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List of Hacker Blogs? | abstractbill: Here's mine: http://abstractstuff.livejournal.com/ |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | teuobk: Is there a chance that you could sell the company? Perhaps the lead management system that you built would make the company attractive. Even if you could engineer a sale that covered only the debt, that would remove the burden of a bankruptcy. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | sh1mmer: So my blog is http://kid666.com/ which has a blogroll of a bunch of engineers who work(ed) for Yahoo in Europe.There is also the Yahoo blog directory which is probably hideously out of date. (http://kid666.com/yahoo-blogs-employee-bloggers-directory/) |
List of Hacker Blogs? | Hates_: http://blogs.thoughtworks.com - A great blog aggregation of Thoughtworks workers. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | tsally: Not sure if it is an option, but see if you can go back to school. You get try to get some no interest student loans, and work to pay those off while you complete your degree. Given your experience, you should be able to make a fair bit of cash during slow semesters or over the summer. School is a great place to ride out tough economic times. |
Your experience with Arch Linux on a production box. | tsally: Having a large organization is helpful because you have the option of buying commercial support. I personally wouldn't go with Arch simply because there isn't a stable branch. Rather, everything is cutting edge. I know you can chose not to update your Arch install, but I'd still rather go with a distribution where stability is a priority. That being said, Arch is surprisingly stable given its rolling release model.You also might want to take a look at Debian, which has a track record of being stable. Honestly though, Debian is a bit stuck in the past, as seen with the delays in the past two releases. They really do care about stability though. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | skmurphy: I would go forward from where you are. Look for additional contract work and look for additional business that can leverage your assets as they are. Tell everyone you know that you are looking for work and are available to start immediately. Go back to all of your old clients and see if there is any basis to consult/contract or support them--that doesn't involve incurring additional expense in advance.Simplify your life to the point of austerity and pay as you go. Don't "bum" anything from anyone, e.g. find a mutually acceptable quid pro quo for room/board from parents and/or friends. Sell any other assets you don't need for work (e.g. television, videogames, other non-essential and time-wasting items), use the money for food and debt service.On 30K of credit card debt my calculation is that you owe about $500-600 in minimum payment, use the 6K to continue to make minimum payments. Put your credit cards in your sock drawer and only carry one for bona fide emergencies (e.g. car breakdown). Carry cash and pay cash for everything, it will give you a sense of where you are spending money immediately.Don't take any contracts that require you to advance any money or risk more than a week's labor until you get your debt paid off. Don't "pay up front and invoice in arrears," get your clients to cover the up front expenses and take a fee for your services and the use of your software platform. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | kajecounterhack: Does http://blag.xkcd.com count as "hacker" haha |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | shawndrost: Get a job and pay off your credit cards. Debt is miserable. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | gscott: I have had an idea of a "Lending Tree" type website for leads. Leads would be generated, evaluated, given a score of how good the lead is, then people would bid on the lead. I work for a company that has customers who buy leads internally through partnerships with lead vendors like Cutting Edge Media.Anyway, I have had this idea for years now and haven't done anything with it. Maybe you could work out an arrangement to sell a position in the company to those that you partner with to sell the leads to there customers. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | CatDancer: Yes, I once had a failed startup, and ended up with $40K in credit card debt.I assume you are personally liable for the business credit card debt. (As you generally can't get a business credit card without personally guaranteeing it). So, just to be clear on your situation, you are 30K in debt. (Regardless of what happens to the "business", you, personally, have 30K of debt).Step one is to get yourself stabilized emotionally and financially. Good job on selling your car and moving out of your apartment.These four servers that are sitting idle? Are these the ones that cost a total of $600/month, and you are contracted to keep paying $600/month through the end of January? (Am I clear on the situation?) Go and talk to the hosting company (the company you owe the $600/month to). In person. Not email, not phone, go sit down with a manager in person. Ask for mercy. Lay out the facts of your situation, just as you've done here. Say, "I know I owe you $600/month, and legally you have a right to that out of my last $6k check. Since I'm in this bad situation that I didn't expect, I'm asking if you would have mercy on me and let me out of my contract. Is there anything you can do to help?"Next, write down a minimum monthly budget that contains the bare necessities: food, gas for the car, small gifts for your parents and friends to thank them for letting you bum off of them, the minimum payments on your credit cards. I mean this literally, write it down. On a piece of paper, or in a spreadsheet. You need to be able to look at the number, "$X/month", and say, "I can survive on that". Temporarily. While you catch your breath, and decide what next to do.Next, I recommend you stop using debt as a tool to build your business. If you have a great money making idea that needs some capital, go get investors. Yes, you will pay the investors more in their share of the business than you would on interest payments, but you're making lots of money anyway, so what? And if the business fails, you walk away free and clear.From a business point of view, the problem with debt is that is deadens the signal that you'd otherwise be hearing that you're on the wrong track financially. It's like some who suffers from leprosy, who loses the ability to feel pain in their extremities. The greatest damage comes not from the leprosy itself, but that people accidentally wound themselves (leave their feet in the campfire or something), and don't notice because they don't feel pain. Run your business on a cash basis, and you'll feel the pain of not being profitable right away, and make course corrections immediately. Run your business of debt, you rationalize things like you "have to" pay for ads upfront and invoice in arrears. Then you don't notice you've gone off course until you've gone over the edge.You have a lot of ideas for things you can do now, and that's great! Find one that is going to be cash flow positive from the beginning. For example, those customer sites you could finish, or that product you could launch? Talk to people and bang on doors until you find someone who will pay you in advance, at least that portion which will be enough to pay for your minimal monthly budget for however long it will take you to get the project done. If your idea is good enough, if someone really wants it, they will pay upfront. If not, that's a signal that you need a better idea, something that your customers actually want. Don't go further into debt so that you can ignore the signal, instead pay attention to the signal.OK, the 30K in debt that you're in now? Don't worry about it. Pay the minimum payments, and forget about it. Don't go further into debt, but for now don't worry about paying off the debt (aside from the monthly minimums) either. Sooner or later you'll get yourself back on your feet, make some money, and write a check to pay off the 30K. Until then, ignore it.The CS degree? Don't worry about it. Employers and clients only care about what you can do for them. Now, if you haven't done anything yet, and you have a CS degree, then the CS degree is evidence that you're able to do things. (You at least made it through graduate school, and you're at least fairly smart). But you can show what you've done, and only a tiny, tiny percentage of employers or clients are going to care if you have a CS degree or not, as long as you can show them, as you can, what you can do.But again, the very first thing to do is to put together you minimum monthly survival budget, and say, "OK. All I need to do, for now, is make this much to survive. I can do that". Once you do that, once you have your survival needs taken care of, then your stress lifts, your creativity comes back, and you will find it easy to start making money again. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | Twiin: Mine is at: http://restraint.org |
