wensing

So what's the link between charging money and growth?

P/M-fit is easier to achieve when price is $0.00, but that isn't a sustainable business model.

Perhaps the ideal is achieving P/M-fit in a large market at price that moves the needle for the business (i.e. demonstrates revenue traction) but does not appear to hinder growth.

When it has discovered a business model that works at scale.

If your app uses maps, it's time to get on board the MapBox rocket. Resistance is futile.

Cloud services have gotten cheaper but talented hires have gotten more expensive, and the latter is always the largest expense in scaling. And no, you can't scale a company and keep head count ultra tiny, there's just too much to do.

Based on our experience, this all rings true.

And may I suggest zero touch until you get to $XXX/mo or you are very, very confident that Mr $50/mo will almost never ever cancel.

That's an exciting model when it works.

But it's worth warning founders that choosing where to draw the line between free and paid is the life-or-death tricky part, and it's not always obvious.

I wrote a fairly popular article about this: http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/25167979206/the-anatomy-of-pr...

Also fine.

Thanks. Now that we are in a subthread I guess it's no longer off-topic to say that I'd be happy to answer any questions about it. :) (Or email me -- email in HN bio).

Definitely exceptions. I was a humanities major. Listing edited. :)

Stormpulse – Austin, TX – Full-time, permanent – (http://www.stormpulse.com)

Our mission: To interpret the Earth's most threatening data.

-- Senior Python Developer --

About us:

We tell our customers when bad weather is going to disrupt, delay, or damage their business. Our product provides high-level intelligence and low-level analysis on weather risk for supply chain managers, business continuity professionals, commodity traders, and oil/gas operators. Here's President Obama looking at our map: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/u-president-barack-obama-looks-...

We're looking for a couple of developers to join our team. Tools we work with include Python, Celery, Redis, MySQL, Postgres, Backbone, nginx, AWS

About you:

* Able to rapidly gain (and enjoy gaining) new expertise in a previously-foreign, non-technical domain (e.g. weather, earthquakes, wildfires, solar flares)

* Derive joy from seeing huge leaps forward in the customer experience

* Mastery in a non-technical discipline (i.e. you are not only a great developer, but also a master at jazz music, mountain climbing, chess, skiing ... something that has taught you how to think beyond a keyboard).

* Ability to collaboratively apply the design principles of Stormpulse to new projects

* Not satisfied with a compromise -- always pursue the possibility that two seemingly contradictory goals can be simultaneously achieved through great feats of design / engineering

* Derives pleasure from the final aesthetic

Requirements:

- B.S. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or college degree with related technical experience required. ("Hackers with Humanities degrees are awesome" says Matt) - Strong experience with one or more of Python, Ruby or similar object oriented dynamic language required. Additional experience with Javascript, HAXE, HTML, or CSS is highly desirable. - Experience with GIS (PostGIS, ESRI, Mapbox) is preferred - Linux experience with knowledge of Linux internals and Distributed Systems preferred. - Self-motivated and driven to continuously improve personal and professional skills combined with openness to constructive feedback. - Strong communication and documentation skills.

Location:

3925 West Braker Lane Third Floor Austin, TX 78759 United States

Contact:

resumes@stormpulse.com

Oh my goodness -- you too?!

I spent many a summer day matching blue paper against printed sheets and the occasional Mylar! I found the same zone you're talking about.

Except ... did you ever get a paper cut and then reach over the ammonia fumes coming out the back? :-P

No, not weird. A mission statement is a "calling" that can be fulfilled through a variety of business models.

They did not get 'venture returns.'

"The pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled." --Stevenson

So we can probably all: (A) see through the sensationalism and be happy for the youngin' or (B) react to the sensationalism or (C) both.

I'm cool with A or C. B seems lame.

We had 6.5 million free uniques per year and ~200 paid customers on a freemium model and went to free trials / $279/yr.

Revenue almost tripled YoY.

I wrote about it here: http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/26830276239/bootstrapping-sto...

And you can watch me talk about it here: http://mixergy.com/matthew-wensing-stormpulse-interview/

Maybe we could just be happy for the kid and imagine what she could be making at 25?

Oops, I meant to say "1387 days LATER".

Another fun thing about that thread is that Dave McClure commented on your edit of my pitch, and then 1387 days ago made 500 Startups second investment in Stormpulse in 6 months. :)

Had the idea in October 2004, did a breadth-first search for a business model for almost 9 years, and now finally ... convergence.

Just thought the HN community would like to know.

This is excellent. Hi from Stormpulse; welcome to the weather fold.

There is one hallmark of a cult which this document misses: there is no legitimate reason for leaving a cult.

From the cult member's perspective, this is really a manifestation of the problem of induction. Everything is going great (the article's "love bombing" phase) until one day you want to leave or break a rule or both, and then in an instant everything is upside down and you lose everything.

I guess the business equivalent would be switching costs: leaving the Apple ecosystem is rough for your iTunes collection. For most people this really pales in comparison to the losing-all-your-friends pain of leaving a cult, but maybe not for a hipster.

How do you solve anything when the people who are most aware of the problem also know that the problem inherently prevents the solution to the problem?

It reminds me of an immune disease -- if your very means of getting well is broken, how do you get well?

No snark intended. Just lazy, sry.

Agreed. I didn't actually intend any snark. The fact is, the URL was easier to remember for me than the blog link or Google query one, so that's why I used it as I was running out the door. I considered changing it later but haven't had any time. :-P

Thanks for not judging me. :)

PS. Despite everything I still don't think Stormpulse is a success yet. I'll let you know in a couple years. :)

See LMGTFY link above.

Sure!

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bootstrapping+stormpulse

This reminds me that I'm due for the next post in my 'starting Stormpulse' blog series, wherein I cover how and why we raised significant money 6 years after we started.

When you shift from customer development to company-building. In other words, when you stop searching for, and instead start scaling, a business model. See also: http://steveblank.com/2012/03/05/search-versus-execute/

Yes! I have one!

Where do you plan to get your 5 million PV's per month?