I lost $209k of my own money trying to start a business | Hacker News

This is so important if you want to maintain a good relationship. I'm working with a client who has very little money and while the system he wants is almost trivially simple, he's funding it out of his own pocket.

I lost $209,640 of my own money trying to start a business.

Writing about failure sucks. But here's the real story: Context: Me and my wife started a marketplace for last-minute tours and activities. Lesson #1: Differentiate technical risk from execution risk. There's a reason everyone has a clever idea for a marketplace - they don't require you to actually build a standalone, unique product.

Hasnain Reads

Hasnain says: Great example for that "software bugs cost real money" post from a few weeks ago. "The source said the NOTAM system is an example of aging infrastructure due for an overhaul. "Because of budgetary concerns and flexibility of budget, this tech refresh has been pushed off," the source said.

Interview Questions to ask as a candidate

Interview Questions Questions,Why ask this question?,What you should look for,Follow-up Questions,Notes? Universal follow-up questions: What would you do differently now? What would you do if the other team's priorities changed? If your team's situation changed-maybe someone leaves the team, som...

Job Hunting in 2022

After leaving Meta recently, I decided it was finally time to start looking for a job again. It's been quite an experience doing it amid a recession and layoffs (I have thankfully been quite lucky). I thought I'd share how I approached the job hunt as a few people had asked for advice.

The Shit Show * furbo.org

Well, it happened. We knew it was coming. A prick pulled the plug. And what bothers me most about it is how Space Karen did it. My mom passed away just before Christmas. Her decline was something everyone in the family saw coming and we prepared for her demise.

Stop promoting programmers

I'm old, and one benefit of being old is that I've seen things. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Ori... Ok, maybe not those things, but still... things. And let me tell you something about one thing I believe many of us should be more aware of.

My Heroku values

Ideas are cheap. Make a prototype, sketch a CLI session, draw a wireframe. Discuss around concrete examples, not hand-waving abstractions. Don't say you did something, provide a URL that proves it. Nothing is real until it's being used by a real user.

Your tech stack is not the product

If you are the technical co-founder or early engineering lead at a startup, and you want to talk about your microservices, hand-rolled CI/CD, in-house monitoring stack, or any other unique part of your stack, I will say: Cool. Let's riff. I've had my "macho engineer" days, I've built that stuff.

All Companies are Fucked Up

Belts in Karate are ordered from white to black. This is of course a new invention. Originally, new colored belts were not given upon arbitrary levels of attainment, a white belt was given at the beginning of one's training and you just never washed it. Over the years...

Make an effective executive LinkedIn profile.

tl;dr - it's valuable to update your LinkedIn profile to be a concise, accurate, and current summary of your accomplishment. Spend at most two hours updating it, then ask a friend (ideally a recruiter) for feedback. Incorporate that feedback and don't think about your profile again for at least a year.

Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued

Editor's note: At nearly 7,000 words, you probably don't want to try reading this on an iDevice. Bookmark it and come back later.] Imagine something a wee bit outside your comfort zone. Nothing scandalous: just something you don't do often, don't particularly enjoy, and slightly more challenging than "totally trivial."

If you like startups you should love anti-trust

Why do companies that were once the face of the anti-establishment startup world inexorably become the very sort of business that they were built to destroy? There's no single reason, and many of the ways that tech companies become their parents are innocuous. A new generation of leadership is an oft-noted catalyst for change at tech companies.

What happened to Pippin / Rent the Backyard

In 2018 I co-founded Pippin, a housing factory startup, and our backyard home (ADU) brand Rent the Backyard. Our goal was to use California's new ADU laws to build a lot of homes quickly by helping homeowners make the most of their unused land.

Beware Flavored Software

One day 10 years ago I stood in an hour-long line outside an ice cream shop near Dolores Park in San Francisco, and at the end I was greeted with options such as "black sesame" and "balsamic strawberry." Apparently this place was known for its unique flavors.

Privacy Is OK

I hate to write a piece just saying Someone Is Wrong On The Internet. But Reid Blackman's The Signal App and the Danger of Privacy at All Costs (in the NYTimes, forsooth) is not just wrong but dangerously misleading. I haven't seen a compact explainer on why, so here goes.

Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice

If there was one course I could add to every engineering education, it wouldn't involve compilers or gates or time complexity. It would be Realities Of Your Industry 101, because we don't teach them and this results in lots of unnecessary pain and suffering.

