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How to determine what's turning people off about your service? | neovintage: I think you're looking in the wrong place. Who cares about what the consumers think who've decided not to sign up? Personally, I don't think users know exactly what they want or how to convey how they feel about something. Dont get me wrong you need their input, but take it with a grain of salt.Before thinking about why people aren't signing up for your service, think about who SHOULD be signing up for your service. What I mean here is, who exactly is your target customer for the service? Does this person use particular websites, do they only spend a couple of hours on the web every day, do they like to use twitter? (Since I really don't know what your service is I can't make better suggestions) Basically, what are the characteristics of your target customer? If your market is defined too broadly then your service doesn't really stand for anything. If your market is defined too narrowly then you'll be running into the problem where you don't have enough people signing up.In terms of actionable steps, this is what I've done in the past for a business that's already running:
1. Do some research on your current customer base, mine your current database. Some questions to ask include:
- What websites do they visit before hitting your site?
- What websites do they go to once they've finished using your service?
- How long do they spend on your site?
- In a survey, how many people work at their company or how much revenue their company makes?
- In a survey, ask how people heard of your site (subsequently visit those sites to see what context your site was mentioned)2. What patterns are emerging from the research you've been doing?
- The goal here is to find a type of user that have grown a strong affinity to your service. Once you've found that strong user, it's on to the next step.3. What needs to change based on the patterns you've identified to attract more of those "strong users"?
- This is easier said than done, but you need to think about pricing, value proposition for user (what is the user going to get out of using your site), or are advertising in the right places.
- Much like the others have said in this thread, A/B test is a good idea if the value proposition is off.
- You may want to consider advertising, if it resonates with the user. This includes all the typical social media outlets.I hope this helps. Good Luck! |
What are you YC S10 applicants doing now? | atiw: Working on finding out newer ways my technology could be used.
Already know and have tested 4 applications. Thought of another silly use while replying to rtm thus sunday.
I actually have been trying to get back to coding, but things are not so good. Hoping to kick off some of the 8-10 hour streaks of coding sometime tomorrow and all over the weekend.Do you guys know, when we might get emails ??Also, I am really kinda hoping to get my product out there and get some preliminary customers.Any good ways to get some university people interested and try out our web app? How does someone contact university people?Anyone a university department head/ faculty here by any chance?? If yes, do you guys HATE emails as way to introduction to products ??My first focus (without funding way) is to sell a service to universities. |
What's actually "defendable" about web startups these days? | noodle: not much. some stuff is defensible, but generally, success seems to comes from being innovative and having a good team that executes well. |
Would you pre-order GridSpy power monitoring? | waivej: Cost for me... I really enjoy our TED (http://www.theenergydetective.com) which aims more at a residential market. ($150 US) The instant feedback has been great for learning. The web interface isn't a big draw.I imagine that commercial markets would be better for your product...especially in classrooms or companies that want to show off how green they are. (especially if it has really pretty graphics to embed into their website.) |
Would you pre-order GridSpy power monitoring? | noodle: the only way you'll convince me is if you can convince me that by paying for this expensive product and for the monthly subscription, that i will be saving money in the long run.and of this i'm not convinced, as a residential power user. |
What's actually "defendable" about web startups these days? | patio11: This question does not exactly keep me up at night, but if it did, my answer might sound like "Our most important product isn't the one we're selling, it is the processes we use to make and market the product(s) we're selling and will sell in the future, and those processes are non-trivial and so ridiculously superior to what the competition will be using that they will never catch up."IMVU or Zygna are good examples of this. Neither has a patent wall around them, either is about as well defended as any business based on computers can be. The reason is that, while you can make your own Big-Chested-Anime-Chicks-Farming-Together-Chat-Client in not a whole lot of time, you won't have their creation process... and they're learning so fast about their markets that they will bury you. The advantages they get from the whole lean startup thing -- fast learning and fast production -- are compounding, because it buys them more traditional advantages like network effects, kickstarts their virality, gives them money to buy insane amounts of FB advertising, etc etc.This is totally not limited to these market segments. (If either of them were in search-focused verticals I'd tell you about how this helps build the self-reinforcing authority cycle for SEO, too.) |
