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Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | silencio: I was in the same position as you a while ago..some people I know were buying some Parallax products and wanted to know if I were interested in joining them to get a volume discount, so I got some of their products..I'm not sure what kind of stuff you wanted to program, but I've done some small but cool little toys and projects with their propeller and javelin microcontrollers - and they had some intro sets too I think. Lots of extras you could add on like GPS and bluetooth (for $ of course).I've really wanted to check out the Arduino boards, but no time, so I couldn't give you any sort of comparison I'm afraid. Might as well take this opportunity to purchase one while I still remember, too ;) |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | jsyedidia: The following looks like a good starting point, with an Arduino tutorial, a recommended starting kit, plus recommendations on tool kits:
http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/ |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | kaens: http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/socratic/ |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | blackguardx: Are you interested in analog or digital electronics? I started out with Atmel micrcontrollers in 10th grade and then my curiosity bloomed. Try to learn the basics of analog electronics. Everything stems from there.I once got a fortune cookie that said "Digital components are made from analog parts." How true. |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | ghshephard: I know it's not a WebApp (at least last time I checked), but I'd recommend you go with the same product almost every small company in the world uses - Quickbooks. Everything else is just a niche player. Quickbooks will take you all the way to just before 500 employees and going public (Speaking from experience. ) Your financial software should be something you don't even think about. Quickbooks captures that model -plus, every accountant/bookkeeper in the world knows how to use it.If you are dead set on having a webapp, and are planning on growing, the elements that people are looking for, books that are SOX clean, online expense and Purchase Requests, can be found in products like Netsuite.Our company went the QuickBooks->Netsuite->OracleFinancials route. And, no matter _how many times_ I go through that routine, OracleFinancials _always_ ends up being a pain to deploy - no matter how much we pay the consultants to make it "smooth, pain free." |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | Tichy: I would also like to learn electronics. You might also enjoy checking Adafruit industries: http://www.adafruit.com/She has a lot of fun DIY electronics kits. I figured I'd use them to learn soldering and stuff, so I ordered some.Also I still dream of one day creating a sleek case for Minti MP3 with 3d printing and beat the iPod with open source hardware. |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | jsmcgd: http://hackaday.com/You might find some ideas here to inspire you. |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | fozy: Add my vote to the Arduino. I picked one up a while ago, in the same situation as you. There are lots of DIY projects that integrate the Arduino. Make magazine (makezine.com) for instance has quite a few projects that are not too complicated. |
Why do we still have an Electoral College in the US? | epi0Bauqu: It's called the amendment process. |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | qhoxie: > Let's say you have a great idea. You think it is something that people need and would want. There is also a viable business model.To me, that is all you need to know. The risk you mention is definitely present, but that is part of all ventures. Do it the way you envision it and fill the gap.Great luck to you! |
Why do we still have an Electoral College in the US? | jacobscott: The easy answer is that the system for presidential elections is part of the constitution, and is quite hard to change, on purpose. You should know this if you've graduated high school (since you live in the US).The second reason is that it is not clear that a "secure, nation-wide popular vote counting system based on modern communications technology" is a good idea even before we get to the technology. Our system of government is a type of federalism (state/national) and moving to a popular vote based electoral system weakens this division. I don't have much expertise here, but can assert with confidence that expert opinion is divided on whether or not this is desirable. |
