travelhead

Thank you. I hope that’s the case but I’ve escalated the issue for the last month with no follow-up from Amazon.

I will look into this approach, I wasn’t aware DMCA works on Amazon listings.

Agreed! I would love to take this to court against Amazon if any HN lawyer’s that would like to help!

Exactly! Amazon is profiting by having more listings compete which drives down the price. They are pricing their listing way lower than my listing.

This isn’t just a knock-off, this is a company who stole all my branded imagery which I paid thousands for photoshoots. They stole our copy as well. I understand this is part of business, what I don’t understand is how Amazon is allowing this to happen.

You make good points. I just bought a Model S and the autopilot needs A LOT of work. By focusing on adding Netflix and more games, it makes it seem like Tesla does not care as much about autopilot (besides Summon).

Some things to check out:

1) is your site running pop ups of any kind?

2) is your site and links all SSL?

3) do you use or link to any affiliate tracking solutions like Cake, HasOffers, etc?

4) do you use any back button redirection scripts or other types of scripts which google might consider malware or harmful to the user?

The original idea was to buy the phone and sell it, so I listed it on ebay but a scammer tried to buy it. Then listed on FB marketplace but had people saying they wanted it then cancelling. In the end I decided to get it for myself and once I realized I didn’t like it, I didn’t want the hassle of trying to sell it again.

yes.. surprised at how much I disliked it.

My site http://www.mortalchess.com allows you to solve chess puzzles in a mortal combat style game. You get health with each correct move, and lose health if you spend too long thinking. Over 160 levels! I've made $0 dollars :)

Lol guys just buy a gear360, light weight and fits in the palm of your hand. Been using it for months, $350-$400 on Amazon works great!

$41 OWI Robotic Arm Edge on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0017OFRCY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_5bRv... - Took us about 4.5 to 5 hours to assemble. Pretty complicated.. You put everything together including all gears, motors and screws. Can be programmed with $31 OWI USB attachment and CD-ROM.

As a die hard tester, my first question would be, "what price points did you test?"

$299, $399, $499?

For example, you said you have a 0.6% conversion rate and $99 price point point. Perhaps your conversion rate at $499 would drop to 0.3% but even so you just dramatically increased your profit

Often times mispricing (either too high or too low) is why startups fail.

Instead of 20 pages of investigation, he admits he could have simply gone on LinkedIn and searched for 'mspy' - LOL!

What's more important, winning a competition or improving AI for the entire world? Do the ends justify the means? I Don't think we should be too hard on Baidu, considering they are attempting to improve their algorithm for the interest of humanity (or evil AI that will bring an end to mankind, depending on how you look at it).

For sure, this was a rough prototype. code can be cleaned up / CDN, etc.

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions :)

Good write up. However, this is just another example of a startup focusing on raising VC rather than building a profitable business from the start.

The illusion is that all successful startup companies require VC. However, the reality is the vast majority of businesses will not be funded and require a profitable business model.

As a community, we need more reinforcement that profit is the life blood of any company. Profit isn't a bad word people.

Failure is nearly always bad. It destroys company morale, drains financial resources, and creates a culture of failure. I agree that failure does often happen on the way to success, but there's absolutely nothing good about it besides giving more knowledge to a problem. The culture that failure is good is stupid.

I would agree with will.I.am that we should change the name of hackathons to appathons. Facebook "Hacker" culture and the word hacker is too hyped and gives young people the wrong message.

Our company acquired the rights from the Napoleon Hill Foundation to distribute the original interview between Andrew Carnegie and Napoleon Hill.

Napoleon Hill used this interview to write the best selling book "Think & Grow Rich".

After reading the book, we decided to contact the Napoleon Hill Foundation to see if we can form a company to create an audio book and distribute the information online.

1) There's tons of free content on our Youtube channel if you want a sneak peak into the full 9 HOUR audio book:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC13De-V1r_zjANgzAIsGZbA/vid...

Thanks for your support! The principles of success are important to any startup.. including ours :) This is just a fun side-project.

Yeah try it! It works wonders :)

Yes, it definitely takes practice! :)

It's worth testing to see how how your customers respond. If you provide value in the Tweet I think they would like it. Just remember to respect their privacy.

You bring up a good point. I don't think our service is right for every business but there a certain businesses that it can work for. I like the analytics idea.

There are more cross channel promotions on social media now that people are liking and tweeting brands. Social media is becoming more valuable and companies are looking for new ways to engage. But I agree, there needs to be respect for the customer to build the relationship over social channels.

There are a lot of ways to use the service. Sending them a promo coupon works very well, or thanking them for their subscription, sending them a PDF with more info about your service, etc..

Ya.. This is a controversial business and you bring up a good point. I think that we need to remind our users of this point. Ultimately, the customer won't go back to the business - so they need to use our service responsibly.

The copy def needs a lot of work. Will hire a professional.

I agree, It's not for everyone.