HN alternatives to basecamp? | RobGR: Is there something with functionality similar to basecamp that allows you to use your own domain, not a sub-domain, and to theme the interface in a custom way to completely match your company's colors and branding ? |
Would you pre-order GridSpy power monitoring? | waivej: I know a small data center (tiny) that might be interested for monitoring the air conditioners. Though that's a bit of a stretch and they probably wouldn't want to spend the $.But, it makes me wonder if that might be good for other things like monitoring commercial refrigerators... especially if it could send alarms. I'm not too worried if my house draws a little extra energy...but if I might be worried if thousands of dollars are on the line if equipment fails.Also, a business might have more people looking at the stats and more room to save $ with efficiency improvements. |
What are you YC S10 applicants doing now? | amazonfx: I'm giving our servers their nightly bath. It's important to keep them clean. |
What are you YC S10 applicants doing now? | benologist: In the technical sense I've done but not shipped a major API update, I'm still re-tooling some components of the interface to better suit the new API capabilities. I also scaled out to a second server to help accommodate the 50 million events being logged a day. But really I haven't worked so much on the systems side of it this last month.Mostly I've been working on traction, trying to get the big guys on board using my system ... and somehow it's actually working! I came up to SF (still here now) for the Flash Gaming Summit and I've had amazing opportunities to meet and pitch to the owners and reps of major portals like Kongregate, King, Armor Games, Crazy Monkey Games etc to get them on board. And loads of amazing developers ... this last week I've networked more than I even imagined was possible, hanging out with some of the top-tier developers and studios in Flash casual gaming.I also shipped a game and am in the final stages of shipping another one, just waiting on the translations to come back to me now.So I've been pretty busy... heh. |
Mario AI, Google AI like contests ? | togelius: The new Mario AI contest is at http://www.marioai.org |
What's actually "defendable" about web startups these days? | lunaru: What keeps Coke defensible from Pepsi?Sure, "execution" is a loaded word, but if you break it down, a successful startup is a magical combination of marketing, product, design, distribution, customer service, analytics, market knowledge, positioning, network effects etc. All of which, when executed well, strengthens and reinforces a brand that the end-consumer loves to rally around.Your IP should be a means to this end, not the other way around. |
How do you like the new design on NXdom? | stjarnljuset: Better branding.
There's been multiple occasions when I thought of your website but couldn't remember the name. |
What IRC client do you use, with scripts ? | aditya: irssiwhat are you trying to automate? |
How to determine what's turning people off about your service? | patio11: Are you collecting email addresses? You can presumably figure out which users have not logged in in a week. Send them an email saying "Hey, this is George from Skritter. My friends and I are trying to make the best thing ever for Chinese language learners. We'd really appreciate if you could give us two minutes and tell us what you think, so that we can fix the problems students learning Chinese are really having.Regards,George"P.S. A/B test response rates with inclusion of a picture. I'm guessing they're off-the-charts better with one, but you know what they say about guessing. |
How would you promote a social network start-up? | olalonde: Build a ChatRoulette like feature. |
How do I avoid the Second System Effect? | pmiller2: Build a third system. UNIX is the result of the "third system effect." |
How would you promote a social network start-up? | revorad: The Vaynerchuks have some very good advice:http://mixergy.com/wine-library-tv-gary-vaynerchuk/http://mixergy.com/aj-vaynerchuk-vaynermedia/http://vimeo.com/4671951In one word, care. |
How would you promote a social network start-up? | rythie: Well what's the name of it? Surely everywhere you go, you should be telling people about it as a start |
Space in the market for luxury public transit? | rdl: I drive even when I live in San Francisco. A (nice) car costs about $1k/mo to keep in SF (parking, registration, insurance, payment) before the first mile driven, but it is how I would spend my marginal $1k at $5k/mo.1) I need 24x7 access to datacenters, some of which are in super sketchy parts of town (200 Paul, in HP) or are in the South Bay. A taxi might be an option, but a couple $200 taxi rides per month, plus an hour of waiting, would be a real pain.2) I enjoy going on long trips, by land, with minimal planning. Rental cars are more cost effective with depreciation, but I like having a familiar car, very well maintained, and keeping my firearms/EMT kit/etc. pre-positioned in the vehicle. I'd consider flying, but my circle of equal pain makes driving to LA a 100%, and driving to vegas kind of borderline. I drive to Portland or Seattle even. Avoiding the hassle of the airport, more cargo capacity, and having a familiar vehicle on the other end, all add up.3) Shooting sports. Going to a shooting range with a long-arm on public transit is a no-go :) Also, try taking 50 pounds of ammo on the bus.4) Grocery