shenoyroopesh

I don't think that's the issue.

The issue is that the founders were pushed out. Lane indicates that business tanked ever since they left, which is what presumably led to a fire sale.

It's one thing if the business tanks when founders are in-charge. You can blame them for failure and say it's fair that they din't get a dime. But why did the VCs take over the reigns? It's criminal to take over from founders and then run the business into the ground, like it seems to have happened here.

Of course, that Series B happened looooooong back. There was no Series C in the following year or two years after that, which might be why investors got jittery. The timing matters - did the founders get pushed out after a decent amount of time after the Series B? Or was it right after the investment? That would tell whether the VC had some reasonable cause to get desperate or they were just trying to "screw" the founders.

I can speak in 4 languages and just about manage to converse in a fifth. There are definitely advantages to knowing more languages than one:

1. People love you if you can speak their language without forcing to search for a common language; you can build a rapport much more quickly. If you love to travel, this will definitely help!

2. Different languages force you to think in different ways. Different languages have different constructs and vocabularies/concepts not even present in English. For e.g. in Marathi/Hindi, the word "sit" can be translated in 2 different ways depending on the respect you show to the other person.

3. If you have any interest in cultural history, learning the local language will help a great deal.

Plus I think being able to think in different languages is just wonderful! I can't describe how boring it would be if I could think in only one language.

Do these translate to monetary gains? Hard to tell. Does it help me lead a more fulfilling life? Yes, I definitely think so!

Having said that, I definitely want to learn more languages. 4 is really less in India, there are plenty of people who can speak more.

Wow, 78% from Steam!

Does anyone know if there is enough demand for educational games on Steam? Worth porting from mobile?

Wow. This is just insane.

I was a bit confused initially as to how a mechanical problem can be solved by a software update, but then someone explained in one of the comments that it's about fuel-injection tables and stuff.

Incredible, but just a bit scary too.

I really hope they test that software to the hilt - I mean like NASA style, slow but steady kind of stuff. I wouldn't want to go 1 feet near the car if the quality is in the same quality vicinity as 99% other software (and that includes software that we generally consider "good quality").

Anyone knows what their software development process is to get that kind of confidence?

I think the title could have been rephrased.

It's definitely a good idea to build some financial sense from young age, helping kids figure out how budgeting works, where the money gets spent, how it all works, etc. It also works if they are able to learn why someone pays you that money in the first place - how a business makes profit because of your work, which justifies the salary (or some other value gained if it's a non-profit organisation). Finally it also makes sense to let them understand money as a means of exchanging value, rather than some magical paper that just helps buy stuff.

The earlier they learn about stuff like interest rates, debt, investments, etc. the better prepared they are to take on their life.

However, just telling kids that "hey kids, I make $xxxx" and doing nothing after that is never a great idea!

12000 defects fixed?!

OMG! One Herculean effort this must have been.

As a slack user, I think this is awesome. This is one thing that we do miss currently, a video calling facility.

I mean we can log into skype or google hangouts something else, but having it in slack would be totally cool!

I've never used Screenhero before, but going by the comments here, I wish I had!

What does "same idea" mean?

- Same problem being solved

- Same solution to the problem being solved

- Same solution to the problem with exactly same target audience and brand positioning

etc..

I hope you see what I'm getting at.

You need to look at your target customers and see if they are going to disappear - if no, then just keep working on the idea, and serve your customers well. If the space is such that the customers will use both products great. If you feel they are targeting the same segment and have already started eating your customers (and you can't offer anything to them that will take them away from that product), cut your losses and pivot - see whether you can solve the same problem differently, more elegantly, or identify a different target audience (for e.g. move from consumer market to Enterprise, or target different geographies).

Think about it as a business - wanting to survive. Don't compete for competitions sake - try to contribute the best you can. If someone else is doing a much better job than you at something, take a step back and see whether you can outdo them or it's easier to do something slightly differently.

But won't it be same if you look at percentages?

Unless you hypothise that porn users not having flash installed is somehow a larger percentage compared to average web user not having flash installed?!

"Meh!"? Really?

Apple has a product portfolio. I agree iPhones are doing much better right now in terms of growth, but I have no doubt that the completeness of their portfolio (from macs to ipads to iphones) is what keeps sales for all product categories going just a bit more.

