instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
|---|---|
Should I give up? | uptown: While I respect your desire not to use YCombinator to shill your company, you've got something that apparently is facing some growth problems. Why not at least include a URL, or description of your product to help us gague whether it's got legs? It feels like you're still keeping your product in the stealth m... |
Should I give up? | jnorthrop: Two different takes:1. If you absolutely love the idea you've built (like you were born to build this idea) take it to the very end. If you believe this is what your are meant to do then quitting will be a regret you'll never get over. And bankruptcy is bad but it is short lived (relatively).2. If you are in... |
Should I give up? | davidcc: Do what you can until September, if you can't improve the business then cash in 50% of the stocks ($5k) to live on until you find another stable 9 - 5 job. Keep working on the start-up while looking for a stable job, things could improve. If you find a job before things get better then wind up the business and... |
Should I give up? | HeyLaughingBoy: In summary, you have a product you've been working on for two years. You have no sales and will run out of money to live in about six months.You need a source of income! Unless just 1-3 sales will keep you paying your bills for months, you need to start making money outside the business. In the best ass... |
Should I give up? | cdibona: An few arguments for giving up:You aren't ready, financially, to see through even 1 year of unprofitability. Give up while your credit rating is intact and before you have to fire your friends who might go along with your idea/dream. The market is a disaster for unproven, new offerings that you describe as 'm... |
Should I give up? | CyberFonic: You don't say what size your client biz are. The larger the company the more likely that their decision cycle is long. From my experience large companies can be 6-9 mths to decide. If possible go for the real decision makers.Your feedback if "mildly positive" ???? Allowing for the fact that people are u... |
Should I give up? | mediaman: When I started my B2B company, it took us forever to get sales. As in, about 2 years. We now have a healthy low-medium seven figure sales run rate. So anything in the B2B space -- particularly involving big clients -- will have long sales cycles and take some time to get traction.However, companies have a lot... |
Should I give up? | tom_rath: Okay, worst case: It doesn't sound as though you would be facing bankruptcy. You would just have burned through 100% of your savings and be left with nothing. That's still not pleasant, but it's a big difference from being bankrupt.I also started, bootstrapped, in a very competitive B2B space and it took y... |
Should I give up? | trevelyan: Get a part-time job. If things move slowly in your industry and you aren't a consumer product with lots of customers, there's no reason you need to be available 24/7. |
Should I give up? | far33d: I think reading through Steve Blank's "four steps to the epiphany" or reading up about the customer development process might help you figure out how to turn those mild positives into real sales. |
Should I give up? | skmurphy: There is unfortunately a large gap between "mildly positive" feedback and getting paid. This is not a judgment on the quality of your offering or your ideas but a suggestion as to how far you still have to travel. Paradoxically, negative feedback can be more useful since it gives you an idea of what needs to ... |
Should I give up? | hopeless: Seth Godin has a book ("The Dip") about knowing when to quit and I should have read it much earlier, during my PhD.Essentially, the absolute worst outcome is to stick with it and give up towards the end (which is what I did). Then you've got all the downsides of wasted time/investment and no upside. Quitting ... |
Should I give up? | aditya: Why not just get a job and continue building your startup on the side, if the response is mildly positive, then figure out what other problems you could solve to make it overwhelmingly positive. The sales cycle is much longer for B2B products and if you don't have a ton of competition, then getting a job and bu... |
Should I give up? | FreeRadical: Angel finance or friends and family round |
Should I give up? | utsmokingaces: Don't give up, tweak your idea. Also, get a job to support yourself. |
Should I give up? | richesh: Have you exhausted ALL your credit options?- Angel investors?- Discounted customers?- Federal / State loan for small businesses (SBIR)?- Loan from a Credit Union (lower rates)?- Even 0% 12 month no interest Credit Cards (make sure you get a job to pay it off after 6 months)- Micro-lending sites?- Part-time job... |
Should I give up? | NoBSWebDesign: Two things strike me about this question.1. The fact that you're asking others if you should give up lead me to advise that you probably should. In my own business, I'm too convinced that I have something that works and will continue to improve to listen to anyone telling me I should give up. This can be... |
Should I give up? | kashif: I cant say what you should do. But, have a look at the technologies (if, any) that you have built while trying to build your product. It may be quite possible that the kernel of your effort might be better applied somewhere else. |
Which blogging platform for startups? | noodle: obligatory http://posterous.com/ comment |
Which blogging platform for startups? | JeremyChase: Having your blog hosted by a third party is a good idea for redundancy. You need to make sure your DNS will still resolve in the event of your startup's machines going down though.I have experience with wordpress.com and tumblr.com so I can speak to those. For wordpress.com you must have a paid account to ... |