shopping and other routine chores -- zipcar could accomplish a lot of this (and I have zipcared a pickup truck a few times, although their maintenance leaves a lot to be desired)5) I love cars and driving, although not so much in SF itself. Parking in SF largely makes driving in SF unpleasant.6) I enjoy having more stuff with me than I can comfortably carry, and the car serves as a portable locker. Having a spare laptop battery, paper, cases of bottled water, etc. a quick trip to the car away is nice. Plus, while it's slightly paranoid, having a vehicle with emergency supplies nearby, and a means of travel, radio, power source, etc. is reassuring -- if there were an earthquake or other disaster, there's a limit to what survival supplies I might have on my person, but my car is good for 96h.If I were commuting between SFO and SEA a lot, I'd probably buy a second car and keep one on each end, just to avoid needing public transit. (and someday I'd go for a plane!)None of this would be solved by a plush seat (like 1st class) or lack of crazy people and urine smell (like cabs vs. muni). I am probably an outlier in the combination of these, but not on each individual point.I do try to avoid needing a long daily commute, either through wfh or living near the office, so I can keep the car parked and walk to/from the office. Still, I'd prefer a 10 minute drive to a 60-90 minute muni/bart/caltrain adventure to get to/from the office! |
How would you promote a social network start-up? | ankeshk: Buy all the Russian school and college name domains. Allow members to add content to those domain names (Ning style) if they have joined that particular school group - from your social network website itself.Then do the same thing with Russian city names. |
ASK HN: All the VC Blogs that I read, in one place. Thoughts? | shafqat: Is this useful? For those of you who follow these blogs, how do you do it?I just got tired of RSS readers. While a lot of news comes to me via twitter, this seems to work well for me.EDIT: I'm the cofounder of NewsCred and we're experimenting with our consumer site. So looking for feedback in general as well. |
ASK HN: All the VC Blogs that I read, in one place. Thoughts? | vijayr: http://venture-capital.alltop.com/ |
cofounders as couples ? | mseebach: What's your own take? Good/bad idea? |
How would you promote a social network start-up? | bgnm2000: Start innovating. Figure out a core offering and stick to it. Read rework by 37signals, it might help you out. |
cofounders as couples ? | nkohari: My wife and I are co-founders of our company. She handles the non-technical side, and I handle the technical side. |
cofounders as couples ? | yummyfajitas: My favorite restaurant (Rachel, in Jersey City) was just such a situation. The hostess/owner and the cook were dating. They broke up.I miss their shakshuka, french toast, the brie and avocado sandwiches. Anyone know where to get good (and spicy) Shakshuka in NYC? |
ASK HN: All the VC Blogs that I read, in one place. Thoughts? | shafqat: As a tangential question, how else can this sort of information (i.e. "blogs I read" be shared).Not talking about twitter or delicious - looking for a platform to share a curated set of feeds in a nice, presentable style. A "shareable feedly" would be cool, but I don't think it's possible is it? |
cofounders as couples ? | tptacek: Erin isn't my cofounder, but she works for us full-time (both of us in technical roles). It works. |
Is there a point to school? | bavcyc: The point of school is to learn how to think in a certain way. If you study engineering then you learn to think as an engineer. Ideally you will learn to learn, but not everyone that finishes a degree is good at teaching their own self new ideas and thoughts. Take classes outside your major to see other methods of thinking and analysis.I've been reading several of the 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' books which are interesting as they ask what type of worker do you want to be. Find a cheap used copy, it might provide food for thought. |
cofounders as couples ? | aditya: Ivan and Abby Kirigin of the (now defunct) TipJoy seemed to do pretty well. |
cofounders as couples ? | icey: My wife helps me get perspective on lots of problems. She's not technical so it's good for me to solicit her views. |
cofounders as couples ? | kungfooey: I'm pretty sure Ravelry was founded by a couple. |
cofounders as couples ? | noonespecial: If you're in a startup and happen to be married, your spouse is a cofounder whether you like it or not. So are the spouses of all the founders.This applies both from a legal perspective and an emotional one. Plan for it. Write it in to the original agreement. Don't wait for divorce or (worst case) death to find out how much trouble this can cause.I have to say though, having my wife actually involved, for us, makes everything better. Its much easier to bear the risks and make tough decisions with each other's support. Your mileage may vary. |
What's actually "defendable" about web startups these days? | rlpb: How about their customers/users or comprehensiveness of data? The biggest thing that stops me moving from Facebook to competitor X is that all my friends are on Facebook and not competitor X. Similarly, would you prefer to use Foursquare with stuff and people already in your city, or competitor Y in which your city is barren?Of course this leaves many startups out, since this doesn't apply to them. |
