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mkull

309 karma · joined February 21, 2007

contact: matt -AT- revzilla.com
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mkull··on xAI joins SpaceX
Why would you transfer the energy to earth? The energy powers ai compute = $
mkull··on xAI joins SpaceX
So the whole space based data center thing is just a gimmick?
mkull··on Reddit Doubles Down
100% ceo ego driving poor, unsophisticated, and non strategic decisions. This could have been handled so much better. Evidence that he is not the right leader to be ceo
mkull··on From Node to Ruby on Rails
That sounds fucking complicated
mkull··on Amazon, Apple and Google Cut Off Parler
Gallows were setup outside, multiple pipebombs found, many carrying guns, molotov cocktails found.

Does this look like a buncb of people dancing around?

https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U

mkull··on Amazon, Apple and Google Cut Off Parler
Way to belittle what actually happened

https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U

We are lucky more didnt die

mkull··on Surgeon Atul Gawande selected as CEO of new health care company from Amazon
I think you are confusing CEO with COO.

CEO typically is providing vision, mission & strategic direction while the executive team he builds is more execution oriented.

mkull··on Facebook acquires Oculus VR
What does that mean?
mkull··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2013)
Philadelphia, PA - (Full-Time) RevZilla - http://www.revzilla.com

RevZilla is a 5 year old technology driven retailer of motorcycle gear and accessories changing the way business is done in the 1.5bn Powersports parts, accessories & apparel market.

- Web Developer (Ruby / Rails)

- Web Designer

See all job postings at http://www.revzilla.com/jobs or email us at jobs@revzilla.com

mkull··on Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice
Yep, the hope is that our firm does not have to spend lots of time spinning their wheels getting up to speed on this just to give us some basic advice, but I fear they will need that.

If there was a firm specifically geared to dealing with IP patent trolling that would be ideal.

mkull··on Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice
Unfortunately no, guided search / faceted navigation is core to our customer experience.
mkull··on No, quantum entanglement does not allow you to communicate faster than light
tldr
mkull··on Tanking the YC interview, some lessons learned
I love your idea, this is a personal pain point I have been trying to solve. I am a busy successful startup founder who eats crap takeout food constantly but would pay a premium for a quality personal chef service that could be easily managed and customized. I have worked with several chef services in the past but the lack of web based system to manage it made it too cumbersome.

Please continue forward and make this successful so I can be a customer.

I was rejected by YC once as well (round one in 05!). But moved forward and we have 'made it'.

Feel free to drop me a line if you want to chat as your idea is something I have spent some time thinking about (and I have some personal chef connections in Philadelphia who might be willing to pilot it!). Check my profile for contact info

mkull··on Ban email archives thrown open in devastating financial crash report
According to this list the top donor was University of Calif at 1.6MM - http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&...

$994,795 seems like a pitifully small number on the scale of Goldman Sachs & government donations - but I would think this is a drop in the bucket. I don't buy that ~1MM buys the administration. Wouldn't it be more likely this amount was donated simply by Goldman employees acting independently? If the amount was $100MM then yeah, I think you have a case for the conspiracy theory.

It is also tough for me to believe that $80,000 buys the chief of staff.

Am I off-base?

mkull··on Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (April 2011)
Philadelphia, PA - Senior Software Engineer

RevZilla.com - http://www.revzilla.com/senior-software-engineer

We are currently looking for a talented developer with Ruby / Rails experience to help with the roll-out of eCommerce related functionality for RevZilla.com

RevZilla.com is 4 years old. It was bootstrapped and profitable with 90 days. Founded by software developers, we lead with technology & customer experience. We strive to be the Zappos of the powersports (26 bn) market.

mkull··on Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.
We post when we have relevant content, which typically is a mix of new products / sales (we are eCommerce) as well as 'interesting' on topic content (funny videos, blog posts, etc from across the web). We also run contents like 'caption this picture' which are very popular

We see a good amount of likes and comments back and forth amongst the customer base, and as mentioned before it drives traffic to our website as well and keeps our 'brand' top of mind.

mkull··on Facebook pages are worthless for your startup. Go where the early adopters are.
Be careful here, you are talking in absolutes.

