbox to work in and learn. The install went flawlessly for my 2 buddies. My install was a disaster, and it was the best possible thing that could have happened. I learned more over the next 2 days of frantic troubleshooting than most learned over the course of 6 months. My cohorts laughed at the time, but they never caught up.

Nope, just tried it. Incognito, cookies there. Clear cache, incognito mode again and 3 types still captured. Really quite fascinating.

First: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software-busin...

Then: 1) I never sacrifice dinner with my family and I try to "be home" from 5-9. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

2) Always prioritize your most difficult work first. If you start with "check HackerNews", time will disappear. Finish a use case first then reward yourself. Pick a new feature to ship each night and the progress will fuel you.

3) I've never liked working super early in the morning, so I take quick power naps in the evening (30min to 1hr.) to refresh and work from 10-1. Solid, uninterrupted 3 hrs.

4) Passive work (like catching up on HN, other sites) can be done with MacBook in lap on the couch if you want to unwind with some Tivo.

5) Don't be afraid to invest appropriately. I'm actually taking vacation next week to complete my punch list: finish coding, meet with an advisor, attend a trade show and prepare product for beta.

Great line from the article: Git is the new resume. In my corporate day job, I've lost count of how many times we've brought in dev candidates who claim to be passionate about coding, but have absolutely no code, projects or even screenshots to point to.

I know there could be many reasons for this, but developers who take advantage of this advice will have a _huge_ advantage over their peers.

I see this story about every 3 years. For a few seconds I think "wouldn't that be awesome." Then I realize that a modern C64 (or Amiga) will never be as good as my childhood memories. In fact, modernizing it would probably destroy it for me. Let me keep the memories of notching 5.25"s, BBSs, and LOAD "*",8,1

Just use sample data to make the site look complete for now. You'll gain 2 benefits:

1. It will reduce the chance of rejection for "incomplete site"

and more importantly:

2. It will allow you to start customer development and usability testing, which might be a better use of time right now anyway (before hours are invested coding and integrating).

I doubt your toughest challenge will be integrating an API. Your toughest challenge will likely be getting users to love the results.

Best of luck! It's great to see some of the recent innovation in the travel tech space.

Wanted to say thanks for somehow finding the time to share with the startup community. I've listened to your interviews, so I know how little time you have to spare.

What's amazing is how consistent you've been over the years. I remember seeing a steady flow of good advice from you 5 or 6 years ago on the Business of Software discussion boards. Best of luck in your latest endeavors and thanks for the cheatsheet.

Good stuff. We're at step #3, and we're trying to strike the right balance between gathering customer feedback (which brings waves of great ideas) and making sure we're delivering only what we need to learn quickly. Step #4 might be the hardest so far.

On that note, anyone interested in helping us with StartMetrics (http://startmetrics.com)?

It's a service that tracks lean startup metrics for SaaS products. We're currently inviting folks to sign-up for the beta test when it's available. We'll also be sending a few customer development surveys.

Have you ever seen an article and thought to yourself, well, I guess I'll have to jump in now?

This article inspired me to share (ahead of schedule) some info on a new service we’re building to provide some of the lean startup metrics Tor mentioned, designed specifically for SaaS products.

We’re looking for folks interested in beta testing and providing customer development feedback at StartMetrics (http://startmetrics.com).

Plus, I think it’s fitting that we’ve been using one of the themes Tor listed. Took just a few hours to get the basic design up and running, which gives us more time to work on our MVP

I've been asking potential customers this very question, and the overwhelming response has been: AFTER. No surprise, I guess. I'm much more likely to signup for a trial if I don't need to pull out the card.

Earn my trust, give me an app that is good enough to convert, and Let me decide.

My apps don't require a card to signup. I'm now working to improve conversion in the funnel and I want to start with the widest funnel possible.

As for multiple trials? I use email as a unique identifier. It isn't 100%, but I haven't seen any abuse (including the gmail address+whatever@gmail.com tweak). Not sure I would do anything about it if I did. My customers tend to be busy managers who don't have time to game the system. They'll just expense it anyway.

I think this is a great question to ask. I feel the same way, and unless I missed it in the comments so far, I don't see any specific examples that would give me pause.

I'm loving Rails so far, especially after being able to start from scratch and build a viable, working, commercial, revenue earning app in just a week. I'm sold, but scanning the horizon cautiously.

Hi Hiten. I know you guys must be slammed. Very cool for you to drop in. I'm glad to hear you are "accomodating to bootstrapped startups". I had been following you, but assumed I was priced out of the product. I'll be reaching out this week for info.

I absolutely love Clicky. The best feature is "Spy" which shows you a live view of visitors as they interact with your site. Careful- can be very addictive. I'm watching mine right now when I should be coding :)

Referral link: http://getclicky.com/245493

Non-referral link: http://getclicky.com

Clickable: http://statusdashboard.com Then hit "Watch demo"

http://vator.tv/news/2009-10-07-aaron-patzer-lays-bare-mints... (Aaron Patzer presents Mint financials in a "post-exit pitch")

http://www.slideshare.net/hnshah/mintcom-prelaunch-pitch-dec... (I believe this was a study done by MBA students, correct me if I'm wrong)

http://www.garage.com/resources/perfectingpitch.shtml (solid Art of the Start advice on what to cover)

Good stuff. I plan to share this with each development manager on my team. We've learned many of these lessons the hard way. Others, we've decided not to pursue. For example, we have found working together in a team room is extremely helpful when working through a new model design, etc. So we have a 3 days in, 2 days virtual model.

Along the lines of removing technology, we've enjoyed using a mockup tool (like Peldi's Balsamiq or Mockingbird) for capturing story flows and wireframes. I know it's tech, but these tools do such a good job of removing the tech it's barely visible.

And from the article, a diagram that captures the idea behind MVP fairly well: http://rubypond.com/images/scheduling-stories.png