danhodgins

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Fellow HN'ers - what was your 'now or never' moment when you knew you had to chase your dream or it might never happen? Would be great to hear your stories.

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Dabockster- I did a stint as a tech recruiter a while back (not doing that anymore), so I can offer some perspective from the other side of the table - although limited.

A few questions:

1. How many events do you attend per week? (could be related to any industry at all - could be a tradeshow, a panel of speakers, tech meetups - anything really)?

2. How many hands do you shake at each event?

3. How many people from these events do you follow up with?

If your score is "0" for all of the above then you are doing it all wrong.

You need to meet people in person, each week. The only way to do that short of showing up at the front desk, resume in hand, is to go to events.

You need to set a goal of attending 1-2 events per week (minimum), and figuring out how to get in front of hiring managers from companies you admire.

Figure out what events those people might attend socially or professionally. Get up to speed with events in various industries in your city.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable at events, and find a way to make them enjoyable.

People who log facetime at events do immediately jump to the top of the pile compared to people like you who are #200-300 at the bottom of the stack in the applicant tracking system for some BS job posting on Monster (many of which are for non-existent jobs).

Don't be #300.

Start attending events!

There's no reason you should have to apply for 3,000 jobs, that is a waste of time.

Start working smarter - even if you are introverted and awkward in person.

Now pick your head, up, get out there and get started!

You can do this!

D.

If you are a remixer, producer or musician check out SKIO Music.

You can enter remix contests, find singers and producers to collab with, and even import your originals from Soundcloud to host them on SKIO. Lastly, you can upload your stems and let other people remix your tracks, all in a copyright respected environment.

https://skiomusic.com

Don't EVER rent to anyone for one night - too risky. Only rent for multiple days at a time. I haven't yet heard of any stories of people renting places out for 1 week or more where the place has been trashed. In general, partiers don't have the money to rent for > 1 night (although I would imagine there are exceptions).

Navigational search queries (e.g. brand or site names) should usually be added as negative keywords in Adwords campaigns. This prevents your ads from being served for those keywords. To answer your question, ads are still very valuable for some types of searches - primarily those that are non-navigational in nature e.g. "personal injury lawyer + [city name]".

I loved Grooveshark, but I knew from day one it was only a matter of time until their legal issues would catch up to them.

Loved the service though.

Every time they shut down a service like this 5 more pop up, so everyone will just start using the next incarnation.

Introducing Sharkster!

It is most definitely 'easy' to burn 500+ calories in one session.

One hour of squash burns 600+ calories. One hour of running burns 600 ish calories. One hour of cycling burns something like 400-500 calories.

No citations for these figures, just going off memory

Burning 500+ calories per session is definitely doable - if you are doing the right exercise in the right ways for the right duration.

Right place, right time, right plant. Don't eat weeds from places where they may have been sprayed by pesticides or pets. I put dandelion (literally "teeth of the lion" or dans de lion in french) in my smoothies weekly. It's pretty bitter and tastes of the earth, so if you make a smoothie use copious amounts of lemon juice and/or orange juice to make it taste a little bit better. There are all sorts of little-known health benefits to dandelion. They are PACKED with all sorts of nutrients. People even grow them deliberately in gardens in Europe. Some people also make dandelion wine and dandelion coffee. Google this stuff - you might be surprised. In an abstract sense weeds are a bit like startups because they take unwanted resources (heat, light, soil, space) and 'add value' through unique processes e.g. photosynthesis to turn them into something else. In a strange way I find weeds inspiring.

It sounds like you have built a meta ad manager that taps into the API's for these ad platforms.

How does your pricing work given that you are targeting advertisers who spend between 20K - 1M?

Is it a percentage of ad spend or a fixed monthly fee?

What does Dia stand for?

I'm curious about his 'knowledge-based programming' concept.

Will be interesting to see where this new language goes.

Right now it's not yet public, so you'll need to opt in to receive updates if you want to know when it's released.

Congratulations Sam, and well-done Paul. I consider both of you to be mentors who have educated, inspired, and motivated me to push myself further than I ever thought possible. Paul, you'll continue your mission... it'll just be at a higher level. And Sam... I wish you the best of luck as you elevate Ycombinator to the next level and beyond with your drive, enthusiasm, and talent for spotting patterns, trends and opportunities as well as pain points worth addressing and problems worth solving. dh

It's worth looking at this from multiple angles.

The human being in me says: "This behaviour is morally and ethically reprehensible, and should be illegal. He should be in jail because he's a con artist who defrauds people."

The idealist in me says: "This guy is preying on the weak and hurting people."

