ensemblehq

I’ve mostly just been using spreadsheets and building formulas/macros to calculate revenue, etc. It works and doesn’t have tons of features most apps do.

Congrats on the launch! I had a similar idea once a few years back but failed to materialize it. You might want to consider other cloud providers like Sushi Cloud to get costs even lower. Happy to do an intro if it seems interesting.

It depends on what you mean by getting some of that pie. Do you want to refer engineers and get a cut of the referral fee or do you want to start a better tech recruitment company?

The general principles of ETL/ELT I assume would apply: identify the source, determine the requirements (I.e. frequency, volume, formats, etc.), determine the transformations, and ingest. You’ll also need to think about how often you need to ingest and the sync patterns between your source and your target.

Other considerations include security for PII, HIPAA (given you’re dealing with medical records).

You can also explore buying pre-made themes from ThemeForest. I’ve bought a few to various landing pages in the past.

Saw your current project (eldee) and curious to learn more. What gave you the idea?

Generally, it’s been useful for my teams to have open discussions about establishing coding standards amongst themselves. We’ve also made code reviews mandatory as part of pull requests although it’s not as effective for smaller teams that want to be more agile.

I second this. Freelancing roles for cloud infrastructure (and even data infrastructure) might be a good fit because there is some degree of needing quality engineering - otherwise, things just don’t work.

Hats off to you for recognizing your challenge and seeking help. Everyone has a story to tell and several short stints doesn’t have to be a red flag. You can focus more on the value of those short stints (I.e. moments where you contributed to the teams you were on). Was there a particular reason why the short stints were short stints? You’d likely need a good reason but again, focusing on what you’ve done and why it makes sense of you to have moved on would be useful. For landing interviews, it might be worth experimenting with alternative routes (I.e meetups, networking, direct connections, blogs, contracting, etc).

Happy to have a further chat - I know folks who are looking to hire.

It’s possibly a misunderstanding of the different environments or they have had bad experiences from previous hires.

Thanks for sharing (and writing) the book, Rob. From your experiences, is there a limit to earning potential as a solo developer/small startup? Are there any ways to quantify and qualify product ideas?

I’m happy to support the group if you do start something. I’ve been thinking of starting a group as well.

I’m lucky enough that I work with other consultants who are similarly minded and happy to have a discussion. It’s useful given his experience deploying all kinds of architectures across many other clients but he’s also very open to my thoughts/opinions on what the architecture should be.

I’m happy to be a sounding board for you if you’d like.

A friend of mine runs Sushi Cloud (https://www.sushi.cloud/), which could help make things cheaper than AWS for training purposes.

The other topics you mentioned aren’t exactly classified as “data science” so you likely won’t see them in most university data science courses. Database design has its own course usually but I’ve seen more of the rest as part of college/certificate programs.

Hilarious to see this trend taking off after a close friend of mine shuttered his exact same startup 4 years ago. They started in the UK, folks were skeptical, on the wrong side of regulations and just wasn’t able to build critical mass. Jury is still out whether Food Nome will succeed but a Good lesson that timing and location matters to startup success as well.

Ran into the exact same problem with a client. Industry and investor type matters as well. Software automation is a hot space and most investors understand it (or claim they do). Capital markets startups are tricky.

You’re right that cheaper services could affect customer outreach budgets and it does limit your options on what you can do (I.e. incentivized channels) but it also forces you to focus on other channels that suit your budget (I.e. content marketing, building relationships in forums, etc.) Also, price may not necessarily have to be fixed for all customer segments, you can use pricing as a strategy lever.

It depends. I think you’ll need more work to find the right customer/market who values what you’ve built and is willing to pay. Potentially it could be a lot more than what your current price is, especially businesses.

Begin building your network by hanging out with other founders of VC-backed startups. Attend events and build relationships with VCs.

1. There are administrative tasks such as registration of your corporation and there are basic tasks/resources required for your services (i.e. what software/certifications/hardware needed?)

2. Forming a team should come second after assessing your market if you’re just starting out but finding out who you can work/partner with is useful.

3. Start with your immediate network and branch out. Other methods will take sometime. Partnerships could be key.

Thanks. How about topics? How do you choose which topics to cover? Or is this mostly led by clients?

I know of opportunities for django/python development.

Congrats on the launch. I'm a MLOps consultant that helps enterprises with productionizing their models on cloud platforms. Previously, also a startup founder who iterated in the same space and can probably exchange notes.

The problem is definitely a time-consuming and costly one and I'm intrigued to play around with Ploomber. How does Ploomber handle collaboration/code sharing across data scientists?

Definitely raise if possible :)

Generally, how do you find clients and startups to help?

Any tips on structuring trainings? Would love to incorporate some trainings this year for data science/data engineering.

Have you done work in Python/Django?

From experience, what’s key is the system you have to keep track and restore things so you’re not consciously filling your brain while working on tasks.

This is indeed a huge game changer especially for founders who are already within industry and are earning a lot more than a new grad’s salary. It also affords startups much stronger talent early on and iterate on ideas with higher capital requirements. Looking forward to what’s coming through the YC pipeline!

The VC market is based on power laws and hype, much less to do with the actual business fundamentals itself. PE might be more suitable as a funding option for businesses that are stable and have demonstrated decent (but not astronomical) growth.