johnrob

25 ms·

271.
by johnrob 13y ago
Did you get any users during your launches? If so, I'd consider them a success. The idea that you get flooded with users after a single launch event is a myth. I see the process like this: 1) Some kind of press release (TC, Show HN,
272.
by johnrob 13y ago
You usually need to prove one of the following: 1) How you'll beat the competition 2) Why people will want your product Are you sure you shouldn't be focusing on 2?
273.
by johnrob 13y ago
Facebook would be the odd man out if included in your big-tech-company list. It would be the only service that you couldn't use by yourself.
274.
by johnrob 13y ago
It seems like a growing portion of 20 somethings are living with their parents. Could this be related?
275.
by johnrob 13y ago
To put this in perspective, any company that has raised 10M or more is likely to be valued at something near 40M. The numbers seem less startling to me after factoring that in (my first reaction was that there must be a lot more acquisitio
276.
by johnrob 13y ago
if something causes the bay area monopoly on startups to weaken in the near term, I expect it to be around retention challenges or costs. We have a fundamental problem in Silicon Valley: there are not enough places for people to live in.
277.
by johnrob 13y ago
How to make $800/mo from three lines of code The title was just link bait then?
278.
by johnrob 13y ago
3 lines? What about the lines of code in order to control the feature? Code to charge customers who use the feature? Running analysis to test different shades of the color and how well they perform? What about time spent on the phone and
279.
by johnrob 13y ago
Eye opening... great work! Bug: (FF 16.0.1 on OSX 10.8.5) When the "select a procedure" drop down box is expanded, wheel scrolling up/down seems to also zoom the map underneath it.
280.
by johnrob 13y ago
Being a consultant is the first thing that comes to mind. You pick your projects, set your price, and customers tend to appreciate you more than a boss would his employees (outlying companies aside).
281.
by johnrob 13y ago
Why is that your biggest problem? Why do you need to start a company? I can almost guarantee that the reasons you come up with can be solved with alternatives much easier than starting a company.
282.
by johnrob 13y ago
One major exception: distribution. You can also grow big off the backs of other companies. In the tech world, this has become fairly common in the advertising space. Retargeting companies, for example, can grow quickly by signing up only
283.
by johnrob 13y ago
Why should anyone feel compelled to follow or invest in bitcoin? The time to buy bitcoins is when you need them to get something you want (as it should be for any currency).
284.
by johnrob 13y ago
It's possible that bitcoin simply functions as a casino (or "volatile asset") instead of a medium of exchange, given the large demand for gambling.
285.
by johnrob 13y ago
Being early is the same as being wrong, with one exception: if you're early it means the concept will indeed be correct later on. I think "Everything is moving online" was early, not wrong.
286.
by johnrob 13y ago
There's a catch 22 here though. If the company does well, the new hire equity amount will drop because the stock is more valuable, and thus the evergreen grant will pale in comparison to the employee's earlier grants. Should the
287.
by johnrob 13y ago
Bitcoin is a currency. Shouldn't we be more interested in the number purchases made with it instead of the current exchange value?
288.
by johnrob 13y ago
That just turns it into what we were getting away from: vested option grants.
289.
by johnrob 13y ago
On the other side of the equation, founders and investors are increasingly tight-fisted with company ownership, allocating smaller stock pools to employees Founders and investors are in a position of power, which means there is an easier
290.
by johnrob 13y ago
There is now a term for this (can't recall who coined it): "grin fucking". The desire to be nice ends up fucking over the founder in the long run.
291.
by johnrob 13y ago
Any ideas for a Demo Day substitute? The deadline is probably just as important as the investor connections (i.e. something that only produces the former would still be valuable).
292.
by johnrob 13y ago
That would be a very high fill rate (5 days a week) for such high prices.
293.
by johnrob 13y ago
but everyone here is hung up on the concern over being able to build a >$100M revenue subscription business in photos in this age of free photo tools Dropbox is a billion dollar company doing exactly that. I'm willing to bet that
294.
by johnrob 13y ago
I'll suggest a simpler framework for valuing Snapchat: probability of becoming another Facebook. If you think it has a 5% chance, then it should be valued at around 5 billion (relative to Facebook's 100 billion).
295.
by johnrob 13y ago
Why hustler instead of hacker, especially in the context of raving about the product?
296.
by johnrob 13y ago
The influx of money into silicon valley has many side effects; not all of them are good. People outside the tech industry are becoming relatively poorer across the board, including those at the bottom in this article. What bothers me the
297.
by johnrob 13y ago
I've come to enjoy many aspects of going out in the world alone (most are simply the effect of removing the 'distraction' of company): - Much greater awareness of other people and surroundings. - Great opportunity to take sto
298.
by johnrob 13y ago
A much easier form of age discrimination would be to simply not hire older people. Why bother with the hassle of setting up a trial program?
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by johnrob 13y ago
I see this type of thinking a lot, sometimes even within myself. I don't think the problem is Capitalism (or "Growthism") - it's that we don't do much as we could to counter act the negative effects. Instead of wo
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by johnrob 13y ago
That is a dangerous conclusion - you can blow off just about any piece of advice with it.

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