If you are b2c you should definitely take a close look at facebook as a part of your marketing strategy. No, not for your friends / family but so you can pay for targeted facebooks ads to show to your potential customers to get them to like your page.

My startup now has over 35,000 'likes' on our facebook page, all in our target demo / market. This is huge. We now have a captive audience we can market to. I would put this just as high as building an email list and consistently marketing to that list.

YES it drives revenue, and more importantly awareness.

mkull··on Permanently opt your browser out of online ad personalization via cookies
So ad-personalization is bad because?

I would much rather see personalized and relevant advertising then random garbage.

mkull··on FaxFresh: Easy Online Fax
At $5 per fax I believe they have priced themselves out.

Not sure what this service buys me, typically the only time i have to send a fax is because I am sending a form that requires a signature and the company prefers to receive a fax. So regardless I have to either scan the document then upload it for faxfresh to send or I can just simply scan+fax in one step. Is this supposed to be for people that do not have a fax machine (or a printer that can print+fax)?

mkull··on WakeMates are ready
I'm looking at the blog (in chrome) and definitely am not seeing a link to the homepage. I came to the comment section to make the same suggestion jasonkester already made (I manually went to www.wakemates.com to find out what the heck it was)
mkull··on Humble Bundle #2 Breaches $900k, On Way To $1M USD
OT but those kontera in-text ads are absolutely horrible. They are like land minds spread throughout the article making it just about unreadable (I tend to mouse over the text I am currently reading)
mkull··on After months of work I've launched my startup. Any critiques?
What does the Dropjobs widget look like? Slightly annoying to sign up, see widget code, but still not seeing any examples of what the actual widget looks like (and the customizing options!)
mkull··on After months of work I've launched my startup. Any critiques?
minor note: Title tag should be "Keywords Go Here - Dropjobs" for maximum SEO benefit, of course it could potentially be more usable to have "Dropjobs" be the first word in the page title. Typically in my experience the SEO boost was more valuable.
mkull··on DHH Commissions his own Supercar - the Pagani Zonda HH
looks pretty damn awesome to me
mkull··on My short history of Engine Yard and my Resignation
Check out shopify.com. Their entire service is built on rails.
mkull··on Ask YC: How to hire a good virtual assistant for a startup?
HR, scheduling, to name a couple
mkull··on How I Almost Got Acquired By Apple And Then Snubbed
IMO you were extremely lucky to get any response whatsoever. If I am Patrick I would have quickly dumped you in the pester / annoyance category. Bringing Steve jobs into the mix the second time was fatal, regardless of time frame this is not something to bother him with.
mkull··on Google Checkout Nightmare and the $126,000 phone call
Hey tibbon, did not find see an email in your profile. Filling out the form at http://www.revzilla.com/customer-service will get to me though ;)

What you are looking is really tough. We are working on simply being able to browse products by fitment.

Unbelievably none of the part fitment data is readily available in a normalized fashion. There actually isn't even a standardized list of makes / models out there. Each retailer has to essentially build this database and keep it up to date manually, which is incredibly resource intensive.

Of course though this means there is opportunity to have because once you have built out this database, there is some defensibility built in.

mkull··on Google Checkout Nightmare and the $126,000 phone call
Hey Tibbon, unfortunately the motorcycle industry is about a decade and a half behind the rest of the eCommerce world ;)

We are working on changing that.

You wouldn't believe how hard the suppliers make it to get real inventory and catalog data.

Check out my business, linked in my profile.

mkull··on Google Checkout Nightmare and the $126,000 phone call
Yep, Google Checkout is definitely the wrong choice for this business model. It is extremely unfriendly if you are not shipping within a week of an order being placed.
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