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Cloning a US startup for a european country ? | ndc: How about contacting the original site, maybe you can become its affiliate in France? |
When to stop obsessing over conversion | fbailey: Amazon gets nearly 10% in some areas, I worked with startups where we got the Conversion rates from 1% to 5% this was mostly adwords and landing page optimizitaion.At the end conversion rates define your cost per user and how much you have to make with each user. So don't stop worrying. |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | pmjordan: Start using it yourself, maybe even with a cron job that regularly pulls the latest changes into your local repositories. I give it 2 or 3 version conflict or deleted file incidents where your use of VC saves the day. |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | megamark16: When I started my last job they weren't using version control, so I just told them that if nothing else it would be very easy and painless to just check in every time we push to production so that we always have a snapshot of the last version. The problem with them was that their developer would go and make changes to files in production to fix bugs and issues, even after started using version control, so it was always a chore keeping up with his hotshot prod changes. You don't have to implement a full continuous integration environment or start branching each developer separately, you can just start catching snapshots along the way and it will have a positive impact on future development. |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | stonemetal: I would tell him you want to setup a source control server (That you personally will administer so no overhead or extra work for him.) Have it be fully optional aka people who use it have to fully comply with current practices(Everyone has to be able to work as if it doesn't exist.) That way he gets zero complaints from other staffers who resist change. |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | andrewcooke: one advantage you might use to "sell" the idea is that it lets people work on laptops away from their desk more easily (i'm imagining that a marketing company is full of people wandering round, brainstorming in cafes, etc... :o) |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | jarsj: Drop a note explaining potential disasters of using such a system to everyone including your lead developer's boss. Then wait for the disaster to happen. And then shout again pointing to your email. |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | Kliment: Didn't Joel write an article about that sometime ago? Ah, here it is: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000332.html The point of it is, use it yourself. If you use subversion or whatever else (seems you are familiar with subversion so go ahead and use that) then you can roll back changes, you can do diffs, you have a full copy of the source with revisions, and you can always tell rsync to ignore the .svn directories when you copy things over to production. Eventually something will break, and you will be the guy/girl with the magical powers to bring it back to a non-broken version and find what has changed. Eventually, it will trickle to the rest of the team that it's not a bad idea. Version control can be incrementally adopted. Just sneakily do a commit after other people's changes, and show people how it works. If not everyone adopts it, fine. There is certainly a strategy that's necessary to make sure you don't step on each other's toes while editing things. Use that to mediate between the source control crowd and the non-source-control crowd. Forcing it on others is likely to be counterproductive. Start using it yourself and let others see what happens. |
Who are the Alpha Geeks you follow? | mbrubeck: Here are my top ten, mostly web-related in some way because of my interests. These are the "loud alpha geeks" - the ones who broadcast their interests via regularly-updated blogs or curated links. (There are plenty of "quiet alpha geeks" who are just as "alpha" but not as easy to follow online.)Brad Fitzpatrick (http://brad.livejournal.com/) - creator of LiveJournal and Danga, now at Google working on PubSubHubbub, the Social Graph API, etc.John Resig (http://ejohn.org/, http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jeresig) - jQuery, Mozilla, lots of other JavaScript and browser stuff.Paul Bucheit (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=paul) - creator of GMail and FriendFeed, now at Facebook.Ryan Tomayko (http://tomayko.com) - Ruby, Sinatra, now working at GitHub, has an excellent linkblog.Simon Willison (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=simonw) - Django, Python, also has an excellent linkblog.Leslie Orchard (http://decafbad.com/) - Previously at Delicious/Yahoo, wrote books on JavaScript, Dojo, RSS, now at Mozilla. Follow his bookmarks at: http://delicious.com/deusxMark Pilgrim (http://diveintomark.org/) - Atom, HTML5, Linux, Python, Greasemonkey, formerly at IBM, now at Google. Bookmarks at: http://delicious.com/wearehughJohn Gruber (http://daringfireball.net/) - Apple news and punditry, linkblog.Sam Ruby (http://intertwingly.net/blog/) - Atom, Python, Ruby, Rails, XML, HTML5, SVG. Read what he reads at: http://planet.intertwingly.net/Kevin Kelly (http://kk.org/kk/) - Whole Earth Catalog, WELL, Wired magazine, Cool Tools, various books. Compared to the rest of my list, KK does much more big-picture thinking about technology and society.----...and some of the not-so-loud alpha geeks who I wish posted more (but not really, they probably get more done if they're not blogging all the time):Dustin Sallings (http://dustin.github.com/, http://delicious.com/dustin) - memcached, Python, Twisted, Erlang, Java, C, etc, etc, etc.Tom Preston-Werner (http://tom.preston-werner.com/) - GitHub, Ruby, God, Jekyll.Richard Johnes (http://www.metabrew.com/) - Last.fm, Playdar, Erlang. |