实名说说我入学第二天被MSU老师yu kong开除的事|一亩三分地读研读博版

editmypaper 这个Editor几乎都是一天之内交工，不用加钱的那种，而且价格也比较便宜，也非常认真，和我确认了很多的信息，帮我改了很多内容。强推！ 感觉这个editor态度挺认真的。NEU CS Align Essay字数要求250词，但是我怎么也缩减不了我500词的essay，就直接给了他，说能减多少减多少。结果他真的修改到了250词，太不容易了！ ...

An "investing advice" article

It's the New Year and many folks have money-related resolutions. They mostly boil down to "pay off debt" or "save more", which are basically the same thing (I explain this below, though the article is more focused on the latter). I get asked about this a lot, so I wrote down my thoughts to share with everyone.

Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date? | Hacker News

A shared friend introduced me to someone who claimed to be a struggling Hollywood genius. We were all drinking at some university party. He told us about all the cool shit he would do if only technology wasn't so bad. So I built a tool to solve his issues.

企业实践开源的动机

随着开源软件全面占据软件供应链的各个阶段，商业公司开发基础软件或业务逻辑的时候，已经避不开对软件的使用了。经过一段时间对开源软件的使用，以及开源吞噬软件的趋势影响，研发能力突出的公司或团队，也会加入到开发开源软件的行列中来。 商业模型当中开源软件位置的不同，体现出企业实践开源动机的不同，并且会很大程度影响企业实践开源的行为。本文将讨论不同商业模型下，企业实践开源的动机和行为的差异。 第一类商业模型是直接销售开源软件。这种类型的企业以 MongoDB Inc. 和 Elastic 为代表，是在 2010 年以后逐渐兴起的企业类型。 不过，说它们是"销售开源软件"也不准确。虽然在早期它们的商业产品是直接提供当时还是开源软件的 MongoDB 和 ElasticSearch 本身，但是随后由于源代码免费可得，包括 AWS 在内的云厂商直接利用免费的源代码在平台上提供同类的服务，这样的新形势使得这两家公司前后把软件协议改成 Server Side Public License (SSPLv1) 和 Elastic License (ELv2) 来对抗商业竞争。 其中 ELv2 是明确的专有软件协议，禁止其他人提供同类的服务，也不允许破解付费密钥锁定的高级功能。SSPLv1 是对 GPL 系列许可的发展，但是要求与 MongoDB 一同构成服务的所有软件都需要按照 SSPLv1 协议发布，即包括开放源代码，这一点超出了 OSI 推出的 开源定义第九条"协议不应该限制其他软件"的原则。实际执行过程中值得注意的是，MongoDB Inc. 采用 SSPLv1 的动机是对抗商业竞争，它同时鼓励用户购买企业提供的以专有软件协议发布的 MongoDB 以避免 SSPLv1 的要求。这种行为的动机与自由软件基金会制造的软件纯粹是为了让所有人能够自由地使用高质量的软件的初衷非常不同。因此，我并不将这样重新许可后的软件认为是开源软件，而是源码公开的专有软件。关于不同开源协议的讨论，我在 《选择开源许可证》 一文里有详细地展开。 无独有偶，曾经试图通过销售开源软件的公司，最终都走上了重新许可成源码公开的专有软件的路。 另一方面，越来越多的技术创业公司难以抵挡"开放源代码"的潮流和用户与开发者心理预期的转变，又清晰地理解了自己的商业模式就是销售将要开放源代码的这个软件本身，因此它们一开始就选择了源码公开的专有软件协议来禁止其他厂商直接利用公开的源代码销售同类服务开展竞争。 这种商业模式，本质上是 MongoDB Inc.

What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?

I've written too many negative stories about digital media platforms in recent months. I've started to worry. Am I turning into Dr. Doom and Mr. Gloom? In all fairness, my predictions have proven sadly accurate. After I served up these dismal forecasts for Facebook, Spotify, Netflix, and others, their share prices took a steep dive.

The digits powering the creator economy with Steph Smith

Steph Smith takes the main stage at Craft + Commerce 2022 to share 10 data points - each of which tells a much greater story of what the creator economy has in store. LEARN HOW TO USE EMAIL MARKETING: ► ConvertKit Creator Education YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbRXu3AcxPyVumb3c3enLwA/playlists ► Get more training in our knowledgebase: https://help.convertkit.com/ FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL!