3,826 karma · joined January 16, 2008
That I can believe. I made the mistake of going in to Circuit City's going-out-of-business sale to find a wide screen TV, only to find they were all at least $200 more than I'd spend at Sam's Club or Costco. It seemed they had no care if they sold any merchandise whatsoever.
Yes, they did have you on that one. Thanks for playing.
That's one advantage I can see with something like YCombinator -- that initial traffic. It might not be much, but it's a few links from reputale blogs, some visitors and maybe even those first conversions. It's certainly no guarantee, but it is more than my first startup had.
That's my experience as well. I'm not sure what the site is trying to do. I had to sign in just to find out.
Care to explain the site for us? I'm not a trader, so I might be missing something.
I do agree that there needs to be much more training on financial matters, including the matters that make a business run in the K-12 level.
On the other hand, a basic level of education is needed to succeed financially. Remember, 80% of billionaires went to college: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=551121 A large number of millionaires went to college: http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/rip-offs/10-things-millio...
Possibly you could ad a feature to let a user enter their commute times and get an email, SMS or something to let them know automatically what's up that day.
Then, give them an option to enter their route and add some traffic information -- along with highly localized ads and such, of course.
What does "recently lost" mean? Be sure you aren't doing this based soley on emotion.
What's an average size round to you?
What do you bring to the table as a non-tech?
Is there a business you want to build, or are you looking for pitches?
It's stupid if your wife and family aren't into this. Risk money, not family.
One can now change it. "Every phone since the iPhone didn't have a keyboard" :-)
Guy hacked up a solution for about $160. Pretty impressive!
One thing I've learned is that there is indeed more than one way to build something. I've been able to take advantage of that when I didn't have the tool a project used, but knew how to get the job done with another.
It's much the same in software. There are many different ways to get the job done. Some tools are certainly better for a job than others, but often one can cut something two different ways and still end up with the same result.
I agree there. I use power tools, but I don't build them. OK, I think about building electric motors sometimes, but I haven't tried yet. What I really want is a nice table with tapered legs, so I use the best tools I can get to do that job well. Someone else might use the table to help them build something else.
It's the same with code, we keep builing things and sometimes those things are used to build something else. Sometimes that's obvious, like libraries or frameworks that are dedicated to being part of some other software solution, but often the softare helps someone build something else that isn't software.
While that's true for me to some extent, but what I also noticed is that I really like doing is building things. When I'm not coding, I woodwork, build RC airplanes, or find something else to work on.
Edit: I did this comment in the MVP way. I just put the term, then added the definition later.
That said, I'm probably going to get a Mac for my next laptop. My XP laptop died a week ago and I've heard so many developers rave over the Mac, I'll likely give it a try.
So whatever you do, I'd recommend keeping your coding skills. You could do that by starting your own software training company for example, maybe start a site that teaches basic skills to people and couple it with live courses. That's my 2 cents, anyway.
No.
The real test here might to only give part of your ownership away unless the party you're giving it to will make your remaining shares worth more than all of them would have been without them. In other words, if you give up 20% of a company, make sure they make the remaining 80% you have worth more than the 100% you used to have.
With search, your overall reach is far more than your direct followers, and it's "real time" as well.
Bots and shameless marketers (I'm looking at you, @guykawasaki) are easily blocked or avoided altogether. It's like a community spam filter.
Then again, I keep reading analogies comparing business to war, especially with startups. I hear how we are to release early and often, which means less testing.
Certainly, there are situations for the brutal speed of war tactics, and situations for the precision of brain surgery. Unfortuanately, I've been in situations where the wrong approach was taken for the situation given, and the results can be as effective as a grenade in an operating room or a sugeon in scrubs facing machine gun fire.