How Michael Jackson's tilt defied gravity - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/22/health/michael-jackson-dance-moves/index.html <comment><USER2> What a strange title. It seems like a huge leap from the actual story of "Michael Jackson had special boots and pretty good core strength" to "Michael Jackson challenged our understanding of spine biomechanics"...

<comment><USER3> Playing devil's advocate here: Language has a use beyond matter-of-fact descriptions. Sometimes, creative writing techniques are employed in journalism, though rarely in hard news.

In other words, the headline is not meant to be taken literally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This move is actually performed nightly in Michael Jackson One at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Here are several performers from that show doing it all at once:

[https://youtu.be/8Ttk-2W_PCI?t=2m](https://youtu.be/8Ttk-2W_PCI?t=2m)

<comment><USER5> They do it well, but none quick as slickly and crisply as Jackson did (especially the performers on the left side, for some strange reason). One of the guys on the right really _nails_ it though, well done to him.

<comment><USER6> From your description, it sounds like the move looks better or worse from different angles.

<comment><USER5> If you watch the video you'll see what I mean - the left side (and some on the right) just gets into position less smoothly and don't have the rigid straight spine Jackson did for the move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The relevant patent: [https://patents.google.com/patent/US5255452A/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5255452A/en)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure I buy the articles hypothesis "that strength was in Michael Jackson and his Achilles tendon"

as firstly all the backing dancers did it too and secondly as a skier, leaning forward like that in ski boots is fairly easy - your weight is supported by the front of the boot pushing up on your shin, not by the tendon. I imagine that is what is going on here too - stiff boots.

<comment><USER9> Michael Jackson may have popularized the move but it wasn't invented for him. This article is rubbish. Its the boots.

<comment><USER10> I was under the impression he designed and patented the shoes specifically for the video?

<comment><USER9> He learned it from Marcel Marceau.

<comment><USER11> Marcel Marceau may have popularized the _moonwalk_ (moving backwards while appearing to walk forwards) but not the leaning move, which Jackson invented. Jackson is listed on the patent for the shoes necessary to pull off the lean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And the patent in action: [https://youtu.be/pch3hoUtfJ0?t=45s](https://youtu.be/pch3hoUtfJ0?t=45s)

</comment><comment><USER13> related video of a barrel organ playing "Smooth Criminal": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ6aDLpWON8&t=107s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ6aDLpWON8&t=107s)

<comment><USER14> This sent me down a massive rabbit hole of related videos.

I particularly liked this one of Rasputin played on a fairground organ:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AeN-5PXaaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AeN-5PXaaQ)

Which reminds me a lot of old video game music

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why would smooth criminals even lean that way? Was this some kind of trend back in those times taken to the extreme?

<comment><USER7> I don't think the move is related to the lyrics any more than the moonwalk is related to the lyrics of Billie Jean.

<comment><USER16> If a criminal needs to show his smoothness, that move is a damn good one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This link is broken?

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this any better? (PDF).

[http://thejns.org/doi/pdf/10.3171/2018.2.SPINE171443?downloa...](http://thejns.org/doi/pdf/10.3171/2018.2.SPINE171443?download=true)

<comment><USER18> Says "The requested article is not currently available on this site."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not for us who can break. How many 360's did any of you get on a headspin or helicopter?

</comment><comment><USER20> There's a fine line between internet nonsense and science.</comment>


Making a Physical Product - <AUTHOR> http://b.jonw.com/post/46853309918/making-a-physical-product <comment><USER2> I liked this article and would like to see more like it. With the maker movement, Kickstarter, 3D printing, etc there now seems to be a lot more interest in making physical products. But the isn't a lot of public information about the costs and processes involved, compared to say the number of tutorials on how to build web app or a mobile app.

I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the total project costs. And labour isn't even factored in.

I was just involved in making a small injection molded part. I was surprised how easy and inexpensive it was. For all the hype 3D printing is getting, I think there could be lots more businesses in making injection molding more accessible.

<comment><USER3> Do you mind if I ask what was the quantity for your injection molded part, and what company you ended up going with.

Last time I tried to price injection molding it was way too much.

<comment><USER4> My dad runs a small plastic injection molding company. He's got a single bread and butter product they make, but he's always looking for new ideas.

Is there a way for people to easily connect with manufacturers in the USA? My dads shop is really small and hungry vs some shop you could find in a google search with lots of machines (and expensive)

<comment><USER5> A solution to this problem is EXACTLY what my co-founder and I are working on right now. We're working to be Match.com for custom-made parts, and highly specialized shops like your dad's are the ideal use case for our product. Would you be willing to talk directly or put me in touch with your dad? We'd love to help out any way we can.

<comment><USER6> I'm looking for a match to a die casting or cnc milling shop. Your contact info is not in your profile. Care to shoot me an email?

