taylorhou

proptech is continuing to thrive. people need a roof over their heads whether it's to rent or own so startups solving problems surrounding renting/buying/managing/living in a home, apartment, condo, association, trailer, mobile park, co-op, furnished, short term, etc... will continue to thrive.

btw, if anyone reading on HN is interested in joining a startup tackling the property management angle, hmu! my company helps manage 200k+ rental units across america and always interested in capable and enthusiastic folks to join.

Lots of comments about random pains from what I'm going to assume are relatively younger folks. I was diagnosed with ulnar neuropathy before 30 where my pinky and ring finger went numb. It was caused by my sitting and even laying position when using MacBook air where my wrist and arm would rest against the edge of the MacBook and desk. I switched to a standing desk which elevated my arm so it wasn't always pressed or pinched against the edge of something and due to a combo of massage and acupuncture, resolved my neuropathy without surgery (which btw was told to me was the only fix by multiple modern doctors/specialists)

If you move to a standing setup, be sure to buy a standing pad with ridges. My feet were killing me initially but that's cus they weren't used to being stood on and the ridges force you not to lock your hip.

I was 29m, 5'8" 215 pounds in 2018 when this all hit me. By 2020 I was as low as 165 and could run 5 miles at mid 7 min pace. I changed my life around and felt great. Covid sucked and I'm at 195 today but back on a path to the 170s.

Haven't had ulnar neuropathy since and at my company, others who have reported issues, we moved to standing setups and those issues have also resolved themselves.

Backpain appeared along with my first kid where you contort your body when sleeping to make sure they are sleeping well. Went to chiropractor to reset, switched to the firmest foam mattress, and lift weights to strengthen back muscles.

oo i have a 4 and 2 year old running around as i type this comment. you specifically asked what to prep for what's to come so i'll make some recommendations for that: - you're going to lose sleep, i dont know how to practice or prepare for this other than for the next 4 months (post birth), sleep will be a luxury but even moreso for momma so get as much sleep as you can now. things get better between 4 months and 2 years and then the terrible twos occur which in my experience has been sleepless nights for a couple of weeks again. - you're most likely going to gain weight. most habits/structure you have with working out, diet, etc.. go out the window when baby enters your world. if you dont already have work outs and healthy diet in place, it's only going to get worse. after my first born, i gained 30 pounds and when i received a pre-diabetic prognosis when my son was 12 months, i turned my life around by getting back into the habit of working out/exercising and went strict keto. by the time my second was born, i was down 40 pounds. because i had built the habit of exercise and diet going into my second born, i actually maintained my lifestyle until a completely different life milestone of being forced to step in as a General Contractor for my rona suburb house threw a wrench in everything.

after reading my own comment, i think the main thing to prepare for is sht will feel like it is hitting the fan (sometimes literal sht). nothing will go as expected and everything will change. don't try to "plan" and set expectations for how things will go because it most likely won't happen how it's "planned". this doesn't mean don't plan... you can absolutely plan for things but don't hinge success or happiness based on those plans!

i think i handle stress and unknown situations MUCH better than my partner because i'm a "go with the flow" kind of person. my spouse is a "plan for everything and always get disappointed" kind of person. with kids, nothing ever goes according to plan and the better you can shift your mindset to live and enjoy life as it happens, the more you'll actually be able to.

as the father, there's less we're literally able to do in the first 12 months (if momma is breast feeding) so anything you can help with and call "your responsibility" the less momma has to do. my friends have become the best at: - diaper changers - putting baby to sleep - burping baby after feeding (btw, baby ALWAYS can burb after a feeding. you pat/rub baby back surprisingly hard until you hear them burb, ALWAYS) - shower/bathe baby - washing/cleaning bottles - laundry/cleaning around the house

my life changed when mini-me popped out. hope yours does too!

#shanghaistrong

what's crazy is in this day and age, you'd think uber/lyft are available in most markets but last week, I had to go to Baton Rouge (LSU with 50k students is based there) and I was relegated to a beat up, cigarette smelling, local taxi because no uber/lyft's were available at the airport (due to storms and delayed flights).

There are soooo many accounts on IG and FB that just repost TikTok content. FB doesn't even need to do this themselves because they pay/help monetize based on views/engagement regardless of if it's your content or not...

