febin

A fellow orthodox christian here. I have been trying to cultivate the habit of Jesus prayer. But the journey is a struggle.

However, even in the fallen attempts to walk the orthodox way of life I occasionally sense the joy and warmth described in the spiritual texts about Jesus Prayer. Thus motivating me to continue the path.

Please remember me in your prayers :)

https://hellotars.com , I work here. We have customers from different industries including finance, health, e-commerce, real-estate, etc

They should have been nice, instead of communicating agree with their terms or go and delete your account.

It's a lesson. No matter how big you are. 1. Communicate for understandability. 2. Don't take your customers for granted. 3. Change is hard, nudge them towards it instead of a push.

Thank you Dang

Presently no, but I faced depression for almost six years.

I faced continuous failures in college between 2010 -2013. Dropped from one degree, tried another but didn't go well either.

Then with broken skills in coding, set out to build a startup with strangers (now close friends).

That was for three years and didn't work out either. There were times I didn't have money for food.

Couldn't go back home, as an introvert didn't feel like sharing even to people I was close to.

Situations changed in 2018, articles sharing my learnings hit an audience of 50-100K.

Got contract for a book, Linked-In was filled with job offers. Later, I got into a great startup.

Befriend uncertainty, I survived six years of depression, you can make through one. Stay Hopeful!

Is there any library you used on Clojure/Clojurescript? I had an abstract idea of building something similar to this.

Do I need any background in mechanics to build something like this?

I am an engineer at a profitable chatbot company (HelloTars).

I can't entirely agree with the points mentioned in this article.

Yes, a chatbot is not ready to replace human support.

However, there are other areas where they show good results.

We have been helping customers with lead generation chatbots for the last four years.

What we have learnt is customers would instead engage with a chatbot than filling up lengthy forms. Because chatbot nudges users to give information.

Also in websites where you have a lot of information to convey, ex: banks, mortgages, etc. again chatbot makes sense. Because it helps give information that's selective to the customer. And they don't have to struggle through a lot of information presented to them at once.

We have customers who use our chatbot link directly on google ads.

We have also noticed our customers maturing over time and demanding more functionalities on the chatbots.

To summarize, no chatbots are not dead. They are only beginning. However, you need to narrow down on a specific problem and solve it.

I am curious about category theory? Do you have any resources on where it can be applied?

I am working on building a tool to help educators build explorable courses easily without writing any code.

Inspired by the explorables from "It's Nicky Case!"

I am concerned with the butterfly keyboard.

I am thinking of Linux

I have been working on this for a long time now. It helped me achieve small success in writing(My articles gained some attention and ended up publishing a book with packt). I am still a beginner, long way to become a good model thinker.

Here are a few books, I recommend.

1.The Great Mental Models : General Thinking Concepts (Beginner Level)

2.Super Thinking (Intermediate)

3.The Model Thinker (Intermediate-Advanced, you can also take the coursera MOOC "Model Thinking" by the same author)

I am also working on a tool to assit people in thinking with models. If anyone is interested to try out the beta, you can signup here. https://forms.gle/xn9mESKZwUMD2y6RA I am hoping to release it next week.

Here are a few screenshots of the tool I am building. (Note: It's in MVP stage, not a finished product)

https://imgur.com/Jzxw4uz

https://imgur.com/XhiVJQM

I am also on the same boat. Based on my learnings and experience from running failed startups, here's a system I am experimenting.

Step 1: Observation

There are oppurtunities around you; some people are good at finding them and exploiting it to build profitable ventures.

The intended outcome is to find a problem people are struggling with and help them solve it.

Here's how I find problems.

1. Most Voted "Ask HN" Queries: I have already noted your question as a story idea for my medium blog. Since this is something, people need help in figuring out.

2. Comments Most Voted HN Posts : Not all posts have comments where people talk about their problem, but some post has insightful data.

3. Comments on Top-Listed Products on Product Hunt : Find out the top listed products on product hunt. Go to the comment section and check out for the 'cons'.

4. Conversations : Go out and talk to people who have a different perception of the world. Try putting yourself into their shoes. Then try to if you can bring a solution to their problems with the knowledge you have.

5. App Store Reviews / Amazon Reviews: These reviews contain problems with current product users have.

Step 2. Study

Now that you have got the puzzle, you need to find a cheap and efficient way to solve it.

I mostly try to see how people in a different field solve this problem. Later, try to see if their solution can fit into the issue I selected.

I also find solutions in books, research papers, hackathon projects, etc.

For now, you only need to find a theoretical way to solve the problem.

