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mmmmax

240 karma · joined June 22, 2010

Co-Founder at Instacart
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mmmmax··on WLED Project
This is an amazing project and if you like WLED you’ll also like Pixelblaze which is full-stack including a coding interface: https://electromage.com/pixelblaze
mmmmax··on The 2018 Seed Stage Reset
Another interesting new trend I’ve seen a few times recently: second-time founders who are not raising at all! Instead they are choosing to bootstrap to Series A or, use their profitability to defer raising inevitably.
mmmmax··on Instacart Closes Latest Funding Round at $3.4B Valuation
Hey, I co-founded Instacart and can offer some thoughts on this.

In most cases we are helping retailers create a new delivery experience for their customers, not replacing one that exists. It's actually quite complicated to operate our business and there are economies of scale that retailers benefit from by being part of a marketplace.

Also, when we talk to our customers about why they use Instacart, many of them do need groceries urgently, which is one of the reasons they use Instacart over alternatives. Most orders are delivered within 1-3 hours of being placed.

mmmmax··on Introducing Initialized Capital
Garry, this is a big fund. What can you do for founders with a large fund that you can't do with a small one?
mmmmax··on Why, after a year with Adobe EchoSign, I’m taking my business elsewhere
Same here -- never had a problem with the product or customer service
mmmmax··on Google Adds Song Lyrics to Top of Search Results,Points Searchers to Google Play
This article is from 3 months ago!
mmmmax··on T – a command-line power tool for Twitter
I once did a design for this idea. Here!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r2v6nq69jk9rw6s/birdcatcher.png?dl...

mmmmax··on Grocery Delivery Service Instacart (YC S12) Raises $44M
Faster delivery

Bigger selection

Speak directly with your shopper

mmmmax··on Let Me Google That For You Act
TL;DR: This bill attempts to disband The National Technical Information Service (NTIS), which collects and sells information and research. The bill asserts that the agency is no longer important, since you can basically just Google it now.
mmmmax··on Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin
I just did it...it was amazing! I'd prefer to keep a balance alive for longer.
mmmmax··on Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin
You need to send an email with the barcode and 25 minutes after that sweep the funds back...I've tried to use this twice and not seen my code.

Update: refreshing the page seems to help

Update 2: I just used my code and it worked great! Nice work guys!

mmmmax··on What "viable search engine competition" really looks like
Can someone who has the page loaded add a mirror or link to a cached version?
mmmmax··on Amazon Ramps Up $13.9 Billion Warehouse Building Spree
We don't operate out of big warehouses, so we don't have these costs. It's a totally different model.
mmmmax··on Instacart Launches Costco
Send your zip code to us and we'll see what we can do!
mmmmax··on Instacart: We're Sorry
What happened is that we made a mistake querying for the email addresses, causing us to miss a group of the first people to sign up for Instacart Express. This skewed heavily towards HN members. We knew a few people had been missed (because they emailed us after seeing the charge, and said they didn't get an email) but not why or how many.
mmmmax··on I'm disappointed by Instacart
Actually, no one paid for Instacart Express until March, 2013. And when we made changes to the plan, we intended to notify everyone first and give them time to decide whether to continue or cancel.
mmmmax··on I'm disappointed by Instacart
That's actually really good advice. At Instacart we try to go out of our way to make sure our customer experience is top notch. Giving people what they ask for is always the best way to do that.
mmmmax··on Instacart launches Shop With Friends
That is very kind.
mmmmax··on Why First Round Capital funded a lawsuit
There are lots of companies focused on "electronic discovery". It's a very lucrative market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_discovery

mmmmax··on Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone
Hey, I just backed Lockitron, question:

Will Sense work with multiple phones at a time?

mmmmax··on Startup = Growth
If this essay had an abstract, this would be it:

"If you want to understand startups, understand growth. Growth drives everything in this world. Growth is why startups usually work on technology—because ideas for fast growing companies are so rare that the best way to find new ones is to discover those recently made viable by change, and technology is the best source of rapid change. Growth is why it's a rational choice economically for so many founders to try starting a startup: growth makes the successful companies so valuable that the expected value is high even though the risk is too. Growth is why VCs want to invest in startups: not just because the returns are high but also because generating returns from capital gains is easier to manage than generating returns from dividends. Growth explains why the most successful startups take VC money even if they don't need to: it lets them choose their growth rate. And growth explains why successful startups almost invariably get acquisition offers. To acquirers a fast-growing company is not merely valuable but dangerous too."

mmmmax··on iPhone 5 web teardown: How Apple compresses video using JPEG, JSON, and canvas
Keep in mind that Apple outsources a lot of this front-end work to their agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day Media Arts Lab. As a services firm they have less incentive to use standards created by Apple, though I think they do really great work.
mmmmax··on Show HN: Authpad - Elegant way to publish
Really cool. UX-wise, I think you're missing a message that says: "That username is already taken. If it's your account, please login."
mmmmax··on Instacart (YC S12) wants to be Amazon with 1 hour delivery
I remember Kozmo.com! The big difference now: Smartphones
mmmmax··on ShowHN: We built this so you can send a mixtape to someone you like
Where do you get the audio data from?
mmmmax··on Take my money, HBO
Love it. Pre-fill the field with hint text like "10" and you will increase the number of tweets posted.
mmmmax··on Show HN: Clutch.io helps you build iOS apps fast and update them instantly
This is f-ing awesome, nice work. How long have you been working on it?
mmmmax··on You've Probably Read Enough
Does anyone else see the irony here?
mmmmax··on How Doctors Die
Cached version: http://max.mu/uvwxRf
mmmmax··on WordPress Launches Google Adsense Alternative, WordAds
I love WordPress but I will take bets on how long it takes them to change the name, given the obvious competing trademark: AdWords.
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