The ruthless entrepreneur in me says: "This guy is using a system that works, and it's producing real results".

The marketer and strategist in me says: "This guy is using a system that relies on intentionally ugly or shady ads to qualify out people who are capable of fighting back. He then gets their credit card number, and repeatedly makes a bunch of sketchy recurring charges that are nearly impossible to fight and/or cancel. What a genius system for making money. People can't fight something they don't know about or are unwilling to cancel."

From a purely objective standpoint his system works because it's based on an understanding of human behavior, psychology and emotion. He knows how to create ads that get clicked, and how to get people to enter their credit card numbers and agree to charges.

We would do well to learn how to get past emotions like disgust and flip around the perspective here. How can we apply some of his strategies and tactics in ways that are morally and ethically sound to our own legitimate ventures?

Here are the insights I gained from the article:

* There is a HUGE traffic opportunity with ads and ad networks, and it's highly scalable * Focus on areas of high existing search demand * If you can convert, you can really crank up the paid traffic engine * If you generate the most revenue in your niche you'll win the advertising game because you can pay the most for traffic * Upsell to a bunch of small recurring charges that are bite-sized so they don't seem like much, but they add up to a lot over time

From a purely analytical and objective standpoint you gotta hand it to the guy for his execution.

Remember, it's people who pull out credit cards to buy your product, not borgs.

People have hundreds of things they want from you and/or your company. Your product is just one of those things. That leaves 99 other things you could provide that have the potential to absolutely delight them.

In other words, what are the 99 ways BESIDES your product that you could delight your customers or make them more awesome?

Paul is right - consulting doesn't scale if you're paid to do it. But man does it make people happy if you share your time and creativity generously.

Happy people are more likely to have a higher customer lifetime value. And you can take that straight to the bank.

Solid points, although I think you're zeroing in on too many low-level details too early even though your criticisms are valid.

Also, maybe you could make your feedback constructive by providing ideas, alternatives and suggestions instead of just ripping it apart but adding no value or solid suggestions beyond that.

The point here is much bigger and more significant than any of your individual criticisms.

The point is this - these people are rethinking the problem of notation, and redesigning it from the ground up.

I think their approach is totally badass, and I love the fact that someone is tackling this!

Love your thinking here, and your landing page is fantastic. Very inspiring. The 'before' and 'after' toggling is a very effective way to illustrate the value your system brings.

If you can help my mom put an Ipad on the music stand instead of a song book she has to manually flip through while playing you might just win another customer. Right now, when i do a jam session with her (I play guitar) she literally has to stop playing piano to flip the pages. She does this 3-4 times a song which is quite jarring. The humble paper song book and conventional notation system could use a 'shaking up', and you guys have started innovating this problem, so thanks!

I could easily see this becoming the tabulation (tabs) system for that piano and other instruments have not had to date.

Well done!

If I was Knife Depot, I would focus on brainstorming a single opt-in offer they could use to have all their marketing and advertising channels function as a funnel for growing their email list.

"1 Badass Knife Per Week" is an opt-in offer that would get my attention, even though I'm not a knife guy.

I expand on this idea in this post: http://www.tinylever.com/one-badass-knife-per-week

Why be dependent on Google for your sales? Pay them once up front to help grow your list, and you'll be able monetize each subscriber for their lifetime using email - a FREE channel you own and control 100%.

A list is really where it's at, but to make list-building work you need a single opt-in offer that will cause people to sign up on the spot.

If you'd like some ideas for crafting your opt in offer, reach out right now by email: dan [at] tinylever [dot] com

Forget learning how to 'sell' a product. You can't just 'sell' a bad product.

WHAT YOU WANT

What you really want is to learn how to research, develop and market a product 'that sells'. To learn this, I suggest you do two things that might surprise you.

DO THIS First, write a 2 minute infomercial script for your product. Practice being the presenter. This is a surprisingly informative exercise. Make sure to address any questions or objections people would have about the product, support or refunds in your script.

THEN DO THIS Second, write out a one page direct response magazine advertisement for your product. Anticipate any and all questions, objections and concerns in your ad. For examples, see old-school direct response ads by Joe Sugarman for products such as the Pocket CV from the 70's.

IT"S THE PROCESS By going through the process of writing a 2 minute infomercial script, and also writing a 1 page direct response magazine advertisement you will be forced to understand and echo features, benefits and emotional benefits and also anticipate and answer questions and objections. These are the two most valuable selling skills whether in person, online or in print.

SELLING IN PRINT Being able to sell in print is really valuable, because your ads and advertising can scale to billions of pages.

