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Sometime after 2009 I started working on a data mining app that allowed a user to enter medications and cross reference drug interactions. At the time opendata

Sometime after 2009 I started working on a data mining app that allowed a user to enter medications and cross reference drug interactions. At the time opendata was one of the main information sources, now I think those datasets are managed by openfda. I brought one person in to work on that with me, they proceeded to buy a domain for the top product name we were considering (canitake.com) within the first day. It was wonderful to get that red flag so soon, I stopped working with them, and abandoned the project. Losing the project was a little unfortunate, the data brought good questions someone might want to ask their doctor about; but knowing what I know now about "doing your own research" a lot of people would not have used this as a way to prepare to talk to a professional and would have interpreted the data themselves. Not working with that acquaintance again was invaluable, they burned their way through the industry for the next decade. They could have messed up projects I actually cared about.

bckr 5y ago
> they proceeded to buy a domain for the top product name we were considering (canitake.com) within the first day I understand this may be a meme, but did you actually take this as a serious red flag, and is this why you stopped working with them, or were there other factors?
- nonplus 5y ago
  Personally buying ip for a project you just started working on as someone expected to be a contributor? Yeah I'm serious (That I take that as a flag now). There were accounts and avenues to buy a domain when ready for that. It showed they couldn't communicate well, couldn't work in stealth mode, couldn't focus on building/proving out the mvp. Other factors are just hindsight/observing them the decade after. Two of those factors might be. 1. Repeatedly quitting contracts (if it's not a good fit fine, if it's never a good fit maybe you're missing skills to complete a project). 2. Comments/behaviors that illustrated they would have been a poor manager if we scaled/inability to be wrong. For me, other developers and contributors have been one of the most important factors for success/completing projects/keeping clients (in the contracting space). So I consider this an important lesson I was fortunate to learn early. I don't know who I would be working with now if I had failed to keep great talent around me (or for that matter, what skills I would not have developed).
corobo 5y ago
How many projects have you launched without them?
- nonplus 5y ago
  Maybe 5 products for clients/b2b. That's pretty much it for launched. Plenty of aborted saas platforms that I couldn't calculate an ROI/sales model that made sense.

bckr 5y ago

> they proceeded to buy a domain for the top product name we were considering (canitake.com) within the first day I understand this may be a meme, but did you actually take this as a serious red flag, and is this why you stopped working with them, or were there other factors?

nonplus 5y ago
Personally buying ip for a project you just started working on as someone expected to be a contributor? Yeah I'm serious (That I take that as a flag now). There were accounts and avenues to buy a domain when ready for that. It showed they couldn't communicate well, couldn't work in stealth mode, couldn't focus on building/proving out the mvp. Other factors are just hindsight/observing them the decade after. Two of those factors might be. 1. Repeatedly quitting contracts (if it's not a good fit fine, if it's never a good fit maybe you're missing skills to complete a project). 2. Comments/behaviors that illustrated they would have been a poor manager if we scaled/inability to be wrong. For me, other developers and contributors have been one of the most important factors for success/completing projects/keeping clients (in the contracting space). So I consider this an important lesson I was fortunate to learn early. I don't know who I would be working with now if I had failed to keep great talent around me (or for that matter, what skills I would not have developed).

corobo 5y ago

How many projects have you launched without them?

nonplus 5y ago
Maybe 5 products for clients/b2b. That's pretty much it for launched. Plenty of aborted saas platforms that I couldn't calculate an ROI/sales model that made sense.