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tstegarton Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

I don't think corporations had a smaller scope back then. Look up the Grange movement, trust busting and the progressive party. They were all responses to corporations having too much power, in fact control over many aspects of life and complete economic power over certain industries and groups of people. Government intervened, something which might not be possible right now.

tstegarton Launch HN: Optery (YC W22) – Remove your personal info from the internet

Thank you, I appreciate that.

tstegarton Launch HN: Optery (YC W22) – Remove your personal info from the internet

Can you delete my old HN comments?

tstegarton Launch HN: Evry Health (YC W18) – Better health insurance for companies

Would it be difficult? If you market to consumers, you could give businesses a cost over the phone just like any other business, just on a per person level.

tstegarton Launch HN: Evry Health (YC W18) – Better health insurance for companies

Have you thought about allowing different, unrelated employers to combine to insure one person? A lot of people find that a part time job does not give them enough hours to be insured, so they get a second job, but don't get enough hours there either, and end up working 40 hours with no insurance.

What about allowing different employers to pay parts of insurance, and another employer pays another part, to allow the employee to get insured?

A person just needs to come up with any amount of employers willing to pay the amount that adds up to 100% of the cost.

tstegarton Why workers are calling BS on leaders about returning to the office

I'm finding there are a certain group of people who are really struggling socially, and to them this is a good thing, even with the risks. Some people lost their whole social network when the office went home, and they long for it to come back.

As a person who can only handle so much social interaction, it is baffling, but to others, it is baffling to stay home all the time.

tstegarton Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

Yes, especially common in the bread and chip aisles. Third-party stockers come in and replace the inventory. Same with soda.

tstegarton Oracle Sells Repression in China

And the Oracle response authored by him is here: https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/blog/the-intercepts...

tstegarton The deck we used to raise our seed funding

Thanks!

tstegarton The deck we used to raise our seed funding

How did you get in contact with investors? I went to the accel website but I can't tell what role they play.

tstegarton Ask HN: Show me your half baked project

https://startupgroundwork.com/

It helps people start a business by helping them find the right software and acts as a starting point for research. It's half-baked because writing content is very difficult and energy consuming. But hiring writers just gets you crap. Its difficulty to make money if words don't flow.

tstegarton How to use Reddit to get your first users

I created my own subreddit and if you look at the sidebar, it is clearly promotional content. I post my own stuff and have links to my website in my sidebar. It works pretty well and I don't get complaints. Its a fashion sub so I cross-post pictures, but otherwise just post my own stuff and answer people's questions. It helps that I promote other businesses as well, not just my own links.

Overall, I found it a good marketing tool for my side project and a way to not get into trouble with other mods. You can see it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchbands/

tstegarton Ask HN: What SaaS or Apps are you paying for?

Sorry, I do not know.

tstegarton Ask HN: What SaaS or Apps are you paying for?

Digital Ocean has one-click WordPress installs.

tstegarton Ask HN: What is your Work From Home setup

Here's one law professor's setup. I thought the telepromter was a nice touch if you have to do a lot of presentations. https://reason.com/2020/05/24/my-new-eight-monitor-display/

tstegarton Ask HN: How to pay contractors and manage payroll for remote hires?

I haven't checked if they offer it, but places to research are Square Payroll, Wave, or the big ones ADP & Paychex. A lot of accounting software can also do this, so Quickbooks Payroll, Zoho & Sage. Let us know what you pick.

tstegarton Ask HN: How to pay contractors and manage payroll for remote hires?

Gusto is pretty popular for small businesses. You don't have to have a subscription plan to pay contractors, they take a cut. https://gusto.com/product/pricing

tstegarton Ask HN: Why do fintech salespeople refuse to communicate except by telephone?

They are much more effective by telephone, so getting just 5 people on the phone is probably worth more to them than spending time emailin bunch of people.

tstegarton Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

That's exactly what it felt like to me too. It's why I enjoy featuring the custom watch strap shops, they provide a break from the affiliate angle. I also try to make my guides a bit longer than usual and also more in-depth with model numbers, etc.

tstegarton Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

Sure, I run https://basicbands.com/. It's a website about watch strap fashion. Most of my income comes from Amazon. I don't make money off the sale of watchbands very much, they're very cheap, so I write posts about watches. This is an example of a money post: https://basicbands.com/the-complete-guide-to-the-seiko-presa...

