maxniederhofer

9 ms·

31.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
Interesting that they didn't pick a Finn this time. I heard from a friend there that they were actively trying to recruit to build a succession pipeline of Finns. If you don't know him, here's a video of Elop speaking at Web 2.0 Expo: http
32.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
I like the serendipity of discovering stuff this way. The selection of videos is pretty good.
33.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
I think the original term is "Spray and Pray" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spray_and_pray ).
34.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
London, UK. Pre launch product, http://qwer.ly . Working on internet identity and disrupting the social media silos. Be the first employee. Rails experience. Looking for someone who is highly intelligent, fun, productive, ambitious, lookin
35.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
An option for you guys could be to wait until you do your first round of funding and have the incoming investors buy him out. I've seen that done before and it worked well. Lesson: always include an option to redeem the shares of a founder
36.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
I wonder if Facebook would have done better if they had started charging power users. If users were the customers Facebook would have avoided this whole mess. Assuming a reasonable $10/month per power user, a conversion rate of 2-3%, at 500
37.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
The same things is happening with Twitter. It was just a cool little thing to do at the beginning, then they had issues scaling, now they're just co-opting whatever worked well in the ecosystem. It's the same bait-and-switch, just with deve
38.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
It's hard to put a value on the freedom to, at a moment's notice, get up and go wherever you please, without having to rely on anyone or anything. It's what continues to attract people to individual transport.
39.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
Sorry, that was confusing indeed. It's late/early here. Persuasive, not binding is correct. But in practice the authority of the court is such that most lesser courts will honor it. I was also wrong on the "highest appeals court" count - if
40.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
The Federal Court is the ultimate appeals court and thus can overrule the Patent Court, hence forcing the German Patent Office ('Patentamt') to grant the patent. What's more, and potentially worse, judgements of the Federal Court serve to i
41.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
Thank you, that was a great TED talk.
42.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
Hey Massimo, I'm an entrepreneur in residence with Atlas. So my email there still works but for other things, max@niecap.com will do. I'm particularly looking for a great frontend/UI/UX designer/developer.
43.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
We are. Based in London.
44.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
Yup. Link was to highlight that there are many other examples of more effective maintenance pages than the one from OP.
45.
by maxniederhofer 16y ago
Too verbose for my taste. Here's a good sample of effective maintenance pages: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/12/effective-mainten...
46.
Ask HN: what's the best business you've ever seen?
11 points by maxniederhofer 17y ago|36 comments
47.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
"This call may be monitored to check for awesomeness" always makes me smile. It's the little things...
48.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
I like your focus on improving UI but I think you need to do some customer development work. Figure out whom to target and fulfill their search needs. E.g.: We need search for hardcore search users. 100 results above the fold. Clear ways to
49.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
The best founder dating hack I've found: stop saying "I have a startup" and start saying "I run my own company." A short sentence, but there's confidence, power, wealth, passion (and a fair bit of pretentious bs) in there.
50.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
To squarely address the concern about transparency: I think the model is highly transparent and has previously been well communicated. The issue he raises, i.e. that the investors in Seedcamp are the ones choosing the winners on the final d
51.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
/popcorn
52.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
Remember all those "video games are recession-resistant" stories a year ago? The truth was always that, at least in the US, game sales depend largely on the console cycle and are thus falling with lower console sales.
53.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
The economy is a rounding error in predicting the success of a startup. Paraphrased from pg.
54.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
I've never been as lonely as when I started a one-founder company. Long hours practically made my social life go away. Sure, I hired people, but I couldn't afford to hire the people I really wanted to work with. Lessons? Don't start alone.
55.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
Disclaimer: I'm a VC at Atlas Venture ( http://www.atlasventure.com/ ). The Patricof article echoes pretty much exactly the position of the National Venture Capital Association (its statement to congress is here: http://bit.ly/M92Ux [PDF]
56.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
What's a good hack for putting older, experienced people to work? My assumption is we're only going to be seeing more of this given demographics and changing career paths. Smells like a market opportunity.
57.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
1. Never generalize. 2. This is helpful in the sense that criticism isn't necessarily the best way to compete, especially if you're growing a new market. 3. Sometimes it's good to ignore your competition, sometimes it's good to partner with
58.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
I really like their approach of trying to solve real-money trading by PLEX (Pilot License Extensions). Essentially a PLEX buys you 30 days of game time. People can buy a PLEX and trade it for in-game items. PLEX only has a value for people
59.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
Just underlines the market opportunity for someone who is not beholden to publishers to launch an open ereader...
60.
by maxniederhofer 17y ago
Don't believe the hype.

More ›