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markfer

49 karma · joined January 27, 2016

Sales enthusiast and CEO at Recapped.io, the platform for collaborating with customers
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markfer··on Baserow.io – Self-hosted Airtable alternative
That's ridiculous. Collaborating with clients should almost always be free.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of collaboration are you doing with clients? I'm the CEO of a platform specifically for businesses and their clients, and we loosely compete with Airtable.

markfer··on Show HN: YC's startup advice, organized and searchable
Whoa, this is great. Thanks for putting this together!

Could you do something similar to PG's and Sam Altmans essays?

markfer··on Can we all stop using Medium now?
Any tips on replicating the same results? Would love to hear more
markfer··on Ask HN: Move to SF or Start a Lifestyle Biz?
This is the exact advice I was going to give.

- Take the job in SF, you'll be a couple hour drive from LA

- Start working on a lifestyle business immediately

- Once you reach some initial traction (whenever that is) move to LA

markfer··on Ask HN: How to bootstrap my own business?
- Strip away 80% of the B2C website and launch an MVP in 2 months (if you can't, maybe create a B2B solution instead?)

- Try lining up contract work before taking the plunge. It's a new skillset and you may find that you can't sell yourself (or, don't like selling)

- You can always find more time. Spend family time and then code into the late hours?

- Honestly, you sound like you're just making a lot of excuses. Either do or don't. It's up to you.

markfer··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (November 2018)
SEEKING FREELANCER | New York, NYC | Remote or onsite okay

Looking for an somewhat-experienced freelancer to make constant updates to SaaS wweb app built in Elixir/Phoenix, Postgres, and React (built using brunch).

Work will include integrations (Zapier, Filestack, Google drive, etc) , implementing product features, and overall product improvements (UX, UI, etc).

Bootstrapped business with high recent growth, so won't be able to afford high-priced consultants, but open to creative solutions.

Also, potentially interested in bringing on a CTO through equity (until revenue/seed raise can support in 1-3 months). Would have to be NYC.

Inquire within - mark@recapped.io

markfer··on Ask HN: Founders, how did you balance between increasing users and revenue?
Most successful SaaS companies operate on a payback period of less than 1 year. Aka spend $100 today, and you'll get $100 from the customer within 10-12 months. After that, it's all profit, which works out really well if your churn is low and users stick around for 48 months.
markfer··on Show HN: App Academy Open – Free Online Coding Bootcamp
As someone that's very familiar with App Academy - this is incredible.
markfer··on Ask HN: I want to charge $50 for some service. Should I set the price to $4X.XX?
That's such a minute chance of happening, it shouldn't be a concern in the slightest
markfer··on Share your startup – October 2018
- Recapped.io (https://www.recapped.io)

- Go from Sales Proposal to Project Management in one dynamic page

- Launched and post-revenue (just applied to YC)

- AppSumo featured us yesterday as the next deal (https://appsumo.com/recapped/), and it's been crazy hectic. Amazing feedback and revenue so far though.

markfer··on Did I just waste 3 years?
I went through a similar situation when I created an Indie game studio with friends. We worked for a year and made a cool $5,000 but it was a "failure" by all sense of the word. We learned a lot and had a ton of fun. Some feedback:

Your website is god awful. Seriously.

The copy doesn't excite anyone to play the game

You make the user jump through hoops to play - if you already are writing it off, make it free to play in-browser without Steam (you want traction at all costs right?)

What did you learn?

Did you have friends or a community playing it as you worked on it? If you didn't, then you really need to look at the Lean Methodology

markfer··on Ask HN: Who got on to Startup School?
Rejected at first and then accepted into Advisor Track with www.recapped.io. I quit my full-time job about 6 months ago to focus fully on this venture.
markfer··on Ask HN: What's it like to live in San Francisco?
Background:

Born in Russia, grew up in NC, live in SF currently, moving to NYC next week. Incredibly excited to leave SF, to say the least.

The good:

Innovation and energy everywhere. You can feel it in the air, especially since every billboard in SoMa is a tech startup.

I've met some of the smartest people in my life here, and have been really lucky to work on some exciting projects.

