arielm

I think looking at it this way is a bit naive. While I agree that "attachments" shouldn't take up tweet text, the 140 character limit is a core component of the service. Call it a micro blog or a mass SMS, Twitter is 140 characters.

That said, I think most comments are missing the point - having attachments not take up characters really won't make the service any more useful to the mainstream... That's the real problem in my opinion.

I agree with other comments that competing in a global economy requires a great app, but what it also requires is running the business that created that app like a real company. That means more than just building a great app.

Developers that understand this are able to make a living on the app store while those that wait for the store to magically make their app successful don't.

As the VC markets cool down we'll those companies that didn't build a company around their apps fail more.

I wrote about this here: https://arielmichaeli.com/making-apps-for-love-and-profit-3b...

I personally think what's happening now is the market maturing. In the long term this will lead to more stability for those who know how to compete.

I think the startup world has become somewhat of a fork of how real companies should be built. Over the last few years companies have been investing into "scaling" and getting traction with no real revenue to substantiate any of the growth. That to me is backwards, and why those startups are fearing for their lives now.

Companies should be built with revenue (and profit) in mind, and in most cases those are the ones that thrive and succeed.

Totally agree. In a world that runs on money getting to profitability should not just be something you strive to get to but rather something you have. Until you do you shouldn't let anything else take away from your focus.

I think going into any market knowing you won't have any advantage (tech or otherwise) is how you waste time (and potentially money).

A few years ago I saw a keynote at a game development conference talking about how on the app store most developers copy successful games. The presenter (David Whatley) called it mining for gold where others have already turned up every nugget possible (paraphrased because it's been a while...).

I think that's a good way to look at this as well. As a user of statuspage.io I can tell you that they leave a lot to be desired + their pricing isn't attractive. They have however a pretty robust and compelling solution.

Can you do something that will make me leave statuspage.io (after spending hours customizing my page) and _need_ to move over to your service? If so the answer is GO FOR IT and don't look back. I have a feeling the answer is no, and that's why you're unsure, at which point I'd start looking for other problems to solve.

Peter Thiel makes a good argument in his book Zero to One that every company needs to be designed to be a monopoly. While I disagree with some of that (competition is healthy), as a founder I know the importance of your differentiator being leaps ahead and not just an update away.

P.S. - The reason we pay for statuspage.io is because we don't have to build (and maintain) the whole management system and don't want to worry about it. For any legit company it's worth it.

That has to be wrong.

This blog post is a bit old but shows around 1.25mm apps on the iOS App Store at the beginning of 2015.

http://blog.appfigures.com/app-stores-growth-accelerates-in-...

I also think 500k apps is either a heavily padded number or has an extra 0... I doubt one company accounts for more than 33% of apps.

That's probably true, but in most cases users don't think about how what they just signed up for is served under the hood, so there is some merit in this view.

I agree. I also wouldn't really call them sharing... Who's sharing? We're paying for a service. Nothing else.

I don't know if that's their way of saying "no", I think if anything it's their way of increasing the value of a ride.

In a dense city like NYC however, where there are a ton of alternatives, I think it's more clever than just reallocation resources.

Haha, not really. I just noticed this pattern and figured I'd share it.

It's definitely possible that this has nothing to do with revenue and everything to do with allocating limited resources better. Either way, knowing this means I don't have to pay surge pricing ;)

That's certainly possible. I doubt that supply fluctuates that much for the price to change that quickly though.

Maybe Uber lowers the trigger for surge during specific times of the day where they know the supply does fluctuate.

My experience is from rides at different hour of the day, but those could have all been coincidences.

This is most likely the case. We're using Mandrill and while rare, real emails sometimes bounce and get into the blacklist. Out technical support team has access though, so those issues get resolved within our standard response window (< an hour).

I believe it's trying to point out the currently flawed mindset of the valley. The same mindset that would fail to build any of the businesses that you listed above ;)

Wow, talk about complete BS... I'm an entrepreneur that started because I didn't have access to capital. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I like that the article is about hacking your bad habits, but at the end of the day procrastination is exactly that - a bad habit. It isn't who I am, and so I think the best way to fight it is to replace it with a better habit...

