rfurlan

9 ms·

31.
by rfurlan 15y ago
I also hosted a Q&A about our experience here on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3141331
32.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Thanks byoung2!
33.
by rfurlan 15y ago
I just recently published an article describing my experience migrating from SQL Server to MongoDB, you can read it here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3203601 I agree with the author that MongoDB is green, maybe not quite ready for
34.
Migrating a large site from SQL Server to MongoDB - Lessons Learned
18 points by rfurlan 15y ago|12 comments
35.
by rfurlan 15y ago
I just recently published an article describing my experience migrating from SQL Server to MongoDB, you can read it here: http://www.wireclub.com/development/TqnkQwQ8CxUYTVT90/read I tried my best to describe both what we gained and what
36.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Books I would recommend for beginners: Evidence Based Technical Analysis: http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Based-Technical-Analysis-Scie... Pairs Trading: http://www.amazon.com/Pairs-Trading-Quantitative-Methods-Ana... Quantitative Tradin
37.
by rfurlan 15y ago
You are basically choosing your competitors over your investors if you stick to your position. I would rather protect the interests of the people who have taken a risk to help me realize my vision than nurture a future competitor.
38.
by rfurlan 15y ago
There is no dilemma, it is your fiduciary duty to your shareholders to protect and maximize your future revenue by any (legal) means necessary.
39.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Thank you everyone for the incredible feedback. I have just published the article here: http://www.wireclub.com/development/TqnkQwQ8CxUYTVT90/read I hope you will find it useful!
40.
by rfurlan 15y ago
It is hard to say without knowing more details of the system you are working on, can you elaborate?
41.
by rfurlan 15y ago
It is a free economy, you can make offers to anyone you want. To say you can't is to denounce capitalism itself, isn't it?
42.
by rfurlan 15y ago
1. Getting funded can generate a great deal of buzz, which can be very beneficial. 2. Having investors means having access to their networks, which is sometimes worth more than money. 3. If you bootstrap, every single dollar you make is you
43.
by rfurlan 15y ago
That is probably an optimal strategy ;)
44.
by rfurlan 15y ago
I guess it is a matter of how you define profitable. We were profitable right away but our profits were insignificant. I would say the "big moment" for a bootstrapped business is the day you quit your job and go full time. Every business is
45.
by rfurlan 15y ago
I don't feel comfortable disclosing figures but to give you an idea, we have a nice office, we own all our hardware, have just hired our first non-founding member and we eat steak quite often.
46.
by rfurlan 15y ago
We were complete amateurs back then, we literally emailed hundreds of sites asking for links. That didn't work so well but it was enough to secure some organic traffic. We tried doing a few press releases and in retrospect, the content of t
47.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Standard fare SV events, pitch competitions, cocktail parties etc. People in the hardcore entrepreneur circles don't care much about bootstrapping at all - it is almost as they see it as a sub-optimal way of starting a business. Well, it is
48.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Good question, I guess I simply assumed there would be an audience for it because people always ask me a lot of questions about it in events, etc. I thought it would be nice to have an article to refer them too instead of telling the same s
49.
by rfurlan 15y ago
There are two of us and we are both technical (and we have just hired our first non-founding team member, also a developer). My partner is a rare hybrid of brilliant developer and competent designer, something I am very grateful for. Both o
50.
by rfurlan 15y ago
We were serving 20-30 million impressions monthly when we started working on it full time. At that time we could live comfortably with our revenue although we still couldn't afford that orbital laser canon quite yet :)
51.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Thank you :) We were profitable almost right away as long as we were not working on it full time. It wasn't until we were generating 20-30 million impressions monthly that we were able to quit our day jobs. The service is free and monetized
52.
by rfurlan 15y ago
I don't question myself very often, I don't see myself as super smart or super competent but I believe that you can do anything you want as long as you are willing to pay the "price". Sometimes a project may demand from you more than you ar
53.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Some PPC, a lot of link building. Our strategy was to rank well on Google and rely on organic traffic to grow. I am not sure if that was a good strategy to start with but it has paid off handsomely (although it took a while...). Having free
54.
by rfurlan 15y ago
It started with just me for the first 3 months, and then a friend joined me. Took me about a month to build the very first version and well, it was awful! (but at least it was live) We didn't seek out any advisors and we still don't have an
55.
by rfurlan 15y ago
On it!
56.
by rfurlan 15y ago
This is a tough one, probably deserves an article by itself! We have a team of volunteer moderators that I find incredibly valuable. These are users that love our product so much that they are willing to spend a lot of their time helping us
57.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Absolutely, I am going to try to detail the process of securing our first million users with as much detail as I can :) My biggest regret is that many things we did back them were motivated by the kind of "get rich quick" mentality that now
58.
by rfurlan 15y ago
We monetize it mostly with AdSense, we tried other ad networks but nothing quite compares. Adsense combines near infinite inventory with the highest RPMs I have seem anywhere. We were "profitable" right away because our costs were so low an
59.
by rfurlan 15y ago
Our product is based around multi-user chat rooms and instant messaging with social networking features on the side. People basically join our service to make new friends instead of connecting with their real world friends.
60.
by rfurlan 15y ago
The first 10k users were hard to get and we had to do a little bit of out-of-pocket PPC advertising to seed the community, after that we focused on building links, SERP and building a product people liked. It was a long road and between 0 a

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