Why certify pilots but not journalists in their area of coverage? | noodle: because pilots' actions lead directly to loss of life and property damage if they screw up? |
Why certify pilots but not journalists in their area of coverage? | gaius: Because certification of journalists is contradictory to freedom of the press. |
Why certify pilots but not journalists in their area of coverage? | TallGuyShort: Freedom of Press is guaranteed in the constitution. Freedom to be a Pilot is not. Countries that seriously consider journalism a potential threat DO place severe limitations on who can publish things.Also, if a journalist screws up, they lose credibility. If a pilot screws up, there's no second chance for... |
Which blogging platform for startups? | visakhcr: I would say that it depends on your budget. If you are willing to shell out some money for your blog, then go for third party hosting. Otherwise, if you are looking for a medium to communicate with users with update, then go for Wordpress/Blogger (similar platforms).Startup Linkspank.com is having their blog ... |
Should I give up? | TrevorJ: I would second the idea of looking for part-time or full-time work as you continue to develop the project. That way, when you do hit launch you can quit the job and have money on hand to see you through the marketing and launch phase till hopefully hitting profitability. |
Why certify pilots but not journalists in their area of coverage? | Tangurena: This stands as much chance of happening as licensing or certifying software developers.And news agencies have long since stopped caring about "the better public good" and caring only about quarterly numbers of their stock prices. Even if there was some sort of "certified" journalist, an uncertified editor co... |
Should I give up? | CatDancer: In his book The Millionaire Course, Marc Allen writes that "Your business goes through the same three stages that all living things go through: infancy, adolescence, and maturity"."When your business is in its infancy, have you to care for it constantly. You expect nothing from it, and have to support it co... |
Best Job Posting Site for Hiring | bgnm2000: Startuply is pretty cool |
Best Job Posting Site for Hiring | spaghetti: http://jobs.stackoverflow.com/ What caught my attention was the fact that you (the potential employer) get a full refund if you're not satisfied with the responses you receive. Also jobs posted here apparently show up on JoelOnSoftware boards too. |
Review part of my startup | JeremyChase: I am having serious problems with the big "find recipe" button. I entered a goal of "Energy" and clicked the button, and nothing happened. I tried selecting more options from the dropdown, and the button started moving around the screen. Then the CSS started looking strange for div id "recipe-header". This... |
Review part of my startup | mschwar99: Those categorizations are an interesting way to search through recipes - I like it.For what it's worth:I think the UI to the right and the UI at the top of the recipe pages is really busy and not all that intuitive. (things like print / save / search) The options seem crammed together, and I spent a good chu... |
How to deal with hagglers w/ future opportunities? | noodle: ignore it, unless you have a special relationship of some sort or are trying to (and can afford to) build one. the bottom line is what is on the table, in the contract today.knowing someone who knows people won't buy you ramen. |
Honesty vs simplicity: how honest should you be to your users? | noodle: in my opinion, i'd give them multiple levels of information. give them a simple notice that they're submitting score information, and provide an option to view more detailed information if they wish. |
Honesty vs simplicity: how honest should you be to your users? | mooders: What does the user care about? In your example, I guess they care about bandwidth usage and personal data. So in that light, I would inform them that a small amount of game-specific, non-personal info needs to be sent to the website (server is jargon, so should be avoided) to record the score.My point is that ... |
benefits of being successful | sharpn: Freedom. |
Honesty vs simplicity: how honest should you be to your users? | Tichy: Couldn't you say "send the result to the server", and it could mean both things without sounding too scary? |
Should I give up? | Paul_Morgan: I'd go back to developing the startup outside of work. Go get some contract work that will pay the bills and give you more time to develop the business on the side. |
Should I give up? | drawkbox: Just pick up a day job again if you can or find some other revenue streams. You launched it full-time 3 months ago. If you maybe made that move prematurely then just go back into that for another 3,6,12 months. Don't quit your day job until you have enough to live on.However if you are having the feeling o... |
Palm just gave me early access to the Pre SDK. What should I build? | st3fan: 'PreFart' |
Should I give up? | lsc: I know little of your market; I target SysAdmins. But I went 4 years (and one Ross Perot) before my company became profitable. I supported it and myself through part-time consulting.The big thing is to present a decisive face to the world. My 'Ross Perot' cost me another two years or so, I think.As for 'sta... |
How to deal with hagglers w/ future opportunities? | synnik: Many customers will do this, and no, it is not a sign to walk away. But neither does is mean anything.