Why do we still have an Electoral College in the US? | pbh101: I've heard that it currently ensures that more, disparate voices will be heard. As Jonah Goldberg once said, democracy shouldn't work such that "51% of the country can give the other 49% a wedgie".Were the electoral model to be abandoned, it would ensure that candidates would stick to major urban areas as much as possible because they would have the largest amount of influence per unit of effort. Now, this wouldn't hold true in all cases, but from what I understand the Electoral College as it stands helps to ensure that the sundry opinions of different interests in this country are given more consideration.Interesingly, before the electoral reforms of the 1800s in Britain, seat allocations weren't decided by population, but rather influenced by the weighting of the needs of various regional trades/industries. While this seems very anti-democratic to modern American ideals, at that time industries were much closer to the individual. Also, I'm not so sure it was a bad idea: you baked lobbying and the concerns of industries into the political system as opposed to grafting it on in a shadowy, behind-the-scenes system, and therefore had the ability to regulate it to some degree. |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | HeyLaughingBoy: Business model? People want it? Hell, it already has more going for it than a lot of the ideas I see floated around here. Go for it!! |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | brm: The love test from Robot Co-op (the guys behind 43things, 43 People, 43 Places etc...):"When we started working on product ideas, one of the tests we subjected every idea to was what if it works?We had lots of ideas: a better answering machine, online education tools, job hunting sites, baby blogs, personalized text ads, personalized news services. Sure, we could build a personalized text ads service! But what if it works? Do we really want to run that business?Before long, we realized we had one primary criteria for an idea we’d want to work on: it had to be an idea we loved so much that if it works, we’d be happy to work on it. Reflecting on the love test I found myself contemplating the word Amateur. The root word there is love, and an amateur is someone who pursues their interest out of love, not a hope for professional recognition or market success.The test we were concerned with wasn’t how great a business the idea would be. It was whether we could love the work. We thought about products we admire: del.icio.us, flickr, upcoming.org, craigslist, bloglines. Some of these are going to be great businesses, but all of them have an amaeteurish edge in the best sense of that word. They look like works of love. It was the amateur roots of them, the passion behind the product, that we admired."Full link: http://blog.robotcoop.com/2004/11/15/the-age-of-the-amateur/ |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | aneesh: > So how do you decide?By actually trying it. In fact, you could say the whole point of a startup is to run experiments to figure out if an idea makes a viable business. |
What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? | mistermann: I kinda thought I had it solved, I had a 1 million portfolio, which is more than enough for me to survive on, as long as you pay attention to what happens in the world economy and markets, since I knew everything we are now seeing was coming, and was making 20%+ per year I though I had it all figured out. Until I got server, -70% in 2 months. So my personal advice is, never think you are too smart. If if you know you are correct, and you are in fact correct, it doesn't mean you can't lose your shirt. |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | vaksel: When you get to THE idea you'll know it because it'll be all you'll think off for weeks |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | il: It's not about the idea, it's never about the idea, it's all the execution. It shouldn't matter to you if someone copies your idea because you know you can execute better than them. They can make X, but you can make a better X or better market X or make more money from X, etc.Most of the time, whoever implements an idea first doesn't win, it's whoever implements it best. |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | known: Customer First.
Competition Second.
Period. |
How to decide if an idea is worth implementing as a business? | danielrhodes: Assuming you are in tech, you should probably think differently about this problem.Instead of focusing on whether people could like it or not, do a test to see if people actually want it or not by implementing a very simple and non-committed version (kind of like what Google Labs is to Google's product line). If people like it, you will have your answer.You probably have ideas like this all the time, so make a list and try a few of the more promising ones. But don't put all your eggs in one basket if you don't have to.Also, stop worrying about people stealing your idea. Assuming you are sitting on a pot of gold, it's not about who launches first, but about who gets the right people to use that product first who get the prize. |
business model for a new image format? | tstegart: At first glance, I think it would be a capital intensive business. The only way I can think to make money would be licensing, which is expensive in terms of getting the legal work done and protecting and enforcing your intellectual property. Of course, you can always license it to someone else who can resell it, giving you royalties. |
Getting hands dirty with electronics for newbies | tu: There are also lots of kits in the Make Store. (http://makershed.com)