cofounders as couples ? | iskander: My parents started a company together. My mom had more drive and interest in managing, so as they grew she became CEO while my dad continued to tinker with IT. They've been working together for ~16 years, their company is doing OK, but my dad hasn't seemed happy about the situation in a long time. |
cofounders as couples ? | robfitz: I've run into several happy founding couples (not married, just dating). They rarely publicize it, so at first glance it seems to be less common than it actually is. |
cofounders as couples ? | goodgoblin: My wife and I cofounded our company. She is very good at product development and relationship building and I handle the technical side.Plus since we have a near psychic connection our meetings are very short. |
ASK HN: All the VC Blogs that I read, in one place. Thoughts? | nfnaaron: It's great as far as it goes.Would be better if the sum were greater than the parts, i.e. more than a static list of interesting site/blogs. There's the obvious "if you liked that, here's something else you might like." Set the WayCool to 11 and see what you come up with.But it's a good start, done well. |
What's actually "defendable" about web startups these days? | imp: Why can't someone answer with "our team" or "they way we execute"? If your competitor is always a step behind you copying features you wrote last month, doesn't that guarantee that you'll always be ahead of them? |
What are the most important business metrics for your startup? | il: Ideally the same metrics any small business uses:-Revenue
-Conversion Rate
-Ad CTR
-Time on site
-Clickthroughs to order page
-CPC/CPA
-CLV |
What are the most important business metrics for your startup? | charlesju: The two major ones that matter are:Cost Per Acquisition and Average Revenue Per User. |
What kind of geo-focused APIs would you like to see? | abyssknight: One idea that I've thrown around, and seen out there, is the ability to send in a polygonal area that I want to search in and have the API return the houses for sale/rent in that area. Letting the user pick the neighborhood or even the side of the street they want to live on is really powerful.The funny thing is, I've called one of the major geolocation providers and asked for something along these lines and they couldn't provide it. Built it myself in under 24 hours using open source geo-encoding tools and Google Maps. |
cofounders as couples ? | rglovejoy: Cisco Systems was started by a married couple, Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack. |
What are the most important business metrics for your startup? | petervandijck: On a social site: active users (defined as having visited the site in the past week).ps: we are building a business dashboard soon, looked around and couldn't find anything. We'd want (for multiple products), on one page:- traffic- revenue- new subscribers/memberswith some kind of historic info, data coming in from analtyics and custom rss feeds or something |
cofounders as couples ? | garply: My longtime gf and I co-own our business. I run the technical side, she runs the business side. It works well, but you definitely need a strong relationship for it to work.Also, since I do business in China and I'm a white foreigner, her presence as a native mainlander is absolutely essential. I have yet to meet a successful foreign entrepreneur here who does not have a native romantic+business partner helping him/her. |
cofounders as couples ? | sabat: The founders of SixApart (TypePad, Vox, etc.) are married. She originally did the design, he wrote the code. They're still married. |
cofounders as couples ? | idlewords: Sometimes, late at night, maybe you're pair programming with your co-founder and your hands accidentally touch. And before you know it you're in a full-on agile scrum, burning down the back log, one of you the chicken, one of you the pig.It happens. It's extreme. |
How would you promote a social network start-up? | foulmouthboy: Obviously, if you're just going to copy Facebook's offerings, you might as well copy Facebook's launch plan and marketing. Their high level marketing strategy is very well documented and most of the tactics can be inferred.Secondary suggestion: Pick a niche and focus on it. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | JangoSteve: I'm very interested in seeing what everyone's take is on my new webapp, as I don't think I could ask for any better feedback than from the people here. It's far from complete in terms of functionality, but it does essentially what I needed it to do. I'm currently using it for both of my companies, and have a few friends in the area using it for their companies as well.I figured I'd throw it out there to get a feel for how useful people think something like this may be. If it is, in fact, useful to some, then I can start putting more time/effort into developing it further. |
