free2rhyme214

Working on this :)

1. Moving to Google is an option. 2. Already did. 3. Not an option ATM, thank you tho!

There are, however, I think people worry too much about launching. It helps for a short period of time, but then people move on to tomorrow's product hunt submissions.

What's more important is nailing a distribution strategy. Focusing and executing on distribution is difference between Airbnb and everyone else.

Source - https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb

I appreciate your feedback. My issue with this approach is that you come across as everyone else who's just trying to "network" as Sam mentioned in the youtube link I provided.

I think a better approach is to learn how to code and build something to show others. That way you come across as someone who genuinely wants to be a friend.

I found tutorials to learn C# for free here if it helps others - https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/scripting

Thanks

Thank you. I'd love a TL;DR for every news article please ;)

Aaron Patzer used a similar approach for Mint, but asked people what they thought of what eventually became "bank level security" on his website. I think that's a better approach for the random stranger feedback.

If you want to know if there's demand for your startup, you could simply build a website and pitch it to people, however, you won't truly know if there's demand until you build something that provides value and ask people for money. (Just like DoorDash & Flexport did) Even then you'll face distribution problems but that's another story :)

Highway robbery

I applied to over 500 jobs, had about 11 interviews, got rejected by 9 out of 11, and got rejected twice by the company I'm working for. (Once a hiring freeze, once they didn't like me) To me, you're not applying enough.

Also I don't count phone interviews as interviews. Those are just to weed out candidates from the in person interview.

Lastly, I think we're missing some info. You must be doing something odd on the phone or you would've had an in person interview. Do you have any friends in management who can do mock interviews with you to figure out what it is?

If I understanding this correct - Groupon is now a monopoly?

This is always the case. Even Sequoia has made blunders before - turning down Salesforce and investing in Webvan, to name a few.

Doordash added a "service fee" awhile ago. How is this news?

I'm working on building my third company and although I'm not an engineer, I love all things tech. I come back here every week so I can stay up to date on the engineering community.

I'll stick with an in person Paul Graham meeting any day over Go To Meeting or Hololens.

I love this comment :)

Why this over the Tor Browser?

I don't think Medium weakens Coinbase's brand. Mishandling something like an IRS subpoena is a lot more fatal.

Speculating Uber's future is just a silly as speculating the NFL draft. The better question is - how do you provide as much value as Uber?

The real point of this article isn't to be right, it's to generate more eyeballs and provoke discussions. More TC clickbait.

In negative market conditions, you can't stop gravity. Not with VC funding, engineers or technology. Your business is a double edge sword - the only way you grow is by purchasing more debt. You're ignoring reality with a delusional belief in consumer demand.

I actually found it in a youtube video. I still wonder why Peter didn't invest in your company.

The issue a lot of people have with OpenDoor is their business model. Only some people in silicon valley can raise $320mm to wholesale homes using algorithms. The skepticism I have is that OpenDoor isn't disrupting anything because they're not Airbnb or Uber. They're not going after unused inventory and taking huge amounts of business from incumbents, they're simply amassing massive amounts of debt like no wholesaler could and when the economy crashes, and it will as nothing goes up forever, they're going to have this backfire on them. And then what?

When the economy goes down, Airbnb will do just fine. More people will want to do short term hospitality to earn cash and more people will want to drive for Uber. OpenDoor will have to liquidate their debt which will prove difficult. Also if I remember correctly, Keith Rabois said he was talking with Peter Thiel and Peter mentioned how real estate has rarely changed. Later Keith helped create, more like fund, OpenDoor. What I wonder is, why hasn't Peter invested in Keith's new company? It's not because he's too busy with Trump's transition team.

OpenDoor isn't a startup you should emulate. I wholly disagree with this article.

uBlock Origin uses less resources than AdBlock Plus, so it's not an issue for me.

Agreed. I deleted Waze yesterday and set Uber to "Never" until they fix this.

The Collison's will probably use this money for growth & new products. Growth in the form of country expansion and new products which are probably along the lines of something like "Radar" and less like a full scale PayPal alternative. Upending PayPal is much harder than it looks, despite their long term threat to Stripe's business.

If you had to rank encrypted messaging clients, how would you rank them?

The clients you have are Signal, WhatsApp, Messenger and Allo. (all that run the Signal protocol currently)

This isn't very compelling. I recommend solving different problems. (I hope I'm not harsh, I'm just trying to be honest)

I think the most effective way to get people to change browser habits, is through something compelling over a period of time. So far I don't find Firefox compelling enough nor this post. (Keep trying please, we really do need competition here)

Number 3 I totally agree. I don't agree with number 4 though. I think if you spend millions of dollars, time and energy to amass data then you shouldn't share it with your competition. You'd just make everyone's job easier.

Great post Michael. Despite what people say about vanity metrics, I think proving people want what you're going to build before you build it is incredibly important.

I heard Flexport did this by getting 300 companies to sign up before Ryan (the founder) wrote any code.

Eliminating risk isn't entirely possible. You could create a website for DoorDash/Ladder or Flexport, get traction, build Version 1 and then get told NO but I bet statistically you're more likely to have success with this method than building V1 first.

As an example, Optimizely got something like a $2-$4k commitment to pay without writing any code.

Again not everything works out this way. Snapchat, for example, would be a terrible example for this methodology but it works for some ideas.