Makezine also has a couple of older weekend projects about electronics. Like this one about the arduinohttp://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/09/intro_to_the_arduin...Or this into to breadboard electronics:http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/08/intro_to_breadboard...Or the introduction to oscilloscopes:http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/02/introduction_to_osc... |
Examples of DatabaseLess website? | KB: http://news.ycombinator.com is all in memory I believe |
Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting | ryanfelton: I've looked at less accounting and played with there free trial. It was kind of mediocre. Most of these posted are invoicing solutions. Here are the other I've looked into:http://liteaccounting.com/http://gobootstrap.com/http://www.netbooks.com/http://www.freeagentcentral.com/http://www.clarityaccounting.com/From here:
http://mashable.com/2008/09/21/270-online-business-tools/ |
Examples of DatabaseLess website? | jwilliams: Quite a lot of wiki's are based upon flat files - e.g. TWiki. |
Startup blogs? | newmediaclay: onstartups.com |
Startup blogs? | KB: You may find a few here: http://web20.originalsignal.com/ |
Startup blogs? | ScottWhigham: Guy K's alltop has a bunch of stuff. I don't have the link(s) to the particular pages but check it out. |
Examples of DatabaseLess website? | GreyLensman: http://www.knozama.com
Entire site uses nothing more the code and a property file of < 10 values. No application data whatsoever. |
What % of users are still on IE6? | geuis: At the company I work at, we are gradually inching down towards around 25% IE6 usage out of all IE users. Overall, about 75% of total traffic is Internet Explorer. IE8 is about 1%, IE7 is about 74%. Firefox is around 20% overall. The other 5% contains Safari and other minor browsers, which includes Opera, old IE versions, Chrome, Netscape, etc.
Our site gets about 3.5 million hits a month. My coworker and I are the lead front-end engineers for the site and we are actively pushing on all fronts to abandon IE6 support entirely. We are making gradual headway, but its a long slog. Unfortunately for us IE6 users still comprise too large a percent of our audience to abandon completely. |
What % of users are still on IE6? | shutter: It's usually better to get something out sooner. You can always go back and "tweak" IE if you have time.Companies can thrive on less than 100% of the market; look at Apple as one example. You don't have to win everyone over to succeed -- and in this case, IE6 share will continue to decrease with time, so your market segment will increase likewise.Don't kick IE6 users out, but don't go out of your way to make the experience flawless. If the issues are fairly noticeable, you can put a note saying "You're using an outdated browser; for the best experience please upgrade." |
What % of users are still on IE6? | jonny_noog: 37Signals will begin phasing out support for IE 6 today as it happens (http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/basecamp-phasin....). I note that even they had originally planned to phase out support for IE 6 in August this year, but extended the deadline.I think this is a decision that you really need to make after analysing your particular market. If you have a lot of government/corporate clients who may be slow to move to new technology, then possibly the extra effort to get things sorted for IE 6 may be worth it.But if like 37Signals, your market is more made up of small/medium business and tech savvy users who move relatively quickly to new technology, then possibly the time to say goodbye to IE 6 is now.Only you know for sure. |
What % of users are still on IE6? | astrec: As I'm far too lazy to find my last comment re: IE6 let me dazzle you with stats for this month.For a classifieds site with broad appeal:UBs: 4,828,839IE6%: 24.82%As a point of interest -FF%: 17.17%Safari: 3.97%Chrome: 0.70%Unless you are catering to a predominantly tech audience, you've got some pretty hard decisions to make in not explicitly supporting IE6.If you're working towards your first release I'd be inclined to trade IE6 compatibility for velocity. |
What % of users are still on IE6? | mdolon: Still a pretty decent chunk, unfortunately. For their sake, I have adopted using a separate stylesheet for IE6 in most of my designs.Best of luck! |
Advice on dealing with criticism | ryanspahn: Unfortunately, it goes with the territory.But, if you believe in your work and you hear positive, the positive is your audience. Work for your audience ... don't dismiss the negative if such is constructive feedback you can use to make a better product.Just think how many people hated on various businesses (myspace, twitter come to mind) and yet they became wildly successful!Keep your head up! |
Advice on dealing with criticism | vaksel: You'll never satisfy everyone, don't discount good criticism that also gives you solution, do discount the "meh it sucks" criticism |