Who are the Alpha Geeks you follow? | freebsd_dude: I prefer to read up on people whose work is timeless: Claude Shannon, John Tukey, Jon Klienberg, the bioinformaticians whose work will one day discover a cure for cancer, etc. |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | gte910h: I'd say you should start using Git or Hg or any distributed system immediately. No need to worry about getting complete adoption for those to be exceedingly effective. Svn (or any "centralized only" SCM) is less capable in an environment such as this as it requires everyone to adopt at once.After you have a week or two worth of changes in your repor then you can convert people one by one, and you don't even have to tell people about the repositories you're using until it's time to try to convert them. |
Who are the Alpha Geeks you follow? | prosa: Joe Damato's posts are always fascinating reminders of the benefit of understanding what's under the hood.http://timetobleed.com/ |
Who are the Alpha Geeks you follow? | runevault: I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head who I consider a real alpha geek, but Rich blows my mind on a constant basis with clojure and how he's doing things there. Not just the technical work, but his taste in design is impressive. |
Any non-techies have advice for a good cover letter? | asolove: My father always told me (and it's worked for me):- The cover letter gets you an interview. From a huge pile of applications, it makes you somehow memorable to a hiring manager who would just like to make the right decision quickly. So don't bother with flowery nonsense and don't worry about being off-putting (unless you're only applying to one job...), just say something bold.- Some people have a hard time selling themselves. Other people have a hard time not lying and overselling themselves. Be honest but explain the value proposition of how hiring you will make a difference to the company.- Because you have to stand out, and because the hiring manager has a lot of context for what the position is which the applicants lack, researching the company, the opening, the culture, etc. will let you write a letter that stands out as a good fit for what they want.- One page only, one font only, print it out on nice paper, don't misspell anything. |
Any non-techies have advice for a good cover letter? | nkh: If you haven't seen the article below, it is a great resource to forward on to your brother. To quote it:For the background part, I like to see what someone has done.Not been involved in, or been part of, or watched happen, or was hanging around when it happened.I look for something you've done, either in a job or (often better yet) outside of a job.http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/how-to-hire-the-best-peo... |
I'm an idea guy. Apparently I'm worth nothing? | maxdemarzi: Upgrade your Idea skill into Design and you'll be worth something.Anybody can come up with an idea, many less can design how that idea will be executed. |
I'm an idea guy. Apparently I'm worth nothing? | terra_t: Didn't Edison say that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration? I think he's right.I get cool ideas for things to do every day, probably enough to fill a few man years. I've got to filter that stream down to a very small list that fits my available time and resources. Since I've got a long backlog of my own ideas, I'm not all that interested in develop other people's ideas -- unless they're writing me a good paycheck.People's time in evaluating your ideas isn't free; turning one of your ideas into a rough estimate of the resources needed to execute it, and of potential market prospects, can be hours or days of work.One of my big complaints about X-Forge and X-Hub open source sites is that they encourage people to put out huge volumes of software out there without documentation, marketing materials, or even an elevator pitch that explains what the software does. I suppose some of that software could save me a lot of development time, but I know I could spend hours a day downloading, compiling and testing software that I'll never use... So I don't, not unless the people put some effort into marketing the project and explaining why I should care.The 'math deficiency' particularly concerns me, largely because of what I experienced when I used to teach Physics. One of the most common things I'd hear from the C-and-under students was "I understand the concepts, but I can't solve the problems." Well, helping the student was a process much like debugging an expert system: and inevitably, along the way, I'd discover what the student had in his 'knowledge base' and find that he didn't understand the concepts at all.I've got a superpower which may be similar to what you've got: I can research a topic for a shockingly little amount of time (sometimes even 20 minutes) and impersonate an expert.I've given talks at conferences on all sorts of subjects -- if I had 3 days to prepare, I could be a stand-in for any speaker at TED and pretty much get away with it. That's despite being (historically) two standard deviations below the mean on appearance and many other skills related to presentation. I'm just really good at attacking a body of literature, building a knowledge base, and telling stories about it.That's a skill that kept me out of academia, despite my PhD, because it calls the whole system into question: why do you need to give people tenure and put them through so much training when this guy can come in and 'pass' for one of them.What am I doing about it? First, I'm targeting those areas where my interpersonal skills are weak. Second, I'm working on breaking down my narrative reprocessing skills into something a computer can do, to create something like an 'amateur system.'Now excuse me while I go execute my idea... |
