459 karma · joined August 1, 2011
The cover letter is your chance to explain Why you want to apply and Why you'd be a good fit.
The resume explains Who you are (professionally).
The Why is just as (and sometimes more) important than the Who.
Something never seen before like Snapchat? Or something never seen before like Hyperloop? If its the latter then clearly you're correct in your assessment but most startups ambitions fall much closer to the former.
Your post here has got some valid points but you've moved away from the very specific "minimum $1m for a marketable product" to some very vague generalities.
> Even the palette-swaps generally cost anywhere from a quarter to half a million dollars to do properly
"Properly" is subjective. I could have a Snapchat clone developed easily for $100k - probably considerably less - lets just say iOS App and corresponding web app & server architecture. With the exception that it clearly wouldn't be able to handle the load Snapchat handles - but certainly enough to be marketable.
> which is really why it seems to you that a million bucks is an outlandishly huge number.
I never said a million dollars is a large number. I know how easy it is to blow through such an amount.
My argument was you don't need that amount to create a marketable product - whether you're a developer or not.
Perhaps In SV, you may be correct but most people do not live in SV.
The reason I feel so strongly about this is that your sentiment is a very dangerous one to propagate to new or would-be startup founders. Based on the number of downvotes I've received for disagreeing with your comment, it would seem that people believe you need $1m in the bank before you can go to market.
That's a very good way of making sure some entrepreneurs never bother trying.
It's a fair point thought I do think 1-3 engineers is still plenty for "most" startup products to get to MVP (not universal but general rule of thumb).
> You also need to realize just how new and unproven Lean Startup ideas are in the larger context of business. In that world, a million is just getting started. Most software products in the world took much much more than a million dollars to make. You have to pay the project managers, creative team, etc etc.
Established (and assumedly) revenue generating software is not the topic of the discussion. The comment I was referring to was that $1m is needed to make a marketable product. Its a bogus claim.
I'm well aware. I've done this many times.
> Between all of those roles you could easily chew up $1million in 1 year
You could easily chewup $100 million too. Does that mean we should go ahead and say we can't make a marketable product for $100m? Of course not. Constraints are a fact of life - whether that be time/money/whatever. The challenge is getting to market given the resources at your disposal.
> standard Silicon Valley compensation
The business in question is based is OR. Also, and I'm going to sound facetious here but I'm really not trying to be, most businesses are not based in SV.
Are you telling me that to "make a marketable product" you would need to pay 10 engineers $100k for a year?
Hell, just hire 5 engineers at $100k a year (which is expensive) and that still leaves you with a decent budget for marketing/sales/running costs.
Certainly enough to make a marketable product.
It's blatantly untrue no matter what way you cut it.
wat?
There are countless examples which disproves this (eg. Basecamp)
I spent 3 months building Hipster CEO and its made me approx $40-45k (as well as leading to other projects). Not a bad return for 3 months work.
If you're into startups and Pay Once and Play games then Hipster CEO is probably up your alley:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/hipster-ceo/id731368826?mt=8
Guess what was advertised in my feed later that day?
Note: I hadn't so much as googled Roombas before this - it was a totally off hand remark during a call.
Perhaps you had the foresight (or your parents did) to see that such qualifications would drastically decrease in social value. Others didn't. Then again, maybe you just happen to work in tech and lack empathy for those who didn't luck out in their chosen industry.
That contract has been broken. I think it was stupid to begin with but it was a message very clearly sent from generations, society, government that went before. As you say, it still is.
So does the writer have reason to be aggrieved? I think so. However, at some stage in an adults life they need to do some critical thinking and independently decide whats the optimal way to climb the pay ladder (legally).
That critical thinking is something that is simply not taught in schools. Perhaps its not teachable at all.
You do realise that it's a considerable achievement for someone from a working class background to go to third level at all, right?
No doubt the author has things better than generations before (though you do have to factor in things like increased expectations as a cost for this) but if this was the only measure then social equality would be move much slower than it is.
This will be a good thing. Students who were somewhat interested in programming (but not so much after delving into it) will have picked up some basic skills. Those who were very much interested in it will have to take less of a 'leap of faith' when it comes to a third level course.
What pain points does your platform offer that others dont?
Have you validated yet?
I'm a member of a couple of Slack teams. Some I need to be on for 1 on 1s and the group chat is handy from a social perspective.
However, I see the same red badge on the icon when tabbing between apps when theres a cat photo as when theres an important message. That isnt good.
Statistics please.