foulmouthboy

Well done!

The people who are finding your sell pressed CDs would probably buy it whether it was on Spotify or not. If those initial buyers then wanted to share the music with somebody else, I would think Spotify would be a MUCH preferred option compared to ripping the CD and sharing it on a torrent site.

As an indie musician, your goal shouldn't be to milk as much money as you can from your 200 person fanbase, right? It should be to double and triple that fanbase. Self pressed CDs seems to be one of the slower, more painful ways of doing that.

In the time that it's taken to sell 298 CDs, and effectively reach 300 people, you're telling me you wouldn't (for free) make the music available to thousands of users and then just share the hell out of it? How much music gets streamed by Spotify users just looking to try a track out? That too counts as revenue.

If it were me, I'd distribute across as many channels as quickly as possible and hope that I catch on as opposed to "burning out" each channel one by one in the most painfully slow marketing campaign ever.

If you're a startup, the only bonus you're really getting with premium Google Analytics is SLA, which most startups can do without. Stick with free.

I'd really like to see a study that proves this, because unless this is true then the entire article is bunk. Almost every form of advertising is based on some sort of incentive, and the concept of "mention this ad" to gain a benefit is not new. From the perspective of a small business owner, Groupon not only makes people aware of your restaurant/store/whatever, but also gets people in the door, which is something traditional advertising doesn't do.

I would postulate that just because they're coupon chasers doesn't make them bad customers. It just gives the business owner more reason to provide exceptional service and get people to come back even without an Groupon.

What was possible before: 1. Visitor enters billing information and makes a purchase 2. Visitor is shown an upsell page 3. Visitor clicks a link on the upsell page 4. The item that was clicked is automatically added to the previously completed purchase

Now, step 4 isn't possible. A retailer must make it clear (by virtue of asking for billing info again) that there is a new purchase that's about to happen.

You know the person's area code. Make the assumption that they live somewhere near there and sell local ads.

I wouldn't put the advertising in the voice message itself. Most users are just as likely to ignore the call once they get the phone. After the number has been submitted though, the ad can display on the website's thank you page.

"Now that we've helped you, return a kind act and consider one of these fine products from one of our sponsors."

As a proof of concept, it's already been done and there is nothing to suggest that it wouldn't work for Apple and in verticals outside of gaming.

When your OS is only available on one product and one carrier, it's not an apples to apples comparison and analysts should try a little harder to prove if the trends really indicate popularity or just availability.

To me, the "English is enough", is totally akin to fanboy mentalities surrounding technology. I supposed you've only bothered to learn C or Java and are completely indifferent to even bothering with any other language. Obviously, this is an extremely limited view.

Additionally, exposure to another language provides exposure to other cultures. In this day and age of internationalization, exposure to a variety of cultures beyond what's within walking distance is extremely important.

I know a lot of HNers are dismissive of formal education in general, and maybe knowing Chinese isn't directly applicable to most, but come on. We need to teach our kids early on that it's OK to learn for the sake of learning

The morale of the company was supposedly "killed" after that email and the evidence used was a drop in stock price, but a little investigation shows that the stock price is actually fine. Therefore, any accusation that the CEO is ineffective appears to be false and deserves to be defended against.