Who are the Alpha Geeks you follow? | camperman: I've taken lots of Steve Yegge's advice - more than anyone else I've read - but I only catch up with what he's doing once a quarter or so. |
I'm an idea guy. Apparently I'm worth nothing? | apsurd: Seems like you are answering your own question. You know ideas are only the seed. Execution, iteration, and persistence is what makes things tangible.So make your idea engine tangible. The website thing sounds like a fine idea to try - mostly because you will foster connections with other people."I will be shortly putting up a website where I will put all my ideas out there (I'm thinking under a creative commons license) for anyone to take and use and execute."Do it! And then share the link with us here on HN. Looking forward to it. |
git-svn resources? | notaddicted: I have this bookmarked: http://andy.delcambre.com/2008/03/04/git-svn-workflow.html |
git-svn resources? | angelbob: Here's one I liked: http://flavio.castelli.name/howto_use_git_with_svn |
I'm an idea guy. Apparently I'm worth nothing? | anamax: > I hear something from someone and immediately come up with ideas about it. It's what I do. It's what I'm excellent at.That's not a rare skill. Lots of people do it. Many of them are also good at execution.The latter limits your market somewhat. You're competing for the attention of good executers who don't have good ideas with all of the folks with lame ideas, not just folks like yourself. There are some very natural reactions to that situation that drive them to prefer working with executers who have ideas instead of going with "an idea guy".The other problem is that there "we" have more good ideas than we can ever hope to implement.Perhaps you need a story that isn't about you or your ideas in the abstract. Most people prefer stories about them. |
Please review my start-up - planergize.com | dwohlfahrt: Geez... with all the negativity on here (I realize he's asking for criticism, but would it hurt to throw in a tad of positive feedback as well?!) I feel obligated to tell you that I think what you've created, while it still needs a bit of polish and refinement, is quite impressive and useful (especially made me think of it's application for all those DIY sites). Granted I know jack about Flash, but your plan player wowed the pants off me and performed without issue in Firefox.As for suggestions, I agree with most of the others that the landing page could use some work in order to be more engaging and clear as to exactly what the site does. Also, I think it really might help to change the background image to something less cartoonish that comes across as more practical, useful, and more visually representative of the site function... perhaps a design incorporating various planning-related graphics such as arrows, bullets, step numbers (1., 2., 3., etc.), times, clocks, check boxes, percentages, etc.Good luck and I look forward to seeing its progression! |
Who are the Alpha Geeks you follow? | MaysonL: Alan Kay, and his colleagues at vpri.orgGilad Bracha, and the newspeak crew at newspeaklanguage.orgTerry Jones, at fluidinfo.com |
What's wrong with the HTML in this line? | maxdemarzi: Maybe it's not a technical question, but a logical question.It's a direct to product link labeled as a company link? |
git-svn resources? | boyter: This is going to sound rude, but how about you do what the people paying you tell you to do? Thats why they give you money, to provide them value which you will not be doing while trying to circumvent their procedures and rules.Maybe they evaluated GIT and decided their business case suited SVN more?You wouldnt code your stuff in PHP if they are an ASP.NET shop because you like PHP more would you? By all means try to educate them to use what you feel is a better tool, but until then suck it up and do what everyone else is doing. |
What's wrong with the HTML in this line? | RiderOfGiraffes: I regard this as a chance to learn something about the technical details of HTML, so my answer whould not be regarded as definitive. Or even correct.However ...It depends on the variant of HTML, but surely "<p>" is not a, what's the technical term, container? In the variants of HTML that use <p> you don't then have to have a </p> because it's not of the open/close variety. |
What's wrong with the HTML in this line? | mooism2: They may be objecting to use of target, which isn't allowed in html 4 strict as far as I remember. But if they're expecting TV presenters to hand-write html, that's a bit picky. |
What do you use to manage your affiliate programs? | solost: Check out:
ShareASale.com
MyAffiliateProgram.com
CJ.com |
What do you use to manage your affiliate programs? | incredimike: My company uses CJ.com for our affiliate program. |
I'm an idea guy. Apparently I'm worth nothing? | jdietrich: Schizophrenics are also ideas guys. An idea is just a fragment of thought. It's one step above the sparkles you see when you rub your eyes. Having lots of ideas isn't a skill as far as I'm concerned, just and indication that you have an inflated sense of your own importance and ability.Knowledge and experience are humbling, they teach you just how hard people had to work to get us to where we are now. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that if you did have a sound base of mathematical knowledge, you wouldn't have many ideas because you'd realise just how hard it is to create a novel proof.Ideas aren't worth squat because the overwhelming majority of them are complete bunk. Ideas are like a big pile of dirt - the value comes from the digging and sifting and smashing and polishing that gets you the gems. Action is what creates value. |
I'm an idea guy. Apparently I'm worth nothing? | lukev: I'm a "doer", but I'm always looking for good ideas. I'll take your ideas, and you can have 1% of the profits afterward if I implement them.Find enough guys like me, and you could actually make a comfortable living.Not sure how you'd actually implement something like that, though. No way to prove an idea was originally yours (because, realistically, somebody has probably thought of most of it before).I do like the idea of an ideas website, though. Maybe with a mechanism so other people can post theirs? Maybe with a donation mechanism... Entrepreneurs have lots of extra ideas, and the ones they don't have time to implement they post on the ideas site. If I make a million dollars off an idea there, I donate a couple grand to the original author. |
How would you spend $25 on barnesandnoble.com? | helwr: buy Zen-and-the-Art-of-Motorcycle-Maintenance (paperback, $7.21), spend the rest on coffee |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | mickt: I just wonder that if they're not savvy enough to use a RCS what other types of battles will you have to fight in the future?If I was in your shoes, I'd start looking for another job with a company with a bit more technical sophistication. Somewhere that the battles you fight aren't over trivial technology problems and practices and issues that already have solutions.Now that doesn't solve your problem, so probably the best thing is start using an RCS yourself, then create a build system that will push changes out to the server. You could initially sell this as a time-saver in updating the server. Then start selling the whole history part of using an RCS to go back to previous versions of a file.But, if they're not using an RCS in the 21st century, what else are they doing wrong, and should you really stay there? :) |
How would you spend $25 on barnesandnoble.com? | cgherb911: art of the start by guy kawasaki |
How would you spend $25 on barnesandnoble.com? | patio11: I really can't recommend The Long Tail enough. It is overrated and overstated and still the single most important book I've ever read about marketing on the Internet. |
How would you convince your company to start using version control? | p858snake: Perhaps put a business case forward with the benefits of transferring to a version control system?For example:
* Easy rollbacks
* Easily work on separate branches
* etc |
How would you spend $25 on barnesandnoble.com? | navyrain: Although its not really in the same vein as hacker news, I really enjoyed Gang Leader for a Day: http://www.amazon.com/Gang-Leader-Day-Sociologist-Streets/dp... |
Beautiful GUI vs. Total control? | niyazpk: For me (and AFAIK for many people here), it is not about either.We want to get the work done, and run the businesses. We want to solve people's problems. We are prefer tools that helps us solve these problems in the easiest and most efficient way.If an application/OS/tool has a user friendly and intuitive interface, great!
If it gives more power to the developer, great!But in the end, neither of these factors make us go blind and make us hide behind the tools rather than getting the work done in the best possible way, with or without using any given tool. |
I'm an idea guy. Apparently I'm worth nothing? | mpf62: I know of a company that makes a living for about two dozen people selling (or better developing) ideas.Maybe you find some inspiration on their website:
http://www.brainstore.com |
Beautiful GUI vs. Total control? | dawson: I'm more of a "Beautiful GUI" type of guy |
Beautiful GUI vs. Total control? | kilian: If you think linux equals total control, try Gnome :) (not a jab, I love gnome particularly because it doesn't have the settings-everywhere model)My gut instinct says "beautiful GUI", but that comes with the big IF it satisfies all I want to do with it. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | fariz: How far along is the company? What's your current status, do you need the money? How much do you believe in the product? What % of the workload is going to fall on you, and how much do they need your skillset? How do their resources look (money, time, etc)?There's a lot of things you'll need to explain before being able to get a good response. i.e. If the product is from scratch and there are little resources, there's no reason you shouldn't get close to or even founders equity, but if they already have a product with traction it's a completely different story. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | Tichy: Have they done any work before? If not, getting the same share seems fair enough. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | jerguismi: If two of you are doing coding, what are the two other guys doing? What kind of value are they adding? Negotiate the equity based on the value you think you add.I wouldn't even consider joining that kind of startup, I think 4 people is not manageable if everyone is working just for equity. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | seven: I think this is very realistic.No salary is a big no go for me. This is something I could only do with close friends that I have known for years.Think about it this way: If those 3 guys really believe somehow in their project, they should be able to find some money to give you as a minimal salary.If they expect you to take a high risk (not getting any money) they should give you a high reward if everything goes well.