List of Hacker Blogs? | brandnewlow: Update: I'm now at 174 rss feeds to track. I've seen some really ugly blogs along the way.Also, here's a post that purports to list the top 100 dev blogs: http://www.noop.nl/2008/09/top-100-blogs-for-development-man...Keep 'em coming. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | webwright: With no cash, you should do what will get you cash ASAP. That decidedly does not mean launching a product-- products take much longer to get off the ground and have some front-loaded cost. That leaves services-- i.e. consulting or lead-gen/marketing stuff like you were doing before. Hard to tell, but it looks like a low margin business (or you managed it poorly-- no offense!). If you were pulling in 70k per month at one point and ended up in debt... Doing more of that doesn't seem like a good idea. The best way to get out of debt is to get a job (don't let a lack of CS degree stop you) or (if you've got a good network and/or sales chops) do high-end consulting ($100+/hr). |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | dotBen: Like others have said, I would contact the server company and do what you can to cease the contract. I personally think the advice given of 'turning up in person and begging for mercy' is a little odd and I wouldn't do that. I'd call up, ask to speak to someone about renegotiating the contract (ie someone who can make the decision, not the sales rep) and explain the business has gone under and that you would rather conclude the relationship now rather than be in a position not to be able to pay and have to have them join your list of creditors. That should pretty much do the trick.Now, the one problem with that is that it means the product you've built will no longer be running, which means you can't sell it. However, I think it's a funny time right now for lead generation anyway and IMHO better to be out of the game for a little bit to see how things settle.In the meantime, I would weigh up your best opportunities between consulting and getting a job - what will make you the most money (to pay off the debt). I'd also factor in what will keep you involved in the industry - ie might be better to go contract or a slightly lower paying job in lead generation/online advertising than to get a higher paying job selling insurance (just an example - point is it's something that doesn't move your career forward).I would look to pay off at least the minimum payments, just to stop the debt from increasing - but really you should try to pay what you can off per month. The budgeting ideas are good.Finally, I would tinker on your project in your spare time - as long as you feel you are moving forward with it and creating value. If it makes you feel miserable, which it might, I would leave it dormant.We really don't know where we are with the economy right now and so playing a safe game for the next 6 months is vital IMHO until we know what things really look like -- then we'll be able to see the opportunities and begin to capitalize on them.On a personal note, I just want to say I feel for you. I've never been in debt, but I've also never really embarked on a risk taking entrepreneurial venture like you did. I moved to Silicon Valley (from another country) to do it, and 2.5 years later I'm still scared to try it. Scared of the failure, especially economic.My point is you have tried it, you have learned a lot and you have the life experience which many don't. I hope that simply empowers you to get back on your feet and try the next one. I wish I wasn't as paralyzed as I am as my window of opportunity, age wise, is closing.Best of luck to you. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | mixmax: Been there, and it's tough.Based on my own experience I would recommend the following:- Make sure you're ok, it's hard emotionally taking a hit like that, but it happens to all of us. As ksvs said in one of the other comments even Joel Spolsky hit the wall during the last bust. Realise that it's not your fault, talk to friends, enjoy life.- get out of debt, it's a killer. I've been in worse debt and it's not as hard as you might think to get out of it. Talk to your creditors, tell them the situation and be straight about it. There's a good chance that you might be able to negotiate a deal where you don't have to pay it all back, or get lenient terms. Creditors like straight talk and hate excuses.- when you're past the first two points start a company - the education that you have just finished by going broke with a company is worth much more than a cs degree. You have just improved your chances of success considerably. Almost nobody succeeds the first time, but the ones that start their second company have a much higher rate of success.Good luck. |
Should I drop out or not? | bborud: Since you are just 21 I think you should try to motivate yourself to finish a degree. Because 5-10 years down the road it is going to be a lot harder to go back to school. If you think motivating yourself is hard now, it is nothing against what it is going to be like in 10 years.I can understand that you find going to a university boring and uninspiring. I did. I fund it painfully boring and eventually I quit because I didn't see the point in torturing myself with horribly bad lecturers. But I had a few advantages. First off, I already had about 10 years of solid work experience when I quit. Second, I stayed at the university and worked there for about 5 years after I quit. Meaning I had the benefit of getting to know a lot of people. Third, just because I stopped following the university program didn't mean I stopped studying. It just meant that I could focus on what I found interesting. Now this is risky, because university programs are diverse for a reason. Luckily the stuff I was interested in turned out to become immensely important later and I had a head-start when my classmates graduated a few years later. But, of course, I didn't have a degree.Meeting people is critical. I cannot stress this enough. During your time at the university you are going to meet a lot of people. If you hang out with the right sort of people, it will greatly affect your professional life later. For the past 15 years I have ended up working with a lot of people I got to know during the university years. I did a startup with some of them and I have worked on a few world class projects with them. Many of them were great -- extremely few of them would have been great if they had been on their own.Your network of talented people whom you know personally is more important than what they teach you at school.This is something not a lot of people think about when choosing universities, but it would be a good idea to pick a university in an area you would like to stay later. Preferably somewhere people care to go when doing startups.Also, at 21 you might think that you are hot shit because you have some software development knowledge. The short version is: most likely you are not. In all likelihood you are an above average newbie. Swallow your pride and let it fuel ambition instead.There is no replacement for having a broad and diverse professional background and in the years to come, you are going to look back many times and think of your self "what a naive idiot I was". That is normal. It shows that you are developing and maturing.What people look for when hiring senior developers is track record. What have you delivered before? What role did you play? What are the strengths that make you stand out. Are you able to plan 12 months ahead?There are hundreds of thousands of people who would do well in programming contests, but who are only fit for entry level software engineer jobs because of lack of maturity and experience.My advice is: - finish a degree. if you are smart enough: try to keep
your scores well in the top 5%
- work on a challenging open source project while going
to school -- become a visible/key contributor.
- work as an intern during the summers. aim for top tier
companies that have challenging work and name
recognition. do well. don't coast.
- when you graduate, prioritize getting a job where you
can learn a lot over an easy, dead-end job where you
can earn more. your first few years in the business
should be about learning and gaining experience.