cofounders as couples ? | vessenes: When one of my businesses took a major nosedive in 2003, my wife worked for me, she did the bookkeeping while I tried to keep the business alive (successfully, in the end). We fought a lot, but I have always appreciated that time -- I think it was a big help to our relationship for her to understand some of the ins and outs of business life.We also have 'overshared' about business; for a few years of my life in a previous startup, she put in 3+ hours a day talking / planning / processing with me. That was not a good plan for us; my (unsolicited) advice: have some outside-of-work hobbies with your co-founding spouse so that end-of-job for one of you does not equal end of relationship. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | icey: I think it looks pretty good over all. You might want to put a video demo on the front page or something. There's a lot going on in your front page; I like something that succinctly tells me what the product is and why I should be using it. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | officemedium: I'd recommend making the design a little more "welcoming". It's very bare and plain - makes the site look cheap which reflects on the service. I'd also recommend simplifying the information and features on the home page - try to really get across what your app does, what it will help us do, and why we should use it, as quickly and easily as possible. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | jsm386: It seems that your 2nd to last how it works image ('Turn leads into sales') implies that you're pulling The Federal Reserve out of a CNN article as an example of how the app works to generate one type of personalized email. Maybe you want a more realistic example? I know it's not a big thing, but it just struck me as a really odd example. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | jrockway: I read that is Pb-mining. I thought it was a new World of Warcraft-like game.Incidentally, cold lead fits in the microwave. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | shpxnvz: Sounds interesting, and I was about to sign up for a free account to give it a whirl until I saw that the basic (and even some paid) accounts have no security.I know that some well-known companies get away with this, but to me it says that you believe security for my personal information is something to be bartered for. As soon as I have to start wondering under exactly which circumstances your company is going to try to protect my data, you've lost my trust.Of course this is only my personal opinion, but for what it's worth I won't do business with anyone who treats my security as an option. |
Do you think Reddit will sue me for my URL shortener? | tbgvi: I think that's ambiguous enough that it's probably not infringing on their trademark. That doesn't prevent them from saying it does though.Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer! |
cofounders as couples ? | dariusmonsef: Collis & Cyan from Envato are an awesome and successful married founder team.An interview with them is here: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/news/birthday-interview-wit... |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | Vindexus: The home page doesn't really tell me what it does. It's all marketing style corporate speak that I don't really understand.You should really change your tagline to be more of a description of your service than a marketing phrase. "Since cold leads don't fit in the microwave" tells me nothing about your service."LeadNuke is the missing link in your existing sales pipeline; it helps you kick-start the sales process."That doesn't really tell me anything either."LeadNuke is a streamlined process that helps you find, track, and follow-through with news articles, blog posts, and RSS feeds from your industry, turning them into meaningful sales leads. LeadNuke helps you generate qualified leads and initiate a dialog with prospects who actually need your product or service."This also doesn't really tell me much.I looked down your home page further and I'm guessing this is some sort of email marketing service. You should definitely use the word email in your descriptions so people know that's what it is. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | NEPatriot: Here are my $.02. Great idea. Warms leads are very valuable and if you can help you have a winner. Your voice came out very well.I am wondering why the videos are hidden on the pricing page?
I'm a big believer in showing the video up front so I can take 2 mins to decide if this is for me. I'd also recommend a shorter video that highlights how you take an rss feed and turn it into a lead in order to demonstrate value.Once I've determine this product could be of value to me, then I might want to get details about how it works. |
cofounders as couples ? | hikari17: My wife and I have been co-founders of our nights/weekends startup from day one. She runs customer support (phone and e-mail) and is the prototype "seller" in our online marketplace. I handle product development, marketing, finances and some front-end design.We spend most evenings laptop-to-laptop in "Genlighten World Headquarters" (our daughter's old bedroom.) Last night we worked the booth together at a startup demo event. It was tremendous fun and particularly exhilirating to be doing it as a couple.Our CTO lives in another part of the US, and so far (~2 years) we haven't experienced any obvious problems with the couple + third founder arrangement.Bottom line: it works for us. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | swombat: I read through most of the first page and I'm still not quite clear what this app does. Where does it get the leads from? Do you have to generate the leads yourself? If so, is this basically a CRM tool? (in that case, why call it something else?) |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | jordanf: First thought: your logo looks like an envelope stuffed with excrement.Also, my eye is drawn the the sad faces on your landing page. Without reading, it looks like a feature list for your product, not a comparison. It took my awhile to figure out that I had to click to see the good. |
Do you think Reddit will sue me for my URL shortener? | vorador: Excuse me but, how do you expect redditors to use your shortener ?
