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Comment by roel_v | Hacker News Reader

I guess I'm going to get flamed for this, but if I may offer some unsolicited advice on business growth: tone down your personal Instagram a bit, to be a bit more 'neutral'. I know you (or others reading this) will probably take this as a personal attack, and really I'm not picking 'sides' here (I'm not even American, I don't care), but it's 2021 - I'm 100% confident you've lost customers over this. Especially given the demographic you're targeting.

A licensing back end is a major part of a software product, and outsourcing that is a major leap of faith. The developers using your product need to trust you, and if they know you're a small operation, they'll look into things like your personal online presence. People do pick up on these things.

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Well, this is weird and very off-topic. I keep that page personal and separate from my business, which I'm allowed to do. I don't really care if I've lost a customer or 2 over my personal beliefs -- my business is growing just fine, thank you. My customers do trust me.

In this blog (which is hosted on the page of your business), you're equating taxes to theft. Which in my mind is a very weird look for someone offering any kind of non-shady business.

Especially in a SaaS (which, like taxes, are something you pay for so someone else can provide a service you care for but are unable/unwilling to provide yourself).

It's a joke. I understand politics are at an all time high for polarization, but I think people need to lighten up.

I understand that it was meant as a joke. I'm just saying that it might come across as a very unprofessional one to some people (it certainly did so to me).

I read it thinking you were completely serious fwiw. I can see the angle that it could deter people, but that is probably overstated. At any rate, being careful about online presence is advice anyone should heed.

I suspect that this is one of those areas where cross-national/regional/cultural mismatches are having an effect. The audience here is distributed all over the world, and what would be taken as an obvious mild joke in one region can land as a serious provocation in another. This happens all the time, and unfortunately it's largely unrecognized.

If we were together in person, these differences would be apparent and people would automatically modulate for them. But all we have on this forum are little text blobs which don't come with any of that metadata. I think this is probably the biggest source of conflict and misunderstanding on HN; certainly one of them.

Edit: there's another clear example of this in another part of this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28614998. That was a rare case of people actually figuring out the mismatch.

Sure you're allowed to do it, and from your tone I take it you're offended by my post, and I'm sorry for that. My point wasn't that you should or should not do something. And it's your business and you're free to run it however which way you want to. It's just that as someone who used to severely underestimate how seemingly (to me) small things have a huge influence on how I came across online, I thought I would let you know what I wrote in my OP. The customers that are put off by this will just turn around and you'll never hear from them. You're unlikely to ever get this sort of feedback from friends and family, or even from potential customers who decide against using your service. But I do realize my advice was not asked for, so again, I'm sorry if it was offensive.

Story time: I used to have a friend with long hair who worked as a consultant for a company with lots of customers in banking. He was repeatedly told (in indirect ways) that his performance was great, but that his career prospects would be better if he has a more, let's say, approachable appearance. He complained to us (his friends) about it for a few years, how it was unfair, how it shouldn't matter, etc. And of course it's his right to wear his hair however he wanted. Then when he got married, his wife asked him to cut his hair for the wedding. He agreed (didn't feel slighted about it, wasn't bullied into it, just did it for her). Afterwards he liked his new haircut and decided to keep it short for some time more. Lo and behold, some time later, after he'd been at a new client, he got assigned to a more high profile project in a more prominent role. Coincidence? Maybe. My point is - maybe he should have asked himself sooner where his priorities were: to make a career in a conservative sector (which he himself stated as a goal), or his idea of 'sticking it to the man'.

Again, not saying you should do one thing or another. Maybe you're not actually losing customers, or maybe you don't care about losing some, or whatever. You know your business better than I do, obviously. Good luck, I hope your business will be a success.

I was curious so I checked it out. While I'm not American, and where I live that's not a thing, and I personally don't like it, it would seem kind of ridiculous to decide to use a service or not based on that Instagram.

Yeah, the comment had me curious as well. It's literally just a guy posting pictures of his guns and family. The most dramatic thing on there was the bio part that said "politically incorrect" while appearing to have nothing political on the page.

Are pictures of guns offensive outside of the US? I realize growing up in the US with a family of hunters has me desensitized, but I can't imagine being upset at someone whose hobby is going to the shooting range.

Yes. The sentiment of many people in Western Europe [1] is that weapon-carrying Americans are at the very least somewhat lunatic.

Big disclaimer: this is not a value judgement, this is not a discussion I want to immerse myself in now ;). Just an observation.

[1] I don't know about other parts of the world.