Pretend that they are saying, "Hi, I had rice krispies for breakfast."Smile and nod, and know in your heart that what they said has no bearing on your business. |
Review part of my startup | wmblaettler: clickable link:
http://www.excycle.com/recipes |
benefits of being successful | ABrandt: Enjoying what you do? I could go out tonight, but slaving away at my project strangely sounds more appealing... |
Review part of my startup | wmblaettler: Just a small bug: multiple clicks on the "Find Recipes" button produces multiple "timer" graphics.I am not a designer but here are some of my suggestions:
* I'd tweak the margins/padding for example in the "find recipe" box the left margin should be a bit larger to match the top margin.
* Reduce some of th... |
benefits of being successful | davidw: Maybe it's time for a break then. There may not be an 'end' with lots of money and a princess and a pony. Taking a break might be a good way of recharging your batteries and coming back to things fresh. |
Palm just gave me early access to the Pre SDK. What should I build? | yan: Search for all the apps that were rejected by Apple, pick one topic that you like most and start hacking away. |
Palm just gave me early access to the Pre SDK. What should I build? | quizbiz: Build something for someone that would have a pre rather than an iPhone. Email work flow, task management, a login to a Point Of Sale system. |
Should I give up? | eande: You say "feedback I've got from people". People will tell you what you want to hear and often don't really know. Most important ask customers or potential customers, listen to them.And on the financial part lots of good ideas here and as usual minimize your expenses and find some income (part time, consulting) y... |
Best Job Posting Site for Hiring | steveklabnik: There's a local (to me) startup called The Resumator that does a bunch of stuff related to hiring. It's mostly about dealing with CVs, but I think he supports automatic posting to a few sites.http://www.theresumator.com/ |
Please review launchly - The home of website launches | launchly: http://www.launchly.com |
Palm just gave me early access to the Pre SDK. What should I build? | vyrotek: Oh man, I want the SDK so bad!
I think the Pre still needs something 'fun'. |
Please review launchly - The home of website launches | SwellJoe: I often get the feeling we, as the tech startup community, spend too much time looking inward. I understand that everybody says "scratch your own itch" and "solve a problem that you have, because you can't really understand other peoples problems", etc. But, it seems like maybe you've chosen a very small ma... |
Best Job Posting Site for Hiring | lowkey: have you heard of http://www.standoutjobs.com
They help employers create online solutions to engage potential recruits. It's an innovative idea and may be a good fit. |
Please review launchly - The home of website launches | jv2222: I think that's great. It's cool as a feed for new stuff happening too. Congrats. |
Please review launchly - The home of website launches | moe: I like it a lot. Content that I want and nice, uncluttered design. RSS subscribed. |
What do you think of a "law advisor" that goes through your email? | yan: I think this might make a useful service where a lawyer charges $X per word of an email to look over and knows your general situation. I don't know how useful a software tool can be, but then again I don't know much about this. |
Performance hit for jQuery Download? | noodle: use google's ajax libraries. they do everything for you, including caching them properly.http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlibs/ |
Performance hit for jQuery Download? | wvenable: Let google host it for you: http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlibs/Using Google's version also means that it will only be cached once between all the sites that use it. This is similar to what you're talking about with bundling it in the browser, |
Making Wireless Work With Linux Mint/Ubuntu? | jawngee: I'm assuming you tried this: http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/The other thought I had is to save yourself some pain and find a usb wireless adapter that linux supports since, I believe, the T40 doesn't have a pcmcia slot. |
Can we monetize Twitter with DMs? Review PubliciTweet | bdmac97: It's an interesting idea. Clickable link: http://publicitweet.comI think you should create a free launch on my new site, http://www.launchly.com! |
Performance hit for jQuery Download? | sarvesh: You need to set the cache control for the file to some far off date in future. Doing this will make sure the browser doesn't download the file each and every time the users visits your website. If you are using Apache you add this to your conf file.<FilesMatch "\.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css)$">
Header set Cache-C... |
Making Wireless Work With Linux Mint/Ubuntu? | aneesh: Get NDISwrapper: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/It will allows you to use the Windows driver for that wireless card. |
Making Wireless Work With Linux Mint/Ubuntu? | fagt: I'm sorry, I don't play pokemon. |
What do you think of a "law advisor" that goes through your email? | ephermata: Can you give a more specific case study where this would save me from a huge mess? |