Advice on dealing with criticism | ahizzle: One of the very noticeable things I've observed, and I'm sure someone else has already blogged about this, is that if you're doing something "new" people will hate on it because it can't be done... but if you're doing something that sounds like it's already been "done", you'll get hated on because you shouldn't bother doing it.Really it boils down to being able to differentiate hater-ade from constructive criticism. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | rrf: You have to approach it objectively, not personally. You have to have the determination and perseverance to take some flak and keep going. And you need to be open to changing your idea if you realise the criticism is justified. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | nose: It might help to prioritize the feedback by the individual's credibility. In the end, go with your gut. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | blasdel: You've got this backwards: 'deal' with praise, use criticism. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | warwick: For every person your product is right for, there's going to be a ton of people your product /isn't/ right for. The people who it isn't right for can have two reactions. They can be indifferent, or they can be critical.If they're indifferent, so be it.Being critical is a different ball game altogether. It either means that they like it but want changes, or they have some sort of grudge against the concept, or they want you to be working on something else. You can safely discard the last two types of criticism.The first type "they like it, but it's not perfect" is the group to actually listen to. Can you fix what they don't like about the product without diluting your vision of what it is? If not, do they have a better vision for your product that you might incorporate? No? Then don't worry about it, this isn't your audience talking. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | bayareaguy: The best way to deal with criticism or praise is to have it refined into something you can actually use. I would suggest asking someone to take the good and bad things people tell you and summarize it objectively. Then find someone else with perhiperal involvement in your effort monitor what you do over time and tell you how their observations compare with the ones from the summary. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | LPTS: I approach criticism critically. Then I usually decide the person criticizing me is an idiot, the wrong person to talk to, or that they had something useful to say. When people criticize me, it doesn't make me feel down. It makes me feel smarter or at least ahead of the curve around my ideas, some of the time, and lets me learn something useful the rest of the time.You sound like you are running a neuro-semantic loser script about your project. That's not the way to change the world. You can't play this game if you care that much about what eight douchebags who happen to know you think. Instead of "criticism is a downer" try substituting "criticism is a valuable chance to play a mental game with my ideas"You should lose the depressed downer reaction right away. Then, you should think about the criticism, and if it's useful, don't be so arrogant that you don't take it. If it's not useful, either they are stupid or just not relevant. Either way, nothing to be depressed about. Or, maybe you actually are a loser and just are in a state of cognitive denial about what a loser situation you are in, I don't know.(You could give your framework to communities all over the country who do similar community reporting.) |
Advice on dealing with criticism | skmurphy: The lukewarm reaction is the least useful. Bona fide criticism or praise is always useful. The first thing you should seek to understand is whether the person has the problem/need that you hope to address. Talk to them about the problem before you get their feedback on your current solution iteration. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | abijlani: First you have to see if the criticism is constructive or destructive. If it is destructive eg. "Your idea sucks!". Well then just ignore it. You have to develop a bit of a thick skin and ignore the naysayers and the ones who want to put you done. If the criticism is constructive then make sure you understand what needs to be done or how you can use it to your advantage.In my experience being a solo founder is very tough because you have to keep yourself motivated. Having a partner helps so that you can take turns at picking each other up when times get tough. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | zaidf: This is only from MY personal experience: I have found that I take criticism more negatively for projects I am myself not fully convinced about.My advice: fully be sold on your idea before inviting outside opinions. Otherwise outside opinion, especially negative, is just an EXCUSE to drop an idea you were never convinced about yourself.Talk is cheap. Don't seek validation of your idea from others. Except of course when they are people that matter(and there are limits to that too). ie. VCs, potential cofounders. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | robg: Know your advisers and use them. The main problem to solve is knowing when to listen --- and when not to. Look for commonalities in what they're saying. If you average their feedback together, which concerns float to the the top of the stack?If it's a social news site, why not have them enter each concern as a separate item? To the extent that others agree, that concern will get up-voted. Then there's transparency for all involved when you listen and when you don't. And they end up using your product more. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | Jem: Honestly? Suck it up - that's life. You can't expect 100% of people to like what you do 100% of the time. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | Hoff: Have your peanut gallery enter and then vote on the tips and feature requests, and get the karma system going? Use that traffic to test code and servers and to sound out the comments and the requests, and then to establish in-network invites. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | DanielBMarkham: Remember that running a business is about risk -- making decisions with imperfect information.There are lots of risks. If you get tied up too much in worrying about them all you won't get anything accomplished.I think part of maturing is being able to sort out what problems to act on and what to ignore. This is probably an acquired taste. In other words, take as much criticism as you can and then ignore them. Over time, you'll be able to deal with more and more negativity without it screwing you up. That's where you want to be -- able to handle all of the possible problems and still being optimistic about what you're doing. That's the spot you can grow from.But heck if I would want a dozen or more people critiquing me all the time. I'd rather use a forum like this every now and then to critique the big issues instead of getting a running stream of advice. |
Advice on dealing with criticism | puzzle-out: If your too sensitive to criticism then a startup will be hell. Hard to generalise about entrepreneurs, but confidence and resultant tough skins are integral. If your more a creative type, then get a pitbull co-founder to take off the heat. |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | davidw: Either Python or Ruby is a good bet. I'd personally go with Ruby. I could rack my brain for good, logical reasons, but I'll keep it simple: I've used both and I like it more. Other people prefer Python. I do think that JRuby is a bit further along than Jython, but that's probably not a deal maker. |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | astrec: Since you've started with Python why not stick with it?Python and Ruby have way more in common than the good natured ribbing the two communities give each other might suggest. Besides which, Java/Python is a very employable combination.Once you've gone a bit further with Python why not try some ruby, then lisp/erlang/ocaml etc. etc. etc. |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | sunkencity: jruby doesn't work very well at the moment. Dog-slow performance on the jvm, buggy. I'd suggest trying out Scala. Eventually jruby will catch up, but supposedly it needs java 1.7 jvm dynamic language support to be effective. |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | thomasfl: Go for Ruby. JRuby is actually faster than Ruby, and will improve in future versions of jvm. Calling java classes from jruby is simpler than calling Java from Java. If you're using Eclipse as IDE, I suggest you try out the DLTK Ruby plugin for code completion and debugging. Netbeans IDE is also a good bet.I've never gotten used to python's use of indentation as syntax. The __magical__ method names with double underscore looks just plain ugly. In my opinion Ruby code looks more clean and simple than python. |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | cstejerean: take a look at Clojure |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | m0digital: Ruby and Python are both great choices like everyone has said. However be warned! It may make you quit your enterprise software job. Once you move to a dynamic language you will become increasingly frustrated with the inadequacies of the Java language. Eventually you'll want to work with Ruby/Python/etc so much that it will make you quit your job....and move on to something, possibly, better. :) |
review Thymer, our new todo and time tracking web app | jd: Clickable link - http://stunf.com/blog/ |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | alex_c: There's Groovy (http://groovy.codehaus.org/). I didn't get a great feeling about it when I tried it a couple years ago, but I really haven't used it much or know enough about it to pass judgement. It sells itself as "builds upon the strengths of Java but has additional power features inspired by languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk", so it seemed pertinent to this thread. |
review Thymer, our new todo and time tracking web app | apgwoz: It _looks_ like it's going to be great, however, without actually using it myself, it's hard to tell if that's the case. I am looking forward to getting an invite for the beta. |
Best partner language for Java -- Python, Ruby, or X? | microtim: i first learned python to use google app engine. if u think u might be dabbling with mini web apps, try python so u can drop into google app engine. just fyi that gae is still immature but barrier to entry is the lowest that i've seen. curious on other's opinions about this. |
