Ping me. I'm happy to provide any free advice I can over the phone as long as it has a chance of helping developers. HN isn't the place for this, however, as wh

Ping me. I'm happy to provide any free advice I can over the phone as long as it has a chance of helping developers. HN isn't the place for this, however, as whatever I say is just going to open up a religious war. (Disclaimer: I am currently looking for new clients) You hire a guy like me because they have a broad and long record of seeing various things work and fail. The first thing you learn is that it takes a lot of examples to start seeing patterns. The worse folks you can deal with are the enthusiasts who have only seen things rock-and-roll a few times. Skeptics are great. Let's go see what works or not. True believers are another thing entirely. Humility is critical here. There are some things I've seen that work. There are also some things I've read from others that I trust. I've always been a huge believer in success by failure avoidance: it might not matter what you do as much as it matters that you're actively trying to avoid screwing up. No matter what your mix of strategies, it's a personal call that involves risk and not a kind of conversation you want to have in a room with ten thousand people in it. It's something to think about for a while.