Performance hit for jQuery Download? | csomar: if you grab Jquery from Google, you'll get more performance especially in speed, as the browser need to download it only once and then can work with it on all sitesRead more here http://encosia.com/2008/12/10/3-reasons-why-you-should-let-g... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | ErrantX: Speaking personally (and I know a few people have said the same in the past) I upvote comments that are constructive or that make a good argument and downvote trollish, rude or "lol" style comments.Irrespective of if I agree with their message or not.Examples. Take these to comments I made the other day:http:/... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | pwncat: I generally upvote comments that make an interesting point in an intelligent way. I tend to favor concision, since I don't upmod (or downmod) something if I'm not compelled to read the whole thing.I generally upvote anything I respond to, even in disagreement, unless it's obnoxious (in which case, I downvote). |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | mixmax: I upvote comments that make me think, tell me something I didn't know, or have an interesting perspective. There is, of course, a personal bias towards comments that I agree with. I try hard to vote objectively regardless of my own views. But I'm only human. |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | anc2020: Upvote if you want the comment to appear higher up in the page of comments; Downvote if you want the comment to appear lower down in the page of comments and be a lighter shade of grey.With the added warning that your actions will have an effect on the voting and commenting behaviours of other hacker news read... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | limmeau: The two extremes are:1) everyone upvotes to agree (and only to agree), and downvotes to disagree (and only to disagree). Then the score on a contribution measures its proximity to the average opinion.2) everyone upvotes signal and downvotes noise. Then the score on a contribution measures its relevance to HN r... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | Tichy: I see it less as agreeing or disagreeing, and more as is it a new idea, new perspective, new spin, something worth thinking about. I would not learn anything from a comment about liberal arts education being crap. If there was an interesting reasoning behind the comment, it might be another matter.Sometimes I vo... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | Xichekolas: I'll mod something up if it's on-topic, well thought-out, and I agree with it. I'll only mod something down if it's blatantly off topic and rude/trollish. If I simply don't agree with what they said, but they said it in useful way, I'll just leave it be.I'm all about modding the people who post goatse links... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | scscsc: You can't tell people how/when to upvote/downvote/do nothing. It will not work and people will try to game the system. People will vote based on instinct.For example I upvote what I like/agree with. I downvote stupid or wrong stuff.That being said, I think the HN community has regulated itself remarkably wel... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | scott_s: Understand that the point of the moderation system here is to promote civil discussion. The protocol most people (try) to follow here is a natural result from that.I have a policy of only downmodding posts that are not a part of legitimate discussion. This includes obvious trolls, but also any post where I don... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | tjr: I upvote comments: that provide useful information; that I agree with, and writing my own comment would only be clutter; that I disagree with, but think is well-presented.I downvote comments: that fairly strongly don't add anything to the conversation; that contain a high percentage of profanity without saying any... |
Palm just gave me early access to the Pre SDK. What should I build? | dandrews: I can't even consider a Pre unless I know there's a reliable ssh client for it, and casual googling doesn't turn one up. So there's something for your to-do list. |
Rate my app: PNGSquash | chaosmachine: Nice app. I use pngout from the command line, so this might save me some typing.Feature suggestion: Tell me which of the 4 compressors gave the best result.Also, since the point of testing 4 png compressors is to get the smallest size possible, why not use "smallest" as the default setting? |
Review part of my startup | pedalpete: from a quick usability standpoint, i'd make the entire recipe div clickable, and not just the title and image.Also, your text goes to a light grey on hover, which conventionally is 'unavailble'. I'd go with the blue you use for the headlines on hovers. |
Rate my app: PNGSquash | miles: After running PNGSquash on a directory containing 10 PNGs totaling 456KB (which had already been optimized with pngcrush from the command line), it shrunk them to 432KB using the smallest squash level. The processing time was around 4m20s on a MacBook Pro with 3GB RAM.A similar tool is ImageOptim
http://pornel.n... |
Work on Palm Mojo Application Framework | intheory0: I'm not in the Bay area, but if you'd seed on TPB I'd be happy to share what I learn. |
Looking for in-browser programming tutorials like 'Try Ruby!' | mshafrir: Not exactly what you're looking for, but check out http://codepad.org/ if you want an extremely quick and convenient way to dabble in various programming languages. |
Looking for in-browser programming tutorials like 'Try Ruby!' | fallintothis: Reddit had a good list awhile back: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8ji9m/Includes ones for Scheme, Python, Factor, Cat, OCaml, Forth, and Brainfuck. And, of course, all of the many languages covered by Codepad. |
Rate my app: PNGSquash | mcastner: I compared ImageOptim and PNGSquash and PNGSquash made both files about 4KB smaller than ImageOptim did, both were using the highest optimization settings for smallest file size.