There's a lot to know about selling, marketing and developing products that sell. I've been studying it for 10 years, and it's going to take a lifetime of learning to do my best work.

I would be glad to share some things I have learned with you. Reach out and let's connect - dan [at] tinylever [dot] com.

It's all out there. The books, knowledge, people and process for entrepreneurship are there for the taking.

Your job is to collect and synthesize knowledge from books, mentors, fans, customers and peers to find your unique formula for success.

I can't tell you what your formula for success is - no one can. We don't know your strengths, weakenesses or whether you have come from an immediate or extended family with one or more entrepreneurs - a major factor in predicting business success.

I will say one thing though.

I don't know many entrepreneurs, whether business or technology oriented, who are abysmal marketers.

The best technology-focused entrepreneurs are also, at the very least, average to above-average marketers. They got that way due to instinct, study, mentors, or all 3.

Study and learn to love marketing and design. If you can combine those two things with strong technical acumen you'll be able to literally bring your dreams to life.

The more of a curious renaissance man and generalist you can be the better, because you'll be able to dive in and do whatever it takes at any given time to drive your business, brand and product(s) forward - whether it's coding, design, marketing, networking, producing and syndicating content or optimizing conversions on a landing page.

Sure, create something awesome. But don't pretend that your awesome thing is 100% of the equation. Your awesome product idea is 10% of success. The other 90% is selling and hustle.

The biggest innovation health care needs is not technology. It's psychology - persuading people to incorporate vastly healthier diet and exercise habits into their daily lives.

The first 'innovator' to beat the junk food industrial complex at its own marketing game will change the world.

No CRUD or SAAS app for health care can manipulate people's psychology. What health care really needs is a habit-changing algorithm.

Building a list and sending emails is an ideal way to start building an audience early and eventually, to test market your product concept.

We expand more upon this idea in the following post: http://www.tinylever.com/building-an-audience-before-or-para...

Excellent points, and well explained. People who are smarter and more knowledgeable than I are certainly better qualified to put context around the significance of nano-tech. Regardless, It seems as though we are at or near a new nano-technology frontier.

I confess to knowing absolutely zero about it, but I also think the possibilities are fascinating, and worthy of both tremendous skepticism and awe at the same time.

Wilderness hacking at its finest. This guy is a total boss. Incredible wood working skills, and a passion for living in the beautiful wilds of Alaska. The Canadian side - the Yukon and BC are equally as beautiful. Go up north sometime - the beauty will blow you away.

An illustration of how shallow social proof can be. The fact that human psychology can be so simple and game-able at time never fails to amaze me. At the same time, I can't help but objectively analyze their business model and be intrigued by its possibilities - regardless of any moral or ethical landmines.

I'm all for charging - it's the best way to eliminate the tire kickers. You obviously have to provide good value for money, and it sounds like you're getting some great feedback already, so keep up your data-driven feedback loop and I'm confident you'll end up with something really interesting and innovative.

If wireframing using current tools is taking up so much of your time then why haven't you set the wheels in motion to invent the tool you want? Sketch up your idea, let someone else code it, and then pay them for the product. Problem solved. Otherwise, it's all just your opinion and HN link bait.

I'm not sure I agree with your opinions about wireframing tools, and I wonder if your frustrations are actually about wireframing or maybe something else altogether related to your projects that you may or may not realize and/or mention in your post.

Coding such a tool yourself or sketching up some UI ideas are probably the two fastest ways to get the wireframing tool you want.

Smart move to charge $20 up front to eliminate the majority of crap - definitely keep charging (and don't forget to A/B test your pricing).

My hunch is that you'll have to provide more than just another artist's opinion for the $20.

Consider additional value you could bundle up for the $20, and create a 'killer offer' that you believe in, and that provides excellent value for the artist. Play with the parameters you bundle into the offer to make it absolutely irresistible. A/B test the offer of course.

Some ideas for bundling additional value into the $20 price:

1. Offer to make it a video review, and transcribe it as well. 2. Publish both the video and transcript on one (or all) of your web properties with links to the artist's website and top social media handles. Get the artist who does the reviews to also link to the artist being reviewed. 3. Create a 'discovery' directory with listings of each artist who paid the $20 for their review - I'm curious to find out about these artists myself - even the ones you don't want to promote - the $20 is an effective filter for both you and I!

Cool idea, and I LOVE to see people taking some risks and innovating the business model for music.

Seth contends that designers must see their skill set in a new light - as 'visual catalysts' in the growth process rather than mere web designers. I think he's right - we need to re-imagine and broaden the roles of designers and developers to be architects of growth rather than just code or logo monkeys.