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dmk23

506 karma · joined September 14, 2011

Facebook Ad management: software & services http://targetchoice.com
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dmk23··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2018)
SEEKING WORK | Silicon Valley & Remote

Are you driving leads & sales from Facebook Ads yet?

If not, you are missing out on the biggest traffic source there is

Not sure where to start? Help is here to get to results fast with a Blueprint

Our project process laid out here: https://targetchoice.com/W04

Schedule your Discovery Call to see if/how you could profitably scale your business ‍‍‍

Blog : http://targetchoice.com/blog

Email : dk AT targetchoice.com

dmk23··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2018)
SEEKING WORK | Silicon Valley & Remote

Facebook Ad management services. Done for you.

Do you have a product/service, viable enough to invest in growth? Are you ready to allocate budget to paid traffic that would drive you sales or leads?

If the answer is YES, Facebook advertising could be the ticket to profitable scaling of your business.

But are you up to speed on every little quirk in Facebook ads functionality and algorithms? Those could make all the difference between success and failure. Do you have the process for developing the advertising strategy and the right marketing experiments to get to insight and profitability quickly?

Help is available. Our process and software bring clarity to your marketing by aligning all strategies and tactics around the entire Customer Journey. We then help you and your team with technical marketing implementation (tags, pixels, CRM/email integrations, offline, apps, etc). And finally using that infrastructure and data to build and manage campaigns that cover the entire customer lifecycle.

Read more about our approach on the site/blog. Then take action.

Site : http://targetchoice.com

Blog : http://targetchoice.com/blog

Email : dk AT targetchoice.com

dmk23··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (November 2017)
* SEEKING WORK | Silicon Valley & Remote

Facebook Ad management services. Done for you.

Do you have a product/service, viable enough to invest in growth? Are you ready to allocate budget to paid traffic that would drive you sales or leads?

If the answer is YES, Facebook advertising could be the ticket to profitable scaling of your business.

But are you up to speed on every little quirk in Facebook ads functionality and algorithms? Those could make all the difference between success and failure. Do you have the process for developing the advertising strategy and the right marketing experiments to get to insight and profitability quickly?

Help is available. Our process and software bring clarity to your marketing by aligning all strategies and tactics around the entire Customer Journey. We then help you and your team with technical marketing implementation (tags, pixels, CRM/email integrations, offline, apps, etc). And finally using that infrastructure and data to build and manage campaigns that cover the entire customer lifecycle.

Read more about our approach on the site/blog. Then take action.

Site : http://targetchoice.com

Blog : http://targetchoice.com/blog

Email : dk AT targetchoice.com

dmk23··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2017)
SEEKING WORK | Silicon Valley & Remote

Facebook Ad management services. Done for you.

Do you have a product/service, viable enough to invest in growth?

Are you ready to allocate budget to paid traffic that would drive you sales or leads?

If the answer is YES, Facebook advertising could be the ticket to profitable scaling of your business.

But are you up to speed on every little quirk in Facebook ads functionality and algorithms? Those could make all the difference between success and failure. Do you have the process for developing the advertising strategy and the right marketing experiments to get to insight and profitability quickly?

Help is available. Our process and software bring clarity to your marketing by aligning all strategies and tactics around the entire Customer Journey. We then help you and your team with technical marketing implementation (tags, pixels, CRM/email integrations, offline, apps, etc). And finally using that infrastructure and data to build and manage campaigns that cover the entire customer lifecycle.

Read more about our approach on the site/blog. Then take action.

Site : http://targetchoice.com

Blog : http://targetchoice.com/blog

Email : dk AT targetchoice.com

Full Service : Monthly retainer with % of ad spend (not by hour!)

Ad Hoc : One-off ad strategy/assessments consults (1 hour fixed rate)

dmk23··on Illinois General Assembly passes bill to ban citizens from recording police
Disgraceful!
dmk23··on Non Compete Clauses Reduce Innovation
You have free choice to avoid employment with companies that require non-competes.

Moreover you are even welcome to start a company that does not require non-competes and later on have the pleasure of investing in professional development of people who may later turn their talents against you.

dmk23··on Inside the ‘DarkMarket’ prototype, a Silk Road the FBI can't seize
The most effective attack is the easiest to predict.

It is human intelligence or infiltration by actors with a hidden loyalty. This has worked since the time immemorial for all sorts of security systems.

For FBI to bring it down they'll just need to repeat what they've done with Silk Road - pose as a straw buyers, get everyone they touch on record and use them to identify/arrest the users. Put out a request for a contract killing and arrest all responders. Bonus for putting a bounty on members turning in other members.

