kerryfalk

The M5s also have SMG which is a computer controlled manual transmission. No manually operated clutch. Even has a launch mode if you want the computer to control wheel spin for you so you get the best possible launch.

Throttle response is still the wrong metric to use here. And is a bit of a red herring in the discussion.

You are claiming that the Tesla's superior throttle response makes it faster 0-60. The car needs to move the weight, so measuring it from when it starts moving to when it hits the desired speed seems like a perfectly reasonable metric.

Throttle response needs to be measured separately.

The M5 comparison is more than enough to get an idea for the car's capabilities. I've never driven a Model S. I've driven several cars in the area of the M5. If the Model S is in that class, it's a beast!

I'd see it as similar to a transmission swap, but more likely simpler.

The average person can't change a tire, or the small 40lb battery in their existing car. It's unlikely they'll try to change a full battery in their new electric vehicle.

As long as it can be replaced and upgraded to keep up with the battery tech, then that's all that's really needed.

Also, it suffers from a bit of a design-color challenge. The shade of blue you've picked doesn't provide enough contrast against the background image. I'd suggest playing with all of your text and image there to increase the contrast between the two.

After clicking the "learn how" link you have the same contrast problem. It also doesn't offer enough details for me to understand what it really does or why I'd want to use it.

Your content seems to fall into a common marketing problem. You're highlighting features, not benefits. All I care about is benefits, not features.

"They then sent over an offer to pay them $7k (half up-front) for the preparation of an investment kit (incorporation, business plan, stock purchase agreement, etc.), and mentioned a 4% commission on money raised and 4-7% founders' share equity for them with a ~$3M series A open-ended round, and that we would be able to keep majority share for the founders at that valuation."

I don't know an investor that would be happy paying 4% management fees to a middle man, or one who would want to work through a middle man instead of directly with the team tasked with executing.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding how you're presenting this. But if I am understanding correctly this sounds like a very bad situation to get mixed up in.

Don't walk away, run away.

But I think it will take a long time for those others to switch or even consider using a different platform. I'd guess that this is also what Square assumes.

But there's a big opportunity here that I enjoy dealing with in the US but hate here in Canada. I don't use cash and I travel a lot. I have to go to the airport by taxi frequently. In Canada it's a pain in the ass because they actually get out the old carbon copy machine and the drivers complain all the time. In the US the driver hands me his phone with a Square on it. So much better.

I don't use cash and haven't for years. I only pay with debit.

Truly rapid prototyping is bringing costs down, like a great dev framework cuts dev time down.

There are many possible paths to succeeding in manufacturing, one size does not fit all. It largely depends on A) what you're trying to build; and B) who you're going to sell it to.

For example, if you're going to sell to consumers you're most likely going to have to come up with capital to cover your manufacturing costs before you have a single unit sold.

If you're selling to businesses you might be able to get a Letter of Intent or a Letter of Credit and then get a bridge loan to cover the costs. If I were building a manufacturing company, this is probably the route I would take.

Like software though, you need the right people. Good mechanical engineers are as rare as good software engineers and the programs they use in their craft are far more expensive (SolidWorks, etc.). You'll also probably need an Electrical Engineer. It's kind of like the difference between front-end/back-end devs.

So by not offering the routine and quick forms of 'yes I understand', a good communicator will stop to see where the holdup is, a bad one will march on without noticing there was an issue.

That's true of most things that are new, though. It's a sales issue, and one that can be overcome.

but without the ease of understanding their problems.

I'd have to strongly disagree here. You can easily understand their problems like any other industry and company, dive in, talk to them, and/or get involved in the industry.

This generally filters the people with experience in manufacturing who are already set in their ways.

That is painting with broad strokes, I think.

With the rise of hardware startups though, we're seeing entrepreneurs get into the dirty parts of the system - maybe some will then go on to solve some of these problems that they personally run into.

This isn't a new phenomenon, though. Apple, IBM, Pitney Bowes, Ford, etc. etc. were all hardware startups at one time. Many manufacturing problems have been solved and hammered through for many decades. Many of those are transferring over into newer industries. Many Lean Software principles seem to be oddly similar to JIT, and Lean Manufacturing principles established decades earlier.

The opportunities that I think exist in manufacturing aren't for automation as mentioned in the OP, that has also been around for decades. I think the real opportunities are in truly empowering the workforce with technology that bridges the gap between the guy on the plant floor, the CFO, and the customer. It's simply massive, and it doesn't have to be.

I live and work in a manufacturing town. I've worked for medium to largish manufacturers (500 people), to small ones (~15 people), and a couple in between. There are a lot of opportunities for technology, especially software, to improve these companies. At the moment all of the software that I have seen implemented is focussed on accounting and production management. Office stuff. Very little makes it to the production floor - this is where I think the largest gains have yet to be made.

Specifically: AR safety glasses providing real data to production staff, Google Glass style. At some point, I want to be part of making that happen.

Great work.

It's the best app I have ever purchased, and the most expensive. It does pretty much everything the amateur needs. They'd be tough to compete with.

Another public example is Amazon, they didn't record a profit until 8 years after incorporation: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-819688.html

"As it turns out, the ones who do it well are rare and far less visible because - like good programmers - their work is a lot harder to notice."

This sums my experience perfectly. It takes a long time to be able to understand who is good at something and who is not.

