"My friends are mostly in the 1500+ range, and a bunch have perfect 1600s, so they're pretty hot commodities on the market."
I think that is mostly true for people who are younger and have less other experience. If you are trying to tutor in HS or College you will need exceptional scores. However, if you have graduated with a degree in Math, English, or Education you can likely parlay that into tutoring, certainly pro-bono, they can use all the qualified people who are willing to help
As an SAT tutor I can remark that wealthy families have a real advantage in the process in being able to pay the high fees for SAT training. I think the best way to eliminate such an advantage would be to ask students to report what sort of tutoring or classes they got.
Will a college education continue to be considered worth it if prices continue to rise? Especially for majors that don't see huge post-college wage increases. This is an interesting issue as Obama plans to raise college enrollment as a nation
and further, people will only decide to buy a paid app if they know it fills a specific need. they will read reviews, check to make sure this app fills their need. free apps are downloaded before the user decides if they are useful- and thus obviously aren't.
i don't think this has "proven" that is makes any sense to keep your app at a high price. it is a correlational relationship, not causal
it all comes down to creating a dedicated, loyal fan base. they created this core of believers in the Apple brand, and that group truly gets excited about any new products
they are focusing on their core-competencies. yahoo can't be the best at everything, so they are going to sell the things that are distracting them from the goods
also, clicker seems to be getting a lot more publicity. this is obvious considering they have more money, PR people, or whatever, but you should work on some basic attempts to get your name out there. why aren't you on crunchbase? googling "set jam" sends me to a website on proper handling of cherry jam. The way to win against the gorilla is to use your position as a PR move and write to dozens of blogs, forums, and newspapers (even those old things on the tree-based substances are still read, especially when content is placed online).
You are definitely facing unbalanced competition, the way to beat the bogeyman is to enhance your product's value proposition and use every opportunity for free PR
edit: I do understand the company is called "setjam" not "set jam" but, I imagine many others do not
It is interesting to compare the tax climates to the $s of funding. California, Minnesota and Iowa manage to have successful startup per capita despite these harsh laws.
And, Wyoming is dead last in dollars for funding, but second in tax environments. Clearly Wyoming has a sparsely populated state, but per capita was supposed to account for that.
As a native Marylander, I am a bit intrigued by how the recent tax changes targeted at businesses will effect this sort of data. It is already seemingly hurting Maryland in comparison with other states (1 year avg < 3 yrs < 5 yrs), but other factors may come to play.
Perhaps a great indicator is population density, or more specifically educated peoples density.
hey, i don't know if your particular market knows all about this and i don't but you mention "kalmin filter" for improved accuracy. I doubt many users know this term, certainly not your average hiker. I think including an explanation would make the site more accessible for users
certainly the ycombinator clones are interesting and may even begin to make a difference. But, if the value proposition of ycombinator is essentially PGs talent, help, and networking, how much can the knockoffs really give you.
That being said, as with the author, it is even more clear to me ycombinator itself is the best deal out there
there has definitely been backlash against the unnecessarilly scare-mongering of the earlier swine flu coverage- but, it is worth taking notice because of how easily transmittable it is. a slight mutation and this could in fact be a seriously dangerous pandemic
truly amazing. seems seriously unfortunate that it takes the FDA 7 years to approve a device like this. I wonder how much testing they actually spend and how much time is wasted in bureaucratic BS. regardless, the story is amazing and the device seems incredible
and further, those with high SAT scores and low grades seem to be showing that they aren't using their supposedly high IQ towards academic achievement, and perhaps should be questioned more than those with the reverse split.
i think the right strategy for microsoft would be buy 10-20 start ups with new ideas that may or may not fail. if they fail, microsoft gets brilliant start up founders as employees, not so bad, if they succeed, you get better innovation than in house. because this article is right, people are not switching from google
This is another sad example of the US's twisted immigration policy. Brilliant entrepreneurs, scientists, and academics want to come in legally and are rejected, while thousands of others come in illegally.
i feel like this is the ycombinator of medical research. finance a revolutionary idea a bit (100k is not much for medicine), and see how it can grow. gotta love it
the author speaks of this like if we dont send the money to the middle east we can immediately use it on renewable resources. but, economically there is a reason for the money to be going there, and that's because it is cheaper to use oil. until research can make renewable fuel cheaper (or oil runs out), it will not be economically viable regardless of whether or not the resources and tech exists.
how many jobs do people at this caliber actually find by anything other than networking? i don't imagine most firms actually send out job notices for positions like CEO. seems life they are paying this job placement firms big money to tell them to call people in their professional networks... shouldn't there skills as CEOs help them realize that on their own?
I think the idea of dropping out of college fits in with the general startup mold. Startups are disruptive, they do not follow the traditional path of what's out there. Likewise, dropping out of college and leaving that safety net is certainly disruptive. It takes a special kind of person to do that. Also, it is unclear how many of these billionaires came from the world of tech startups, inherently more disruptive than say, finance.
yeah, exactly. Google isn't looking for the next Bill Gates (although I am sure they would be happy to have him), they are looking for brilliant brilliant hackers who can be successful at the problems thrown at them.
true, but as we have discussed, the apps at each position can get tenfold the sales of lower positions. selling 13k apps a day for 99c a la Ocarina is obviously advantageous over selling 200 a day for $10 each if you have the number 100 spot. No one is saying its impossible to make money with apps priced > 99c, its just a lot easier if they are
I think that in the United States a lot of the pressure on students to succeed on entrance exams are in terms of getting into more prestigious schools has more to do with desired prestige and college experience than future success. Few parents would unequivocally claim that going to Harvard over Big State University = more success for their kids. For parents and their kids I think its more of matter of wanting the prestige and college experience that's possible at Harvard.
Using open source will only get us so far. I've heard the VC and angel idea that you should raise money when you don't need it, but right now that is painfully circular.
It is also worth noting the burdens on the children of startup founders and early stage employees. Founders should also consider time they may lose with their kids. Feel free to bring the blackberry to the baseball game, but at least pay attention when your kids at bat.
this can easily be extended to systems that prevent cars from speeding, being put into drive with passengers not wearing seat-belts, etc...
this is why there are people who oppose mandatory seat-belt laws, the idea being once you give up a modicum of freedom you can open up yourself to losing more. if we all believe their should be mandatory seat-belt laws, why not enforce them remotely and electronically?