MicahWedemeyer

I just think the wording of their AUP is too vague. If taken at face value, it invalidates a lot of legitimate use cases. That just means all their customers have to bend that rule a bit, and nobody knows just how far they can bend it. It's a shitty place to be as a customer.

According to the AUP, it's against the rules to send "emails directed to a number of individuals with the same content"

Are we really going to say that someone like Trello should be using Mailchimp for that?

Send an email to one user asking for feedback and you will get a much better ROI than trying to plan for TLD failure.

Huh? What kind of friend tosses you aside because you decide to start a company? That makes absolutely no sense. I'm trying to imagine this conversation:

You: I'm starting my own company!

Friend: I think that's a crazy idea. You'll probably fail.

You: I'm confident I can do it.

Friend: I disagree, and we're not friends any more.

If anything, friends usually way underestimate the difficulty of running a business and just throw platitudes at you like, "Do it! Follow your dreams! With passion you can't fail!"

signalgenius.com [founder & growing] fourthsegment.com [founded & failed] ryanangilly.com [blog] mypunchbowl.com [employee & still going] messagesling.com [founded & failed]

I'd really like to hear how things ended and if the relationship with the investors remained so positive all the way to the end.

They ship the t-shirts directly to my backers. That's a huge weight off my shoulders and lets me focus on writing the code instead of stuffing envelopes.

This is a strange view of business: Take what people are happy to pay for, then give it to them for free.

SnapChat is exciting now, but will it still be interesting in a year? Or will there be a new novel interaction that everyone flocks to? Somehow Instagram and Pinterest have stayed relevant, but I think the article glosses over how hard it is to create something novel...and then not be discarded after the novelty wears off.

A few choice quotes from the first few paragraphs:

He developed software for his online dating site, Plenty of Fish, that operates almost completely on autopilot, leaving Mr. Frind plenty of free time. On average, he puts in about a 10-hour workweek.

Mr. Frind built the Plenty of Fish Web site in 2003 as nothing more than an exercise to help teach himself a new programming language, ASP.NET.

No mention of long hours promoting, begging users to sign up, tracking down weird bugs, or all the actual work that goes into building a business. Just a quick rundown of how easy it is to whip up a shitty website and become a millionaire overnight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13digi.html?pagew...

Our US State Sales Tax system was written by a Shopify employee?!?!

YouTube wasn't alone. They just won the lottery and nobody remembers all the others who disappeared.

Who do you think gets the raise? The boss makes the easy decision and goes with the person who asked for it.

I've seen it happen time and again. You can either cry that the world is unfair, or just be the person who asks for what you want.

On the other hand, if it gets popular to the point that KS sends a C&D, then the site probably served its purpose. Overall, a neat marketing idea.

"A crowdfunding platform for long-term, socially valuable projects."

Perhaps the author does not mean iterator in a derogatory way? Obviously, his own company is an iteration on the existing crowdfunding wave.

I'm no security expert, but my understanding is that email is pretty flawed when it comes to establishing the true identity of the sender. I guess you could use something like DKIM or SPF, but plenty of people don't have that set up.

If you use obfuscated inbound email addresses then it's not really a problem. But, if you're identifying people by their FROM address on a very public inbound address, be aware that it's trivially easy to spoof that.

I really don't expect companies to start forcing Adderall on people, but if productivity is all that matters then it's a viable strategy. Therefore, if you agree that giving Adderall to your employees is absurd, then you're forced to agree that productivity is not all that matters. (Or at least, that's the hope.)

Try examining the other part of the equation: Are you happier? If the answer is no, then WFH probably isn't for you. But, if the answer is yes, perhaps productivity isn't so important?

I certainly wouldn't put up the sites you know today behind a paywall - Why not? Is there a law that says once free, always free? Slam it behind a paywall and you will lose 90% or more of your audience. But! You'll make money. That's the tradeoff.

My appeal read something to the effect that ad blockers primarily hurt our writers, and if you are reading our site, we'd like your support - Then ask for support the old fashioned way, by them giving you money in exchange for the service you provide.

one reader who, despite willingly denying our passive revenue, thought I was being too bold - Wrong. He's not willingly denying your passive revenue. He's installing an ad blocker to improve his browsing experience. You happen to be caught in that net. It's not like he got out of bed and said, "Hey, I'm going to screw Destructoid today"

Now, I'm not saying that paywalls are a solution to every problem. But I will say that appealing to people to disable ad blockers is not a solution to any problem. And blaming your users like this will never turn out well.

I'm not sure how making a game for free is a business, but still, best of luck!

If the statement, "I love my job" makes sense to you, then you should never quit your job to start your own company. It's usually a terrible financial decision and it involves a ton of instability. The main reason to do it is because you look at your life as an employee and just can't see yourself ever being happy.

Internships and first jobs are all about learning the realities of the work world and building up your professional network. If you're trying to build a B2B SaaS app, it really helps when you understand at least one of those "B"s instead of just guessing.

There will always be anecdotes of "I started my first business at 14 and have been my own boss ever since" but my (anecdotal) experience shows that most successful entrepreneurs are people who leverage their professional experience and network in order to get their first customers, co-founders, and so forth.