Even if this won't "shut down" the system itself, it would make it impossible to use safely.

dmk23··on A fair, mathematical approach to equity programs for pre-IPO companies
The only problem with such "justified" models is that it always comes down to what everyone thinks of everyone else's value to the company. For example -

1) A first employee might feel he should have been a founder

2) Two co-founders who might feel the 3rd one has not contributed enough to justify their share

3) Employee/contractor #20 (or whatever it is) at Facebook who painted graffiti on the walls ended up with a package worth $100M while it is hard for anyone to say with a straight face they actually created that much value (i.e. what is the reason for granting equity by job role)

4) Sizing of equity grants to engineers vs. sales staff, given that salesforce's primary motivation should be based on hitting their quotas with all incentives built around that

5) Someone fired a few months before the vesting cliff might think they are being cheated, while the company might believe they have been toxic to the culture (I won't name any examples here)

6) Employees "resting-and-vesting" at pretty much every level of the equity grant cohort

7) Later employees who end up carrying the weight of the earlier ones without comparable rewards

In every deal it all comes down to a willing buyer meeting a willing seller. Compensation packages are no exception.

dmk23··on Early Stage Startups: The Biggest Killers
It is an obviously foreseeable problem because the whole "startup echo chamber" keeps pressuring everyone to have co-founders for sake of having co-founders.

Better to be a single founder covering for everything than sign on "co-founders" you cannot get along with or do not see pulling their weight or having significant disagreements on how the company should be run and the rewards distributed.

dmk23··on Andreessen: Beware Non-Silicon Valley Investors Bearing High Valuations
That's not the point, A16Z is the lead on their key deals.

The lead sets the price/terms and has significant control over who else gets access...

dmk23··on Andreessen: Beware Non-Silicon Valley Investors Bearing High Valuations
Translation: A16Z does not like competition doing to them what they've been doing to older VC firms
dmk23··on How a non-tech, thirty-something with kids started his company
TLDR version: "I was lucky to have friends who built a successful product for me on their own time and money"
dmk23··on Bitstamp, give me access to my money

  I’m writing about this because yesterday I was a firm believer that Bitstamp is
  a company that is responsible for the power it has as the biggest bitcoin exchange,
  and I’d like to set them back on track.
Why exactly did you expect that?

None of these BTC exchanges are obligated/compelled/forced to do anything for any of their clients. Bitcoin is no different from any other payment method in the sense that you still have to go through some middlemen who always have to balance customer service with preventing fraud - real or imagined...

dmk23··on Be Glad That Corporate Liability Is Limited
The liability is not truly limited anyways.

Proof of fraud in the court of law is sufficient to pierce the corporate veil and hold the principals accountable. It is another thing that most of the so-called "corporate crimes" fail to clear even the basic bar of proof under due legal process. Just because someone disagrees with a business decision of a corporate executive does not make that decision a crime.

Unlimited liability would have the effect of stifling entrepreneurship and/or export of capital and jobs into more favorable jurisdictions, including offshore shells.

dmk23··on Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come
This alarmism is getting really ridiculous.

Just 5 years ago, Al Gore claimed North Pole ice cap will be gone by now and instead we just had a record cold winter.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/16/editorial-al...

dmk23··on The Post-Hope Politics of ‘House of Cards’
It is an excellent illustration of why the powers of government should be limited.

Perhaps the most convincing argument for libertarian worldview to come out of the pop-culture.

Who would want 'House of Cards' politicians to run their lives?

dmk23··on US tech firms make eleventh-hour attempt to halt tax avoidance reforms
Let's call these "reforms" for what they are - a shameless and unjustified money grab by the government.
dmk23··on Kanye West’s lawyer orders “Coinye” to cease-and-desist just before launch
Great publicity stunt and does not look like this lawsuit has a leg to stand on. Good for them that Kanye took the bait.
dmk23··on Rap Genius And The Problem With The Venture Capital Fueled Growth Hack
Without venture capital RapGenius "growth hacking" tactics would never attract as much scrutiny.

If RapGenius were not a company going out of the way to promote their "VC pedigree" (even if this is what happened indirectly, because that's what the people / press / bloggers wanted to talk about), they would be a lot more likely to fly under the radar.

Even if someone were to write the same kind of post about their "growth hacking" that started the whole "scandal", it would be less likely to make the top of HN and attract a close look from Matt Cutts...

They were trying to have it both ways - generate huge publicity and do something that does not go well with increased scrutiny. Live by PR, die by PR.

dmk23··on Moguls Rent South Dakota Addresses to Dodge Taxes Forever
Sure, that's just the start.

A further improvement could be to move from California to say Nevada and pay no state tax at all. The next step would be reorganizing the business structure to keep most income / assets in the offshore jurisdictions. So on, so on, so on...

See, you are starting to justify cutting the tax rate from 60% to 50%, but why stop there?