I bought an ipad first, and then bought a macbook. The next phone I buy might be an iPhone - which I never would have, if I had not bought the iPad.

And amongst tablets, I don't understand which other tablet is better than an iPad.

For a category defining product that still sells millions of units per year, I think calling it "Meh" is just passing an opinion for journalism.

Wait - so youtube is behind the porn industry by only 4.5 years?

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/flash_takes_a_blow_as...

Flurry. Another acquisition that continues to lose money.

> I completely suck at typing on a mobile phone

So do I. That's why we still use Slack. But one of my co-founders is into sales and constantly on the go, and while travelling, sometimes the signal is flaky on his smart phone. Thats when he really cribs and tries to get us to go back to whatsapp :)

Of course, we won't move until whatsapp improves desktop experience and bridges at least some integrations, but I think it's highly possible for them to do it if they want to.

Slack is definitely an experience, if you compare it with something like hipchat.

A few of the small things I've noticed -

- Sounds are just beautiful. The pings and the clings are selected very thoughtfully. Sound is the invisible thing that generally makes a good game, great.

- The slack loading message - there are a bunch of different welcome messages that just bring a smile to your face. And they cycle through it, so you don't see the same message every time.

- The loading animation is just beautiful. I saw an update where all they did was improve the resolution for this icon on retina display

- The channels thing is awesome - it's like the IRCs. They even went ahead and added the "#" even though it's unnecessary.

- The details - the colors chosen, the fonts, even the minimalistic design in general - it's just done very, very nicely.

- The search is just awesome.

You might go "meh" on this, but these are things that the competitors are ignoring. These are things that made me fall in love with Slack when we started using it an year back. Yes administration is simple, yes they have amazing documentation. Yes, they have segmented their users well. But I think the core product is just beautiful, and that gives them a huge leg-up over their competitors even without the other places they are doing well.

> Dane Carpe, of Creswell, Ore., lost his 2008 Dodge Charger when he could not repay the $17,116 he borrowed at a 23.74 percent interest rate. Credit Carl Kiilsgaard for The New York Times

What?! 23.74%? That's nearly as bad as credit card debt. And for an auto loan?

It's one thing to pay higher interest rate for credit risk, but totally another to not understand basic financials - if you already have bad credit, you want to build up your finances, not dig a deeper hole by purchasing things you cannot afford, at interest rates you cannot afford.

A good case to improve financial literacy amongst the masses?

I think this is equivalent to money-lenders in India fleecing poor, illiterate farmers who don't even understand the interest rate they are paying.

I think everyone underestimates how much the slack team's game-dev experience with Glitch (even a failed one) would have impacted Slack's success.

There are tons of things that makes using Slack "an experience" - tiny bits of things that are not really "necessary" but just add that little bit of polish. This is gamification at it's best - when it stops being a excuse to add some points and silly badges and developers use real, practical things they generally use to build good games and apply it to non-game products.

The end result is an experience, as opposed to just "features". Hipchat doesn't get it. Neither does Hall or any other startup in this space.

Slack's only real threat, IMHO, is Whatsapp. Whatsapp has a brilliant mobile experience which works offline too - Slack is weak there and I don't know why they can't have a mobile app that works properly offline. With Whatsapp coming to desktop (although via a mobile go-through), whatsapp is suddenly a bit more usable for a team.

Now if they introduce a whatsapp API which works without having a phone number, it can rapidly make it an amazing alternative to Slack. Don't know if they will be going behind the B2B market though.

It's easy actually - once you realise that everyone new you meet has an interesting story, and that you can learn something new from pretty much everyone, you automatically start caring about them. Humbling experience actually - even the people that others sometimes term as "unambitious" or "not-very-productive" have their own priorities in life and can give you a unique perspective about things.

The difference is straight forward - Facebook "owns" Whatsapp, and the deal was paid majorly through stock, if I remember correctly, vested over a period of time.

SpaceX still has it's independence and fresh infusion of $1billion in cash. It would probably fetch much more than $10 billion if it sold out now, but I doubt Musk would want to do that.

I think one important step is to genuinely care about people and what's happening in their lives and being in interested in just knowing them, whether or not they are useful to you immediately.