- if you are doing a start-up, understand the risks, be
prepared to work your ass off and talk to other people
who have done startups. most important of all: make
sure you know the right people to involve. also, dare
to fail.
- be retrospective/introspective. take notes and read
them years later. you will discover how much you
mature over time and it will make you more grounded
and more humble. it will also highlight that you need
to learn *constantly*. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | est: http://www.gnucitizen.org/ |
Which job to take? | vlad: Where are these positions located? Why do you care about "potentially less career advancement opportunity?" Do you want to do a startup, or do you want a career at a big company? We can't assume much from your post. Thanks! Also, what choice are you leaning towards, and why? |
Which job to take? | jamess: I'd go for the IBM position, regardless of which pays more. For one thing, the advantage of working at a large established company is they'll teach you how to write software. There are a truly vast number of things about writing software professionally that a CS degree doesn't prepare you for.You could do a lot worse than spending a couple of years at IBM. If your alternative is a web development company, you'll almost certainly be doing more interesting work there. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | robertdempsey: There is quite a bit of good advice here. I too was in a similar situation a number of years ago when my (as in I owned it) company was taken out by the post 911 meltdown. I closed out with more debt than you.My suggestions (as someone who is not an attorney or a CPA) are:1. Talk with the hosting company to get out of the contract.
2. Call all of your creditors, and tell them your situation. Ask them to help you and see if you can work out a payment plan. My creditors were surprisingly willing to help.
3. Get a full time job, work hard, and pay off your debt.
4. Keep your products on simmer until the time is again right. If you built a company once, you can do it again.Being in debt sucks, and it took a number of years for me to get out of it; however, declaring bankruptcy will ruin your credit and be on your record for years to come. If you have that on your credit record, then creditors will stay away from you for years to come.The economy is taking out companies left and right. Small and large alike. Just remember that nothing is insurmountable. Keep up your spirits, and keep moving forward. There is only one direction to move, ahead. |
APIs that nail it | SwellJoe: Both Perl and Python have web libraries that have always seemed close to perfect to me.As an example, a few days ago a friend of mine was trying to figure out how to tell people within her organization how to find the "canonical" URL from a request (the URL that the browser ended up at after possibly numerous 30x redirects) without having to actually go there with a browser, and after I'd suggested wget...she came back with, "Can it be done in Python? Everybody already has that installed." In about 90 seconds, I was able to whip up a couple of lines that did the job, and an example of doing it from the Python REPL. So, urllib2 is surprisingly powerful and clean.Perl has LWP::Simple, which is similarly awesome.Google Checkout, IMHO, is a great example of what not to do, while PayPal manages to provide similar services in a much more coherent fashion. (I think it's particularly sad that Google had the opportunity to learn from people who'd come before...and they still managed to make a worse API.) |
What are the best of public SOAP Web Services | jmtame: I second that |
List of Hacker Blogs? | KrisJordan: http://feeds.feedburner.com/KrisJordan - personal plug - programming, start-ups, php |
Which job to take? | brk: You will find that the greatest accomplishments in the world are often built upon solid foundations.It's perfectly possible to go from college into a startup (or to skip the college part), but in general you will do better (and contribute more) in a startup when you have some experience in a large company. You may not want to retire from IBM, but it's good to see the good and bad bits about how a large organization is run.The IBM job may or may not be there in another 5 years. There will always be some startup opportunity available. |
What are the best of public SOAP Web Services | zacharydanger: I know Chase's Paymentech payment gateway has a SOAP interface. Good? Maybe. SOAP? Yep. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | pkrumins: I am on my way to becoming a hacker :)My blog: http://www.catonmat.net |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | quellhorst: In hindsight I would have used EC2 instead of buying servers. For servers I already have it pays to have clients using them and paying you more than your expenses on them.Get out of the Credit Card debt ASAP. Instead of trying to sell the lead management system, go radical and open source it on an account on GitHub. You can then charge a high hourly rate for people who need help with it.Focus on launching one site at a time, work on it until you are done. Consider using PivotalTracker for planning each project. |
APIs that nail it | bd: QT is indeed really good. They also wrote an article about how to design APIs:Designing Qt-Style C++ APIshttp://doc.trolltech.com/qq/qq13-apis.html |
What are the best of public SOAP Web Services | wheels: MS Live Search has a SOAP API as well. |
Which job to take? | prospero: Do you know who you'll be working for at either job, and who you'll be working with? Are they personable? Are they knowledgeable? Will they be able to look at your work and tell you, in the simplest terms possible, how you fucked up?Your first job is going to be, in the best case scenario, extremely humbling. Even if you can make major contributions to the project, you'll find a lot of your assumptions coming in will be silly and ill-founded. A lot of the things you'll learn will be independent of the language you're using, or the platform you're developing on.Choose wherever you'll learn the most. Responsibilities matter more than titles and salary (modulo whatever you need to live comfortably), but these things aren't mutually exclusive. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | jrockway: Feel free to add my blog, http://blog.jrock.us, to your reading list. It is usually about Perl or Lisp, and I try to keep it instructional instead of "omg this is shiny" or "why I hate $programming_language_foo". Some of that creeps in from time to time, and I apologize in advance :) |