Reddit is about sharing links and, for some people, your service may seem to get in the way between them and content. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | og1: I also thought the name was referring to the element. One thing I think should be changed is the section that compares "Traditional Email Marketing" vs. "The Lead Nuke Way". I don't think most people are going to realize that you click to view the information for "The LeadNuke Way". And with how the headings are setup it looks like you are saying your service has Low Conversions, Wasted Effort, and Risk of Spamming. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | teye: Tell me exactly what your product does in the tagline. Make this sentence shorter and sweeter and put it center stage.LeadNuke is a streamlined process that helps you find, track, and follow-through with news articles, blog posts, and RSS feeds from your industry, turning them into meaningful sales leads. |
What's the difference between president and CEO? | jasonlbaptiste: pretty much. |
I'm visiting Silicon Valley. Where should I hang out, who should I meet? | ww520: Drive down Sand Hill road from Hwy 280 to Stanford; check out the VC buildings along the way. Audit some classes in Stanford. Just walk in. The lecture halls are huge and no one will notice. The etl.stanford.edu has guest speaker every week. |
What's the difference between president and CEO? | coryl: http://ask.yahoo.com/20050830.html |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | prodigal_erik: The phrase "(less) risk of spamming" doesn't sit right with me. If I don't have an ongoing relationship with the recipient, nor do I know for a fact they have solicited such messages, I am definitely spamming, not merely risking it. Then again, your target market might not believe they're doing anything wrong. |
What's the best way to phrase "back to the homepage"? | agustinf: I would go for "Home" or "Front Page".. cheers! |
What's the best way to phrase "back to the homepage"? | anigbrowl: My 'home page' is gmail. Perhaps this is why people are confused? I suggest 'back to our front page'.'The' implies some mutually understood single object; eg we could take the bus [route] or the car (that we own) or get a taxi (which one? doesn't matter). |
cofounders as couples ? | ivankirigin: Have a life outside of the startup. You really shouldn't talk business 24x7.Some investors are assholes about women. Some investors have scar tissue from other couples. That is largely an incorrect view - when founders that are just friends break up a company, there is no reason to hate friends who are founders.My rubric for picking a wife was more rigorous than picking a cofounder could possibly be. I have no idea how people find cofounders beyond long-term friends. |
IP, employment contracts and side projects | ryduh: A lot of it depends on the actual contract you signed. I would take a look at that to start off. Maybe post your findings back here if you feel open. |
How to interview programmers | neiljohnson: I found this post by Steve Yegge to be really helpful, it's aimed at phone screening but you can easily extend it to a face to face interviewhttp://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/five-essential-phone-scre... |
Ideas for monetizing a website I am developing? | ismarc: The problem with monetizing dating-style sites is the same as trying to make money with health care. Your system is at its best when people have one short trip and don't come back. This lack of repeat use means that it has to work so phenominally well that success stories are regularly referring their friends, or you need a unique method to suck as much money over that time period as you can (not to sound bad about it, but it's the truth).The ideal method would be to charge money upon "success", but there's no good way to measure a successful matchup. Thinking about this...I think a reverse charge system may work (note, I haven't tried this and if you do go with it, be prepared for flaming fireball of doom, it's an off-the-cuff, not thought out idea, just top of the head thing). Most sites seem to either charge a monthly fee, or they charge for communications. Now, rather than charging someone money for TRYING to talk to someone, why not charge them based on people ACTUALLY responding. Say, I have 5 message points. I send a message to 10 people. I still have 5 message points. Let's say 3 respond. I can use a message point to read each message, or I can just not read it. If I don't have enough points to read a message, I only see that I received one. Now, this should only count for messages that are from someone I sent a message to previously.This way, initiating contact is free, and responding to initial contact is free for the contacted. The lack of needing up-front costs to start trying to meet people is likely to drive people to sending that initial message, and if they get a response, they now need to spend money to read it...and it really is a response from the person, so they most likely really want to read it. |
IP, employment contracts and side projects | nobuwa: It says.... any and all work created by me... while employed... will be owned by XXX company....Is that the clause I should be looking at? It doesn't seem like there are any explicit exceptions to this written into the contract. |