Would there be an energy crisis if... | dkokelley: It has to do with market forces and politics.Disclaimer: These are not necessarily my views, but views I believe others hold.A: Nuclear energy is dangerous and a terrorism threat (political)B: Electric vehicles are not practical (market) and there is a ton of money in oil (market) and our relationship to the oil providers is frail (political)C: Wind energy is not very profitable (market) or practical (market) because the technology isn't there to harness it efficientlyI agree with most of my market reasons, but the political ones I think are unfounded.I also think that there is a great reward awaiting those who find a way to make electric vehicles and wind power practical and profitable (and a great deal of headache awaiting those who attempt to change the political aspect of energy). |
Would there be an energy crisis if... | etal: The cheapest energy source right now is coal, even if carbon-offset costs are factored in. So it would be cheaper to do the electric car thing right now with the existing power sources than with the nuclear option -- but we haven't done that, because electric car designs aren't quite ready yet, and because the demand for raw materials for all those new lithium-ion batteries would push the cost through the roof. (That actually happened this year with laptop batteries, somewhat.)But yes, nuclear power stands a better chance of being able to fully replace fossil fuels than most of the other options in the next few decades. |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | alaskamiller: cute design. kind of an addicting concept. should make this into an iphone app. need to seed more, i only see two pics/words. |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | petervandijck: I like it too. Nice design. Nice concept. I think you need to convince 10 friends to snap lots of pictures to get things rolling, because right now it looks pretty empty, and nobody likes an empty community site. |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | mattjung: Simple, but appealing idea, nicely done. I'll keep an eye on it. How many users do you have already? |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | mwinters58: business model? grow traffic and sell ads? |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | tomsaffell: nice idea.maybe you could try to tie the word of the day to current affairs in some way?as for building traffic, maybe you could find a way for people to vote (or even submit) w/o needing to login. you might need to bring the login back ultimately, once it's popular - but do you need it now?final thought - the home page runs off the bottom of the screen (at 1280 x 1024) by a good few hundred pixels. And the bottom is where all the real content is. Maybe reshuffle and/or shrink?cheerstom saffell |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | kenver: Really good idea and I like the site. You probably know, but when I tried to find it with a search engine there was nothing there. You should probably do something about that |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | walesmd: I like it - design is nice. What is the incentive for winning (other than community)? I think this is a prime opportunity to purchase (or get one donated) an iPhone or the T-Mobile G1 and give one away. |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | jsmcgd: I enjoyed the HL reference. I reckon all it needs now is some users and some content. Well done. |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | vaksel: did I see a sign for your site during last night's debate? Or was that something else? |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | Tapthat: where.com did this a couple years back... It got some response but you definitely need to find a way to get buzzzz |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | wensing: http://www.snapherd.comFor convenience. |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | migpwr: I wish I didn't have to register to vote for a picture... i was about to vote for deep fried candy bars on "absurd" |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | joshu: Today's word is "mesothelioma" |
Why Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God' is [dead] | comatose_kid: I'm not a moderator, but the question assumes too much.Even if you provided hard data to back up the assertion implicit in your question, I'd have a hard time understanding what this has to do with startups or hacking... |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | calambrac: Why 48 hours? Would cycling catchwords in shorter increments do a better job of keeping people engaged with the site? What's the smallest period of time you can find that still yields decent photos? |
Why Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God' is [dead] | swombat: Because we flagged it, because it was off topic. Power to the people. |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | pxlpshr: We tried to do this last year when the "Safari SDK" was released, but the side project died... I still think it's a great idea and you've executed it nicely. There's another iPhone application that does something similar called Scavenge built by the hosting company A Small Orange, however they currently do not have the website component as far as I can tell.http://www.apptism.com/apps/scavenge |
Review my startup, Snapherd.com | jcapote: openid support would be nice, but I love the idea. |