To pay someone means that you take the risk that she does not produce any value, but you win the most if she does. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | hga: You should get "a lot", but unless they're just beginning and you're very close to effectively being a partner rather than an employee, the same or very close isn't realistic.Be sure to do your due diligence on their character. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | Estragon: You will be bargaining. Ask for a big share to begin with, possibly more than a quarter of the equity. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | ido: 3 founders, only 1 of which a technical person?Don't waste your time. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | swombat: As an employee, you don't work for no salary, period.As a cofounder, you should get a significant share of the business (around the same % as the others have). |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | patio11: I don't remember who I'm quoting, but I think it is instructive: "There is a word for a technical employee who works for equity rather than salary. It is: 'co-founder.'" (And if not co-founder, a close runner-up is probably "fool.") |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | sachinag: This is where vesting schedules are everyone's friend.I generally think that you should get a grant for the same number of shares that the three founders do, but if everyone's on a vesting schedule, they'll still own more than you for the next four years from today. After that, you'll all be on the same economics.Here's the idea: let's say the three of them founded the company 9 months ago and they all have 100 shares each. You should get 100 shares as well, but let's put everyone on a vesting schedule that says you get 2.08% of your shares vested for every month served. So the three founders should get credit for nine months of service and 18.75% of their shares should immediately vest (as of the day you join) while you're at 0% vested. At month 48 after the company was founded, the three founders are fully vested while you're 81.25% vested. At month 48 after you joined the company, you're 100% vested and are on the same economics as the three founders. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | astrec: Read the equity equation if you haven't already done so: http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html |
Should one avoid using niche technologies for a startup? | davidw: This site would not exist and none of us would be here had pg not been successful with Viaweb, which utilized Lisp. I think that PG and company were probably bright enough that things would have worked out with other technologies too, but Lisp made them happy and more productive, I guess. |
Should one avoid using niche technologies for a startup? | scottdrake: I can't tell you how many startups I've run across who are deperately looking for programmers who know [insert cutting edge/obscure technology here].Because they can't find anyone they like, they are stuck making bad/deperate hires or with the prospect of rebuilding the codebase. The list of technologies that are tough to hire for vary by market. In my midwest market, Rails still falls in that group and I know a ton of companies that can't find the talent they need. Do your best to stick with the technology stack that has the largest candidate pool in your market. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | gizmo: If they don't pay for your living expenses I would classify you as a co-founder, not as an employee. The share you get should correspond to how much you contribute and how much they have done already. Anything from 15%-35% can be reasonable, but it very much depends.The real questions are:a) can you afford to take this risk? Can you take the risk financially and qua opportunity cost?b) do you think all three other founders have valuable skills?c) are the other founders smart and willing to work hard?d) do you think they have common sense?e) do you get a say in the way the company is run, or are you expected to shut up and code?f) do you trust the other founders not screw you over? Are you absolutely sure they're trustworthy?g) do the founders get along great with each other and with you? Are they mentally stable?If you can't answer these questions with a confident YES! you should probably pass on the opportunity. If you have no doubt that other founders are going to accomplish great things, and if you're willing to take a risk, don't worry about having 5% less equity than you'd like to have. A 15% share in a great company is a lot better than a 35% share in a flaming train wreck.Oh, and get things in writing, just in case. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | elblanco: 25% |
Should one avoid using niche technologies for a startup? | jswinghammer: It's probably wise to use a more common framework. Even if you are more productive initially being able to hire people when you're off focusing on some other aspect of the business is important too.I'm not sure there is a huge productivity difference between the modern frameworks unless you really know nothing about what you're getting into. I'd choose something mainstream that you all know at least a little and can use and then get to work. |
Should one avoid using niche technologies for a startup? | prosa: The best path forward is the one that lets you iterate easily and bring a product to market as quickly as possible. Until you have validated your MVP with customers you are burning cash with the risk of zero return.When and if (and it's a BIG if) companies are expressing interest in acquiring your technology, you can sort out whether you'll need to rewrite portions as part of a deal. But far more likely is that the product will pivot at least to some degree, and you'll be thankful that you're using technology that you can comfortably and quickly modify. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | sailormoon: 25%, of course. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | jasonlbaptiste: a) how far along are they? (just starting, coded some stuff, beta ready,etc.?)b) do you think there will be minimal money in the company at some point soon?c) is this a product you really want to see built? In other words: if they were two of your buddies, you were having a drink late one night, would you say to them when the idea came up: "wow this is a great idea, id like to help be a part of it". |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | sw1205: It has been a month exactly since we posted Favilous for review.You all gave us such excellent feedback and we have been working through each of those to try to enhance the site. We also have a lot of exciting new features that we are working on in the next month or two.We have redesigned the homepage in line with your comments and we still need to tweak it some more.We now have over 275 users (more than Reddit in their first month) and have over 7000 links bookmarked.Any further help you can give would be much appreciated!ThanksSteve |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | Jim_Neath: The bookmark tools slide down animation is incredibly jerky is safari.Also the front page doesn't tell me enough to get me excited about your product. How does it differ from Reddit/Delicious? What makes it special? Why should I sign up? |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | jbbarnes: Hi guys,I have gone back to your last submission and think you have, largely, done well.You have taken the comments on board and implemented them pretty effectively. 275 users is pretty good going too.I would like to be able to convert my existing bookmarks however before I sign up with you..Keep up the good work. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | anamax: > How much should I ask for?More than you can get. (Unfortunately, biz folk respect folks who play games.)It comes down to alternatives, yours and theirs.You shouldn't join if you've got better alternatives. They shouldn't pay you (salary, equity) more than it would cost them to get "good enough" from someone else.If they don't get you to sign on, what are their alternatives? |