Step 3: Shadow Testing & Writing

Make a landing page about your ideal solution. Make sure you include good graphics such that your product looks ready.

The landing page also won't be enough to attract people. Write about your learnings on Medium or your blog. At the end of your blog add a signup link to your landing page.

If you are new to copywriting, please read the book "How to Write A Good Advertisement" by Victor O. Schwab.

If people can relate to the problem, you would be receiving signups. Ask them to join a slack or a telegram or a WhatsApp group.

Step 3. Validating with the Early Adopters

These people are a boon. They have extended me so much help in my earlier startup. They do this because they would like to see their problem solved.

Start having a conversation with them, build prototypes. Incorporate their feedbacks. Make sure what they are willing to pay exceeds the production cost so that you can make profits.

I hope this helps.

Thank you

Hey, I am also on the same boat. I have been trying different things lately. I have gone through a lot of courses and a lot of books, but most of these experts have the curse of knowledge. They don't know how it is like to not know. They skip things that seems obvious to them. But, for begineers not having such information can be frustruating and feels like the author/lecturer is moving fast.

I recently stumbled upon this book "The Language of Mathematics: Utilizing Math in Practice" I have been reading this book for a while and the author takes a different approach in teaching maths. I am slowly beginning to learn how to forumulate a real world problem into mathematical model and then solve it. More importantly, I am able to read and understand mathematical expressions better through this book. This book has raised my hopes in learning and apply math. I would recommend you to give it a shot on this before you go through any other courses.

Paypal has done this multiple times, here are some incidents.

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN...

https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-with...

https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-limi...

https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/pay...

Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the risks when we signup to any service. Around this month we have seen multiple companies banning accounts without giving valid reasons MailChimp, Patreon, Slack(They had a reason but they didn't notify the users earlier, however they appologized later)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107

https://medium.com/@heyfebin I have written a lot of bullshit due to ignorance. However, some articles turned out to be decent. Here are a few.

https://hackernoon.com/popular-use-cases-of-blockchain-techn...

https://hackernoon.com/the-impatient-programmers-guide-to-le...

https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-it-fast-and-cheap-cffbd2...

https://hackernoon.com/3-popular-types-of-blockchains-you-ne...

https://medium.com/wethinkideas/how-to-validate-if-your-idea...

https://hackernoon.com/what-happens-when-you-combine-blockch...

I write on Medium. But, most of the content I write only touches the surface of a topic. It doesn't go deep into the topic like some of the excellent articles upvoted on hackernews.

1. Learn Math required for ML/AI.

2. Learn to write deep content.

3. Learn to manage personal finances

4. Learn to invest

5. Learn to draw

6. Learn to sing

7. Learn to have proper 8 hours of sleep

8. Attempt to build a profitable startup again

Previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13464496

a.)Need to read complete these books

   1. The Personal M.B.A
   2. Running Lean 
   3. Thinking Lean
   4. The Automatic Customer 
   5. Bankable Business Plans 
   6. A programmer's introduction to mathematics

b.) I have a starup idea in education to shorten learning curve using education games, this is what I am planning.

   1. Build M.V.P of educational games that teaches mental models or popular concepts or ideas release them on HN, take feedbacks. 
   2. Release a beta product
   3. Grow the business to earn a living out of it.

c.) Writing

    1.) If everything goes fine, my book on Ripple will be launched in January 
    2.) I need claim back my top writer in innovation, technology titles on Medium 
    3.) Learn to write content that are scarce, indispensable and deep

d.) Open Source Leadership

     1. Find good problems to solve 
     2. Make a simple solution, open source the code. 
     3. Build a community and let it grow
     4. Go back to Step 1

I used the title "Mental Models used by the founder of DuckDuckGo". But yeah, the bracket format makes more sense. Will keep this in mind, next time I post something similar here.

There were some people here in HN trying to solve this problem. Have a look at this one https://github.com/marcelinollano/mental-models

I read a couple of books this year. However, these two are the best among them.

12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson : A great book that can help you deal with the chaos life throws at you.

Principles by Ray Dalio : Another great book that offers practical advice on how to improve one's life and work through reflection and iteration.

I got to have a look at the first few pages. This might be the book I just need. Thank You.

Thank you, totally agree with you on the impatience. I will go through this, thanks a lot.

I would have loved to have the printed version of this book. Unfortunately not available in India.

I have been searching for something like this for a while. Just bought the book, I will get back to you. I hope the book will give me exactly what it promises.

Unfortunately our government doesn't accept the truth. If someone tries to educate people about the vulnerability, they are labelled anti-national.