Most good networkers I've seen are very much interested in people, whether or not they can be useful to them. They will speak to everyone in the social hierarchy, and remember important details about their lives. While this may not be "necessary" to gain some advantage from networking, I don't think you can do this long-term without just deriving pleasure out of just getting to know other human beings and learning from their experiences.

Hello Hackers,

A lot of entrepreneurs and business guys keep asking me "how to hire a developer, how to find out if they are good, how to make sure I get a good deal, etc.". Initially I used to think that without knowing much about software development you should not hire a developer, but now I think I was wrong and thought a lot about what might be a good way. This post is the result.

This assumes the entrepreneur has money to spend and just wants best results for their bucks. I don't have any advice for folks who don't know how to code (and don't want to learn) but also don't have money to spend so someone else can do it for them :-)

What else can I add here? Any feedback will be appreciated.

And here's a reverse-math extension. (and No funny SEO) :)

I think clicking is easier than typing.

http://reverse-math.makkajai.com

Completely agree - you always get a better deal if you are ready to walk away from the negotiation table.

This applies not only for selling a company, but even consulting gigs, job offers, partnerships, etc.

A lot of people point out here Smalltalk is not great. I personally don't know either ways, because I haven't used it.

However, I do want to point out that adoption and quality need not be correlated. Haskell, for e.g., was relatively obscure till recently (and even now I would say very few people use it). But it is absolutely amazing compared to most mainstream languages.

The article linked makes some excellent points about business and other considerations and how it influences adoption of any language/tech (other than the quality itself).

The question itself can be reframed either as "Is Smalltalk good?" or "Why does noone use Smalltalk?"

Thanks for the encouraging words.

Hi,

Thanks for the question.

We realised that getting kids excited about the game is the first step to getting them to play it. Especially when they have blockbuster options like Subway Surfer, Plants vs. Zombies, Temple run or even 100s of well-crafted indie games, it's hard to get them to play math games if they are not fun. A lot of math games are also just flash cards or questions retrofitted into normal games.

Our main aim was to bridge this gap - we wanted to build something that is just as engaging, just as fun as a real game - but also something that helps kids practice arithmetic and actually enjoy it.

The game also (non-intrusively) tracks kids' progress so parents and teachers can know exactly what skills they are struggling with.

Monster Math also includes Scaffolding - it guides kids to the right answers when they struggle, or tells them what they got wrong.

We've seen kids getting a lot faster at mentally calculating basic arithmetic problems with just a week of game play. We have not done a formal benchmarking on this yet (so I can't prove it in numbers yet), but we plan to do one soon.

And yes, this is just the beginning - we want to add lots of learning content too; something that will help us take corrective action from right within the game with explanatory animations. We've already started chalking out some of those features, and there's just so much work to be done!

:) Glad to be of help.

The name of the app are like extra keywords (outside of what is already defined in keywords). They help with search discovery.

To be honest, we are still not sure we want to keep it this way - I know the name sounds a bit spammy, but then it helps us rank better on those search-keywords (and also have more keywords outside of the name).

Do you have any experience on this trade off? I'd love to hear others' view on this.

Great question. Some of our reasons -

1. Doing some experiments on the marketing side, especially keywords, before launching everywhere. The first week/month on the app store gives a boost to keyword rankings that can be leveraged to build good traction. Unfortunately it also requires some experimenting to get them right, so this initial launch in 1-2 countries can provide that data.

2. Building some traction and credibility so that when we launch on the other app stores, we can build on that (for e.g. #1 on the Canadian App store would have a nice charm to it, if we achieve it!). This again helps with point 1 (better traction in launch week/month).

3. Ensuring Support is not overwhelmed by unforeseen issues. We have tested a lot, but never know what kind of crashes or even minor bugs might be seen in the wild. We want to be awesome at customer experience.

4. Gathering feedback in general.

Hi - I am one of the developers of Monster Math.

We've worked hard to craft this app; it combines beautiful artwork, hilarious animations, an engaging story line, and a pretty unique game play. We've play-tested it with kids from different countries, ruthlessly removing all frustrations and building an experience that makes kids smile. While doing Math!

The app is $2.99.

This is currently available in India and Canada - if you are not in these countries, please visit http://www.makkajai.com and register so we can notify you once it is available in your country.

Feedback is welcome. Thanks.

Be Awesome,

Roopesh