A Little Better Advice | Hacker News Reader

A Little Better Advice

mattmaroon.com

21 pointssant0sk111 comments

Matt, that's one of the first "advice" pieces I've read that acknowledges that all people don't (and shouldn't) make the same decision in the same circumstances.

Helping people weigh the tradeoffs is MUCH better advice than "yes"/"no". I wish more bloggers would take 5 seconds to think about that before posting.

So true. I was doing a financial analysis of American professional sports a few months ago. I assumed height was a known variable (which is true; a doctor can predict a child's adult height within an inch), but talent was dependent on hours spent practicing (the whole 10,000 hours thing). That's all that really matters. What I came up with was that you have to be something like 6'7" or taller to have a reasonable shot at success. If you're going to be this tall or taller, it becomes a wise investment to work at becoming good at football, basketball, or baseball. By this I mean you have a reasonable expectation (like 1 in 5) of getting drafted to a major league.

So should I do a startup or not?

No :)

What would you say about http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=381492

Given the information presented, and assuming I felt I could get another job in a year if things went poorly, I'd probably go for it. That's just my first impression based on decent but not complete data, and applying my own loathing for having to be somewhere at 9 a.m.

I find it interesting that his comments were killed, even though they seem reasonable, due to some very unpopular comments on other posts.

What more data points would you need to make a better decision? Some more info below:

Revenue - $200 last month (Ad - 80%, Premium Services - 20%) Average time on site: 7 mins Bounce rate: 21% Daily new users: 27%

Business: Its a sub category in a mature and proven industry.

What are his non-mortgage expenses? How long can he last assuming he wants to eat? (Those always add up to more than one thinks until he tracks them.)

Does he have people counting on him? A wife or children?

What are the benefits of quitting rather than continuing it moonlighting? Does he need to seek funding? Is that a preferable option to continuing on with the job? Might be if his runway isn't all that long after all expenses are counted.

Would he be better keeping the job and plowing the monthly profits into AdWords for the time being?

There are hardly any non-mortgage expenses.. Wife earns and can contribute 30-35% of the mortgage. mortgage is about $1500/month

Don't want to seek funding but want to invest more time in promoting/marketing the product and also launching similar products in other sub-categories...

"Would he be better keeping the job and plowing the monthly profits into AdWords for the time being?" - That makes me think!!

Well, I don't know if you'll ever get a better chance to do it in your life.

So what's up with the closed comments?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com