porter

"85% of the value is from cash flows very far into the future. One of the thing we always overvalue in silicon valley is growth rates, and we undervalue durability.”

Startups != growth.

This looks like baremetrics and bestunning.net combined. Sort of nice to have those two things integrated for what looks to be about half the price. Not sure it'll last though after baremetrics secured an investment from stripe itself. I also found out about baremetrics after emailing stripe (they recommended it). Hard to compete with that without some compelling differentiation.

Start getting paid upfront.

Once you have an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you, and a product they want, then most of the "bucks" made are pretty easy at the margin.

29doors.com - they will setup a semi-custom WordPress site for under $500 that you'll own. Mention this comment and you'll get a discount.

So you got about 1,200 sales out of a list of 3,000 subscribers? Would you mind sharing your exact conversion rate (total # of sales/total # of subscribers) that made you $60k in revenue from this book?

Cool, I appreciate the transparency. What sort of conversion rate do you get on a course launch?

At first I thought it was just a prettier, easier to use version of Excel. Then you showed me the filtering and I had an "Aha" moment. Excel is quick and easy, but it's hard to ask questions about your data. Databases make it easy to ask questions, but it's not quick and easy. You guys seem to have taken the best of both worlds, added in some super simple short-cuts, and there's a mobile app to boot. Kudos!

First of all, what an awesome comment. Thanks so much for all this insight Nathan.

Out of your 420,000 or so visitors over the last year, how many converted into your email list?

Also, when you launch a product to your email list, what sort of conversion rate (subscribers to sales) do you get?

I guess all the people downvoting this are from other incubators. Not sure why this is being downvoted.

Ycombinator leading the way once again. Looking forward to this!

What would you use for a physical goods company?

I quit a good banking job after making it through the recession and several rounds of layoffs. My friends thought I was nuts. I had friends take me out to lunch and tell me most people were looking for jobs, not quitting them. But I didn't quit just because I was dissatisfied. At the heart of it, I just felt like a caged animal and I knew I had to break free.

I used to encourage everyone I know to quit their job and start a company. Now, after having done just that, I no longer recommend this path. Not because I regret doing it. In fact, I think it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. But the road is, as the article says, about as romantic as "chewing glass."

Sure, there are wonderful days when things are working even better than I had planned. But then there are also the regular sleepless nights where I wake up puking, just from the stress. And it's been like this for years. It's a great path for the right person, but if you need someone to talk you into starting a business, then you're probably not cut out to be an entrepreneur. Owning a business isn't all it's chalked up to be. Turns out it ends up owning you. And yet, there's an amazing satisfaction that comes from entrepreneurship that you just can't get by working for someone else.

YC leading the pack of incubator followers yet again. Excited to watch this!

If you can show me how your kool-aid will help me or why your kool-aid matters to anybody, then yes, I'd be happy to buy your kool-aid. Welcome to capitalism.

My god man, this guy just put everything he knows about startups into a book. Years of hard-earned experience wrapped up in a neat little package just for you. And all for only $30. If you get just one insight out of this book it will pay for itself a thousand times over. Stop complaining about the price and just buy it.

so I guess 15 year olds get an unfair advantage regardless of what they've achieved.

But Peter says competition is for losers!

Where does evernote fall short for you?

Is 0.1% realistic (or average) for an employee? What are typical equity ranges for employees?

To me it seems odd that the goal of an accelerator is to get a startup funded. This just perpetuates short-term pressure to get a company sold within a 7-10 year window so investors can achieve their IRR projections and get another round from their LPs.

Maybe there needs to be an accelerator that focuses on creating singles or doubles rather than homeruns. If the end goal was to build a sustainable and profitable business that took a long-term view, then perhaps this would be better for the entrepreneurs themselves, who are after all, the heroes in the story.

how much equity does the average early employee get? How about the average late employee? What about for a company like twitch, that just exited?

I left banking to start and run a software business. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Python. Just pick it and move on.

another perpetual motion machine?

Are those two actual startups, or more like two mirco "startups"? In other words, are you trying to get both of these startups to grow massively fast, or are these just businesses to cover your living expenses?

Is there a list of interesting/useful non-hobby projects made with this? Or even something similar to this?

What happened after the deadline? Did you pitch it in front of everyone? Or did all the teams just get to experience the joy of building something with tight deadlines?

I got one of these 2 months ago. It worked perfectly out of the box, but when I updated everything the trackpad stopped working. I went back and forth with the Dell Ubuntu team until they figured it out. It took a while, but the Ubuntu support team over there is awesome. Overall the machine is great. The touchpad screen is odd since it will never be used. Otherwise it does what I need it to.

On a side note, I bought a macbook pro at the same time I got this Dell XPS13. The Macbook pro is amazing compared to ubuntu.