LastZactionHero

A lot of people have asked in this thread if I did any customer development. Many of these projects aren't actually indented to be companies, fwiw. But some were.

My day job for years has been a developer at early stage startups, so I'm fully aware of the amount of sheer grinding involved in customers. And the years of iteration to achieve something that resembles product-market fit. I've incorporated some of these tricks we've used as I've learned them from our teams.

Some of the low-cost things I've tried, with varied success:

- Writing to influential bloggers, - Social media grind - Adwords

But ultimately these are side projects. Can't pound the pavement in the middle of work.

Rentals (not repairs), to be clear, but man were they heavy to ship. I did have a few rentals to bigger companies (Google, Samsung), sometimes it's easier for them to rent.

Yeah, most of them are random hacks. I don't mean to imply they were all intended to be businesses, though some were. More just meaning I have a lack of direction and haven't produced much of real value, despite thinking I was. After ten years, you realize the code and time spent starts to pile up.

Hah, thanks. It's a pretty simple one, probably just took a few days. I think I ended up realizing that I really like coffee.

Here's some source if you're interested: https://github.com/LastZactionHero/caffeine_js https://github.com/LastZactionHero/caffeine_api

I think this is a good idea. It crossed my mind while writing this, and I didn't put it down. Thank you.

Yeah, gravity seemed like a good way to do circle packing with different sizes. Also would be a way to place neatly in irregularly shaped (non-rectangular) beds.

Thanks! Bloom is my latest endeavor, and one that I don't think belongs on the scrap heap yet.

I'm just not sure how to market it. I was going down a path of appealing to data-nerds with yards, focusing on the data techniques used to make decisions.

I've also experimented with using a physics ending to design beds, but haven't got it tweaked right: http://www.plantwithbloom.com/physics.html

(pretty fun if you want to see some plants get wrecked)

The value seems too low as it to get people purchase it. I'm considering partnering with nurseries, but the build out to use their inventories would be ambitious.

Maybe they are, but I suspect they have different incentives.

If I discover that they're singling out my $5/mo VPN server for monitoring, the rest of my $1500/mo is moving to another company.

Sometimes you've got a deadline and you just have to ship it.

Rumor is that Dave Chapelle got $60m for the three specials.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/dave-chappelle-netflix-specials-...

I would expect that they do. I'm not really offended that my traffic is logged by someone and could be traced back to me by someone with the time and resources (law enforcement?).

But assuming that AWS/DO, and their uplink providers (L3, etc) have the goal of selling reliable servers and internet, and aren't building up consumer ad profiles to sell me stuff/sell my data if it looks like one server or IP is maybe a VPN.

I once wrote an automated tool that got in a loop with someone else's automated tool.

Bot love.

Heh, great metaphor choice.

I don't have a strong opinion on the ban itself, but it doesn't surprise or scare me that people don't know how to deal with unlimited quantities of food. Until recently, food was scarce, and evolution hasn't caught up to free refills. It takes a lot of education and willpower to make healthy choices.

I haven't used VR for long enough to have sadness, but a 15 minutes is enough for me to have a very subtle, vague confusion about what I can manipulate in real life.

But I guess was a little disappointed that I had to drive home, since I flew home from space in Google Earth a few minutes prior.

Shutting down the product and cancelling my order seems like a poor way to conduct a "smooth and positive" transition".

I lived in KC for a bit, but moved shortly before Google Fiber. When TWC came to install internet, the install guys (4 of them for some reason?) laughed at the modem they gave me- "We still have these?!".

When I cancelled and returned my modem, the customer service department was behind bulletproof glass.

I don't have much to contribute to the price discussion- just can't pass up the chance to tell a KC TWC story.

I have the same thought in the Facebook Ads and Google Adwords control panel that I do sitting down at a craps table:

"I'm going to lose all of this, aren't I?"

In the small startups I've been a part of, the Customer Success Manager has been more like the interface for the user to parts of the product we haven't had time to refine.

Our teams are still small, so this person has been essential in helping out in places where the product isn't as refined as we'd like: training, setup + onboarding, UX roughness, etc.

They've also been helpful in understanding our customer's pain points, so we can best direct our modest resources. We regularly learn more about what our product should be from these interactions.

Our users are also very non-technical, so they've been a helping hand getting slow-moving organizations on board. That that end, they regularly receive positive feedback from our users, and are essential at reducing churn.

I can understand why the author had an issue with Hubspot and Google- these are well established companies with refined products and larger teams. Certainly seems like you could end up as a salesman.

You could find an accountant to do your taxes. It would probably cost much less than you'd make consulting, and sometimes they can find ways to save you more money than you paid.

Thank you.

Violating the Outer Space Treaty would be a cool thing to go to jail for.

Yup. If I look at my phone right light, I can see the key to unlock the phone on the glass.

I wrote something like this a few weeks ago to detect which animal is at the door:

https://medium.com/@LastZactionHero/zookeeper-identify-pets-...

Years ago I had a Windows Mobile phone that needed a bulky, USB dongle for audio out.

I'm excited to relive those days.

It only it didn't have to be analog in order for our ears to hear it- then they'd be all set.

At the time of this comment, looks like the site's been hugged to death.

So without knowing what's on it, maybe a smaller size could have kept it from falling over.

I am working on an embedded system project with a low-powered microcontroller and low-resolution graphic display.

I wrote this tool to design a very small, compressed font.

Really depends on your requirements and price.

I'd recommend Lulzbot and Ultimaker.

I can't tell if the author is including retirement investments. $200k isn't exactly enough to retire at 65.