Pardon my language but many marketers are charlatans. When I first started in marketing I thought the charlatans were the ones who were good (incompetent people [me at that time] are the least competent at recognizing those who are good). Now, after a decade at it I can firmly agree with the statement above and I think it bodes very well for the author.

I believe the 2nd point is the most important to understand when trying to get good at marketing. The rest is ancillary to doing a great job, but having the data is essential to knowing what to do.

I believe great marketers are like methodical scientists. They can put aside their own biases and test their hypothesis and analyze the data. Beyond that, they can look at the data in front of them, identify what they need to know more about, and discover things they did not expect. Through this they can affect change that improves the entire organization.

There are naysayers for every idea. For new ideas there are more of them than when the ideas are established.

Every new product sucks. All of them. Some suck less. But the good ones improve with time.

I do not want to be part of a community that rallies against people trying to do great things with passion and change the status quo.

To me as a gamer and a guy who learned to do basic HTML as a pre-teen because he loved games and learned to hack at games with others far more experience than me this seems like an absolutely brilliant idea. If I were 13 again, I would be figuring out how to build games for OUYA if for nothing else than to be cool among my group of friends.

This comment comes from the gut and is not as analytical as some of my others but this post does not belong here.

OUYA team, I salute you. I don't care about the shortcomings of your initial product, I think your idea is sound and it seems there are thousands of people who seem to agree.

The digitized diagrams can be done, and I've seen it from a few dealers. But I believe the diagrams themselves come from the manufacturers, I'm unsure if it's available to third parties. I'd like to look into this in the future though.

My marketing plan for integrating with the forums is mostly a direct selling process at the moment. I'm talking with a few forum owners, have relationships with a few others and I am attending ForumCon next week to learn more about the community. I posted the link below but here it is again, this explains the integration itself a little better: http://partners.styckyd.com

For reference, to list a part on eBay Motors at the average value of a part in this market without any of their upgrades, and including PayPal fees it costs a seller about 13% to sell on eBay.

For buyers products purchased on Styckyd may end up being lower cost than on other sites. This is because we handle and pay for the shipping. When volume increases we will have the advantages of economies of scale and can pass savings in shipping costs to the end user. So selling on Styckyd would make it cheaper to the buyer than selling anywhere else (assuming the same sale value of the part).

With that said, we're not aiming to be the lowest priced.

Edit for clarity.

You can browse without signing up at the moment. It's more obvious on every page that's not the homepage. I will make it more prominent in the future once there are more listings to display (we're just getting going and getting listings is a key challenge) and I've improved the search interface more.

Thanks for checking it out.

Here's the key things that make us different than other marketplaces:

- We control the flow of funds. When a buyer purchases a part we place it in a holding account until the package has arrived successfully. This is designed to eliminate a lot of the seller fraud that occurs.

- We handle the shipping. Sellers need only identify the box they're going to place the part in. We then calculate the shipping costs, collect those funds from the buyer, and send shipping labels to the seller. At the moment, all they need to do is drop it off at the drop-off location. In the future we'll send the carrier to their house to pick up the package.

- We integrate with message boards, and provide them with a new revenue stream.

There are a number of other things that are unique to our segment and revolve around product categorization but other marketplaces do indeed do those things for their markets. The above three things I believe are unique to Styckyd.

http://partners.styckyd.com

As mentioned earlier, I update them at the same time every week so they're up to date on what's happening. In fact, if they didn't make the effort to be up to date I would cut them from my Board of Advisors. I'm not sure anything really valuable can be distilled if they don't know what's happening and keep asking the same questions.

In my experience, yes. I would assume you're seeking advice from successful people. Successful people are busy.

Just curious to know some methods you use.

I send weekly updates (same day and approximate time so they can expect it) on progress, challenges/solutions, and next steps. This is so they can be "in-the-loop" without actually being involved in what's happening. It keeps what I'm doing in their minds so they can think over things as time permits and not get a dump once every quarter.

Then I meet once a month with them to discuss strategy, results, and how we're going to move forward. This is a discussion that's scheduled for the first Thursday of every month. They do their best to be there and it's easier for them to accommodate because the day/time is known well in advance.

Is it a perfect model? No. But I don't seem to run into the same problems I hear from others in my city (not a startup town, others have problems with feedback/face-time).

The greatest thing I've learned from this is: your success is up to you. Don't wait for their feedback, don't rely on their feedback for the answers, and don't get frustrated if you're not getting what you hope for. It's your business and its success is your responsibility. Keep going and focus on what you can deliver to your customers.

I used to design a lot of print advertisements. When it finally clicked for me that many of the principles are the same things started working.

Use AIDA:

- Attention - Use a super high quality and very interesting (to your target) picture. You can buy these cheaply from amateur photographers if you don't have any.

- Interest: Use a headline that says something to your target

- Desire: use a little text to make them want what you're selling. IE. tell them how it solves your biggest problem

- Action: Use all the tricks you know to make a good looking button (or read on how to do it, there are lots of sources for this) and place it in the bottom right somewhere. The bottom right is what print designers do because it's the last point your eye reaches when reading, it's the best place for a call to action

Here are two recent examples that I have created (can be improved but you get the idea). With quality traffic they convert around 20%:

http://styckyd.com/sell_modified_cars

http://styckyd.com/sell_race_cars

That advice might not be quite what you're looking for as it's not a service that does most of it for you (someone could create that fairly simply) but it's working for me.