Should one avoid using niche technologies for a startup? | icey: I don't think acquisition will be as much of an issue as recruiting employees will.If you think you can find people to work for your company who either know those languages or can learn them quickly enough to not kill your productivity or your product, then go for it. Otherwise, you may want to think about making some tradeoffs (i.e. node.js over Erlang because you're going to be far more likely to find competent js devs than Erlang devs.)Most acquisitions end up with the founding team contracted to transition for a year or three; during that time the acquiring company either rewrites the IP or ends up with enough qualified people to take it over. |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | whyleyc: Here's a link to the original feedback - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060022 |
PhD students - how do you find a remarkable research topic? | mechanical_fish: You could do worse than to listen to Hamming:http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.htmlBut, having said that, when you ask:Is it dumb luck, inherited gift, or the result of a process that can be learned?The answer is "all of the above". You need to follow good procedures that you will learn with experience, you need to have certain qualities, not the least of which are social skills -- bad research well described will trump brilliant but poorly-presented research every time -- but do not underestimate the role of dumb luck. For every awesome research problem that turns out to be tractable, there are many that just don't pan out.There's a story I heard about Feynman. They say that Feynman used to take on grad students, and they would ask him what to work on. Feynman dreaded these questions. If he told a student to work on Interesting Problem X, and (s)he labored on it for years, only to find that it was intractable and therefore ultimately uninteresting after all, he was afraid the student would be terribly depressed, as depressed as only a late-term Ph.D. student can be. The story was that Feynman would tell the students to come back in a day or two, then take a problem and frantically work it out as fast and as far as he could in a day, trying to get a few years ahead of the student in a few hours, far enough ahead that he could be confident that an answer was likely to exist. Then he'd hide all his notes and present the problem to the student as an interesting and novel new idea.Unfortunately, if you aren't a theorist, and your adviser isn't quite as smart, conscientious, and downright devious as Richard Feynman was, you'll be a normal grad student: You'll work away on a problem, and maybe it will be exciting, and maybe it will be boring, and the odds are on boring. [1] The secret is not to worry about this. If you want a successful research career, just keep moving from problem to problem: Finish your thesis (yes, with a stapler if you have to -- when you gotta finish, you gotta finish) and then devote your postdocs to finding a better problem, using all those Hamming-inspired skills you've been working on.---[1] One truism: By the time you finish your thesis you are likely to be so bored with your own project that you will want to scream. Even if your project, properly presented, is actually pretty exciting to the independent observer. You lose perspective in your fifth or sixth year. That's why it's more important to keep moving than to hold out for the perfect project, or the golden dissertation. |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | nandemo: Cool.Bike-shed-color style: when I tried the tour, I was told to click the "Play" button. I did, but then I found it doesn't really "play" it. It's a "next" button, you have to keep on clicking it. |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | metamemetics: Impression:I'm not sure why I'd sign up. It says something about bookmarking, but like most people I already have a bunch of bookmarks in my web browser and wouldn't want them in two different places. Does it integrate the two?Or is it another sharing stuff with people site? If so how does it differ from facebook, twitter, reddit, stumbleupon, delicious, digg, mixx, technorati, etc.?I don't know what it's new big feature or innovation is. Or how it's different at all. Explicitly tell me what your new big innovation and feature is. Or if there is no distinguishing feature (which is fine), at least tell me "we are different than other sites because we are NEW, BETTER, and AWESOME" |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | zinxq: Unless they have a ton of the product already built, I agree with everyone here - you're a founder.If they had a product up and running or even with customers, then you have to give some consideration.The "idea" itself is worthless. Its all about the execution - and as a no-salary, techie - its going to be your job to help that happen. |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | FreeRadical: The tour looks beautiful! |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | johnconroy: stylish. I like the idea of saving a bookmark to look at later... does the service email you at your primary email address??? |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | jaydub: I think the design looks cool. Personally, I would like to see the fonts in the main graphic a little fuller & "fatter" if you will. I think those bullet points are part of your key selling points, so they should probably be bold and strong in order to draw more attention. |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | NEPatriot: In your responses here you state you are aiming this product at the masses.
So I'm going to attempt to review your site from this angle.Before putting on my typical user hat let me say that I like the concept quite a bit and the site design is very nice.I am putting my 'mass market consumer' hat which means I'm pressing the back button in 10 seconds unless something good happens.I see discover. bookmark. share. But these are kind of vague...
(I would A/B test this heading)
But intriguing enough for me to checkout the tour.Next I see what looks like a movie/slides.
I press play and see the instructions are "click on play icon to view".
I press play and get to the "what is favilous?" slide but then nothing happens.
I don't really see another play button anywhere.
This happens when I remove my mouse from the play task bar and unless I go back over it don't see it again.
The play button to the lower right of the mouse if quite small and hard to see.
Maybe think about either explicitly stating to keep pressing play or clicking the screen to keep the slideshow going or turning this into something more like a movie.The slideshow itself is of very high quality but the initial slides highlight features.
The entire time I was asking myself... I want to see this thing in action.
Take me through a typical user experience with the app. What can this app do for me?