The problem is created by the government/public asking for 60% to begin with and creating the sticker shock.

dmk23··on Moguls Rent South Dakota Addresses to Dodge Taxes Forever
Excellent question and here is the answer: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100398096
dmk23··on Moguls Rent South Dakota Addresses to Dodge Taxes Forever
Who are YOU to tell ME what I "need"?

If you want to "collectively decide" how to "better use" MY money, I can just move it to a different jurisdiction and you'll get what you deserve - nothing. If the value of what your "collective decision" gives me for "60% tax bill" is not there, the money will rightfully leave.

There is a great parable explaining how this works: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/the-tax-syst...

dmk23··on Moguls Rent South Dakota Addresses to Dodge Taxes Forever
What would you expect? If you live in a state like California and are in the highest tax bracket, your total tax rate (federal + state + local + various surtaxes) would be close to 60%. It is ludicrous to expect most people to just fork over such an outrageous percentage of their earnings without complain.

No wonder the high-income individuals are fleeing high-tax states and "tax-the-rich" ideology is failing to fill the states' coffers. Raising taxes hurts poor people more than the rich. http://www.forbes.com/sites/trulia/2013/02/12/jobs-arent-lea...

dmk23··on Inside Nick Denton's phony, hypocritical class war against tech workers
Controversy drives page views. That's all you need to know about Gawker/Valleywag.

Stop worrying about every troll. Just ignoring them is the best revenge.

dmk23··on Bitcoin may be following this classic bubble stages chart.
But, THIS time everything is going to be different! Because of Bitcoin's paradigm-shifting, gravity-defying, game-changing properties, the normal rules of bubble economics and financial regulation no longer apply! The Brave New World has arrived! /sarcasm

Seriously though, Bitcoin is going to enjoy its glorious rise for only as long as the politicians/regulators/law enforcement fail to realize the true extent of the threat to their power, IF Bitcoin's intended properties are allowed to continue unrestricted. Once all these players wake up, the crackdown will be a lot fiercer than anything ever done against P2P file-sharers. Napster threatened just one industry, Bitcoin is taking a swing at our entire political and economic system.

It is just a matter of time before every Bitcoin exchange is forced to turn in all their records to IRS, the transaction histories are fully outed and the main benefits of using Bitcoin are minimized. The regulators have no reason to leave alternative currencies alone vs. crack down like they've done to the likes of the Liberty Dollar ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar )

At the end of the day, any currency is only as viable as the enforcement power behind it, which ultimately means "people with guns". Bitcoin has none of it and US Dollar has the largest world power behind it...

dmk23··on Why having an MBA is a negative hiring signal for startups (2012)
I am the last person to defend the idea of hiring MBAs for sake of hiring MBAs, but the author really loses me with the last two paragraphs.

   Imagine that if instead of getting an MBA, ambitious young over-achievers spent
   two years in design school. Or spent two years getting a masters in computer
   science. Or two years getting into Y-Combinator and doing their own startup.

   Who would be worth more in the open market when all is said and done? Who
   would have a better chance of building their own great company?
The problem with MBAs is that they are oftentimes too expensive / not the right fit for startup roles / environment, not that they have limited career prospects.
dmk23··on Silicon Valley Bank says no to Bitcoin businesses
My experience exactly. I left them years ago when they jacked up basic banking fees to ridiculous levels.

When I was a client them they did organize "meetups with VCs/lawyers", but for the most part those events were mostly designed to pander to the guests' egos and I presume make them feel valued enough to drive their companies towards SVBank for higher-ticket services, like large credit lines.

dmk23··on The trouble with timestamps
A little surprising that this article does not mention HBase which uses timestamps as part of the persisted key, while using an entirely different concept of a "WriteNumber" as an internal ID to resolve conflicting updates (MVCC).

This presentation might provide a helpful overview: http://www.slideshare.net/cloudera/3-learning-h-base-interna...

The relevant discussion starts at Slide 16

dmk23··on Marc Andreessen: Series A investments still bread and butter of A16Z
As if this should surprise anyone.

It is pretty typical for an investor to pronounce one thing and then do something totally different.

Investors are driven by the "feel" of the opportunities they get to look at and any pronouncements "we are funding this, not this" are merely looks in the rearview mirror. Trying to read the investors' minds and predict their actions is a lot like Kremlinology, it is best to focus on building a solid business and not worry about their opinions too much.

dmk23··on If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy
Any talk of Java "dying" is just nonsensical

Java hands down is the most obvious choice for any applications that require performance, yet are too complicated to write and support in C/C++/other lower level languages. Java JIT is very mature unlike JITs for most other languages, which largely remain at the level of experimental projects and fall short on key production requirements.

Given that the entire Hadoop ecosystem is based upon Java as well, it is here to stay for anything that has to deal with "Big Data"

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