perfect_loop

I highly doubt that Google will be beaten at Web search for consumers. They own a browser, OS, partnerships,... fully vertically-integrated. Pretty much impossible to compete with them with a web search product.

It's usually the product with the smallest set of features that can show whether there is going to be traction with the offering.

There are many people in the SEO industry that provide genuinely good advice e.g. Rand Fishkin. I've been following some for years and it has helped with our rankings...

There is plenty of software to monitor your kids' activity online. One thing that is sometimes overlooked is watching out for cyber-bullying. Contrary to what many think, this is usually caused by classmates from the offline world and is spread using anonymous apps or messaging apps, especially Snapchat.

I'm a conservative in SV. I don't feel lonely, necessarily, but I do believe that my political views may not be favorable. And, honestly, I don't really see a point in arguing over politics with my co-workers, so it doesn't really bother me or make me lonely.

I don't blame you. It's super hard to balance vision and market pull.

This is a recipe for disaster.

My wife is a UX designer. I told her about your project, will let you know here how she likes it :)

Thanks Josh, I will email you when our company is officially shut down. I may have an experience or two that might be helpful to others...

tbh I have mixed feelings about the situation. I knew from the beginning that the risks were high and truly pushed hard and tried to make it work; that gives me a lot of comfort. On the other hand I made mistakes too, especially in the earlier days, being young and unexperienced...

Thank you so much! I will contact you the moment our company is officially shutdown (for various reasons and considerations regarding our users).

Tbh I enjoy building new technologies, that hasn't changed at all. That's why I'd rather get into the startup world again, which many people think is crazy after 7 years lol

Thank you very much, Tom.

I think I read your blog post many years ago about your situation, it's really great to see that you're doing well. Thanks again for all the great advice.

Thank you everybody for all the amazing advice, truly appreciate it. Some people have asked about my skill set. Aside from all the crazy business stuff I had to learn along the way, I was mostly focused on the product, which was a general-purpose optimizer for open source relational databases. I was in charge of high-level design and architecture and my 3 employees were the ones writing the actual code. But again, due to the nature of the product I was very much reading a lot of CS papers and books and the like.

I wouldn't call myself the best coder and to be honest I don't think I'd pass the FAANG puzzle interviews without some serious preparation. But I think I've amassed a lot of architecture and product design experience (along with debt lol) in the past 7 years.

There were also questions about my mental state. It was an extremely tough few years with lots of ups and downs and more than a few crying nights! but I haven't burned out. Oddly enough, I'm still excited about the startup world which is a surprise to a lot of people around me.

That's true, thank you very much.

That's great advice. Thanks a lot :)

Thanks a lot! The book looks great will order right away :)

I'm financially ruined at this point so a move to bay area would be a little difficult for me. Oddly enough, I'm still passionate about startups so this might actually work for me if I can find a way to finance it!

Thanks a lot for the tips. Unfortunately, credits from my school expire after 5 years, so I'd have to start from the beginning and to be fully honest I really don't think I'd benefit from the material anymore as me and my team were grappling with pretty hard CS problems for the past 5 years that truly pushed me to learn and internalize a lot of CS.

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