nwenzel

24 ms·

151.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Possibly the "wealthy" appear to be living hand to mouth intentionally. Inflation is a highly regressive tax on cash and savings that rewards hard/real assets. Buying the most expensive house you can (barely) afford is a weal
152.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Friendly reminder... Label your axis people! Especially if you're using them as evidence to prove your point. Though, due to the image quality, I'm wondering if these images were actually taken from the original study rather than
153.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Ask pg: What does the pg of today (the pg with kids) think about what the pg of the past (circa 2004) wrote about the parts of the essay related to kids? If there's something interesting to diff, it's the ideas people have that pe
154.
by nwenzel 13y ago
I realize the article is pro-multilingual, but I disagree with the notion that time spent learning a foreign language is time not spent learning another subject. My son was in Spanish immersion preschool from age 2 until 3 years 4 months. H
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Awesome! Anything to get rid of paper from my workflow. Not so much about the environment (though, that's good too). But dealing with paper is such a productivity killer.
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Ways I Can Help (says VC to his portfolio)(codingvc.com)
3 points by nwenzel 13y ago|0 comments
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by nwenzel 13y ago
For less snark and more helpfulness, consider removing "I am not going to read". I think you'll be happier and less likely to be perceived as snarky.
158.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Very helpful to have a UI for digging through profiler results. I use the django debug toolbar but I think your profiler will be incredibly helpful for finding bottlenecks. Thanks for posting, thanks for sharing.
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Pretty sure they do all states now. I don't work for them, but I'm definitely a fan.
160.
by nwenzel 13y ago
I can say without any doubt in my mind, without Jason's advice and the mock interview he took me through, I would not have been accepted into YC. Nothing else will be as helpful as a mock interview. Jason's advice is on point, dir
161.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Building a startup is slightly harsher than an island full of cannibals.
162.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Curious to know why someone would have to go with ADP or Paychex. I've used one of those before. Painful.
163.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Post author here: I appreciate all the comments. Even the negative comments because it's important to know all reasons for opposition. I'll point you to another HN story today, ZenPayroll raises $20M [0]. They're not on a pat
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by nwenzel 13y ago
ZenPayroll is just awesome sauce all over. We're ZenPayroll customers and love it. I've used other payroll services from the big incumbents... awful. When you use ZenPayroll, you kind of want to find someone from their team and hu
165.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Great idea for a post! http://saastr.com/ is a great source for startups in the SaaS space, but more so for growing in general than specifically addressing your point. Though, I think you summarize it pretty well. Straightf
166.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Agree that large vendors "can" but don't alway "do." Not sure Google is the typical large company though. Microsoft Research is a great example though. As is Walmart Labs and any other division built on the Skunkwor
167.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Post author here. Absolutely agree that any company transition, whether an acqui-hire or divestiture or acquisition or shutdown or product version sunset, that hurts customers is a a horrible thing. That said, the acqui-hires and shutdowns
168.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Of course they should. Marc Benioff tried to sell to the govt. Govt couldn't buy it. Couldn't even evaluate it. We're talking to several universities now to find the best way to serve them. Sometimes we run into structural ro
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by nwenzel 13y ago
If I did, I'd have already sold my Facebook and Twitter shares and sprinkle words of wisdom down upon the masses. Or become a VC. But, if I'm a company looking for vendors, I evaluate "good" vs "bad" in the con
170.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Don't buy from bad startups. 1. Startups have a high(er) chance of pivoting out of something you don't want. They aren't stuck selling you the same bloated database (or whatever). 2. Don't buy from startups that don&#x27
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by nwenzel 13y ago
To classify a company as a "startup" I'd go with either Steve Blank's definition (An organization in search of a repeatable and scalable business model [0]) or Jacobellis v. State of Ohio (I know it when I see it [1]) Su
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Post author here. I think that's more common in consumer startups without a clear path to revenue and profitability. I know it happens in the B2B world as well, but I don't believe anyone thinks 42Floors, Cratejoy, AirBnB, Square,
173.
by nwenzel 13y ago
Finally, a startup that recognizes that people do get married and do have kids. I know, I know... seems totally nuts. But it happens to the best of us. Now if you could just help me get them from point A to point B, that would be even bette
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Big companies forget step three. They tend to head down a path, see what worked, then retroactively redefine goals so that everyone hits their target. I think the startup-specific part is being willing to identify mistakes.
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Depends how you read it. Don't get divorced because divorce is expensive... not such good advice. Choose the right partner and don't settle so that you don't get divorced... good advice.
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Large companies tend to have arbitrary size requirements for potential vendors before allowing them to become an approved vendor. But I think companies should consciously choose startups as vendors for precisely that reason. Startups care m
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by nwenzel 13y ago
"cheap acquisition costs and expensive disposal costs" Great point. Simple and head-smack obvious when you read it. Hits right at the core. Immediately after reading, I generalized to "cheap up-front, expensive back-end costs
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Campus is a startup doing interesting things related to communal living and groups housing. http://buildcampus.com I had a chance to meet the founder. They're targeted to the younger crowd. Recent grads moving from dorm lif
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by nwenzel 13y ago
Congrats guys! Looks like pg needs to update his tweet: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/411213292330164224
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by nwenzel 13y ago
I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up.

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