cpayne

I really don't understand this community sometimes. If you are going to downvote a comment, why not explain why? Is there a perceived laziness? Or have I missed something???

At least let me know what is / isn't appropriate

2x games: SuperHot and Onward. Both just totally blew my mind! Google them if you've never heard of them before. And Onward really shows the power of an Indie Dev.

Thanks for the link.

I find the people that work on this stuff fascinating!!

To have that much precision (with 15 seconds left, left just stop).

I can right-click and deploy some changes to a production server or run a database script that has a massive impact on the data.

But to imagine that many movings parts (ie those workers specifically involved in the launch) and to have those parts all working together. A database change has a massive impact to "our data". When a launch goes wrong - really puts into perspective what "massive" really means...

Amazing!

I travel with my wife and 2 kids. I have NOTHING! And yet, I am hyper aware of how I might be perceived.

It's one thing to fight the good fight! And its another to poke the bear.

I don't agree with your "maximum laziness", perhaps the author was arrogant? Or ignorance?

I love the idea of porn on a burner phone, but even then... (Legal) porn has a very different meaning in different countries. The author is really playing with fire.

Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) suggested a few months ago a "Better Surrender Technique"[1]. Surely this could be applied to the U.S. Customs...

[1] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147192672916/better-surrender-t...

I'll take horrible graphics over awesome gameplay any day. Take a look at 'Onward' - just shows how simple can equal awesome!

A "Finding Dory ad" doesn't sound right. Did that really happen without installing something dodgy??

I never really understand why comments like this get downvoted.

There seems to be love for the free market. That is until the free market goes against what I want. Then the free market sucks!

What if FARK was another type of business. Say it is the corner 7-11[1]. They have been there for 18 years, and their major source of customers was the big factory next door.

Factory decides to either move / redesign / whatever, where the customers are no longer available.

The store makes a big noise - would anyone care?

[1] in this example, I mean any sort of "corner store". 20 years ago we'd call them milk bars, but now I'm showing my age...

> Always show up in court if you are being sued

THIS!

If nothing else, its a sign of respect.

The judge doesn't know the history, doesn't know the background. He knows there are two parties that don't agree.

He sees one side prepared, he sees the otherside who sends their assistant.

What would you do if you were the judge?

They are all Netflix shows.

As others have said. Pablo & Marco Polo. Piper Chapman from Orange is the New Black and Mike Wheeler from Stranger Things. (Won't make sense if you haven't seen the shows)

The end user (my mother, sister etc.) definately wouldn't know that.

I remember when Youtube came out, and all the nerds said "I could write that easily, not that big a deal".

This is why knowing who your customer is (and what problem you're trying to solve) is essential.

Lol - welcome to the club! (the confidence) find yourself a good business coach. You may burn through a few but that's all part of it.

I can relate to your comments, I was there about 18 months ago. You would be surprised just how many people talk about confidence (or lack thereof). Also, look for a good mentoring group. Find people that are on the same path (family / business / financial).

If I can help, my email is in my profile.

I'd never heard of the Oric before. The Wikipedia article seems incredibly biased. What software would you run on it?

>Eh, I'm going to question her ability to identify the difference between a Strad and non-Strad based on this double blind study

lol! That is a brave statement. As @dcsommer said, sample size is tiny.

When you audition for an Opera (well, her auditions anyway...) were always done blind - ie behind a curtain or similar.

When you practice and play at that level, you notice the little things. Same way I can look at C++ source code, or Java, C#, Objective-C or Node.js. I have to stop and think to explain how I know it is C#. I just know.

Again, I didn't say one is better than an other. Just different...

My wife is a professional violinist. (In Australia at least) if you've watched the news or a recent Australia movie, you would have heard her play.

She says you can ALWAYS tell the difference. But she also says, "better" depends on the music. If you are playing a song on X-Factor or Australian Idol or even Christmas carols, then you'll never notice. If you are playing a solo for a classical piece (wedding or other ceremony), then it certainly sounds "different".

Better is debatable, but different, yes

(for me) it's your last two points: "well-tested", and "maintainable".

It's one thing to get the feature / bug fix in the current branch, its another know what well-tested means and to be able to do well-tested without assistance.

Maintainable - this one takes insight. Again, the more junior person just wants to cross the task off their list and move onto the next. Having insight into what is Maintainable (as it relates to the project / client / company) takes time.

They just don't teach that stuff at Uni...

See the Product Hunt example. It's not that dashboards are bad, they should immediately be obvious what the user should do. The eBay example is good too - just wtf is going on there?

Dropbox and Youtube always spring to mind. There were Dropbox solutions for YEARS before they came around.

Even Microsoft had one (well before OneDrive) they gave away for free - still, Dropbox came to the top.

And Youtube and a bunch of clones.

Go back even further: MS Word - Wordperfect Excel - Lotus 123 Just about every dinky database - MS Access

Yes, go out and have a coffee with every business owner you can find! Hairdressers, Accountants, Financial Advisers - ask them what they did!

Go find a business coach! Look at their marketing, pay attention to what marketing works for you.

Check out Mixergy[0]. They will definately have something for you. Listen to the interview on Mafia Wars[1].

[0] https://mixergy.com [1] https://mixergy.com/interviews/roger-dickey-mafia-wars-inter...

1) Yes, a couple of times. But in the long run, we were so much better for it.

(For me at least!) I overestimated how obvious my product idea was. You see this all the time! The marketing effort becomes two-fold. You have this pain point (or opportunity), and here's a product that solves that pain point.

By being 2nd / 3rd / etc. the 1st person has already educated the potential client

2) Pay real attention to what the 1st to market was doing well. Can you copy / replicate it? Be aware of your mindset. Is this really a "winner takes all" situation? Or is there room for the both of you?

3) Why are you doing this? Is it to make a bazillion dollars? Or something more satisfying? Plenty of businesses (Stackoverflow, 37 Signals) have a certain "quality of life" - clearly they enjoy doing what they do. Why are you doing this?

4) Are you really really sure this is a bad thing? How many businesses can you think of that did fantastic from Kickstarter?

Compare that to how many Kickstarters were... less than successful?

I agree - you very much need to learn the rules first, before you go and break them

Hmm... I'm not too sure about that. Any examples?

Show file extensions is disabled by default. I'll always go in and change that. But I can't think of a time where I've had to go into a system file before.

Makes for a good story.

I mean, how many would they have made? 2,000?

They know they can do a second run before Christmas. By then they would know if they should make 20,000 or 200,000...

The Nokia N95 was VERY similar to first iPhones. Heck, Steve Jobs is even quoted (quoting Picasso) as saying "Good artists copy; great artists steal"[1]

[1] https://www.cnet.com/au/news/what-steve-jobs-really-meant-wh...

This is why the whole startup space drives me mad!

You can do a whole lot of naval gazing, and then what are you left with?

First movers are hard, because (as you've described) you have to educate the market, and then give a reason to buy.

Think about the marketing effort of Lotus-123 vs Excel.

Or Twitter vs Facebook

Or Dwarf Fortress vs Minecraft

This is why I think Scott Adam's book "How to fail at almost everything and still win big" is brilliant. He suggests focusing on the process (get the process right) and the goal will look after itself

> If we were to pick a single moment in history that lead to their undoing

I always find these sorts of comments interesting.

Microsoft is a very different business than say other failures who you could point to a single event (Kodak, Word Perfect, Lotus Software, Myspace)

Remember, Microsoft have over $100 BILLION in cash[0].

You could perhaps cherry pick certain parts of the business. But I remember the stories of how they made more money from Android than Windows Phone[1].

Microsoft has a long, LONG way to fall before I would say they have failed.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-13/why-micro... [1] http://gizmodo.com/5806227/did-you-know-microsoft-makes-five...

I agree. There has to be an MBA case study in there somewhere. As others have said, they clearly is it as a profit centre (not cost centre).

The problem is - what's the alternative? Was it a sackable offence? Very unlikely! Google have shareholders/ investors to keep on side. As others have already have said, you can see through the marketing talk to see what is really being said.

I can't figure out if that is awesome or absolutely terrifying... Imagine what is the equivalent today.

Dam I loved that game as a child!

(Game A / Game B was how you started the game on the original)

This depends very much on how you measure success. Remember, News Corp valued MySpace for an $580 million.

I think both (Quora and Stack Exchange) have plateaued to some level.

Neither see the insane growth they originally had.