I had PNGOUT installed too.I like PNGSquash and I think I'll use it to optimize all my images. The only features I'd like included ... |
Looking for in-browser programming tutorials like 'Try Ruby!' | csomar: This is the thing that made me remember 'Ruby', the tutorial was very silk. I don't think other tutorials of that sort exists or they should add them to main languages websites. |
Rate my app: PNGSquash | ido: Can we get something that works on linux or windows?Although I guess I can just chain the 4 compressors myself on the command line... |
Why should we upvote or downvote a comment? | cmars232: The up & down arrows on your page are yours, and yours alone. Do whatever you want with 'em, whatever feels right. |
Looking for in-browser programming tutorials like 'Try Ruby!' | vinc456: Crunchy for Python: http://code.google.com/p/crunchy/ |
How do you determine your price point? | aditya: 1. Survey your audience, ask specific questions like, would you pay a) $10-20 b) $30-$40 c) 1 million billion of this product2. Check your competition to see what they're charging (counterpoint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy)3. Pick a number (ref: http://network.businessofsoftware.org/video/d... |
How do you determine your price point? | stevenjames: In terms of the product(s), what would you pay for it? |
How do you determine your price point? | nkohari: IANAL, but you're in dangerous legal territory if you charge two groups of people different amounts for the same product. Either make it a different license offering, or make sure you're not discriminating against either group. :)You really can't figure out a price point in a scientific way (sample and control... |
How do you determine your price point? | gojomo: Flinch pricing:http://venturehacks.com/articles/pricing |
How do you determine your price point? | mattmaroon: a/b test it if you have decent traffic. You have to make sure you get a statistically significant sample. |
Please review SillyApp | JeremyChase: I am going to go on a limb here. Is this actually a shill for launchly.com?If not, your wordpress theme looks great, and sillyapp seems to work just as well as every other customized WP blog. Honestly, it does look great, but lets get real, it is a blog. |
Learning about machine vision? | jbr: Somewhat generic advice: Find a good local bookstore (way easier in cities, particularly those with universities) and start flipping through relevant books until you find one that speaks in language you understand -- there's really no substitute for this, since your background (maths/physics/compsci) and learning ... |
Games where the more random you are the higher you score? | hc: rock, paper, scissors |
Please review SillyApp | jmonegro: If I want to review something at launchly, I go to launchly. HN should not be used for marketing and promotion. Yesterday you submitted something about launchly, you should leave it at that. |
benefits of being successful | MaysonL: Leverage over the future. |
Learning about machine vision? | metachris: O'Reilly "Learning OpenCV" is very well written and covers a wide range of topics.http://www.amazon.com/Learning-OpenCV-Computer-Vision-Librar... |
How do you determine your price point? | alavrik: One of the best introductory articles on pricing I've read: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie... |
Rate my app: PNGSquash | jasonkester: I'd love to, but I can't:- You linked me to a source control repository instead of a product page.- There's a download button, but it seems to want to give me source code.- reading comments here, it seems that the source is actually only compilable on a Mac.In short, you have not produced an App. Even if ... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.