Which job to take? | ken: You're foolish to turn down a job only if it's a job you really want. No position is so awesome it's perfect for everybody.Most any job can have interesting problems. That's a function of the problem space, and the freedom you have to explore solutions in it, not the platform/architecture they use.I've worked at a (very) big company, a (very) small company, and in academia. If you're not sure what you prefer, maybe you should try several (in any order).There's a lot of "how to write software" that you didn't learn in your CS degree, but you'll pick that up quick enough on any real-world project. I learned most of what I know on a solo project (and reading the c2.com wiki); most people I worked with at the big company still haven't figured it out.Recent startup people I've talked to have been very interested in my small-company experience (even in a different field), and almost not at all in my big-company experience. Who do you want to impress? If you're thinking of doing a startup, tenure at IBM may not impress potential cofounders; if you want to work on device drivers at Microsoft, a web startup may not be the most relevant.You will almost certainly have many, many jobs over your lifetime. Even if the one you pick today ends up being terrible for you, it's simply not possible to choose a job so bad from which you can't recover. Not even "Swiss Patent Clerk". |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | utnick: How did you find your clients and what kind of leads are these?Any chance you could find some more clients that would be interested in the same kind of leads? |
List of Hacker Blogs? | TobiasCassell: I will run the risk of annoying everyone as a master of the obvious but this should be included, yes?http://hackaday.com/ |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | mynameishere: Plenty of advice here already. Insolvency can only be dealt with by liquidation and retrenchment on one hand, and bankruptcy on the other. It's an uncomplicated choice, and there's not much to say.But, for the love of god, don't finance a business on credit cards. Bad idea. Really, if you can't find friends family or fools, there's always Uncle Sugar:http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/sbaloantopic... |
List of Hacker Blogs? | aaronblohowiak: Why dont you ask for us to post opml? |
List of Hacker Blogs? | mlLK: I'm curious to know what tools OP is using to track memes. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | cabalamat: The first thing I would do is talk to an expert about bankrupcy to see what my options are. |
What are the best of public SOAP Web Services | timcederman: Google does not currently have a publicly available SOAP web service, unless you already have a key. |
Your experience with Arch Linux on a production box. | vegai: Sometimes I have to spend a lot of time in RHEL or Solaris hunting down packages of software that I would find and install in Arch in a minute.I haven't had worse problems with Arch than with 'real production server operating systems' like the two above. I am developing my personal stuff on a VPS running Arch.archlinux.org runs on Arch. We had some downtime earlier this month, but I think it wasn't software related.Business guys, however, don't want something new and cool. They want a conract that allows them to yell at other people when things go wrong. That's why Arch might be a tough sell sometimes. Perhaps an idea for somebody's startup, mm? :) |
What are the best of public SOAP Web Services | xchecker: Just curious, does anyone still care about SOAP? It may be alive inside some companies' intranets but it seems to be dead on the public web.When I've developed APIs, people clamor for JSON, REST, and serialized PHP. Maybe I'm in some non-Microsoft, non-Java ghetto? |
What happened to thefeelgood.com? | nreece: Maybe in the middle of a server migration and/or IP propagation. |
Which job to take? | apu: I haven't faced this problem myself, but I have a few friends who've been in somewhat similar situations before. Most were more interested in the smaller company, but due to various reasons (rationalizations?), ended up picking the bigger company job (ibm/microsoft/amazon/google). Despite their stated intentions to only work for a few years to learn how things work in the "real world" and, of course, make some money, they seem to have no real intention of leaving now.At the same time, with the exception of one of the Google people, none of them are particularly interested in the work they're doing. So it seems that earning the big money and having relatively stable, secure, and only slightly challenging jobs becomes a local maximum that is hard to escape from.So while it's true that you'll probably have many jobs over your career and in the end what you choose may not matter as much as you might think, it does seem tougher to go from big company -> small startup than the other way.Another data point (anecdote) about IBM specifically: I know 4 people who work (or have worked) at IBM, on the software-side of things. None of them says that it's very hard. One actually quit because he said it was ridiculous that everyone just constantly slacked off and nothing got done. On the other hand, the one person I know on the hardware side of things at IBM says that the work is interesting, challenging, and fairly busy. |
Should I drop out or not? | Ezra: You're mistaking the first term of university with the University™ that everyone else is talking about retrospectively.What they mean by University™ is usually "the last 2 years of university".Year one, if your experience is like mine was, is where you get the breadth part of your education in. My first year was 20% philosophy, 20% English, 20% math, 20% CS, and 20% political studies.And it was all mostly tripe. The math was basic calculus; the English was Donne, Gawain, Shakespeare, and some other BS; the philosophy was Socrates and Aristotle; the CS was basic "this is a for loop", and the politics was Locke, JS Mill, Engels, etc. ...All extremely basic. The first year is unlearning what your retard HS teachers told you, giving you some basis in the "you're supposed to know this text"-texts in each field, and getting everybody up to a base level to continue from.Of course you're going to be bored... the three golden rules to surviving are 1) finding out what profs are good, and then taking their classes, 2) not scheduling a lecture before noon (at my school they put nearly all the first year math classes at 8:30 ... brutal) and, most importantly, 3) playing Super Smash TV with the other smart kids.You don't learn anything because you (you being the average student) are a fucking retard. This becomes especially clear years later when you (you being the smart kid) serve as a TA for some first year class.This problem is especially apparent in CS, because there is, depending on where you live, and what school you went to, either a) absolutely no curriculum at all, or b) some retard teaching kids goto in BASIC on crappy 80's computers, or worse. You can learn decent CS in HS, but that's far from typical.And when you put the kids with no exposure whatsoever to programming in the same class as people with a decade of experience ... of course the smart kids are going to be bored; you're supposed to be.So, in first year you get the hammer.The second year is more interesting because you actually might learn something. Or, at any rate, will be required to work. This year is usually when they separate the people who think they want to be an X, from the people who actually do.This year you take 30% math, 50% cs, some physics or chemistry, and (if you're like me) more philosophy. In your CS, if it's like where I went (when I went), you a bunch of new stuff... I went from a shaky understanding one and a half programming languages, to being pretty good in a few ... if you make it through.Also, by this time you've learned all about requirements engineering if your professors are as "evil" as mine were.
