rgraham

This book is on my shelf. It's a thoughtful and practical approach to language and writing. The prose in the book is often winking at you as it reveals a principle.

My experience with sales people is that they pick up on social cues much better than average. The good ones just don't take rejection poorly. It's part of success and often you can learn to prepare or target better from the experience.

I'm working on a book that helps entrepreneurs pick up the phone. It has been something I've had success with and I think it is tremendously under developed in our circles. Good preparation, targeting, and some experience can help you handle rejection and increase your rate of success. Link in my profile.

Money isn't a great motivator. It takes an ever increasing reward to get people interested. Read 'Drive' by Dan Pink.

This is funny to me. I decided I was definitely leaving during an internship and most of my coworkers and friends thought it was a great idea. My advisor and closest academic colleagues were supportive as well.

I joked that the PhD program was like a girlfriend no one liked, but they waited to say so until I quit.

>If you're going to work on a startup, plan things out so that even if it fails without making a single ripple, you'll still be better off after than you were before.

I've been thinking about this lately. It's really important to chose to spend time on things that are positive for you whether the primary aim or best case scenario pans out or not. Great post.

Getting 1/50 people to speak with you further from cold calling is not very successful. You can do much, much better. See links in my other comment.

They don't care about you. Make the conversation about them. The sooner you are talking about them, the better.

Figure out a way to offer some value to them. http://bit.ly/oeZDzC [whitetailsoftware.com]

When you are speaking with them, ask open questions like "What are your three biggest problems in X business?"

One of the three is usually hiring quality people. Anyone got a solution?

More ideas on refining the calling approach: http://bit.ly/vPCtuI [blog.asmartbear.com]

My feeling is that the first question is only answerable by the market. That answer is never certain. You're only as sure as the effort/time/money you put into reaching the market to answer it.

The second question is easier to get an estimate for, but you probably defined your market incorrectly (especially if you're not solving your own problem).

The last one is sticky. It reminds me of BSG. The human capacity for self-deception is without bound...

That said, it's still useful to struggle with these questions periodically. Startups are all about the fight. You'll never have certain answers. Measure, learn, and adjust.

Don't ever have a great experience when you're young. It'll ruin the rest of your life. Avoid it at all costs.

Or maybe you'll move on and it isn't that big of a deal.

You have been warned.

I think the OP is okay with the use of the whiteboard, but it should be used as a complement to writing code in a semi-familiar environment.

There is no claim that cooking is equivalent to writing code. The claim is that writing code is rarely done on a whiteboard (Perhaps design, architecture, or some logic back-and-forth but rarely code.) and that interviewees shouldn't be expected to perform well at something they don't do.

They had a twilio integrated page that allowed anyone in the US to call their representatives from the page. 300,000 people directed there during the blackout from Mozilla alone did exactly that. I don't have complete numbers, but they were far from silent.

I like what you're saying in reference to building things up over time and pivoting into new spaces. I think that is the path to finding a co-founder. You have to go out and do things. Your idea reach (part of which is your network) will expand as you go.

I think what you're saying is true from a certain perspective, but I also think that a lot of great progress comes from cross pollination of ideas. If field A solves a problem using method X, but field B has never applied method X then someone who makes that connection and applies X to B can start a mini-revolution in field B. New is pretty relative in that sense, especially if you reflect on Solomonic wisdom: "There is nothing new under the sun."

Sounds like these guys wouldn't sign most such treaties.

I'm happy to be a good neighbor, but policy should happen as close to the local level as possible. I don't think that is a shocking insight.

You can avoid the wsj pay wall by typing or copying and pasting the article title into google.

Not a bad tool. I'd get excited if it let me also see results for .org and .net domains. Seeing information about search volume for exact match searches would also be interesting.

Got a citation or two for that claim?

'Something' is indeed wrong when no one can seem to even identify what that is. Opacity is the first problem I suppose.

You may be 100% correct, but have you ever experimented with his advice? Don't think you're right. Try it. Experiment and know what works best.

I like the consistency and simplicity of this message. I've noticed that when people have a message this simple and repeat it a lot they usually know exactly what they're talking about. tptacek is on point here.

I don't care what your reason is for charging less. I don't care if money isn't important to you. Try it. Talk less about why you charge this or that. Challenge your own assumptions and try raising your rates.

Because people don't want a machine they can learn to use in order to solve their problems. They want their problems solved right now.

Gamification is a gimmick that can add value when the people are already engaged, but you can't make people interested in education because you can get points or win a badge. They had to want to be there in the first place.

Some fields lend themselves to domain experts who can write software making large leaps in productivity, but many do not. There are a lot of desirable skills I'd prefer the education system teach before Python. In the end, I think you want a society where anyone with the need or interest can go learn it on their own. This presents a huge educational challenge that we should try to fix as best we can, but this problem will never be completely solved. We should use our resources to improve things as best we can.

Churchill was not speaking in regard to feelings and a relationship with another nation, but rather dependability in mutual long term pursuits. I think what he says remains true and a useful filter at times.

Winston Churchill was clear in his writing that America could not be trusted as an ally in anything that required steadfast determination over longer timelines. The winds of democracy make America a fickle ally. See 'The Gathering Storm.' Public schools don't often teach any of the shortcomings of a democratic society.

I'd be interested in talking about BudgetSimple and some specifics of tactics and implementation if you have the time and interest. Handle at whitetailsoftware dot com.

It'd be better to sell the software to clean up evidence in the first place. I bet you could sell it. It might not be a terrible business idea. Sigh.

Why not 'I trust you' and if something is an issue or a potential issue we can talk about it and try to reach an agreeable resolution?

You're right. Something is wrong with the Census site, but there are images on the tour page. I'll take a look. The Census product uses Mechanical Turk to recognize deer in trail camera photos and determine herd statistics using capture-recapture. You upload images and get emailed results. That is it.

I never managed to sell the Scout product online. It is incredibly bad marketing copy that I modified from some examples I found around the web. Any sales of that product required calls or in person handling. I did best at a trade show. There is no online audience I could reach for it. I underpriced the product and marketed it poorly. I found some success in higher-touch sales, but you are correct that the price point needs to support that effort level and you should target your market accordingly. That particular product also has an entrenched and highly likable competitor.

Phone numbers (business listings) from a service like Hoover's are free at your public library.

You're also correct that working on a technical product has nothing to do with writing marketing copy, but I'll bet that not everyone in this audience knows that. Hopefully my story lent them some perspective.

I'm working on another product at the moment. I wrote the article about my experience developing those products hoping that people would think about what might work for them and be open to ideas that aren't commonplace. I'm glad to have your perspective as it may help everyone consider their options from every angle.

I think the success of (nearly) every marketing campaign is circumstantial, but your points are valid. Marketing is highly dependent on context.