Most people in general have a short term cost/benefit analysis period. What China seemingly does different is they have 10, 20, 50+ year plans which in the time horizon of their multi-thousand year history even seems short term.

Your example of the bridge may seem like no one uses it today but most likely in the future, it will be used and the scale will tip towards it being vastly beneficial compared to its cost.

When countries like the USA have an entire history (not including native americans) of ~300 years, planning anything for 30 years out seems relatively crazy in comparison.

All about perspective.

Consistency is the #1 part.

Do whatever it takes to turn any form of exercise into a game, challenge, or fun.

Going strict keto (<20g net carbs a day) was fun for me too and allowed me to have a single metric to focus on reducing.

I lost 40+ lbs over 2 years due to a combo of fun outdoor activities, changing things up when I got bored, and finding others who would always show up which guilted me into being consistent.

Intermittent fasting became easy and enjoyable and gave me the perfect excuse not to eat shitty airplane/airport food and as a reward, I'd get a nice dinner or meal instead.

Is HN employing TikTok style algos now?!

Literally have been discussing with our devs what we can use that's as off the shelf as possible for a HN style community.

They said it would be best if it was built with RoR. I see this post randomly when I can't sleep at midnight.

If anyone is based in Houston and looking for an optional in-person environment, my startup apmhelp.com (we help property managers scale their business) has space and will continue to grow at the Ion office in midtown.

We're hiring accountants, folks with consulting exp, engineers, and RE/Property management exp.

absolutely agree. a google or microsoft wouldn't cus the customer base overlaps with their own anyways. Salesforce on the other hand could continue on their path to becoming the enterprise suite of everything.

real question though is who does SF acquire to gain a foothold in the email arena? superhuman?

Zoom has done well but the bundling of video conferences by microsoft and google will likely win out in the end. All it takes is a single botched update or more bloat in the software to have others try an included option. My company is on google workspace and quite frankly love the ease of being able to click a button to create and join a meet in next to zero spin up time.

I loathe it when 3rd parties send a damn zoom or teams link cus they always want me to default to using their app that has settings/config issues with my hardware, etc...

Most of the ultra large 10k+ employee companies seem to not mind paying for both though. My wife works at big oil and they use teams internally cus it's included but then use zoom with external cus it's "cool".

APMHelp.com - we are the back office for over 1k property management firms in America. Primarily doing accounting/bookkeeping and maintenance coordination that can leverage more tech to automate.

We have our own embedded finance product too! Fyxed.com - "Fix now pay later"

Looking to hire: 1. Engineering manager (jira/confluence experience required) 2. Fintech engineers who have rolled out cards and banking on top of marqeta et al.

We're fully remote and have a global workforce of 180+ full time staff. DM or email me, the founder directly if there's interest! Taylor at apmhelp dot com

a similar situation happened at my company where management was informed of severe burnout. we didn't have a policy/SOP on it but created one where we gave our valued employee 2 weeks forced PTO and actually suspended their gsuite so they couldn't access work.

so far so good. employee came back after being able to finally catch up on life, we hit reset as a team and we're off and away.

this doesn't help prevent future burnout specifically but it was an initial step that showcased that we cared more about our employees' health than the company.

body treats everything carbs (except for dietary fiber and sugar alcohols) as glucose eventually. getting under 50g net carbs a day is fairly easy. staying under 20g net is harder but not impossible these days.

Don't know if SV specifically makes a difference but my lasting relationships from when I was in 500 startups were the in person fellow founders/startup folks that were grinding day in and day out.

Literally visited one that I befriended 10+ years ago that is back in Europe/Germany!

We're actually trying to recreate the experience by doing a yearly remote retreat where we all pitch in and get a nice Airbnb in an amazing location to work, eat, play (nights and weekends) together.

literally LOL'ed at their blog picture/headliner page. they are borrowing from the festival world where the bigger the headliner (aka investor/check?), the higher and bigger they are displayed.

wonder if there are parallels between VC's and DJ's and their desire to be the biggest and first.

interesting point. I wonder if an incremental regulation can be passed whereas if the marketplace decides to become a participant/competitor, those in which it competes against no longer have to pay the marketplace fees to "even the playing field" at least from a financial standpoint.

doesn't even have to be regulation. these companies can do it in good faith but alas, life's not fair.