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1121475Still, you're not learning anything that interesting, doing (relatively) toy apps in assembly, prolog, Eiffel; but you learn more advanced procedural and OO stuff at this point, and can begin to postulate on the pros and cons of multiple inheritance, and tail v. head recursion, for instance.Again, nothing ground-shaking, but you learn how to swing that hammer you got earlier in a useful manner.Third and fourth year are where you begin to specialize, and most of the classes are awesome. Also, by this time, you're old enough to drink (in Canada). You're taking 60% CS, 10% math, and pursuing your interest in X with the other 30%.All of your classes are taught by pretty much the most intelligent and passionate people around, and everybody is there because they want to be, and interested in learning, and you're learning about stuff that's actually cool.And you spend all of your "free time" playing with robots (or kernels, if that's what you like, or compilers, or whatever), and building stuff with your friends.University's awesome. (I finished in October.)About the fourth year student thing ... some people are fucking dumb but manage to scrape by with "group projects" that their smart friends complete, and middling test scores... whatever. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to ... anything, really.And I know tonnes of smart people who suck at programming contests ... they're not real. It's kind of like having a waitress who's a world champion at stacking cups ... I can't really see it hurting, but I'd rather have someone who gets the orders right, and brings the food out while it's still warm (and flirts with the programmers!) than who can stack cups quickly.The biggest thing to realize is that even if you're at a shit university, there is someone there who's incredibly intelligent and passionate about what they do ... and they have a propensity to like others who are intelligent and passionate about what they do.They want to help you learn more than almost anything; the caveat being that you have to want to learn.Ask to help them out ... they might even give you money for it.Or, if that's not your alley, spend all day trying to break something, or create a monster (with your friends, of course). |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | lsc: talk to your tax personYou really want to pay off that debit out of pre-tax monies. (well, unless you are declaring bankruptcy, but your debit seems small for that.) Either way, a $100/hr tax dude seems expensive, but it's not as expensive as paying off that debit out of post-tax money. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | bosky101: related YC thread -> where are the indian hackershttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=54085 |
List of Hacker Blogs? | dawkins: Schneier on Security: http://www.schneier.com/blog/ |
LLC with International Founder | yokumtaku: You will need to engage someone to help file the LLCs taxes, so you should engage this person now and start asking your question before you incorporate.Among other things, consider the following:1. If this is the type of project that is intended to be VC-funded in the future, you should start with a corporation, not an LLC. (Keep in mind that an S corp can't have non-U.S. residents.)2. If the LLC is a flow through entity, the UK person may have income "effectively connected to a U.S. trade or business," which may subject them to U.S. income tax at the same graduated rates that U.S. persons pay. |
Which job to take? | strlen: what do you mean "windows/java"? are they doing java in a windows vs. unix environment?would there be chance for you to transition into doing linux/python stuff over at ibm (they certainly do a great deal of linux/python work)? ask them that up front.also what matters a lot more than the tools/languages/systems you will be working on is -- if you want to do core software developlment -- whether you will be working on company's bread and butter or something which is only tangential and "nice to have"? are you going to be doing new development or merely fixing bugs (or doing operations)? |
LLC with International Founder | jhancock: You should eventually speak to an expert. When? It depends on how quickly you expect to yield net revenues and need to distribute profits.If you expect to run in the red for a while and once you show some traction may bring in investors, then I would follow my "rule of lazy paperwork":1 - An outside investor will want you to restructure into an investment compatible vehicle, not an LLC most likely. So treat you LLC as an operating vehicle while you bootstrap. The less complex things are in the beginning, the less complex it will be when you need to restructure.2 - For any startup partner you can write a simple contract that says the intellectual property ownership is shared by your persons and will be injected into some new entity in the future. In the meantime, you create another one-page contract that licenses this jointly owned IP to your operating LLC.3 - You can't easily have both UK and U.S. rules. I suggest your partner accept that he is enjoining a U.S. (really, your state) ruled set of contracts and live with it.4 - In the future, you can assign your IP into an offhore entity (e.g. Caymans) and then redeploy those licensing contracts your LLC already has. At this point you would also make the U.S. LLC a wholly owned entity of the offshore entity and have all you and your partner's shareholdings in the offshore entity.The above gives you an operating LLC so you get some protection and can have bank accounts, etc... Until you need to distribute any earnings, you can keep it simple and with little paperwork.As always, IANAL, this is simply how I might approach the problem. |
Which job to take? | strlen: couple more things: did you like the people who interviewed at either position? did you get to meet the team? in the end it's the people you work with that you learn from the most. there are office-space like environments in big companies and there are highly dynamic environments in big companies; there are start-ups run by clueless wantaprenuer (sp?) business-types (where you'll just be expected to crank out low quality PHP code 80 hours a week) and there are truly innovative start-ups.ignore the name of the company and the title, focus on the content of your work and the people you will be working with.my first job out of college was doing operations at yahoo: i ended up learning a tremendous amount on the job and was almost hunted by a start-up who came across me. my first real job (prior to college, junior year of high school) was doing similar work at start-up: the pay wasn't great and i ended up losing the job after the dot-com crash (which gave me a chance to go to college) but i got to work on real and interesting projects on the job which i could put on my resume and talk about at my yahoo! interview. the reason i mention my experiences is that big companies offer unique challenges (at yahoo it was a truly massive scale growing at an immense rate) and name recognition; smaller companies, on the other hand, are more able to take risks and put you on high responsibility projects that will also teach you a great deal.lastly don't over think your decision and don't worry too much about making the wrong one. once you've made one stick with it and don't think too much of "what if i chose the other way". i am quite guilty of not following this advice (over thinking and going back and forth on decisions, regretting previous decisions, worrying too much about the future) and that has cost me a great deal of sleep, productivity and happiness. you're fresh out of college, this is the perfect time to make mistakes (whether it's joining a start-up that may end up tanking or going nowhere, or joining a company that you may end up leaving in a year due to lack of challenge). |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | level2: I'm currently an entrepreneur in waiting. By that I mean my last credit card funded gig tanked (don't ever depend on people not doing what is exactly NOT in their own best interest) and I'm waiting until this 30% APR debt is off my back. I'm doing this by working a full time job and freelancing on the side. I cannot stress enough on how important it is to have that full time job. No matter what happens with my freelance gigs (I've noticed a lot of clients asking about 'payment plans' lately), my full time job has those minimum payments covered. Of course these minimum payments would disappear much faster if it wasn't for those student loans (just applied for 'Economic Hardship Deferment') so whatever you do, don't do something stupid like go back to school where you pay someone so you can do more work.Get a job, pay off debt, and learn from your mistakes. Semper Discens. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | ahoyhere: There's lots of good advice here but I want to chip in my two cents, because I was once in a very similar situation and my advice is different enough than what's already here.Short backstory so you know I'm serious: In 02, I lost a client along with about $20k of unpaid work (long story), $15k in debt, NO money, my ex-boyfriend stole my car (worse than a stranger, ha - and no, I couldn't get it back), working all the time & money stress lowered my immune system, I caught a ridiculously bad case of mono and could barely sit up for 3 mos, leading my only paying client to threaten to sue me. My father couldn't help me at all with money and my mother is an evil bitch who had an extra car but wouldn't help me anyway. It sucked. It was by far the worst period of my life BUT there's a huge upside, too.The first thing is: you can deal with this. You're smart, dedicated, and capable. This is just a temporary setback for you. You're already being proactive instead of wallowing in self-pity - way to go. It took me much longer to get to that stage.As another commentor pointed out, only sell your things if the equivalent hourly rate works out. For most things, that's a "no" right now, since consumer spending is tanking. Keep your stuff. Don't pay to store it - but keep it somewhere. Unless you're like that savekaryn chick and spent it all on small, easily shifted designer purses. ;)Second thing is: Call your credit card company(ies) RIGHT NOW and tell them "Look, it's lower my interest rate or I'm going to go bankrupt." This is the #1 mistake people in our situations make (after the racking up of debt, of course). Credit cards ARE negotiable. Allow me to repeat: CREDIT CARDS ARE NEGOTIABLE.And right now, CC banks are especially vulnerable because of the shit economy and that means YOU, an actual customer who intends to make good, is GOLDEN to them. If you tell them you have no other option, they WILL lower your APR, which will do HUGE things for you.If they don't respond to your approaches, try another (male?) friend or family member who can pretend to be you - who isn't feeling beaten down & can be assertive. If that fails, get a (reputable, genuine) debt counselor or lawyer. It's WELL worth the investment - it will return way more than 30% on your money.Third thing is: pay off your debt quickly but DON'T KILL YOURSELF DOING IT. If you eat only ramen and work 18 hour days, you're going to be unmanageably unhappy (read: depressed, beaten down, and totally burnt out) and possibly physically ill, too. I tried both approaches, and the overworking one nearly landed me back in bed.I got a f/t job - my first ever after being a freelancer since a teen, that's how low I had sunk - and that helped a lot because it greatly reduced my feeling of uncertainty. However, my first job was shitty and I was only able to stand it for 3 mos - by the end of which I'd lined up a better job and jumped to that seamlessly. Again, this falls under the category of "don't shit all over yourself just to pay off a debt." Better to go bankrupt, in my mind.Fourth thing is: Hustle. I got my job by hustling. I got my second job, the better job I stayed with for a year to pay off my debt, by hustling. And I made extra money by hustling. What's hustling? Not anything illegal. But you've got assets, so work em!What has the company gotten you? Software you developed? Know-how? SELL IT.Ask EVERYONE you know if they have work for you - and, most importantly - if they know anyone who might have work for you. Refine your pitch, give people as concrete examples as possible. Stretch your skills to fields where you hadn't worked before.Ask everyone you meet who is at least tangentially related to your work - politely - if they could use you, or know someone who does.There is NOTHING wrong with this. People are reluctant to do it because it seems sketchy or exploitative, but that all depends on how you do it.I got every job I ever had by asking, mostly people I had barely just met (last job paid me about $180k/yr so this is not just for small fish). You HAVE TO ASK, because most people - even ones who really could use your help - don't think about the possibilities until you do. And for the people who know you best, trust best, ask them to help you figure out ways to hustle better.Now, for the rest of the know-how, consider training other people to do what you do. Consider writing an ebook or something, once you get on your feet. Your knowledge is valuable, and if you do a cursory look into the world of self-published niche topic ebooks, you'll find tons of people are making a couple extra hundred bucks a day doing it.Remember that your time IS worth something - and probably quite a bit. Remember that what you do today with your time is like investing or spending your future income, too, not just for this month. This year or two or three of your life that you're going to take paying off your debt, you don't want to look back and have nothing at all to show for it but, well, less debt.Invest in yourself and your future where it makes sense.If you pay off your debt a bit more slowly, but stay sane and have built something that can help you in the future (an ebook or teaching web site, say), that's almost surely worth the extra interest. You just have to be sensible.Also, pro tip from a girl who knows: never, ever, ever work for anybody again who won't make a 30-50% advance payment. Put kill clauses in your contract, so you keep those deposits. Otherwise you're "putting yourself on sale" and letting everybody know it.Oh, and that upside I mentioned earlier? It's this: this is probably the worst personal situation you will ever have to deal with. And you WILL deal with it just fine. And after that, you'll realize A) how unimportant money is to your overall happiness, which paradoxically makes making money that much easier because you have its number (so to speak), and B) if you can conquer this, you can conquer ANYTHING.Cheers and best of luck.Amy |
What are the best of public SOAP Web Services | dizz: Amazon EC2 - http://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads/ec2.wsdl
S3 - http://s3.amazonaws.com/doc/2006-03-01/AmazonS3.wsdlAnd I'm sure there's others... in fact here's a dude that's listed all the amazon services exposed as wsdl http://www.ecocoma.com/amazon_wsdl.aspx |
LLC with International Founder | ahoyhere: It definitely increases the complexity of taxing. Sorry. I know how you feel - I'm an American partnered with (& married to) an Austrian (and we both live in Austria!).However, I'm fairly sure that the UK and US - like every other major country and the US - have an anti-double taxation treaty. Which probably means that you personally will pay taxes only in the country which has the highest rate (clearly your home country).IF - and only if - you get good tax advice up front can you reduce your American taxes by carefully structuring the way you take money out of the company.It's hard to find accountants who are experienced in this. My personal suggestion would be to call Deloit or another big international consultancy.EDIT: Sorry, I got who's UK/who's US backwards. Advice still stands tho. You can definitely form an LLC with a foreigner, even using an online service, it's just that taxes are a bitch. No way around that. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | mikeyur: My best advice would (if you have okay credit) get a line of credit from your bank or a loan and pay off as much of your credit cards as you can. The interest rates from a line of credit are MUCH lower than the 10,20,30% interest your credit card company is charging.You'll still need to come up with a minimum payment each month, but you'll pay less in the long run. If you're in good standings with your bank and your credit isn't terrible, you should be able to get one. Now, I'm not sure about how banks are lending with the financial crisis, but it's worth a try. |
What happened to thefeelgood.com? | trickjarrett: Site seems to be back up. |
