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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks to Gabe for the interview and, in particular, for letting me write and edit a transcript of it. I have always preferred reading to listening myself.

If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask.

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Thank you for doing it with me.

Anyone running a Web business would benefit from consuming this interview. It's probably one of the best ROIs for an hour of time.

And I'd love to do more like it. So if anyone has any good interviewee suggestions (for the subject of getting traction), please introduce me!

What I'd like to know is what frame of mind allowed you to slog through that for the last 4 years (losing money early-on). Did you believe in the idea? Were you just constantly tinkering (mental auto-pilot)? Were you doing other startup activities in addition? Did you sometimes take a break from the Bingo Card Creator to try other things?

I find that even ideas that I believe strongly in, I eventually get distracted and wind up doing other ideas... until distracted again. Rinse, repeat.

losing money early-on

The business put more money in my pocket than it took out since, hmm, about 30 days after I threw the doors open. (I think I know how you came to this misconception, so sorry for the unclear phrasing in the interview: I had a few hundred a month in sales from SEO/etc when I was burning $1 a day trying to figure out how AdWords worked.)

Did you sometimes take a break from the Bingo Card Creator to try other things?

I put it on the backburner to focus on either the day job or on living rather frequently.

As to the frame of mind, I always say that business is a lot like WoW. People express huge skepticism that you could play WoW for 30 solid days of your life and not feel bored out of your mind... but you don't get 30 days of /played all at once. You smash a goblin here and complete a quest there and organize a raid for your next weekend and maybe think about offing that dragon eventually and then collect some mushrooms and kill the dragon and then... whoa, 30 days.

I passed the last four years on a thousand and one intellectually engrossing mini-projects. They never got to the point where they'd lose my interest -- after all, if I just hold out until Saturday, I'll have A/B test results to look at. If I just put in another hour, I'll have a new feature. If I just write this email, I'll have a happy customer and maybe get another postcard for my fridge. etc, etc.

The loot is a bit better than WoW's, too.

Thanks for the transcript, it's easier for those of us (supposedly) at work :)

Pretty interesting for those of us that don't follow you that closely :) - I liked the practical advice and examples.

Also for those that just prefer reading :-)

So, yeah, thanks for the transcript.

What was your first job in Japan and how did you get it?

My first real job in Japan was as technical translator for the prefectural technology incubator. (I am not comfortable telling you who, exactly, although given that I live in the equivalent of a small town in Kansas it isn't exactly hard to guess.) It was arranged through the JET Program -- I applied as a Coordinator of International Relations, they saw my engineering degree, the rest is history. Note that I'm told there was exactly one technical translator placed that year, so I wouldn't suggest that as a high-percentage route to your dream job in technical translation.

My next job was the job I recently quit. I got that by overdelivering on a project for a client of the incubator. When my contract was up I called him and essentially called in the favor. He arranged for my recently ex-bosses to hire me (they were clients of his), and came with me for the job interview, which at that point was a formality.

Good stuff! So you use Paypal/Ejunkie... That's obviously easier than getting a merchant account and jumping in with something like BrainTree. Can you run thru why you made that choice and why you're sticking with it? Any plans to change?

When I started my business, my level of web programming expertise was "I can create a page in HTML in Notepad." Dealing with Paypal callbacks causing key generation, accounting, etc was way the heck out of my capabilities. Enter e-junkie. As I gradually improved in my web programming abilities, it always made more sense to extend e-junkie than it did to rip out and replace, particularly since they wrap both Checkout and Paypal in a consistent interface.

It works, costs $5 a month, is reliable like you wouldn't believe, and their lead developer literally sends me Christmas cards. Why would I ever change?

It is likely that my next product will not use e-junkie, though -- subscriptions, blech.

Interesting-- So assumption no subscriptions, you'd use ejunkie for a new product? I always assumed that it would ultimately carve out a bit more of your revenue than a standard merchant account.

By the by-- good post on subscription commerce options here: http://www.untitledstartup.com/2010/02/accepting-payments-on...

I noticed you support Google Checkout. Have you thought about adding Amazon FPS? From my experience, about 20% of people choose Amazon versus 10% for Google. It seems like a really small change to capture a few more percent on conversion.

You're an inspiration to me.

Quicky: From reading your blog, I see you had a desktop programme in java at the start. Do you still have a desktop programme now, or is it all web based?

If you have a desktop programme, do you have any advice on choice of language so that non-techies can download and run with as little fuss?

Thanks, that means a lot to me.

As of April 6th I have a desktop program. If that phrasing suggests to you that I have a very consequential A/B test planned for this month, you're very perceptive. :)

choice of language

Forget language, focus on the packager/installer. Java, .NET, and that RIA/Flex stuff all work fine if you file off all the edges in your installer. For Java, I strongly recommend you take a look at Launch4j (OSS for Windows) and possibly Excelsior JET ($$$ for Windows). The Mac side is easier since Macs are a very predictable environment for Java these days -- use the mac jarbundler task and you're pretty much home free.

I read that you are using paypal (and also ejunkie from clicking buy on bcc.com) . What type of paypal account are you using?(Personal, business, premier)

Do you use any plugins/gems to integrate the payment?

I use both Paypal (Premier) and Google Checkout. Both ping e-junkie when a transaction is completed. e-junkie then does two HTTP posts to me -- one to grab the Registration Key and one confirming the details of their transaction.

I don't use any plugins/gems to handle this. e-junkie's documentation is good and it is mostly a matter of copying parameters they pass into the right models for my home-grown sales tracking, then calling sale.save. This takes all of 77 lines, counting whitespace, and about 60 of them are assignment statements.

Ok. if you have a pure web app, will you still use e-junkie? Any advantages in that case?

And a Big Thanks for the transcript! I wish every video interview had transcripts like these.

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