wmboy

Yes, this is very effeective in the fitness arena. Instead of setting a goal to lose X amount of weight, just focus on goals over which you have more direct control (e.g. a goal to build your strength up to be able to do 20 push ups in a row, or a goal to have a jog 6 days a week for a month).

These goals aren't easy, but they are more directly under your control.

Yeah but we're talking about purposely providing false information. No one cares that you leave off irrelvant work history.

Yeah, solving a personal problem is not the be all and end all. If you want success, you could always spend some time in an industry like farming. It'd take time, and probably would mean a year or 2 working in the industry to truly understand the problems that exist, but once you find a solution to a common problem that'd sure be one business where there is serious income potential. Of course not many hackers (if any) would take such a route...

A $99/month service is milk money to a farmer (not sure if pun is intended).

I'm not sure why this has turned into a photo editing app conversation. I think the paragraph that would be a better use of time to discuss was the last one; "If you find yourself creating something, and you don't understand how it will be used, and you don't plan on using it yourself, then it's time to take a few steps back and reevaluate what you're doing."

This is a pretty good rule, right? Even if no one else pays to use it at least you've built a tool to make your life a little easier, or solve a problem you have.

An exception to this rule though, would be people already selling a service to customers and turning this into a product you can reuse for others (I think Carbonmade started kind of like this - they had non-technical friends/acquaintances that needed galleries set up). In fact this would probably be better than simply building a product you'd use yourself as you've already validated that people are willing to pay to use it, not just use it.

Ahhh different views/screens, good point! Or maybe I'm just slow...

They should offer an entrepreneur pack which has a template for iPhone, iPad, Windows, OSX, plus all the browsers. After all, they're dry erase, so why would you need more than one?

Also, they should affiliate themselves with the makers of the lightscribe pen so that scribbles can be uploaded to the web.

Thanks, wish it was online though (can't actually run those programs as I'm on OS X).

Thanks, here are a couple of articles for anyone wondering whether it's worth it or not...

http://www.conversiondoctor.com/conversion-blog/jobs-are-fil...

http://www.mikemahler.com/articles/hatejob.html

Great, the question is though, is it enough for them to be able to purchase the domain www.forest.com and www.forrest.com?

26 years old, quit my job managing a technical support department (also invovled in project mamagment). I'm doing a few freelance contracts and working 30 hours a week at a web design company.

Previously learn some VB.NET, PHP and HTML/CSS. Now I've properly learned HTML/CSS and starting to learn Python.

What did you find was the best way to get quality traffic to the survey page?

...and some get acquired by EA Sports.

I definitely agree with pitching to everyone. Start by pitching your idea to your (hopefully for this purpose) non-technical wife/gf/partner and changing your pitch (and perhaps your idea) until he/she understands it straight away.

Never thought of the Mechanical Turk idea before... sounds like it's worth a try.

I pay for Skype. Almost paid for Grooveshark but in the end decided to stick with the free version.

Good question btw. There are too many ideas for B2C web apps out there where the only hope of making money is from being bought out.

It was almost as successful as Apple's Beetles music launch. i.e. they launched something that was old news and tried to market it like it was new (Beetles) and/or innovative (Ping).

Good to hear Apple is still going the extra mile.

There are lots of stories of people going into an Apple store with a product broken after it's warranty and still walking out the door with a brand new replacement.

You just don't get that kind of service from any other company (especially in the computer hardware business).

Try the Pomodoro technique... set a timer for a period of time (between 15 to 30 minutes long) and focus on working on a project constantly. Once the timer sounds, stop working (even if you feel like you could keep going) and have a 5 minute break).

There's also the (10+2)*5 technique were you work for 10 minutes, stuff around for 2 minutes then repeat 5 times. After an hour you've had 50 minutes of productive time and 10 minutes of "play time".

Sorry, doesn't really make much sense to me...

What about 4 people sharing one Internet connection at home, all with their own Dropbox account? What about someone that doesn't have an Internet connection (and who access Internet at school, libraries or their friends places)? And what about company Dropbox accounts?

A startup is a business - that's what it's short for isn't it, "start up business"? So a project is a project until it is something you want to turn into a business. Then you can call it a startup.

callmeed, my comment wasn't a counter-argument (I upvoted your comment), I was just adding on my 2 cents .

Getting six-pack abs is simple. Build muscle and burn fat by eating healthy, exercising and lifting weights. BUT... you've got to do that every day for a long time before you get results.

It's the same with building a successful $10k/month business. Find a niche, solve a problem people are prepared to pay money to have solved, market your solution and deliver on your promises. But all that won't happen in a week will it? Because of this, most people will give up before they get to the top of the mountain (or before they have six-pack abs).

Microwave = iPad Oven = PC/Mac computer

Normally people wouldn't buy a microwave without also owning an oven... well, unless you're really cheap and don't care about your health!

I think by 'publishing' Jobs meant magazines/newspapers not books. But you're right, the Kindle does offer magazine subscriptions...

"Apple CEO Steve Jobs supposedly responded to some emails sent his way saying that the in-app subscription policy was meant for 'publishing apps, not SaaS apps'....It’s certainly possible that even the App Store reviewers were confused by the rules at first and started rejecting some apps that should have been let through."

This explanation seems quite likely but I also think it's a case of Apple seeing how far they could push the envelope (like they did when they stopped allowing Flash based iOS apps).

If the public were relatively okay with it, then they may as well proceed and enjoy the extra profits. If however it means less people getting iOS devices and opting for Android/Windows devices then Apple are left with no choice but to retract from their strict stance.

A business is nothing if it doesn't have customers.

It's on page 74 (in the PDF).

Cool idea! Just out of interest, how long did it take you to build it?

Exaggeration definitely. But it's no secret that's what Apple does (holding back features they could already deliver for the sake of getting people to upgrade their hardware every year).

Btw, I own an iPhone and MacBook so I'm not anti-Apple.

It seems the long sales letter is slowly being replaced by video sales letters.

Personally I think video sales letters would be more effective but they also have the inherent problem that people viewing the page at work (or other similar situation) won't be able to see the video (unless they bookmark it and view it later which is unlikely).

I think combining a mixture of the short sales letter, video sales letter and long sales letter would be a good catch all. Show a clear call to action Buy Now button above the fold with a few simple bullet-point benefits and a sales video. Then below that you can continue on with the long sales letter for those who still have pre-sales questions.

We all know Apple planed the iPhone 7 from day 1 and are simply staging it over a series of years to maximise profits.

I expect Apple will start allowing screensaver/wallpaper type apps in the not too distant future. It'll open up another revenue stream for them.

We know it's almost ready to be rolled out (by looking to jailbroken iPhones) but Apple will want to iron out memory problems before releasing it (at least that's what they'll say).

Yeah, most people will get to you via a Google search. Then when you're big enough you can legally claim the prized .com URL from the squatters.

...just check first that it's not a legitimate company using the .com address.