my company has almost 50 full time in the US and 120+ full time internationally. x2-3 in the next 12-18 months. hiring for pretty much every possible role and willing to be creative/flexible. dm me to chat!

apmhelp.com is our core service (think bookkeeping/maintenance coordination for rental properties)

fyxed.com is a fintech product we're launching soon (think pipe but for rental properties)

just spent $230 for all issues to date T_T

If you don't want to reinvent the wheel when it comes to managing the rentals, my company runs the back office to many of the Co living and property management businesses around America. Happy to help.

although I'm a HN reader, I'm in the camp of "since this doesn't affect me personally (unless apple's algo's mislabel my kids photos as offending), apple is helping make the world a better place" - not enough to make me switch away from the gold standard of today's "smartphone experience"

I'd agree with you if they were more savvy or specific with their marketing (ie: FSD v1 or FSD V2) but sorry, they call it all "Full self driving" - whether that's via subscription or not, it's one in the same.

So all you're saying is there's a difference between full self driving on old hardware versus full self driving on new hardware?

I did a quick Google search cus I could've sworn Elon tweeted about full self driving hardware on all Tesla's sold after a certain date. Found the official blog post: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now...

If there is a class action attorney reading the thread, happy to join...

I LOVE my model 3. I've recommended (with verified purchases) 10+ friends who purchased. The blatant fake it till ya make it marketing isnt needed and yet Tesla continues to do it. WHY?!?

Once you make enough money to not have to constantly watch your bank balance, priorities change.

Unfortunately, most don't get to experience what that's like before they are saddled with money requirements such as kids and mortgages so the constant watching of the bank balance continues but instead of spending money on Slickdeals for the item you most likely don't need, it's spent on things for your kids.

I'm in the fortunate position to not have to constantly watch my bank account but weirdly, it's uncomfortable territory so I invest to make my bank account (cash balance) as low as possible.

I've been told that pretty much anything more than $30M has diminishing happiness returns so my biggest life goal tweak was:

<30 = bring as much happiness to oneself and closest friends and family

>30 = bring as much happiness to " " & company staff (I'm a founder)

coming from anecdotal data (i'm a superhost that co-hosts for others), airbnb's are KILLING it right now as families are visiting families and when families travel, they tend to prefer whole home rentals rather than hotels (in normal times) but in covid times, don't even consider hotels at all so all of the demand goes to airbnb and similar.

i should clarify that my observation is for populated cities that aren't specifically tourist destinations

I would imagine when business travel starts picking back up, they will also prefer whole homes (albeit smaller 1-2 bedrooms) to stay away from the uncontrollable hotel environment which I'd guestimate turns into folks who already had covid or folks who just DGAF.

As a startup founder who already booked airbnb's for team travel instead of hotels, I absolutely won't even consider a hotel until vaccines are readily accessible, if not longer.

the risk to staff are hard to mitigate and I don't even want to think about what happens when traveling employees catch covid on a business trip. gyah.

tldr - still long on airbnb but short term, they are doing better than many would expect because they have like 95% of covid travel stays.

Fantastic read. Time for Ben of Stratechery to pass the baton :p - I'm assuming Eugene is now going to get a gazillion messages of employment or consulting requests at the aforementioned FAANG companies to help steer the direction of their tiktok ambitions.

APM Help (apmhelp.com)- tech-enabled back-office services (ie: bookkeeping & maintenance coordination) for property managers and landlords

REMOTE-only, 3% non-elective 401k contribution, flex PTO

Hiring SDR, sales/account execs, CPA's/accountants (QBO), and full-stack devs who like rapid prototyping

email me directly: taylor@apmhelp.com

interesting how bigger players are able to negotiate discounts/preference when arguably they are more suited to not need the discount - whereas 15% could be the difference between bankruptcy and breakeven or ramen profitability for a small startup/business.

absolutely this. whenever our PMs come to us with tenant requests for discounts and we (upper management) take a single look at their ledger of on-time and online payments, we immediately do a back of the napkin calculation of the cost of a turnover vs the discount and even if its in a turnover's favor, we usually say give it to them because of the uncertainty of turnovers.

think of the analogy "even money" in blackjack - when the dealer is showing an Ace but you've got blackjack, most objective people will take the "even money" versus gamble against whether the dealer has BJ or not. also why you tend to not split tens unless you're counting =p