This doesn't happen until much later on. I would make the slides more into a story about what a first time user would do and how this would be useful to me - a casual user.Feel free to email me if you have additional questions. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | vaksel: employees never make money in a startup, unless the company becomes Google size.Let's say they give you 10% equity.And let's be realistic. Even if the company succeeds, can the company become a 20 million dollar company in 5 years? 10 million? 5 million? 2 million? Or is it more likely to just be a $500K/yr business?So if you pass the hurdle of failure, which has an insane rate on the web...how much would you really be making realistically?Just remember to always include opportunity costs in your calculations. Is the risk justified, when you can make $450-500K in those 5 years, just being a regular coder. |
Please review my website | njrc: I like the idea of easy registration, but I am not really sure that No Registration Required is all that attractive to me (as a buyer or seller) for this type of application.Other user goods marketplaces give an idea of seller's histories, in form of ratings, reviews, and so forth. I think that can be really helpful (and I do tend to avoid Amazon marketplace sellers with low ratings). Is that a feature you will want to provide?Currently book listings have a Contact Seller link. I have not yet come across multiple listings for the same book (different sellers). How will you effectively distinguish those listings from each other?Some smaller items that stood out:http://beta.mrtextbooks.com/browse (Buy link) is broken.
On Buy|By ISBN,By Author, By Title all links point to the same search page. Each time though the Title filter is selected.
http://beta.mrtextbooks.com/search - if no matches are found (which could be due to filtering or simple title mismatches), then the same form is displayed again. It would be really helpful if you showed some message indicating "No results were found - try broadening your search" or something to that effect. Otherwise it may be hard to tell if search is simply not working or if there just aren't any matches for a given search. |
founders wants me to join for just equity, how much should I ask for? | mark_l_watson: I would not do this. Several years ago, an investor was putting together a team and offered me 30% salary and some equity - with a 1 year commitment to see if the business would fly. Because the business plan seemed so good, I was going to go for it but then promptly backed out when I was asked to forgo salary for slightly more equity.If you are not a full-on partner, then require some salary. |
Please re-review my new website www.favilous.com | cjg: I couldn't immediately get the video to play (IO_ERROR), looked around for something else that would tell me what the site did, failed, gave up. My recommendation - add a text based explanation of what your site is for. |
PhD students - how do you find a remarkable research topic? | yannis: With hindsight I would suggest the following:(01) Most PhD Research is unremarkable. Do some research in your field, list all PhD theses over the last 30 years and give them a score. How many made a mark on the field? My guess possibly 1/1000. You can do the same with journal papers, possibly 1/3000.(02) Citations is not a measure of success of a research paper/topic. Is this research applied today? Is it useful?(03) The Dons in the UK had one measure of success of a PhD. It had to advance the field and be original. Most Science advances this way. There is one major breakthrough and hundreds of small steps to advance it forward.
(this would probably fall within your second group).(04) Do a social graph on 3-5 topics. Who is working where? If you want to land in say one of the big Research Institutions, make sure that there is on-going research in this area by that Institution.(05) Decide who you want to get married to. Your thesis supervisor would be the most important person for you over the next few years. Is he interested in the research you are interested in?My late professor used to advise that your PhD is you license to carry out research and not your major work.If I had to do it all over again, I would do the social graph and go from there. I would also try and get into an area that scales rather than purple cows or black swans. At the moment anything with a prefix bio is still virgin territory as far as I am concerned.Perhaps if you could let us know your field, people might be able to give you some ideas. You could also try reposting the query as If you had three-five years to do research in Computing/field, what would you choose as a topic and why? |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | there: raise the price. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | allenbrunson: clickable link to my game:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hearts-net/id353101111?mt=8 |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | davidedicillo: The algo used by Apple to calculate the rankings take counts (most probably) of the past 4 days of sales. My suggestion is now that you are up there to push sales as much as possible. A sale would definitely help, maybe $1.99 ($0.99 is synonymous of low quality) and see if you can get any friends or people you know to download the app right now. See if you get at least in the top 25, so that your app will show up in the first page of apps on the iPhone. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | gte910h: Toss out a new version with a "tell people about me" feature where they can email a link or twitter about it. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | rubyrescue: just clicked through to your blog - the more interesting story is how you crippled the free version that had 30k downloads and the subsequent fallout. really interesting! don't back down now! |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | ajross: Number 33 in the App Store is only making $100/day? |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | charlesju: Buy some fancy clothes before the IRS takes half. hahaCongratulations. Breaking into any top ranks of the app store is always exciting. I would ask yourself if there is a long-term, after-work, or short-term play here and act accordingly. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | aresant: Your application seems slightly more niche for your category, I'm not sure that a lower price is going to necessarily drive up sales but I absolutely encourage you to test - I dont see how lowering the price could send you backwards.I have experience with two completely opposite end of the spectrum apps in the store – one puzzle game that is doing 7 – 10 sales a day on average for ~1yr and one free app that’s been downloaded over 1 million times (after making it free) and makes respectable money on advertising. |
