irrationaljared

Yea, I can see that. Any thoughts on how to encourage the creation of levels?

Do you think people will think it's only useful if I want to build a physics-based game? I'd like for people to think of it more just as a fun way to learn how to program, or, if you know how to program already, a fun way to build/solve physics-based puzzles.

I'm going to make it work in other browsers soon, I just wanted to focus on the product for a bit without having to worry about cross browser weirdness..

Are you using Chrome? It only works in Chrome.

Clickable link: http://peanutty.org

here's the clickable link: http://peanutty.org

I just launched http://peanutty.org - it's still very raw, but the point is to help people learn how to code. There might not be enough there, but I'd be happy to help you figure out how to code your own levels.

Also, the idea is to help people learn how to code by allowing them to create angry-bird-like puzzles first through a drag-and-drop like editor where they see code being generated and then later by them actually writing or just tweaking the code that was generated for them.

This site is very much a work in progress, but would love to get feedback from people on it. I tried to get rid of the worst bugs, but there are probably still a few bad ones out there...

That's not true at all. As I note in the blog post, sure, it's more likely that what I'm working on right now won't impact that many people, but there's always the chance that what you build will impact millions of people. I've already built products that have been used by hundreds of thousands of people.

(crickets chirping)

No feedback at all?

Here's the clickable link:

http://soundseed.me

I sit next to them at the Pivotal Labs offices. I know their still pounding away, but not sure what they're doing specifically. I'll mention this post to them on Monday.

It's a blog to start. It's more about the content now.

If I can figure out some way to "appify" it I certainly will. I'd love to make it so that people can more easily explore advertising through these mediums as a cost effective and conversion effective means.

For the time being, though, it's just a blog showing the results of my experiments. Blogs are way easier to get up and running.

Here's the clickable link: http://hackingadvertising.com

that would definitely be helpful. my efforts resulted in little success, so I didn't put any additional effort in.

Thanks :)

Yea, I'm thinking about the university route. I don't have a ton of money to spend (without making money through the site), so need to be pretty particular with advertising dollars. Trying be creative about other ways of getting the word out there.

I've experimented with Facebook a bit and it just seemed excessively expensive. I didn't try the CPC options, though, so may try those out.

Nice, fun story. Might have to try some of those strategies :)

Here's a link to the site: http://www.thematchinggame.com

I've started using it. I've got multiple projects across multiple companies, so wanted to list them out. Not big on having a giant photo of myself though.

http://about.me/jaredcosulich

Mostly we've been advertising through adwords, Urban Dictionary, and stumbleupon.

Do you have any idea what UAC you need to maintain in order to turn a profit via upselling? Doesn't have to be too specific, just looking for ballpark numbers.

Sure, it's pretty unlikely that an experienced web designer won't have a web presence. Experience is a tricky thing, though. It obviously has it's benefits, but it can also be expensive, and, depending on the situation, may not be worthwhile. That said, an experienced designer who can come in and kick ass right away may be just what you need...

I wasn't 100% passionate about my first product (I stumbled in to it in the wedding space - I'm not at all passionate about weddings, but I do like helping people during a stressful time), and I was able to stick at it until it became profitable. Now I'm using those profits to build products and a company that I'm more passionate about.

There are a lot of things to be passionate about while building a company then just the product, and a successful product can lead to more opportunities.

That said, not feeling passionate about your product increases your chances of quitting by a huge percentage.

Personally I would say drop it now and focus on something you're more passionate about. The entrepreneurial road is long (it took me almost 4 years to get to profitability with my first company), so you're going to need to draw passion and inspiration from somewhere to get through it. It doesn't have to come from the product necessarily, but that sure helps a lot.

I'm not sure I would reject anyone out of hand for something like this unless I had an excessive number of applicants to review and needed cheap ways to cut that number down.

This is certainly a good way to filter applicants out, but, you may miss a good opportunity as well. I hired an ex-architect with no web design experience at all (and no online portfolio) because she was cheap and had a great attitude. It worked out great for everyone involved. Can't say I'd recommend that for everyone, but it's amazing what can be accomplished by someone with the right attitude in the right environment.

A small percentage of people pay for priority matching, but I also just launched it. I have a few other ideas on how to monetize that I haven't put in place yet.

Right now it's definitely losing money, but I'm hoping that dynamic will change at scale (a dating site is more useful when there are more people on it).

Let me try to dig that up. It's a little hard to tell as people coming from the print version are indistinguishable from other people just typing in the url, but I can generalize based on the date they came.

I can say off the top of my head that I got about 2x to 3x more emails and calls from people (not too many turned out to be worthwhile) from the print version, which I found to be interesting.