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kerryfalkon How Target failed in Canada

I echo this. I often think of it as an error in branding. They first entered by taking over the space previously held by a company which didn't have a strong brand presence. It was easy to associate the two. I also had never been to a target despite there being two in my relatively small city.

kerryfalkon Neal Stephenson: Why I Am a Sociomediapath (2015)

I also unfollowed nearly everyone for similar reasons. The unintended side-effect is that it's much less interesting now and as a result I spend less time on Facebook. Success!

kerryfalkon Google Says It’s Not the Driverless Car’s Fault. It’s Other Drivers’

4. Apply brakes and enable safety features for impending collision, notify police of crash and location.

Why would it do anything else?

kerryfalkon Tesla’s Model S P85D Scores 103 Out of 100 on Consumer Reports’ Ratings System

I like the Tesla but it was a C63 for me.

The next car might be a Tesla though.

kerryfalkon Ask HN: How can I charge my enterprise clients by value?

Quantify the value. This is part of an effective sales process. During your investigation identify what they're trying to improve - sales is an obvious one but business value can be assessed to be things other than increasing revenue. Other examples: improving efficiency/operational cost by reducing overhead or making a process more efficient so that resources can be reallocated to other parts of the business, improving margins, expanding the addressable market through product changes or other avenues, etc.

The key is being able to quantify the change/goal. If it can't be quantified it's probably not worth your time or theirs, seek something that is. Once quantified you can price it based on the value you'll deliver. They can make the decision based on whatever they want to use to assess its cost/benefit but it should be obvious and a no-brainer if the investigation was through.

If you're stuck in pricing things based on your costs or dealing with individuals who can't articulate/quantify their pain it might be best to seek other opportunities.

kerryfalkon The Art of Selling; For Startup Founders

Agreed. I've read a lot of books on sales and have tried many different things (many of which have been successful for others). I have not found a book that aligned better or gave me a framework for success that is better than SPIN Selling.

kerryfalkon Stripe: Marketplaces

...or Canada.

kerryfalkon 135 new currencies at Stripe

ETA on payouts in Canada?

kerryfalkon Cash Flow and Destiny

I'm surprised this post received relatively few votes and discussion vs. the value I see in its message. Anecdotally, in addition to hiring and keeping top people this is the only other thing I've been able to identify that successful founders whom I know, do very well.

This has been my focus for the last two years, both personally and in business. It's paying dividends in both.

This, among others, gives me the impression that among VCs A16Z is the Founder's VC. The drive for profits and ruling by the numbers (favoured by accountants and investors) seems to be tempered by a very real grip and understanding of the reality a founder and their team faces.

You must have the ability to make decisions; cash is king.

kerryfalkon Startup lessons

Qualifying early and quickly is a must but for a successful sale to happen it must quickly transition to implicating the pains found and spending a lot of time there otherwise there's nothing to come back to and once hot prospects can go cold quickly. This is especially true for B2B sales with long sales cycles, not as much for sales which can be closed in a single meeting. The money is in the former.

kerryfalkon How to Convince Investors

I found this to be especially refreshing. I may just be placing my own spin on it but it seems to me like Paul was saying: have integrity and know what you're talking about. I'll have to give it another read to ensure I'm not just placing my own biases on the words.

I have about a decade worth of sales experience. Sometimes not very successful, some very successful. I've also succeeded with convincing investors. The two were very similar for me. I've also worked with many other people in sales roles; of the ones that were successful only a small handful sold in the way Paul writes about.

Moving forward I won't be working with, or hiring anyone who doesn't. It's better for everyone.

Thanks for the essay, Paul.

kerryfalkon Levchin Launches New Payments Startup, Affirm

Payment methods available to consumers via banks. Yes, other countries are farther ahead.

Online commerce is a different story where the US is far ahead of the rest of the world.

kerryfalkon Why It's Time to Break the Code of Silence at the Airport

As a dark-skinned man who oftentimes sports a beard, I'm treated like a terrorist every single time I walk through security. To them, I'm a second-class citizen - no question about it.

I travel frequently and I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I'm younger, caucasian, dress professionally when I travel and have never been searched and haven't seen anyone get through customs faster than I do. I'm practically invisible to airport security. I don't think I do anything differently than anyone else other than I'm probably a little more hurried than others because I've been through it many times so I want to be efficient. But I've heard and witnessed others having troubles many times. They must be profiling people on some scale that I just don't register on.

I'm not sure how much value this comment adds to the discussion other than perhaps adding a point to validate your comment from a different perspective.

kerryfalkon Pixels don’t care

I, too, am short. I'm 5'6". I have always worked on teams with people much older than me (seems like a 15-20 year average). When I was in my early 20s and in sales selling high dollar value equipment I recognized that my age wasn't going to help. It took a few moments to dispel that once I began talking with someone as I just needed to overcome the view that I was inexperienced (As that would be associated with my age). It definitely did not hold me back and I'm fairly sure that if I lost a deal it was because of something other than my height.

We all face challenges and each are unique to us.

I meet a lot of people and I don't know anyone who would actively discriminate against someone short. I read through the article and based on it alone I got the sense that these challenges my stem from within the author rather than something external. I didn't read an examples of a situation that you'd reason resulted due to his height. Just interpretations.