What to do after graduation? | hga: Isn't a BA in the U.K. considered to be perhaps 3/4 of a US BA? That would tend to indicate you should do some serious study, even better do some real research and coding.The best way to get accepted by a university's graduate program is to get one of the professors to say "admit this guy". Arrange some research with a professor at a target university for the next year and that could solve all your problems. |
What to do after graduation? | scorpioxy: Personally, I would either get a meaningful internship or spend it partly relaxing and studying.A meaningful internship doesn't have to be at MS or GOOG. It could be anywhere where you'd build a real system so you'd get to see first-hand how such systems are built(technical and non-technical challenges). Bonus points if you can do something that relates to field you wish to pursue(so distributed or AI or graphics...)If the internship is a no-go, I would spend the time relaxing a bit and preparing. Most MS students that I've met are bright when it comes to academic questions but don't have a clue about how software is built. So I would use the time to build what I would've built in that internship. Preferably on an open source project so you'd get to interact with people. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | gursikh: This is probably what you were going to do anyway, but here goes:1. Reduce the price by a dollar. Track for a week, see if profits increase. If they don't jack the price back up.2. If they do, reduce the price even more, track the profits. If this causes profit to decrease, jack the price back up.The idea is to figure out where the ideal market price is. It might be lower than you expect. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | colinplamondon: You're not stable yet, since volume goes WAY up once you're in the Top 25 of a category. It then goes through the roof when you're in the Top 5. Even though you're seeing great sales now, you need to push into the Top 25 to see phenomenal sales. To be safe, get into the Top 15, that way you have more margin to work with in the day to day rank fluctuation.Drop to $1.99 for two days and see if you continue gaining in rank. We were able to blast past tons of 99 cent apps with Free Audiobooks at $1.99 and get to #2 in Books within three days, so it's not a big deal. Games is way different from books, though, so try $1.99 for 2-3 days, then give 99 cents a shot.Also, grab Applyzer (applyzer.com) for this, it's awesome- hourly rank tracking for $3/month. If you stall out or otherwise see your rank starting to slide, drop to 99 to give a boost. That recovers your momentum and, after 24 hours or so, you can put your price back to $1.99. There's a LOT more to rank management, but this is how we're able to maintain the #1 and #2 paid positions in Books for weeks on end, barring when Apple features a competitor.Good luck :) |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | hockeybias: I completely agree with davidedicillo. |
What to do after graduation? | PostOnce: Start a startup? You have the education and you have the tools. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | dirtbox: Honestly? Make a sequel with more features/games ASAP and drop the price of the first to $1.99. You'll have your very own cash cow.Assuming of course that it didn't take you a year to create the first. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | vijayr: Have a feature like "buy one get one free", so someone can buy a copy for himself and gift a copy to a friend. Its better than lowering the price. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | hyung: If I were in your position, I'd do a few things simultaneously:- Cut the price to $1.99.- Contact as many app review sites and forums as possible and tell them that, thanks to support from the community, you've decided to reduce the price for a few days, and give away a few copies of the game.- Give the sites promo codes that they can give away/promote for you.Generally speaking, I've found that total revenue remains about the same regardless of your price. But what you have is a relatively interesting talking point (spike in sales) that you may be able to use to get other people to promote the game for you.(I've previously had a game in the top 10 paid games.) |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | varaon: I've read through your blog posts, and while I agree with your "crippling" of the free version, I don't agree with how it was done.With Hearts Solo, are there not better ways to make a trial version of a game than to randomly interrupt a match? Most trial software makes the user aware of how they will be limited - e.g. disabled features, time limits, and limitations on the number of usages.Wouldn't having a maximum of X hours of playtime (or a similar strategy) on Solo have been more user friendly? |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | danielh: I can't comment on the pricing, but IMHO both the description and the support website have room for improvement.Half of the short description I see in iTunes describes what the app can't do (no multiplayer over Internet). Only when I click on "more", I see the wealth of features. You could write "play with your friends on a local Wifi" and move the disclaimer to the extended description. Put a feature on top instead, like "robot players are pretty good".On the website, there is a lot of text, which is good because it shows you care. But make sure the features don't get lost in the details. Make them stand out and list the most exciting feature first. Strong robots and easy multiplayer game setup are probably more interesting than a Default.png graphic. Mentioning Default.png will only confuse them anyway, unless most of your potential customers are iPhone developers.Also, put the iTunes Store links on the bottom as well, so your visitor does not have to scroll all the way back up.Just my 2c, I hope you find some of it useful. |
got to 33 in the App Store. Now what? | mikek: Please let us know the results of your experiment in a future HN post. There is not much info out there on the results of these kind of experiments. |
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