Clients are gone, lots of debt, what would you do? | iuguy: Hi,Sorry to hear it's not working out. I hope things start to get better for you. You've done the absolute right thing by cutting your cost base down as much as possible. CatDancer and co have offered some really good things to think about so I won't repeat what they've already said.The 600$/month till the end of January, check your contract. If there's no way out I would talk to the hosters (talk to an organ grinder, not a monkey) if you can't make the payments. Depending on how/where you incorporated you might be able to get out of it easier. I imagine you're looking at a worst case of $1800 till end of contract? If you can't get out try to negotiate an upfront early termination at a reduced cost.The stuff with the Austin marketing guys - how long would it take and how much of your time would it take before you see a return? Is this going to be full time?If your immediate stress is caused by a lack of funds and that your clients have evaporated then I suggest you find a way to make short term cash. If you can do this with a short term contracting gig then it's worth considering. You're not necessarily looking at paying off that 30k, you're looking at bringing up your own personal cash levels to a level where you can think clearly and work out what to do next.Don't liquidate all of your assets if you think that you'll reuse them in your next venture unless the value of those assets will make a material difference to the way you live. You should be able to sell them to your next venture at a cost lower than buying new or reused assets elsewhere. Once you know what you're going to do you'll have a better idea of what to sell and what to keep. |
From where do you buy a domain ? | shutter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=339823http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=186369I use NameCheap, myself. |
From where do you buy a domain ? | jyothi: godaddy.com |
From where do you buy a domain ? | Hates_: http://www.joker.com |
Which job to take? | crpatino: Why do you ask this? You already should know that, at IBM, you will be another brick in the wall. Do you need permission to do what you love? |
From where do you buy a domain ? | ComputerGuru: 1and1 - though I wouldn't ever buy hosting from them. |
APIs that nail it | jcapote: Hpricot |
What do you consider "making it"? | snprbob86: I think you've made it long before you are buying all those toys you promised yourself. That is, assuming you promised yourself any toys. Me? I just promised myself that I would be my own boss, have fun, and make just enough money to not have to argue over who pays the left over dollar after dinner. |
What do you consider "making it"? | fallentimes: Having the site/business pretty much run itself and grow slowly but surely. I don't care about the toys - if I could have 100k a year in passive income I'd be set. "Making it" for me has much more to do with disposable free time than disposable income.Edit: Issuing dividends to our investors would be great, but probably isn't a requirement. |
What do you consider "making it"? | eisokant: For me it's about making something a success in the eyes of the users. Built something people love using. Then make it a business that maximizes it's profits. Then move on to the next venture. I don't want any toy's and I don't need any recognition but what I do want is the sense of achievement once you've built a profitable business. Hence I hope to one day have created a million dollar company not for the money but for having overcome another challenge. |
What do you consider "making it"? | ComputerGuru: At the point where the only thing to describe your feelings is "Content." |
What do you consider "making it"? | Angostura: I'm not a typical HN reader/user. I'm a one-man consultancy outfit, helping businesses sort out how best to use Internet technologies for internal and external collaboration. I also help untangle knotty workflow problems, you get the picture."Making it", as far as I am concerned is having a steady stream of people coming through my door through personal recommendation with really interesting problems - enough in fact that I can turn the less interesting ones away to other people.I get to make money, I get to help people (I know it sounds sappy, but I love it) and I get to think about interesting problems.It doesn't get much better than that for me, it really doesn't.No. I haven't quite "made it" yet, I only started out as an independent a few months ago, but I've had enough of a taste of it to make me a very happy bunny. |
What do you consider "making it"? | mmmurf: I think it's when you are doing it for the love, and it's also successful. The convergence of pleasure and productivity (in an economic sense).By this logic, as a founder you may realize you've created something successful and fun but it's time to bring in different people to do things that you are no longer economically optimal to do.Jeff Bezos is a great example of someone who clearly has a fun time every single day and whose creativity is still vital to Amazon's performance. |
What do you consider "making it"? | pedalpete: Short answer, never, particularly when you are still calling yourself a start-up. Once you've 'made-it', you aren't a start-up anymore, you're a big business, and big businesses still need lots of work to keep them successful.Long answer - when your piece of art is complete.
A great book, 'Finite and Infinite Games' lays out my feelings on this.
Your first STEP in success is when you are really in the game. I've launched a few companies that nobody cared about. Got no traction. There was very little reason to keep revising the product/project because I wasn't in the game.
Other times you hit on something that people care about, and that is making a difference. You work like mad to churn out new products and satisfy the demand. You are in the game. That is success level 1, and it goes from there.I think the big problem with saying "how do you know when you've made it?", is that this isn't a sprint or a marathon. It's a life. You've never 'made it' in life, if you're done, then you're dead. When do you know when you have breathed enough? When you have eaten enough?
If you stop working on your product/business, it will go stale and die.You can 'get out', sell, hire others to take over the day to day tasks, but what do you do with yourself then?
I think some of PG's comments regarding the 'artist' in programmers/innovators is just that. An artist doesn't stop painting once they have sold one painting. So your current project leads to the next, etc.I would say to answer your question, that only you can decide when your current piece of art is done.
If you're making great money, fantastic. If not, maybe you love this project so much that you'll continue with it anyway.Basically, have an exit strategy, targets, goals, etc. But none of these are 'finishing lines', they are markers on the coarse. Like aid stations on a cicuitus marathon coarse. They let you know that you have reached a significant marker, but don't stop running, 'cause you are still in the race.There are still things to do, problems to solve, art to build.
The journey is the destination. |
From where do you buy a domain ? | satyajit: Straight from the src:
www.netsol.com
Everyone else is 2ndary, they try to force some hosting option on you. |
What do you consider "making it"? | DenisM: $15 milllion net worth after tax, or $1 million yearly income, whichever comes first. Today's dollars, adjusted for inflation. |
What do you consider "making it"? | Darmani: No matter where you are, "made it" is always one step above you. |
What do you consider "making it"? | markessien: Anybody who does work just so that he can one day not work, will find his contentment threshold pretty quickly. He will find a satisfactory job with enough free time and will stop dreaming. |
What do you consider "making it"? | kalvin: Having created something that's made life (offline, RL) better for a huge, broad swath of people. |
What do you consider "making it"? | unalone: Once you feel like you can do other things, any other things, without feeling that you're taking a risk in doing what you feel like. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | fortes: http://planet.intertwingly.net/ is a solid aggregation of various tech blogs, you can milk the blogroll there for some good links. |
What do you consider "making it"? | sharkfish: When I was no longer a FUCKING TWAT. LOL. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | grokcode: Here's mine: http://grok-code.com
RSS: http://grok-code.com/feed/ |
What do you consider "making it"? | incomethax: When I felt I've really changed the world for the better. |
List of Hacker Blogs? | brlewis: I'm a hacker and I have 3 blogs.http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/ is mostly about OurDoings but with content geared toward people interested in web startups.http://ourdoings.com/brlewis/ is more random.http://ourdoings/com/index.html is geared toward customers and potential customers of OurDoings, i.e. people who want to share photos that tell a story. |