I either write the content myself, or ask watch strap companies to send me pictures. I then link back to their website and mention what watch is featured and use an affiliate link. Most companies are happy to send me pictures. I also interview custom leather watch strap makers. Most sell on Etsy and they're happy to be featured. I send them a form to fill out and they provide the content and pictures. This is an example: https://basicbands.com/small-brand-spotlight-choice-cuts-ind...

I make almost zero money off featuring the watch strap makers, but they fill out the blog with interesting and fun content that bring it a step above the usual affiliate blog (I hope). Its also the most fun part and it keeps me going, because the artists are fun to talk with. Otherwise I think I would have stopped by now from boredom. Most of my traffic is search engine, Pinterest & Reddit.

I got my start by reading the case studies on this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/juststart/ They're getting less useful now, but the early ones were a big help. Basically, just start something and see how it does.

Affiliate marketing gets a bad rap, which I totally understand, but its also very easy to get into, basically a WordPress theme and some cheap hosting, so its very accessible for people at home.

tstegarton Ask HN: Ways to generate income when you're at home without pay?

I run an affiliate blog, and they're definitely easy to get up and running. However, they're not "only 1 or two hours a day" type things as they are often claimed. But they can be fun and rewarding. I usually make around $200 a month with about 500 page views a day.

tstegarton Ask HN: What is your blog and why should I read it?

https://basicbands.com/

It is my side project, a blog about watch straps.

You should read it because the world of custom watch straps is actually pretty amazing and full of really cool artists doing leatherwork. If any of you own watches and want a new strap, check out my list of custom watch strap makers: https://basicbands.com/list-of-custom-watch-strap-companies/

The work there is incredible, and its a lot of fun interacting with and interviewing artists. I realized after I started how small most watch strap companies are. Its a very pleasant side project that bring in about $200 a month (mostly through Amazon affiliate sales on watches).

tstegarton Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

I feel like this is one of those things people imagine happens, but actually never happens. If it did happen, eventually someone would get caught and we'd see evidence of said secret room and the painting would be recovered from a mansion or something. Instead, they're always recovered from warehouses or behind walls to in attics of crooks.

tstegarton Ask HN: Freelancers who transitioned to passive income, how did you do it?

I have an Amazon affiliate site that I've posted about previously. As the other poster suggested, passive is a bit of a myth, its actually quite a bit of work. But its always at my pace and no one is looking over my shoulder. I can craft things in the winter when I'm at home a lot (I live in Wisconsin), and then they make me money in the summer when I don't want to put in as much work. It's enjoyable work, I virtually meet a lot of wonderful leather crafters (its a watch strap website), and its fun to post about stuff they have created. Some of it is incredibly beautiful. All in all I like it as a side project, but I'm not sure if it could ever replace my job income totally. It would be placing too much importance on one vendor.

tstegarton When is a nation not a nation? Somaliland’s dream of independence (2018)

We pay them money so they stay in power and don't get usurped by other killers, namely the Islamic groups that want to kill Americans. Right now the warlords just kill other Africans, which the U.S. government considers a win, sadly. Its a foreign policy based on the idea if we didn't support these warlords, other groups that kill Africans AND Europeans will take power.

tstegarton America’s Air Quality Worsens, Ending Years of Gains, Study Says

Sometimes the oil is collected but the gas is burned off because it is not economically feasible to collect it. Kind of like in this picture: https://www.alamy.com/an-oil-well-pump-jack-natural-gas-flar...

tstegarton Ask HN: Do you do volunteer work?

I volunteer at the humane society in my county and its a ton of fun. The staff are caring and sweet, the other volunteers are amazing, and its fun seeing all the animals getting cared for. Surprisingly, its happy and sad to see them adopted. You are glad they have found a home, but you kind of miss them.

tstegarton Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

My friend just started working at Agricycle global. https://www.agricycleglobal.com/

One of their products is a charcoal for your grill made out of coconut shells.

tstegarton Just Enough Piracy Can Be a Good Thing

I'm suspicious of this argument. If you don't have any intellectual property laws, can't anyone just duplicate all of those methods you mentioned? If Marvel releases a movie, I can steal it and ask people to subscribe to my stolen movie service, donate to it, show it using advertisements, write a live show using the script, etc. About the only way I can't steal it is through commission, but then how is the person paying the commission getting their money back? This seems like it wouldn't work.

tstegarton Ask HN: More examples of positive news in the world today?

I love my job and I'm happy with my life right now and my garden is producing giant tomatoes which I'm about to pair with some delicious bacon, lettuce and mayo on some sourdough while I sit in the porch with the fan on. So there's that.