Hacker News Reader

jimlaston Finding Anyone’s Email Address

It is. I'm planning to put out more stuff like this over time. Any feedback is welcome!

jimlaston Ask HN: How do you promote your web apps?

2)SEO. I think you're confusing SEO with content marketing. Content marketing, like having a blog with great content, is only a portion of SEO, albeit the hardest portion.

jimlaston Ask HN: As founders/unemployed folks, what do you do for health insurance?

We don't have enough people to warrant group coverage, so I've always just paid for a health plan for my wife and kids. I'm healthy, so I don't see the need in paying several hundred $ per month on myself, when my costs are no where near that amount.

jimlaston Bootstrapping an Ultra Low Latency Trading Firm, Part 1

This is very interesting. Would love to see more posts about it as you go.

jimlaston Forget Anonymous: Evidence Suggests GOP Hacked, Stole 2004 Election

One guy making a claim and exit poll discrepancies do not equal evidence.

jimlaston Forget Anonymous: Evidence Suggests GOP Hacked, Stole 2004 Election

This is just ridiculous.

jimlaston 5 Practical Sources for Bootstrapping Funds

Hi, I'm the author of the post. Thanks for the comment.

I worked a day-job for years while I was building up the revenue from my startups. I finally was able to get to the point where the profit was enough to sustain me.

My advice is to treat the consulting work and your startup work as 2 completely separate jobs. Schedule time for both of them and make sure that they don't overlap. That way each job gets the best that you can give.

jimlaston Ask HN: How do I find a good software/web IP attorney?

I don't think you have to find someone necessarily with a heavy software background. I would think it's more important to find someone with a lot of IP experience that knows a little about software than vice-versa.

jimlaston Startup Idea--Need Feedback

I like it. I think crowdfunding is a major trend and we'll see it increasingly used in the US and Europe for startups, not just developing countries.

jimlaston How to Use Competitive Intelligence to Gain an Advantage

Good article. We've got a startup launching soon that helps with competitive intelligence. Signup at launch.tractionapp.com if you're interested.

jimlaston The Decline of Facebook As A Social Network

Hi, I wrote the article. Thanks for the thoughts, but I've never added people I don't know or apps I don't use. Spam apps I was referring to are from other people that show up in my stream or wall, those "Billy answered a question about you" posts.

jimlaston How to increase signups by 50% using “popup forms”

We converted ShrinkingApp.com to modal signup forms 6 months ago or so and saw a slight increase in conversions, nothing too dramatic. I can see how it would work from a simplicity standpoint (less page loads, quicker, etc.).