Neighborhoods are VERY divided and have their own feel, almost like separate cities.

Decent amount of high quality restaurants.

Availability to high paying jobs

The bad:

HBO's Silicon Valley no longer becomes funny, it's just a documentary at this point.

The homeless - they're everywhere and feel empowered to be aggressive on a scale I've never seen. I live in Nob Hill, and have been in a few altercations (though very much not the case when I was in the Marina).

Dating pool for a hetero male is meh at best. Most bars are filled with 75-90% guys, with few exceptions in the Marina.

Tech is everywhere - at first this was a good thing, but now it's unbearable.

Everyone seems to be incredibly sensitive and emotionally charged.

Weather isn't as good as SoCal, and is pretty "eh" majority of the time.

Expensive af.

TLDR:

Amazing career opportunity for young/mid-20's for a few years. You'll meet great people, work on exciting stuff, and raise your income level. Leave after a few years.

Feel free to ask more

markfer··on Ask HN: We launched 2wks ago and just hit $700 MRR. Should we chase funding?
What's the product?
markfer··on Ask HN: Why don't more entrepreneurs focus on lifestyle businesses?
Go raise that round!
markfer··on Ask HN: Why don't more entrepreneurs focus on lifestyle businesses?
That's exactly what we're doing. The problem is, those aren't generally exciting stories to print.

"Ex-google 20 year old founder raises $73 million Series A to build Uber for Cats" would raise eyebrows and gain clicks.

[1] https://www.recapped.io

markfer··on Ask HN: Show your startup
I'm the founder of https://www.recapped.io, a collaboration platform between buyers and sellers.

You can streamline the entire sales process (or freelancing/contracting negotiation) with an evolving page that guides buyers.

markfer··on Confidence: how to build the most important life skill
Hey everyone, author here. Hope you enjoy!
markfer··on Ask HN: Examples of great landing pages?
I imagine it's okay to share our own - we've gone through lots of iterations for ours at https://www.recapped.io.

There are a lot of improvements that can be made (as with most sites), but we're pretty happy and get a lot of compliments.

markfer··on The original pitch for Diablo (1994) [pdf]
Thanks for posting this. Anyone know if you can play a modern update to this on Mac?
markfer··on Ask HN: Successful examples of Productized Services?
I love it. Any chance for a HN discount? ;)
markfer··on Ask HN: What stack you use to build websites?
For someone looking to learn to code web-app's from scratch, would you advise Django over Vanilla JS, Node, or Vue?
markfer··on UX review of your SaaS landingpage
This is great - messaged.
markfer··on Ask HN: Washing out, and what to do next
Sure. Usually for sales you enter in as an entry level role, and then progress based on attainment and success. After a few years it's easily possible to be a Manager, Senior Manager, or even a Director (if you're amazing).

I actually provide one-on-one consulting for tech freelancers and founders, if you're interested.

[1] www.sellsomemore.com

markfer··on Ask HN: Washing out, and what to do next
You should look into Sales. Incredibly high earning potential, and one of the few industries where higher education doesn't matter. Feel free to PM if I can help at all.
markfer··on Ask HN: Is conversational landing pages a new trend?
Similar vein to my startup actually, but we're more aimed at sales reps & teams [1] www.recapped.io
markfer··on Ask HN: Solo founder and MVP. New co-founder equity split?
For what it's worth, I do weekly consulting and coaching with founders who don't have sales experience. If you're interested, we can talk a bit further.
markfer··on How to sell a $300 chocolate bar
Love Videri! Used to work across the street, they used to host great wine and chocolate happy hours.
markfer··on Tell HN: Atrium Academy – free fundraising bootcamp March 24-25
Any alumni here? Would love to get a referral if possible
markfer··on Ask HN: What do you wear to work?
I imagine he meant it to be more lighthearted than it came off, and wouldn't read much into it.

No dress code = dress how you like. If you like to dress up in slacks and a dress shirt, then so be it.

Don't change your preferences for the CEO. Be confident and stand behind your convictions. If he doesn't respect that - you're going to have muuuuch bigger problems.

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