35 karma · joined April 25, 2019
As others have pointed out, this is, as far as I've seen in the last decade, a very conservative industry in terms of taking risks and trying new things. Some companies build an excessive amount of infrastructure for these operations internally, some go entirely with legacy off-the-shelf stuff (think SAP, NetSuite/Oracle, etc), and some go with a blend of the above. I've seen little traction with modern software, but this is likely a byproduct of my only having seen some small number of companies' operations.
There are a number of companies trying to innovate in the space in a variety of ways, but here are some modern manufacturing ERP companies: - https://fulcrumpro.com/ - https://tulip.co/ - https://oden.io/ - https://www.machinemetrics.com/
There was a facetious comment that was flagged discussing that, as a HN user who certainly makes $XXX XXX, you can't be having a hard time. It is interesting, though, that even folks on HN (who I think it's fair to assume skew towards the higher end of the income distribution?) are also having a hard time.
Note that I mean interesting in the worst way. I hear these stories from folks of all walks of life in the non-metropolitan region that I live in, and I've generally just chalked it up to not knowing the upper-class folks (the ones making $240K writing client-side TS at MANGA). I suppose I'll now read about these same struggles of affording, affording kids, planning to retire, and so on here on HN.
Curious if the sharding strategy that you were shifting to was company-based, as is implemented in this case?
Anecdotally: -drama clubs/local theatre productions -run clubs: while running is typically fairly isolated, there are social run clubs in cities that often go for a drink (no booze necessary) post-run -book clubs: random collections of people that discuss a book together -dinner clubs: sharing food with folks in a way where different people cook for others in turn -partying: most places have a community of folks that enjoy dancing and/or recreationals
Note that I believe that the strong relationships can come from overcoming a shared struggle, so if you can think of something that's difficult and with one or more other person/people, you will probably form a community around it over time (co-founders and cohorts are a great example).
Now I'm just curious what you have in mind in terms of next steps, as you've done the technically hard part, and there are so many market options available.
Overall, I feel that our codebase is well-documented, but our product and projects could use better documentation to help new team members and people seeing a segment of the product for the first time in a while. I'm unsure as to where this should live, however.
That being said, the path to monetization seems hairy (competitive market with many free options, the previously mentioned fact that Gatsby's overall goal is to generate portable files). Is there any way that this is some bizarre VC effort to fund open source or do something nice? Or is that excessively wishful thinking?
I'm very good at conversational speaking, and I think that it mostly comes from listening to a ton of podcasts. This has helped me gain curiosity across a wide range of topics, but has also helped me learn how to dig into those topics via conversation. For this, pick topics you're interested in (perhaps some in fields that you're not fully interested in yet, to broaden your ability to converse across domains!). Also, while listening, look for traits that you admire in conversationalists, and try to practice them when speaking with others (this is a similar approach that can be used to learning anything, really).
As for public speaking, from what I've heard, Toastmasters is as good as it gets. They provide a learning and training environment. Then it's up to you to try it out "in production" (at work, weddings, etc).
Remember that it's a learning experience, and it will only get better with time via analysis, practice, and persistence!