What's the best value hardware for virtualization? | wmf: All current laptops should have 64-bit processors with virtualization support, although you should probably stay away from Celerons, Pentiums, and Semprons which might be crippled. In your situation I would get 4-6GB of RAM, so factor that into your budget.Is there anything especially important to watch out for while virtualizing OSX?The fact that you're running your business on completely unsupported (and probably warez) software? |
What's the best value hardware for virtualization? | whatusername: anyone want to comment on the legal situation running OSX in a VM? Especially for a company/start-up and not just home user?I was under the impression that you were breaching the apple license at the minimum? |
What's the best value hardware for virtualization? | jwilliams: > We're looking to spend a max of $1600 on the hardware. I've already tried running vmware on my personal laptop for which my 32-bit processor is not suited for running a 64-bit OS.If your machine is IA32 it's probably also extremely old.> Is there anything especially important to watch out for while virtualizing OSX?If you're talking about OSX and not Darwin:#1 is that it's of dubious legality (to say the least) - Only the server version is explictly available to run in a VM.#2 is that the performance will probably be woeful - and likely woeful to being unusable. Particularly if your budget is $800.There is more, but #1 and #2 are big enough issues in themselves.For $800 each you could get a Mac Mini, which is probably good enough depending on your needs. You can probably get an older Mini on eBay a lot cheaper. |
What do you consider "making it"? | rms: I see no reason to set the bar lower than National Sovereignty. There are just so many things you can't do without your own sovereign nation. |
What do you consider "making it"? | jamesbritt: Never having to wear pants again.Unless I really really want to. |
What's the best value hardware for virtualization? | gtani: you can do stripped down used macbooks, 1.8Ghz cpu, 1G Ram, for $800, (these go to 2G RAM, which is sort of barely adequate for VMWare) e.g.http://www.powermax.com/parts/code/PM_CU_MKhttp://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Applehttp://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=M...there'a a few other companies that keep inventory of apple used/refurbs, I can't remember names right now |
What do you consider "making it"? | espadagroup: I have no illusions with myself about wanting to live a comfortable life at $100,000. Making it would be this:Financially: $1,000,000/Year in passive income.Socially: The Espada brand being universally recognizable and associated with my name.Automotivally: Lotus Elise, Bentley, the biggest legal monster truck I can find.Personally: Having no fearSome might think this is superficial, though I know precisely what I want and don't apologize for it. |
What do you consider "making it"? | cabalamat: Net worth > $10 million |
Should I take the plunge? | CaptainMorgan: You certainly appear to have an abundance of education that should assist you tremendously...A born financial conservative, I say go with Option 1 - but note that I have completely no experience in these types of ventures.What I can offer is that in this time of economic turmoil, if you happen to be doing alright - you don't need Warren Buffet to tell you that now is a nice time to buy as things are on sale, even if we haven't completely hit bottom yet. Now that only relates to the market and stocks specifically, but apply that to your idea - startup costs specifically, mustn't they be low too? Supplies, equipment, all marked and coming down due to businesses going belly-up. You fancy open source, so that's a cost saver too... heck, you've got an MBA and you're asking us about plunging, mortgages and finances?I say keep at your goal in the moonlight, pay off deficits as much as possible, that way you'll have less to worry about when you do take the plunge. I'm not really impressed with the numbers showing page views - your company could go bankrupt for some illegal exposure that you didn't foresee occurring. What I am concerned about is how much can you afford, and/or how much can you risk? If you don't have a backup plan, I say you have no plan - hence the cushion that the 35% would provide.Best of luck. |
What do you consider "making it"? | icky: "Making it" is a journey of several steps:1. Realizing you haven't been checking price tags on food or household items for a while now.2. Making money faster than you can find things worth spending it on.3. Being well-off without having to work full-time.4. Being well-off through actively-managed passive income.5. Being able to sail around the world and come back richer (through passive income, not sea trade nor piracy nor fortune hunting ;).6. Being able to do what you want, where you want, when you want, without the permission or approval of anybody. |
Marketing ideas for my book "The Geek Atlas" | pchristensen: It would be hard for me to give any meaningful advice since you had me halfway through the title. I even made a note in my calendar for April 2009 that your book was coming out and I need to buy it. (this was when it was on your blog last week).I would see if you can get on "geek" media: geek.tv, NPR's Science Friday, etc. Science Friday had a 20 minute talk with the people that wrote "My Nuclear Family Vacation" where they visited nuclear history sites.Not sure if it's in the budget, but you should go to any of the places you can and do a little 2 min video about it, with info about the book in the fade-out. Put them on youtube and on the book site.Definitely have a site for the book, preferably with a decent blog. This lets people find out more about the book and lets you give periodic reminders that it exists and should be bought. See "Permission Marketing" for more details.Anyways, good luck and I can't wait until it comes out in April! |
Marketing ideas for my book "The Geek Atlas" | abijlani: I think you can learn quite a bit from Tim Ferris (the author of the 4-hour work week). He started marketing his book way before it came out by way of:1. A website that complimented his book2. A blog that talk about things related to the book3. He reached out to bloggers and built a relationship (http://text.co.uk/internet-marketing-news/how-to-market-to-b...)4. Get interviewed. Podcasters are always looking to interview people with interesting stories and of course there are many book review sites and podcasts.All these will build enough anticipation and hype that once your books hits the shelf you should have generated significant buzz. |
Should I take the plunge? | mikeyur: I am going to have to say, go with Option 1. You could take the plunge today, but personally I'd rather be safe than sorry.Another option would be to slowly phase out your old job, cut from 40 hours a week to 35 and spend that extra time working on your new business. I'm not sure if this is possible in your current situation but if it is it may be an option worth exploring.My 2 cents. |
What do you consider "making it"? | mikeyur: Steadily growing business. Steady income that can provide me with the necessities and a few toys (about $50k/yr after taxes). Free time to deal start other projects and do what I want. |
Marketing ideas for my book "The Geek Atlas" | SingAlong: 128 places!!?? 128 is associated with computer science (like 1024). So you could use this number in a very innovative way.Whatever places everyone mentioned, poster, website, etc make an ad with '128' that you could put up anywhere. The first thing that comes to my mind is... "128 bytes and 128 places". Some sorta caption for your self-created campaign. Will post later if I hit upon something more creative.Talking about the future, if you intend to get a 2nd edition and a 3rd edition on the shelf. Then I would have 256 places, 512 places and henceforth for further editions. |
E-mail providers and mail servers | izak30: As a final note, we've ended up choosing FuseMail, if you have any questions about them, let me know. |
Should I take the plunge? | mccon104: how confident/comfortable are you with the idea of working on this company as your sole source of income? ... really, you need to honestly answer that question first.second, do you have a co-founder? though one isn't necessary it doesn't hurt to have one (or more).to go with option 2 (which is my knee-jerk recommendation), answering affirmative to the first is required, for the second it's "strongly encouraged".also if you have a spouse, sig-other, or any dependents, it might be nice to (see: you better) talk this over with them and get their input. |
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