Review my lead-mining webapp, LeadNuke | bryanh: Cool concept! I like the idea and just signed up. Will definitely give it a spin and give some deeper insight.The design is sparse (almost in a good way). If I were you, I'd think of some ways to tighten up the feel. Rip off some other webapps' design features (header/footer style). I know this is sort of a "feeling it out" run so carry on. :-) |
How do stories get on to HN's RSS feed? | mbrubeck: The RSS feed is just the top 10 stories from the front page, so yes, the criteria are the same, and one vote is often enough to (briefly) put a story in the top 10. |
Freemium: how far upwind should I stay | p01nd3xt3r: I would look at what the feature cost me to offer and use that as the basis of my decision. |
Freemium: how far upwind should I stay | nfnaaron: I was actually wondering that today with Lead Nuke: http://www.leadnuke.com/signupTheir free and $10/mo plans both include "standard security." The $30/mo plan includes "Enhanced (SSL) security."Specifically I was wondering if the cost of an SSL certificate that browsers like was what influenced not including it in the lower level paid plan ($10/mo) or whether it was more to make the $30 plan more attractive. Or something else. |
Freemium: how far upwind should I stay | skennedy: The approach I have always been taught is to make it so the user does not hit the "pay wall" within the first hour. First full day of use is preferable. If they are using the product for that full hour, their use of the site/product is becoming more than a passing interest. In which case, when they get to that barrier they are already invested mentally and now they need to decide how valuable your service is.In the case of Dropbox, you can store quite a few documents, pictures, and MP3s within 2GB. When you want to start backing up your whole hard drive, then you have committed to their product. |
How to interview programmers | eneveu: I'd bookmarked those posts:
- http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...
- http://www.inter-sections.net/2007/11/13/how-to-recognise-a-... (was a good post, but does not seem to be available anymore - it's in google cache though)Also, since xmarks told me that those links were well ranked in the "hiring" category, you could look at other links from there:
http://www.xmarks.com/topic/hiringFor example, http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hiring and http://www.artima.com/wbc/interprogP.html seem interesting |
What are the most important business metrics for your startup? | DenisM: I sell iPhone apps.Revenue is a poor metric - lag between actions and outcome is measured in weeks if not months. It's good to track over months, but does nothing in short term, so is not actionable.I want to know what is the expected "time to stop using the app" at any given day. If this time is getting longer my app is getting better, so this gives me a metric that's better than revenue. However, this metric can only be accurately computed in retrospect, so I need to mine for correlations with something that's available sooner.Something like "people who use the app on the first day 5 minutes are likely to drop out in two months, but people who use it on the first day for 20 minutes are likely to stay for 6 months". |
Freemium: how far upwind should I stay | patio11: I segmented my probable market into two groups of customers, one which was numerically numerous and one which I felt would get the most value out of the application, and chose my pricing scheme such that the free version is close to worthless for group #2 except insofar that it demonstrates they'll have a positive experience with the paid version. |
cofounders as couples ? | luckydude: I run a company that makes money.My wife works for me and I work for her and it works great.She is on my board so she is part of the team that can fire me.She does the books (accounting) for the company so she works for me.She's a very smart person and I value her opinion and every time she says that we should get someone else to do the books I say no because then she'd be less connected to the company and her board value would go down.I do not think this will work for everyone. I suspect it works for us because we are a team in our marriage and we know it and own it. I pity the fool that messes with us, we're a team.BTW, I agree with the comments that said that if you are in a startup your spouse is there too. When we got going I always got the permission of the spouse to hire the person. It's the right thing to do in many ways. |
How would you promote a social network start-up? | kimfuh: What's your target demographic? |
Ideas to monetize my site? | tocomment: Where do the games come from? You could try relevant affiliate links? |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | corruption: org-mode. Nothing else even comes close. |
I'm visiting Silicon Valley. Where should I hang out, who should I meet? | mbrubeck: The Googleplex is fun to visit, if you know (or meet) someone who works there. |
