I have no idea how my wife deals with me working 60+ hours... of the 5 years we've been together, 3 have been in "start-up land"...
188 karma · joined January 10, 2010
It's funny because sometimes if I go to facebook.com, it pops up with an SSL error - saying the site certificate belongs to another domain (eg: nonfacebook.com). Usually a reboot fixes it.
Does anyone else notice this issue? Happens usually once a week...
You should only be working on two things. Talking to users. And making features.
:)
I could imagine how old and stupid the gov't official is who filed that claim. Canada's a broke country, and the latest government budget has cut a tonne of government jobs, slashed R&D credits, etc.
"So what the hell are you doing buying a computer?" he demanded. "You know, Jim, I've seen a lot more businesses go broke because they didn't have enough sales than I've seen go under from lack of computers. Why don't you work on first things first?"
Selling is a devalued skill. It's considered beneath anyone with an M.B.A.'s training. Marketing, on the other hand, is somehow "clean," something professional businesspeople aspire to. If you go to a cocktail party and you're asked what you do for a living, and you reply, "I'm a salesman," people look at you like you've got crumbs on your shirt. Tell them you're a marketing director, however, and they say "How interesting." In my view, this is one of the worst hoaxes ever pulled on American business. Manufacturers perceive marketing as a magic solution that takes away their responsibility for making good products. Their idea is, we'll make a product that's just as good as anything else out there--not better, mind you, but just as good--and marketing it well will make us rich. And that's a lot of crap.
Marketing is all about creating, in the customer's mind, a value that does not exist: a way of differentiating a basically undifferentiated product and charging the consumer more money for it. Selling is fundamental.
Consumers are not idiots. They want detergents that get their clothes cleaner, not detergents with slicker advertising campaigns.
Because, sad to say, it's a lot easier to differentiate your product through the quality of the marketing than through the quality of the product. To go back to the automobile industry, it's easier to change your advertising campaign than it is to build a better car--as General Motors well knows.
In startups, I think we by-pass a lot of the traditional schools of thought and jump directly into hacks/objects/apps/fixes which we consider "startups."
As a startup myself, I've lost sight of the most important part of building a business: sales. Tech, product, marketing, "sales" (free users) are great, but at the end of the day, to move a company from a startup to a business is hard work and can only be done with sales.
And if there's one article that sums up exactly what I should be doing, it's this.
Thought I would pass this along and hopefully change the attitude of others in our community.
Andrew Mason is basically a newer version of Bernie Madoff. Except Andrew publicly runs a ponzi scheme... AND overinflates share valuation to pump & dump his shares.
LOL.
If he and his CFO aren't in jail over this... I don't know what! There goes investor confidence...
f me!
Why is the SEC and FBI not investigating? And why are there no class-action lawsuits coming together already?
My only concern is: with a car, boat, office space, etc., if the lessor renegs on the lease, the lessee can likely pursue another lease/purchase on another asset because the underlying asset is more of a commodity than a one-of-a-kind asset.
What protection, if any, does a lessee have should the lessor decide not to transfer the domain should the lessee execute the purchase option? (other than the obvious: going to court, suing, etc.)
My thoughts are the domain should be held in some sort of escrow on behalf of both parties, but then as a lessor would I really trust the escrow/domain holding company?
Which then brings up the point: what other intellectual property (trademarks, patents, etc.) can also be "leased"? could software code, produced on behalf of a startup, be leased back to the startup for a period of time?
So this chart shows an increasing number of non-monetizable members... and doesn't show growth in their core product / revenue stream: a paid communication system for school administrators.
This situation is very similar to the whole Groupon subscribers issue - which has proven subscribers aren't necessarily monetizable, or a very small / disproportionate members are...
Thoughts on reporting growth of 'users' vs. growth of 'monetizable users'?
Are any users worth anything, even if they aren't related to the core product?
You put a red dot (i.e. a red sticker, any sticker) in your mailbox, and they will NOT put junk mail in.
I'm not interested in earning a degree/certification, rather I'd want to take these courses for general interest only.
I'm interested in understanding the depth and breadth of each course, vs. just going off the heading. If I can understand the value of each Udacity course as compared to the standard (eg: another University's program), I'm more likely to commit / buy into the whole Udacity approach.
i.e. "At Stanford, a typical 4/5-year degree has these X topics / competencies... and these 8 coures meet 50% of these competencies."
Without understanding the value of each course as it relates to, say, another University program or competency map, I have a hard time understanding the value of Udacity.
This probably sounds confusing, so if there's anyone from Udacity that wants to chat I'm more than open to. I think what Udacity is trying to achieve is great.