Why do you do what you do? | noodle: independence. i do the work i do now in hopes of being able to position myself to have the ability to do anything that i want to do. my major goal is to be able to travel the world, living for extended periods in different places. |
Why do you do what you do? | qhoxie: Achievement - because I yearn to create and innovate always, it's just a matter of finding the time.Excitement - because I am ready to break out of the confines of college and make a difference.Independence (team) - because the agility and dynamic I have felt working toward an agreed upon and challenging goal is addictive.Fortune - because my ultimate hope is to be able to reinvest in people.Family - sadly, these ambitions make me take leave of my family (moving), but I will change that. |
Would there be an energy crisis if... | hs: with nuclear, you still have a centralized source ... resulting loss in cables and converterswith solar, it's decentralized ... loss should be minimal ... maybe no need for AC converters ... can u directly use DC ? |
Why do you do what you do? | jyothi: I would rephrase what you called contradictions as range of orientation.Early in trilogy we used to have this talent development programs identifying our orientation. One would identify highest and lowest orientation.Most fresh grads would be Challenge oriented with least orientation towards Balance (work-life/family) and the dial does rotate couple of years down.I think I am Achievement oriented, followed by Excitement followed by Independence/Fortune. |
Why do you do what you do? | gord: To satisfy some inherent need to leave a mark on the world and to make something from nothing.Mostly, to see what _can_ be done. |
Why do you do what you do? | iamelgringo: * Because I've tried a lot of other things and they don't hold my interest.* Because... must... write... code....* Because I want to solve the money problem* Because life is too short to be a wage slave* Because I like hanging out with other smart people.* Because I like building things* Because I like the creativity and freedom that I get from writing my own code.* Because I love the satisfaction of others getting use out of what I've made.* Because I like building community (Hackers and Founders)* Because the ass can't kick itself |
Why do you do what you do? | known: One word: Conscience |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | esessoms: It is dangerous territory, tread carefully. I've seen situations where "exclusive partnership" means "this is threatening to us, we want to put this on a shelf and get it off the market." If the fact that you're asking here reflects a negative gut-reaction to the idea, you might want to listen to your gut. There was an interesting and relevant article posted to HN about two weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309526 |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | bdfh42: Some thoughts:A partnership of equals can work but if the power in a relationship is too one sided then one of the "partners" is effectively the employee of the other.You describe a potential customer for your software that can see that there is money to be made in exploiting your IP. They are offering their company as a test bed plus some money "up front" in exchange for 50% of the business.From their viewpoint this could be a great deal They get a bespoke application (for be sure they will insist that your software meets their needs in particular) at a good discount. Plus if you manage to sell another copy or three they get their money back.Beware the idea that a company is "well connected" when it comes to their trade rivals - they might be industry fashion setters but this may not translate into software choice - plus a package that is seen as being owned by a business rival has to be pretty good (or cheap) to overcome that stigma.I have run into a great number of businesses over the years. Almost all of them think that their business processes are typical and a good model for the rest of their industry - in my experience they are all wrong when they think this. Each business has a whole lot of similar processes but they all emphasise different aspects, measures and controls. Writing packaged software based upon the model of a single customer is likely to produce software that will be difficult to sell to others in the same line of trade. A good package is based upon as wide a set of industry experiences as possible.OK - I have raised a while bunch of issues but have no specific advice other than "Beware - proceed with extreme caution". |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | westside1506: Don't do it for the promise of their future activities. There is a chance that they might never deliver (you're the only one in a position to estimate this).Think of it in terms of an equity investment. If they invest $X on a $Y premoney valuation, they own X/(X+Y) of the company. After the investment, the company then pays partners based on contributions (e.g. it pays you a salary and pays them sales commissions based on success - or any other means you choose.). |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | vaksel: Do you live in South Africa yourself? If not I'd run for the door |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | fizx: I have a rule of thumb for business: No exclusive partnerships, unless they offer an amount in excess of what I'd be willing to sell the company for. |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | phil_KartMe: make sure to think about a downside scenario. what happens if they get an exclusive partnership, and then don't use your application? how can you exit the partnership?might consider including a minimum revenue stream necessary for the partner to maintain exclusivity. or a term for exclusivity (e.g,. 