Eastern Europe here, I wouldn't be comfortable around actual guns, and I think it's a bit of a weird hobby, but I wouldn't think too much of seeing guns on someone's Instagram.

I haven't seen OP's IG account, but unless it's one of those "confederate flag, don't tread on me, guns don't kill people" starter-pack extremists, it's just another hobby to me.

Pictures of so many firearms would definitely make me think this guy is eccentric at best and dangerous at worst. Combined with the articles suggesting "taxes are theft" and that latin quote on the instagram I'd not be enthusiastic about sending business their way.

EDIT: I wanted to add that it's also the type of guns in these pics (surrounding a post of only the word "disobey")- these aren't hunting rifles but guns that are more commonly used on people (AR-15, pistols). That doesn't look like someone about to go deer hunting.

> these aren't hunting rifles but guns that are more commonly used on people (AR-15, pistols)

What a weird thing to think. Those guns are most commonly used on gun range targets, not people, even in countries with high rates of gun violence.

The idea that an AR is "commonly used on people" is bs. It's widely used as a hunting rifle or for recreational shooting and is the most common rifle in America. That's also not as many guns as you think, looks like he's swapping the furniture on his AR a bunch of times, ditto for the Glock 19. And things like "sic semper tyrannus" and "taxation is theft" are pretty common among American libertarians. The "disobey" refers to a really awful rule the ATF is trying to make that would reclassify many braced pistols as SBRs overnight, and since SBRs are title II firearms, having one unregistered would make felons of people who bought entirely legal firearms.

Be that as it may but as a non-American my first reaction would have definitely been that at best this guy is a survivalist and at worst someone planning a shooting (and in-between someone who would have participated in stuff like the January capitol attack).

I'm living and have lived in countries without widespread gun usage (Germany and Austria) and I've never seen people carrying AR-15 or guns with a similar "military" look around here (I have seen hunting rifles) and have previously lived in a country with widespread gun usage (Israel) and the only people I've seen carrying guns like those there were soldiers or police officers.

Without wading too much into this fraught topic, I'd like to just point out that the AR-15 and other weapons with what you describe as the "military look" are functionally equivalent to many hunting rifles. Replace the "military look" with a beautiful mahogany stock, and your mind probably thinks "deer hunter" rather than "weirdo survivalist" but it's the exact same gun.

> AR15 … are … equivalent to many hunting rifles.

You need hunting rifles with large magazines that fire in automatic?

Damn

You have an AR that does automatic?

Damn

Cause there aren't many of those and one will run you well over $20k

Fine, semi-automatic (I wear my awful skills as a soldier as a badge of honour).

Still, I have never seen a PH (professional hunter) need a semi-automatic assault rifle to shoot a buck.

Dont know what you call need but lots of ppl hunt with semi autos these days. Even if its squirrel youll find them with a mini 14 not a bolt or lever action. Possible exception is kiddie 22 rifles for 8-12 year olds. Bolt, lever, etc to be in the rly pricey hunting rifles like creedmoor.

Also i never met somebody who go hunting with an assault rifle. Good few use ARs though cause theyre super common. Theres a dozen cartridges "better" for hunting but that means a new pricey rifle and pricier ammo. .30-30 will run you a buck a round, .223 like 30 cents. And 3030 is not by a long shot the priciest hunting round.

> That doesn't look like someone about to go deer hunting.

I would just like to point out, and then I'm going to leave this weird conversation alone, that the US second amendment is not, and never was, about hunting. It's about protecting the outcome of the American Revolution, and self-defense. I'm allowed to post my personal beliefs on my personal social media pages, because it makes me happy and helps me meet like minded people. I'm not going to censor myself to please a demographic. I've done that enough in my life.

You're definitely allowed to do just that! Was just supporting the poster above with another data point that it definitely looks really off outside the US.

> Are pictures of guns offensive outside of the US?

I'm not sure about offensive, but as a UK citizen I mostly associate guns with crime and violence. I don't know anyone who publicly owns a gun. For the most part police don't have guns here. Typically the only time I see a gun is when I go to the airport (airport security police do have guns).

I'm aware of how cultural norms are different in the US, and as such the owners being into guns certainly wouldn't stop me interacting with a business. But it might well make me question their political/moral judgements.

Guns as devices scare the crap out of me, but are super fun to shoot on a range (probably because they’re so scary, kind of like a legal forbidden fruit?)

Until something jams and you need to fiddle with a loaded weapon to get the round/magazine out.

That said, I like living in a country where obtaining one requires me to go through some qualification process and training.