"Ultimately, your greatest competition is yourself." - Guy Kawasaki

kerryfalkon Ask HN: how do I hire a marketer for my technology startup?

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” ~ Peter F. Drucker

Great marketers do that. If you're considering one branch of marketing, Promotion and Marketing Communications in this case, you may be missing a deeper opportunity.

Mar Comm is a tool of the trade and is a small part of good marketing, it's the most outwardly visible however. If your quest is for a megaphone you may have better luck seeking a PR or communications type person than a marketer.

If you're looking for someone with a holistic view towards marketing, want them to drive your strategy, and do the heavy lifting then I'd advise finding someone who is very experienced in marketing from a business development type role to assist in identifying and selecting the right person for you.

That may not be the answer you're looking for but I don't think there's a shortcut here that will be successful. We humans are terrible at assessing the skill of others in a field we have no direct experience in.

kerryfalkon Most lives are lived by default

It's better to be happy than not happy. Rich/not is something different. I know many people in varying degrees along that scale and their happiness does not seem to be correlated to their wealth. Many in the lower end of the scale believe their happiness is tied to it, though.

kerryfalkon Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

Thanks for that feedback. Not terse at all.

I'm having trouble with the balancing act. I definitely need to improve the searchability of the site. At the same time if I put everything front and center it'll become pretty apparent that we don't have many listings yet. Will that just turn people away? I'm not sure yet, I don't have the data to say.

I'll think more on this.

kerryfalkon Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

Maybe. The domain name isn't perfect, I'll admit, but it's far from the key thing standing in the way of the success of the product.

kerryfalkon Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

https://www.styckyd.com/search

kerryfalkon Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

Oh my. You are correct. Long day.

kerryfalkon Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

Correct.

We built it to integrate with vBulletin forums: https://partners.styckyd.com

Our brand name is taken from "stickying" a post on a forum.

kerryfalkon Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

Because we're targeting consumers, they're less familiar with shipping than businesses. Our system provides buyers with accurate shipping costs and prepares labels for sellers when their parts have been purchased.

All they have to do is put it in a box and drop the package off.

This also means that we can eventually grow each seller's addressable market within our system as we'll handle cross-border shipping on their behalf.

kerryfalkon Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

Shameless plug; we've built one for automotive enthusiasts: https://www.styckyd.com

Our target is to serve the C2C market and make shipping less painless as well as eliminate some of the risk on the buyer's side. With the current climate for buying goods online companies serving the space are at risk for opening themselves up to scams like this one by buyers. The reality for anyone accepting credit cards is that you're at the mercy of the buyer.

kerryfalkon How To Hire Hackers: A Realistic Guide For Startups

Humble.

kerryfalkon Ask HN: Spent two thousand dollars on adwords and got zero sign ups, now what?

You're right. Sometimes I take that one for granted.

To identify if the problem lay in the two options I presented you do have to ensure that the people who saw it are part of your target market and that you targeted your communications well.

kerryfalkon Ask HN: Spent two thousand dollars on adwords and got zero sign ups, now what?

obviously I couldn't get any useful data

I think you did get useful data:

Spent two thousand dollars on adwords and got zero sign ups

With that, now you have to figure out why. There are two paths to explore:

1) Your product doesn't meet the needs of the market. It's not useful/valuable. 2) Your messaging doesn't properly communicate the value of your product to the market. So they couldn't understand why they'd need/want it and left.

Figure out which one of those is the case (could be both!) and keep marching.

kerryfalkon Building 'From Holden', an apparel manufacturer, from the ground up

I spent much more than that for the jacket (a multiple). To ensure he got the sizing right he first made a cotton shell. When he was satisfied with that, he then cut the leather. I can imagine a similar process with other garments.

I'm clearly not an expert but I'm not sure if this would work on the lower end / high quantity end of the market. Especially at the start. I have a feeling that if I could guarantee my guy 10 jackets a month through the internet, he'd be extremely happy.

kerryfalkon Building 'From Holden', an apparel manufacturer, from the ground up

On (2). I'd like to see someone fix that problem. Zappos did it by allowing people to return as much as they want. I don't know if the same strategy would work for clothing. Bodies are more varied than feet.

I bought a custom made leather jacket and it's by far my favourite piece of clothing. I'd love to see that whole process transfer to the web somehow and not be painful. I want to see it on the web because I want access to more people like the guy who made my jacket (I also want him to be able to make these jackets for more people, they're awesome)

kerryfalkon Ask HN: Community of Car Buyers that Share the Price of their Purchase?

You can go to any car forum and ask the people there what they paid or the best price you might be able to obtain. They're generally willing to share and happy to get someone new into their communities enjoying the same car they are passionate about.

kerryfalkon 2013 Automobile of the Year: Tesla Model S

I'm not a fan of the SMG myself (or equivalents from other manufacturers) nor is anyone else I know. But it's not really because of any real performance metric. SMG is far better at changing gears than any of us mortals could accomplish. But it's just not fun.

If you didn't like yours for the same reason I don't know if you'd like the new iterations. You're still not doing the shifting yourself.

ps. Your project looks interesting and I signed up for the mailing list. The success page said an email had been sent but I haven't received anything. Not sure if there's a long delay or it's a bug.