mcyger

Great points. There are 2+ ways to view everything. I appreciate your input! :)

I'm the founder of KnowPro, creator of the Hermione Granger math app, and writer of the blog. Thanks for your comments.

I agree that my simple app will not help my daughter appreciate the beauty of math. I'm an engineer and I think I've nearly seen the beauty myself, but in the end I'm afraid that finals scared it away.

I'd love to help my daughter attain what has alluded me all these years, but the rote mathematical drills of simple addition are not where she's going to find it. I can only hope that she spends more time practicing and masters these basic skills sooner. That was my intention with this simple app.

Your comments are spot on with many parents. I think many defer their parental responsibilities to the PBS channel on TV or to teachers at school or in their religious organization. I, however, beam when I see how happy my daughter is playing the game, and I cannot wait until she comes home from school so we can play the game together (or more precisely, I can watch her while she plays). I think there's nothing more important than spending time with kids for their development.

It sounds like you and your father had some special times that remain memorable to this date. I hope that every child and parent could share such an experience.

Thanks for your comments. They made me think.

In order to execute a strategy, you need tactics. In order to execute tactics, you need a to-do list.

Go build a cross platform mobile device game. There is a whole industry around game development and tons of new "physical" games are invented each year. Take one of those ideas and port it to tens of millions of customers with a cool UI and experience. Then tie it into the social online world. Partnering with a game developer should be pretty easy as they probably aren't expecting to be the next Monopoly, but instead do it for love.

Their website is down.

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It's like a StackOverflow, but for SEO and SEM.

I would have loved to see the new website design while I was eating lunch today, but it crashed my iPad Safari browser -- TWICE!

The first time I visited the site, my browser crashed. I didn't think much of it. Hey, things crash. I started Safari back up and I was still on the 37 blogs site (where I was before the crash, when I clicked on the 37 Signals link). Cool, I thought. Safari remembered my place and all my other windows were saved too.

But the second time I clicked through to visit 37 Signals Safari crashed and lost all of my other window information. That's a bummer because I still had some stories I wanted to read.

37 Signals, please test on an iPad.

Calacanis was quotes in the article:

@arrington told me he wouldn't sell @TechCrunch for <than $40M last year.TC has ~$6m in revenue/~$1.5m in profits (all TC50!)

If this is true, and TC sold for $30MM, that would be a 20x multiple based on EBITDA. I seriously doubt that AOL paid 20x for an online magazine and in-person conference. That is way above the norms for this type of sale, based on the data I have (I am in publishing; go to http://www.jegi.com and look at their industry reports). In order to justify that type of sale, they would have to have a non-reproducible advantage over competitors but I see none. Either TC had a phenomenal sale, the numbers are wrong, or AOL isn't being responsible with their investor money.

Just my 2 cents.

Great overview. If I sold on Etsy, I would be more confident that they are proactively striving to reach 100% uptime and quickly addressing actual downtime.

I love the structure of their problem solving references: root cause analysis, time line of event post mortem, single point of failure. And, of course, the fact that they actively measure the real customer experience from multiple places around the world. Customers may not realize it's a local infrastructure problem when they go to Etsy so being able to proactively find and address these issues makes for fewer customer support calls and more satisfied customers.

Kudos to Etsy for the post.

I've purchased quite a few by contacting the owner.

Always specify the domian name and make your outreach email as professional and formal as possible. I never include an actual offer so I can at least get them to reply (if you offer too little, they may not even reply). I never discuss the reason for purchase. The first email is only to determine their interest and start the dialogue.

If they fail to respond in a week (it takes time), I call the phone number listed on the whois record and try the personal touch.

Very cool idea. I will definitely start using it on my iPhone.

Regarding security, you are proxying login credentials through your server. Is that correct? I'd suggest putting up information regarding your privacy policy, if you store any credentials information and the security of your server(s).

Just to provide a balanced viewpoint: I've worked in corporate America (Fortune 5 company), dealt with banality and bureaucracy, banged my head against the wall over and over again, left, started my own company, grew it to millions, sold it, semi-retired. I love startups and the details of this blog, however, when you want to see your kids, sleep in the same bed as your wife, and have a paycheck deposited in your bank account every other Friday, there's nothing better than working for an established company.

I thought the difficulty the author stated related to OAuth and desktop apps was the reason Twitter launched XAuth?

I'll give anyone working with me any title they want, including CEO, just as long as they do everything within their power -- and stretch out of their zone -- to accomplish work and move the company forward.

Would anyone miss "the edits" if they simply vanished tomorrow, like Geocities?

This is a poorly titled article, very typical of Inc. Magazine. It should more properly have been titled "The Truth About Your Company's Biggest Cost Center" or "How to Turn Cost into Profit". When someone refers to "Real Estate", it usually implies ownership and 37sig does not own any real estate. (One owns real estate and rents/leases space.)

The remainder of the article had good advice and was well written.

Simplicity is a sign of a well-run organization. You ever heard the line, "I don't lie because I have a terrible memory"? If you have 15 different price plans, you now need to maintain documentation, train customer service reps, detail tiered specs in a computer system, update all of the information, etc. You get the idea. Complexity leads to higher costs.

If they offer one (or a few) options with consistent service and pricing, they will do them better with higher consistency and quality.

Makes me think of In 'N Out Burger...getting hungry. :)

I married my co-founder. Five years later, when we were both working at GE Capital, we started a side business that grew rapidly. Having my wife as a co-founder was the best of all worlds...I wanted to not only share my life with her, but all the minor and major ups and downs of the startup too.

(Now that we're preparing for our 3rd child -- due in 2months -- I'm not sure which has more ups and downs, kids or the startup!)