chrishaum

Seconded. I would use http://flippa.com.

Is Crunchbase (http://www.crunchbase.com) the thing you're looking for?

SEEKING WORK - REMOTE - US Citizen (located in NYC)

Full-stack Python web developer.

chrishaum@gmail.com

Here's a really goofy and poorly-thought-out example as a proof of concept. It took about 10 minutes to make. http://goo.gl/AemLD (best viewed in Preview in single-page mode)

You can also do it in Keynote. Just create hyperlinks between slides (which you can do with any shape, via the Inspector). Then export the presentation as a PDF, and the clickable image hyperlinks will be preserved in the PDF file. Then it's also very convenient for sharing with designers/developers/investors, etc.

I launched the Pest Management Roundtable (http://pestroundtable.com) in February. After several months of good ol' fashioned hustling (mostly email marketing + telephone interviews and sales), I'm up to nearly $500 in monthly recurring revenue. It's not quite "ramen profitable" yet, but I've been picking up customers quickly the last 2 weeks, so at this rate I'll get it there within the month. A recent milestone was that last week I interviewed the owner of the 10th largest pest control company in the US (Joe Clark, of Clark Pest Control in California). He joined the Roundtable immediately following the interview.

Here's the blog post: http://chrishaueter.com/blog/2814-of-print-advertising-for-1...

Haha, I'm enjoying the anticipation.

Working on the blog post now. :-)

I love the design of your site! Did you have it done in-house?

Yes, this area is called "Manhattan Valley". I lived there for two years while studying CS at Columbia and loved it. We had 5 guys in a 4-bedroom (actually 3BR with a walk-through room with an office that we used as a small bedroom) apartment at 108th St and Broadway. $3k/mo in rent. The location was amazing: 10 minute walk to Columbia, 3 minutes to the 1 train stop at 110th St, 2 minutes to Thai Market (my favorite Thai place in Manhattan).

This is going to be huge.

E.g. long-form sales copy (and more) with split-testing.

That would be CRO for PPC, but what about on-site page optimization?

These are not necessarily incongruous. [See my comments above].

It really depends on your career goals and the length of your outlook.

If you need to pay bills (now!), then an internship like this obviously won't work for you.

On the other hand, if you have a long-term mindset, and aren't in need of immediate cash (if you're living with your parents for the summer, for example), the knowledge, skills, network, and experiences you could gain this summer could have a HUGE, measurable impact on your ability to provide an income income for yourself through a B2B software business.

It's not for everyone, though. It's not high-tech. It's not flashy. It's not Silicon Valley.

It IS for someone who wants to learn - from an expert - how to build a profitable lifestyle business.

Is it? What were you trying to teach them? That they'll continue to earn a wage from their employer, even if the employer is unprofitable?

Yes, I can see how you would see it this way. Heck, even I did, until a few weeks ago, when I a) began working (unpaid) for Zannee, and b) read Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Here are just a few thoughts about why I made this request as I did:

We aren't forcing anyone to take an internship with Zannee. This isn't slave labor - no one has to work for free against their will. If people don't see the value in an internship with Zannee, they won't take us up on our offer. No harm done!

We are looking for students who are trying to expand their education, who want to take their own entrepreneurial and programming educations into their own hands. We will give them enough structure that they can feel supported as they learn and improve their skills, but not enough to constrict them - we keep it flexible and give them significant autonomy.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad teaches that to be wealthy, you should not work for a wage; instead, you should work to learn - to gain skills and knowledge that you can apply in building your own business (your "business of you"). No, we aren't paying, but this is a profitable company selling B2B software online. If you are a young entrepreneur who wants to learn how to successfully ideate, implement, market, sell, support, upsell, and grow a B2B software product, what better opportunity could there be?

Remember how I said above that I myself am working unpaid? That wasn't a typo. I thoroughly believe that Dane has the knowledge, skills, and experience (obtained through intelligent hard work and lots of practice in his business) to help a mature, driven student with entrepreneurial desires and programming skills learn how to start and grow a successful B2B software business. That's why I flew out to Des Moines, Iowa, all on my own dime, leaving my friends and the wonderful restaurants of New York City, to work for Dane - for FREE - for the summer.

You might think that Dane is taking advantage of me, but I disagree. It's a win-win situation. He gets free labor to help with growing his business. I get access to invaluable knowledge, skills, and one-on-one time with a successful entrepreneur, not to mention access to his network of entrepreneurs and businesspeople! It's a big win for both of us.

For students (or non-students even - I could care less) who want to have their own profitable B2B software business, this really is the chance of a lifetime.

This is an awesome tool. Thanks!

Thanks for the tip - just signed up!

I absolutely agree with this suggestion. Another variation: bring excellent teachers in other (non-Khan) subjects together to devise learning maps, and then have the experts compete against each other to produce the lectures most favored by Khan Academy users.

Seems like this would result in much faster growth in the breadth of KA's videos.

I used FreeSWITCH extensively for the telephony for some spoken language processing research. It is easily customizable, but has sensible defaults and is quite full-featured. Awesome software - I highly recommend it.

Zesty LLC

http://www.zestymarkets.com

We're building a network of niche marketplaces, using Django, MongoDB and a lot of love.

We're looking for frontend designers/developers and backend developers. Please email me directly if you are interested.

chris@zestymarkets.com

M and N are fixed and independent.

[Update] This can be seen as one variation of the knapsack problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_knapsack_problems

Thanks for your response, skip! SUM is the sum of attributes A, but MEAN is the mean of attributes B, so I don't see how they can be simplified.

Niche-oriented marketplaces. Etsy is a good example, along with Flippa and the Envato marketplaces.

[Updated. The first version of this comment didn't address some important points.]

Actually, I am outsourcing the designs. I've gathered a team of designers (five of them, currently) who design the logos for me on a commission basis, allowing me to scale my expenses as I make sales. The web platform I have set up allows clients to communicate with designers directly through the design process.

As this is the first version of my site, I am offering only a one-size-fits-all service to clients right now. As I work on marketing v1.0, however, I am also developing v2.0, a logo design marketplace.

One of the many good questions that has been raised in these comments is how to compete with established design marketplaces. Here are some of the ways I have considered.

- Offer equivalent services with a lower fee. - Add additional services, such as an hour of brand consulting before the logo is designed, or assistance in placing the logo on the client website/etc. - Providing a more complete branding package with letterhead, stationery, and website design.

In what other ways could I compete? Perhaps the most fundamental question is whether this market is so crowded and has such established/successful companies in it already that I should not attempt to direct in the logo market completely. In that case, what other niches have you seen that are similar but less crowded? I am not opposed to pivoting.

An open question is how I will be able to maintain customer satisfaction and also keep logo quality at a high level, while scaling my services.

Good questions. How many sales I need per month to be profitable depends on how much I spend on advertising, which is my main expense. If I can find a better advertising method (I'm currently using Trada.com for PPC), then I will be able to reach profitability faster.

As far as maintaining margins as I grow, there should not be a huge problem with dropping margins, unless I have to drop my price point. I will be hiring an account manager/customer service person once I have enough sales per month to make it worth it.

Perhaps I have missed some crucial details - please feel free to point these out.

Thanks!

Thanks for pointing that out. I've added SVG. Also, is PSD really a raster format?

Thanks for the suggestions!

1. I'm not that great at CSS. Do you have any suggestions for where I could get help with (1)? 2. Yes, I do need to have a killer ZestyLogos logo. That's my next priority.