I don't think the OP meant believing in a set of made up "core values" or even in a marketing message but rather in the vision. It shouldn't be something that can be leveraged against anyone (i.e. Staying late) but it should be what drives you to push forward when there's no other tangible return in sight.

> At the moment it seems review systems have one level of good, and four varying degrees of poor.

Really well said. And the more tiers there are the worse this gets...

Being less ambiguous about what each rating stands for is such an easy way to resolve this.

Our private data is captured by so many companies along the way from its origin to its destination these days. These companies then use and also sell it to others.

It's the carriers, platform, middlemen, and even the apps you run (I'm looking at you custom keyboards).

Tech journalism at its lowest. 1. Whining over something meaningless to get page views. 2. Calling TechCrunch journalism...

You're right in your approach. However, in the capital market founders don't usually get to dictate their salaries or suck in more of the loot than is absolutely necessary. That's why VCs keep a good portion of the control.

Now this may not be the case always, so yes, a short term plan could work. But I doubt it works reliably enough to be turned into a rule.

> Secure your own future and the hell with the industry's

This is just not something I can agree with, regardless how it's twisted. Accumulating a sustainable amount of money isn't as easy as raising a few rounds on a weak idea. It takes a real idea, perseverance, and thinking really long term. The mindset quoted above isn't likely to support any of these requirements.

So, really what you'll end up with is a nice house, a pretty car, and a few fake friends while it's all running smoothly. The second you can no longer deliver it all goes away. I might be in the minority here, but I plan to leave my children an empire. Not a house of cards.

I agree. I think the issue isn't that money is being spent but that it's being spent on the wrong ideas. Split that 10m into 5 and help five different founders who have taken their time to really prove their concept and build a real revenue model...

This naive view that if is someone is silly enough to throw money at your silly idea you should take it isn't just hurting the current industry by setting unrealistic expectations but will also be the driving force behind the collapse of the unhealthy capital market in the valley. Unrealistic salaries (that completely ignore any roi calculations), ideas that aren't grounded, and the need to get it all done super fast are what's going to cause a drought in capital for tech and then both good and bad ideas will suffer.

I urge you to rethink your statement with the future of the industry in mind, not just a single bank account.

Although I dislike the term "disruptive", this is a great case of just that. Uber aggressively disrupted the taxi industry without regard to rules or regulations and is now seeing the side of the law that appreciates those.

I personally think uber is a great service. The company's aggressive growth strategies can be questioned but given the offended industry is one that hasn't changed in ages, is controlled by a small few, and has lots of issues on its own, I think über is fine.

Another byproduct of their aggressive growth is the amount of money they've raised, which they have been and will continue to put to use on lawyer fees ;)

Very likely considering they've also split out PayPal to make eBay more of a single-focus entity (read, easy to sell off).

Well put. I think this time the bubble won't burst but slowly collapse. Insane valuations (ex. Slack) won't be possible and the employees who are making more than their ROI and get the hope of get rich quick option plans will have to dust off their resumes and go work for the companies who handled expenses properly and focused on revenue and profit.

When will this happen? Soon. If you look at the number of seed vs. A vs. B+ rounds, you'll see that A rounds are on the decline. That's important because that's the stage where companies move from a startup to /real/ companies. Lack of A rounds means investors are willing to throw a little money (seed) on potential, or go big on proven success. That's usually great, but lack of A's means they're not willing to take any risk. That's a sign this bubble is deflating.

_FWIW - I'm a technical founder of a non-funded tech company._

Consolidation in this space, in my opinion, is putting the future of the Internet in great jeopardy. I'm not sure exactly where we're heading, but i have a feeling the days of a "free" internet are numbered.

I think a very important aspect of scaling is separating responsibilities. In most startups it's often the case that a single person takes on multiple tasks. Those make sense in the early stages, but as the company grows they become a limiting factor.

The problem is that some people get comfortable doing multiple roles. That however means that they can only invest a fraction of their time. This means that early on the company gets something, which is better than nothing, but as it grows it's only getting something and that's not enough.

This is applicable to most potosi on, but becomes org debt when the founder(s) don't "replace" themselves.

That's pretty much true, but in the more "responsible" startups an employee who's been around long enough would be compensated with equity (or the equivalent in benefits) to compensate for the difference.