Is there a point to school? | tigerthink: I agree. In fields other than computer programming like physics, school makes sense because there genuinely are years of knowledge you need to acquire before being useful. This isn't true in computer programming since you tap into those years of knowledge by--get this--programming with libraries. And using other peoples' software. Using someone else's web server means I don't need to know how TCP/IP works, or even what it stands for. |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | nedwin: I've been using xPAD for a while. It's simple but very useful. My housemate swears by Evernote but I'm not convinced yet. |
Books on human nature that changed your interactions | Alex3917: That 48 Laws of Power book is BS. C.f. pg's How To Make Wealth essay or else Dee Hock's essay on leadership:http://futurepositive.synearth.net/leader-follower/ |
Books on human nature that changed your interactions | wturner: Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War. |
Best way to find sales/biz dev people? | cgherb911: I would
1) attend networking events
2) go to trade shows
3) put up an ad on craigslist
4) use social media (and hn) to networkGood luck
-Chris (at) phonehalo.com |
Is this idea worth pursuing ? | cgherb911: Pardon the obvious question, but what jobs require this unique combination of skills? |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | cianestro: Google Wave. |
Would you pre-order GridSpy power monitoring? | stakent: Short answer:For home use - no. Price is to high, subscription fee is show stopper for me.Long answer:Home useWhy will be home owner or tenant bothered by power use?First group - people bothered by energy cost. The calculation is simple: the cost of hardware and accumulated subscription fees has to be recouped by energy cost savings in one year.Yearly subscriptions fee $120, hardware cost, say, $200 gives $320 cost of the first year use of the service.Energy cost $0.1 per kWh so we have to save at 3200 kWh per year to break out our investment.3200 kWh per year means, if power consumption is constant, reducing energy draw by about 0.37 kW.Doable, but is it easy?Replace incandescent light bulbs by more energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs or led light bulbs. Done.Is cost sensitive home owner the target group? He can be if the price is right. Read - low enough. So - mass production, lower cost per hardware unit, lot of subscriptions sold on ongoing basis. Well, there is one problem. Up front spend on hardware batch. And second one. How to reach these cost sensitive home owners? Marketing. Which means more money up front. Which means more risk. By the way, that means competing on price what is not the best idea for someone starting with limited funds.Second group - people bothered by Earth future, global warming.Each saved kilowatt hour means less about 2.3 lb (1 kg) of CO2 emitted to atmosphere. Saving 3 kWh daily during a year means about 1000 kg less CO2 emitted to atmosphere.How reach people bothered by Earth future? It looks little bit easier. Is it easy enough?Third group - early adopters, geeks looking for new gadget.The new cool gadget has a little drawback. It is clipped on the electrical wires, presumably in the hidden electrical box. How to show it to other geeks? There is website with fancy graphs, twitter integration, facebook integration and, of course, iPhone application. And some game mechanics, a little competition: who has smaller energy consumption, who is greener so can be awarded by, say, more images of green leaves. Or bigger tree image. Or blue ribbon. Or ...This group looks easier to target. It has another nice feature. Virtually all of them can be called linkerati, which leads to some nice side effects. Links, SEO, boost in visibility.Industrial and commercial useOne 10 kW motor working all year long uses 86400 kWh. Let's assume energy costs $0.05 per kWh. Yearly cost: $4320.Completely different game.Industrial environment is harsh. Electromagnetic noise level is really high despite all countermeasures. Current in wires is hardly sinusoidal because of all theses nonlinear power receivers (eg. frequency converters).What savings are possible in industrial environment?Use less energy. Use GridSpy for ad hoc power monitoring during machine tunning. Possible for air conditioning, refrigeration, making compressed air, pumping.Use cheaper energy - prices vary during the day and week. Locating low hanging fruit.Do not pay for use more power than contracted. Add an ability to alarm someone if there is to much power drawn, allow to change the formula for power calculation. Example: power calculated as 15 minutes average or an 1 hour average.Do not pay for too low power factor. Power factor monitoring and alarm someone.Another beast is data reflecting production put on the internet. I know, passwords, vendor commitment to security etc. but ... Btw. this concern exists for home use too.Despite that all energy conservation is an interesting field. |
What application do you use to take/store notes? | ScottWhigham: Oh man - what's wrong with OneNote? I've used it for years and can't live without it. What is better on Windows? |
cofounders as couples ? | fun2have: Our startup Webnographer is run by my partner and me. It works well. We have had the funny situation of having separate hotel rooms booked, as a client did not know that we where together. |
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