I went to a range when I was in the US. It was, indeed, lots of fun, but also kind of scary, because we could shoot semi-automatic M16s (or something like that, I don't know much about guns), whose only purpose seemed to be to kill people.

We were following all precautions (and more), and it was great until one of the shells bounced on the wall and fell in my shoe, and I started hopping around in pain with a loaded handgun and my finger still on the trigger. That's when I realized it's too easy for something to go wrong and I didn't need to kill my best friend by accident over some fun.

Rather than look at it as offensive vs. inoffensive, I'd say that posting photographs of firearms and identifying yourself as a firearms enthusiast signals certain political views. The same way I suppose that posting a bunch of anti-firearm rhetoric would signal some different political views.

I've always kept my politics out of my businesses, because I've thought that whatever benefit I might get from a strong political signal (attracting like-minded clients) gets washed out, or worse, by the people I'd alienate. These days, it seems more likely that a political signal alienates potential clients than it does attract any.

All that said, it took me a hot minute to hunt down Ezekiel's instagram dot com web page because it doesn't appear to be linked from his business web site. So it more or less seems like that's personal content he doesn't really associate with his business.

And if you have to go out of your way a bit to find a potential business associate's personal social media, it seems like that's intentional to try to keep the business and personal sides of life sort of separate, to whatever extent that's possible in current year.

And if you go looking into people's personal lives, well, I guess it ought not surprise when you find that people have families and political views and interests and passions. You might not agree with everything you find. But if you had to go looking for it, it all might be on you.

Not offensive, but weird and puzzling, and not in a good way.

Also it’s not the pictures per se, but the need to make one’s affection for guns public.

Exactly, if guns are just tools, I'd be about enamoured with the idea of doing business with this chap as I would with someone with an obsession with swords or suicide vests. At best, boring.

Reading this, I feel less offended (really, I don't understand the use of that word in politics) and more scared and threatened. I'm a :sparkles: gender minority :sparkles: so politics can get really directly influential really quickly, and the picture of a gun-owning person who thinks taxes are theft is less than encouraging: that type of ideology usually does not account for people like me's existence. It's possible that it's just a hobby (heavy benefit of the doubt here), but it reads like a political statement against my ability to live freely.

Anyway, you asked: that's why I'd be scared to put much into the OP's hands.

thanks for the reply - no idea why you're getting downvoted as this strong contrast of perception is what I was interested in hearing about.

Do you feel like your fear is rational? Statistically my gut instinct would be to think you have virtually zero chance of being physically harmed by a business owner with a family, regardless of how many guns they own. Not that I would discount your fear, just wondering if this is something more akin to my fear of heights as opposed to my fear of driving through a high violent crime rate neighborhood at night with my gas tank indicator saying "empty".

Agree it’s not a great or neutral look for all audiences.

Why not set it to private?

> People do pick up on these things.

Pick up on what things? Guns are tools. You may not be interested in those tools, but judging someone because they enjoy them legally and responsibly is unfair and unwarranted.

Pick up on what it means when you openly signal this sort of "tribal allegiance". I'm not making any sort of point on whether someone should own guns, or whether it should be legal, or anything like that. That's a discussion about how things should be, which I'm not talking about. I'm talking about how things are, and how they are is that this sort of online branding puts one in a "camp". And in my experience, being put in a "camp" is bad for business, for most people.

Furthermore, sometimes people are classified as such and so without them realizing, or at least without them realizing to what extent this happens, or what effects it has. Which I suspect is happening here, and which is why I posted. For a small business that offers a critical service, the personal branding of the principals (and public facing employees) matters. And for most people, that brand should (for better or for worse) be on the bland side, for maximum profitability.

I would bet the Venn diagram of libertarians and business owners has much more overlap than you are suggesting here. He lives in Texas, OF COURSE he has guns.

> I'm 100% confident you've lost customers over this.

There's 2 problems here. 1) Extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. 2) Expecting every business persona to be completely beige and devoid of color is absofuckinglutely ridiculous IMHO (and yes, I'm staring at leftwingers here... I'm centrist/anti-tribalist, for the record, but it's been a struggle to say the least). Some of my most admired CEO's are quite colorful (Branson, Legere, etc.) It might even be arguable that the very people who are apt to strike out on their own instead of forcing themselves to conform to ("beige into", I'll dismissingly call it) an organization, are the same people who are least likely to force themselves to conform to social norms. Especially "developers of a certain age"... It may come as a shock, but being interested in computers was not always cool, and in order to doggedly pursue it, one needed to grow a thick skin against those enforcing the "computers are uncool therefore you are uncool" social norms of the time

Definitely agree, it's just not a good look.

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