18 months). |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | subbu: I was in a similar position 2 years back. The only difference between you and me(then) is I didn't have an application ready. I just had the idea.This company (a smaller one though..I was working with them as a full-time employee) was interested in my idea. They accepted my proposal. My terms were, I'll build the app, they will fund the development, they get exclusive rights to sell in Australia in exchange and I'll keep the rest along with IP. But they wanted to have exclusive rights all over the world. I said yes because I didn't understand what those exclusive rights were...heheBut they still walked out of the deal because:1. They thought they would have to spend double the amount on maintaining the application after I developed the first version. I never understood those terms though.2. They thought it was too risky to trust an individual developer over a registered company.What I understood from the discussions was: they wanted me to develop the application, take some money for the time I spent developing it, hand-over the source and then walk away from it. Exclusivity meant walking away.So the deal didn't happen. But I haven't given up on my idea yet. I have started developing it after a gap of one year. I still like the idea even after one year gap. The only problem is I haven't completed it even after 2 years :) I am getting closer to it. I don't know when I'll complete it though. But I am not in a hurry because nobody is funding it. |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | blackswan: Naspers via Media24? The guys I've spoken to there are smart. If it is then they would be able to offer you a lot of resources that would be very difficult to otherwise get hold of, especially in SA. Unless you really feel its going to fly (in which case it would probably be better to try get financing via equity with no exclusive partnerships) I think that partnering with a company such as one per your description would be a good way to position it for growth - particularly if you are not keen to move from part-time to "full-on startup mode". The points by westside1506 and esessoms are both very valid - worth bearing in mind. Geluk! |
Why does nobody want to talk about Zeitgeist? | pius: I don't know what you're talking about. Could you provide a link to the thread? |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | trapper: Surprised no one has said it, but find an IP lawyer who specialises in negotiations.Seriously, a few $$$$ now could save you heaps. I did the same thing (worldwide exclusivity) when I was young and naive, and there were no "minimum sales" targets set. The company who now owned the code sold none in the first year despite being well connected and rich. I managed to wrestle the IP off them via free consulting, and within a week had my first "enterprise" client.Make sure if you sign something you get minimum sales volumes written into the contract, as well as who gets what once the money comes in. Anyone who has ever set up a distributor or partnered with a company will tell you the same thing. |
Advice on partnership with a large firm. | callmeed: I'm not a fan of partnerships with large companies.In my last 2 startup companies, I've had 2 partnerships with large, publicly-traded, tech firms in the valley. Other than a few nice, free dinners and the temporary ego boost of having their logo on your website, both were a complete waste of time and resources.Big companies like to throw their size and influence around as incentive to partner with them ("we have XXX customers", "do $X million dollars in Y industry", etc.). In reality, they really don't care about your success, they will always call the shots–or they're simply "too big to move".Our best partnerships have come from connected individuals in our industry. Influential bloggers, other entrepreneurs and industry/regional experts can go a long way if you let it.If this partnership is the only way to get into Africa quickly, I would say proceed with caution. I wouldn't do anything exclusive unless it was tied to a performance quota and short timeline.Just my $.02 |
Why does nobody want to talk about Zeitgeist? | alecco: Hi jmtame.Media like the "Zeitgeist, the Movie" make me and many others upset. It doesn't follow logic, it is quite simplistic, it is just too lame. It ties very different things into a great conspiracy theory.What really pisses me off is all is welcomed by the far right conservatives in the western democracies. Anybody against their plans gets dismissed as a lunatic paranoid.In "What We Say Goes" Noam Chomsky mentions the case of government agencies feeding the media with small bits of John F. Kennedy's assassination. |
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