vincentchan

A manifesto for those who believe in building over breaking, lifting over judging. Turning haters into helpers, one at a time. Because the world doesn’t need more noise - it needs more light. Join us in rewriting what it means to respond. Example: https://x.com/VincentChan/status/1936127261654368623

I think LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said it best regarding this topic: "being an asshole was way easier than putting in the work and showing the compassion required to be a good leader."

But this is for english only, not for other languages.

Will Noto be available in Google Web Fonts later? That will be awesome.

Yup, totally agree. Running a blog is definitely a marathon. I did make the mistake of giving up too early in previous projects. So I will take this lesson to heart. Thanks so much for reminding me this.

Thanks so much for your encouragement! Your comment made my day. I've saved tons of interesting business stories after reading many books and blog posts over the years. Would like to share them on this site going forward.

Since I've read that "innocent" book, I'd like to give another perspective. Many entrepreneurs are not willing to get into the consumer goods business because of the giant competitors like P&G, Unilever and Coca Cola. That's why innocent's founders emphasised starting "small" in their book. They started the business in a kitchen and eventually won the battle (sort of) by creativity. That's why stories like innocent and Method are so inspiring.

They contacted me before saying if I'm willing to pay for the $3,000, I will get the top 100 award. It's a joke. But there are still so many companies willing to pay them every year in Asia. So sad.

Thanks for your advice, Paul.

Just curious, what methodical process did you follow? Did you first test the market using tactics similar to the lean startup approach? Thanks for your advice.

Have been using Intercom for our products for a few months already. It's fantastic! And our users love it a lot.

I think every site should implement this great UX. So thoughtful.

Someone should teach the kid about HN. I'm sure he will be a valuable member in the future. What a beautiful story.

I guess what I mean by success is not only about profitability. I consider that changing the world positively in a large scale is a success. So I think kiva, spacex, yelp and yammer are all successful startups/organizations.

Check out this post from one of the founders at Posterous:

http://axonflux.com/building-and-scaling-a-startup

Is Yuri Milner, the founding partner of DST, going to become the next Warren Buffett of this era?

You can check out this that we have few days ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1282627

Since when Hacker News has become Private Bay?

I agree that the barrier to entry is lower now.

However, I think one of the reasons for their success is due to their roots - The Point, the startup using collective power to help people deal with local issues. Groupon's founder once said, "None of us would work here if it were only about selling stuff at a discount—ultimately, we're trying to give people an excuse to get out of the house and enjoy life."

I think a successful company needs to have a corporate mission that is bigger than making a profit. I believe their roots help them build a strong brand and user base, which is a very strong barrier to entry.

Apparently, Groupon is not the first to execute the idea. Mercata is the failed Groupon of the late ’90s. Paul Allen has invested around $90 million in it. Why it failed? One of the analyst said this in the interview below. "But like many ideas that have been tried, execution turned out to be a problem. I don't think the category is necessarily dead, but may resurface in different clothing."

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-250529.html

We always know that Aaron will be in charge of all of Quicken’s online and desktop products in the original deal. Why the surprise?

While I respect Aaron's decision, I think Jason just wants to point out we have lost the Scott Cook, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs of our generation because of this deal. 10 years later, will you still remember a general manager inside Intuit? Or will someone write a book about a general manager inside a corporation? We will forget about him very soon. In Jim Collins' words, leading entrepreneurs defined success on a very big scale. Their ambitions are huge. I don't think Aaron has done anything wrong. But as a young entrepreneur, we just lost someone who we can look up to.

Also, Steve Jobs returned to Apple to be CEO but not a general manager of a department.

Give you another point of view here. CEO of Redfin also agrees with what Jason Fried said. See the link below:

http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2009/10/honey_i_shrunk_the_start...

Who is the targeted audience of this product? The UI reminds me a little bit of Ask.com

While I don't understand why people need this search engine, I am impressed by the traffic this site is getting.

Other blogs that might help you run a better business:

Futuristic Play by @Andrew_Chen, Master of 500 Hats, Lessons Learned, cdixon.org, Steve Blank's Blog, Venture Hacks, Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing, ...etc

I just don't see why they will put anonymous banker there...

Hi dlevine, thx for your comment. Many businesses also use these kinds of up-selling strategies. I agree that customers probably don't like this shady services but I think we can still learn something from this $1.9B company. Google is also doing shady things like domain parking without telling general users that they are the ads providers. You are right, we don't have to agree all of their moves. But at the same time, we should learn from these successful companies too.

Thanks a lot for your reply. You are correct. Ideas are easy, execution is difficult. I will remember this one.

Sharing ideas is important to me coz it's hard to find like-minded people in my country. This is the only way I can learn from others.

First of all, thanks so much for your comment. You are right, my overviews are too brief coz I don't want to write a long essay here to scare off people or point you guys to my own blog. I want to start the discussion first.

1)HR You're right. Personal info is sensitive but for Basecamp, Mint, and Zendesk. They also manage customers' confidential information. I believe there should be some ways to solve this problem. What's your thought?

2)Decision Tree I am sorry that this one is a little bit confusing. The app will actually let you input your utility of each choices and calculate the best choice for you. I think Hunch is guessing your best choice. But my app will be like a calculator. You have to input other choice and path yourself. You can check out the more detailed idea on HBR:

http://harvardbusiness.org/product/decision-trees-for-decisi...

3)Math Good question. Monetizing this could be difficult. I think I will just focus on the US in the beginning. Do you think monetizing it by related services like real-time tutoring, and premium questions and games are possible? I just think if parents are willing to pay for Club Penguin, they should be willing to pay for education as well. Would love to hear your comments.

Million Thanks!

Notes: I don't mean to advertise my pages here. Actually I haven't finalized those product names yet. I just want to see if any entrepreneurs here can give me some advice. Thanks.

This is the link of the surveymonkey page:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=miJq7VOY6AvLHBYxjxk6hg...

While I do agree that web browsers could be the future, I expect it will take a long long time for the industry to transform. Given that some many browsers and standards on the market these days, can you take the risk to develop an application just working on Chrome? Even you do, if your customers don't like Chrome, you have no way to reach them. At the end of the day, you still have compromise with customers, no matter how great Chrome and HTML 5 are.

While I didn't know anything about those useless service, I don't think Vistaprint becomes a $1.9B company just because they do shady things. As an entrepreneur, I would love to learn about how others build their companies but it doesn't mean we have to agree all of their moves.

I don't want to argue about the ethical issues here. But I believe every company has done something in the gray area. Do you think all those Google ads on domain parking pages are click scam? I do.

It would be better if the robber also tweeted the whole process himself :)