<comment><USER5> Hi grannyg00se! I don't see an email in your profile, so:

1\. Rob 2\. SupplyBetter.com

1 @ 2 is my email. Let's talk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Really cool to see the numbers and congrats on making the product!

One nit to emphasize the value in basic accounting knowledge for others when going down the manufacturing route: it's $11.37 __gross__ margin (aka gross profit, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_margin> ), not __net__ profit (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_Margin> ). While this may sound silly and academic, _net_ confers a sense of finality -- it includes all costs, marketing, discounts to sell remnant inventory, depreciations... everything. Learning this distinction will also introduce you to inventory management, promotion cycles, and all sorts of other crazy business skills to help you get to the next level in building a game business. There are hundreds of years of wisdom built up about manufacturing that all has to funnel through.... accounting...

For example, having >50% net profit is fantastic for manufacturing! Having >50% gross profit is on par for low-scale, specialty products. Jon's 11.37 is a gross profit and on par. Knowing nothing about this specific market, the standard advice in this case is to focus on growing the market rather than reducing costs at this point. (This is a business-model version of the 'don't scale prematurely' mantra you hear in tech considering his price of $20/game doesn't seem insane).

Back-of-the-envelope calculations show the gross revenue for all 333 sets is $6,660. Assuming he's included all costs, this means:

      Revenue:    $6,660
      Costs:      $4,660
      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>
      Net Profit: $2,000

Which means a net profit of $6/set, a little more than 25% of the sale. Depending on how aggressively he wants the market, he should offer discounts to influential or trend-setting groups of people in the 25% range.

Another way to look at this business is he would get a return of $2,000 for $4,660 in capital (since he has 1 production run), or 50% ROI... also not too shabby (if sold at retail price).

And yet another way to look at this is manufacturing the product over 8 hours yields $2000, or $250/hour... better than most. It's unclear how much time he spent on the admin and design tasks, but since this is a labor of love... let's assume it was leisure time and free :) It also means a second production run may get him an economy scale from re-using the design and website assets for even more $$$/hour.

All-in-all, this looks great across the board, and I wish the Jon the best of luck in bringing Space Dice to the world!

<comment><USER8> Good analysis.

One comment though - if the intention is to get the game onto the shelf in retail stores, there's not enough margin in it at the current cost/pricing.

A store is going to require most (or all) of that margin - in most "dice game" type stores, if you want to put a product on the shelf at $20, you're going to need to sell it to the store for somewhere around $14 or they're not going to be interested.

Seems to me that at least an investigation into whether getting a run of 3,000 or 30,000 sets made up (and outsourcing the 80 or 800hrs of packaging work) would be a worthwhile exercise rather than being premature optimisation.

<comment><USER9> Just me being cynical, but this fact is what is wrong with the entire world. Everyone wants to make things as cheap as possible, and then sell them as expensive as possible.

Every single thing in our lives is driven by this dynamic and it is a cancer.

What is the way out of this that keeps people happy and doesn't destroy us?

<comment><USER10> On the contrary, I think this dynamic (combined with strong human rights) is a great blessing to humanity. In a market economy, 'as expensively as possible' tends to mean 'not very expensively', and 'make things as cheap as possible' means 'make your processes more efficient'. And efficiency is the reason why we can have nice things.

<comment><USER9> While I dont take issue with your optimism and logic, I think it is flawed and naive, even if only due to the following:

Go to a grocery store; Safeway or whole foods. Note the prices for items based on their qty/weight/etc.

Now go to a restaurant wholesale style place (not a costco, which is an illusion of savings).

A place like "cash and carry" (there is one in oakland) where the small scale restaurateurs purchase goods for sale and markup to Joe Consumer.

Look at the price difference and what you, even as a non-wholesale-licensed- individual can purchase.

Now, the price you are paying in a place like cash and carry is still a profitable amount for both cash and carry AND the upstream providers to ___them_ __(distributors, farmers, whomever) - but the prices are far less than a Safeway...

So, while I think that the statement you made is true, to a point, I think that we need a revolution in what industries gouge and which don't.

Food prices are being designed to kill. (I'd love to go into detail but it just hit midnight and I have a GOT episode to rewatch)

<comment><USER11> Supermarkets have absolutely tiny net profits, usually just a couple of percent. They have substantially greater labour costs than a wholesaler. They have higher rents, because their stores are less densely stocked and in more convenient (and more expensive) locations. They have high shrinkage on many products, losing >30% of their fresh produce and bakery goods to spoilage and a significant proportion of product to theft and employee fraud.

Food is cheap to buy from a cash-and-carry because it's cheap to sell. It's sold straight off the pallet, in an out-of-town warehouse with dirt cheap rent. Average SKU value is much higher, massively reducing labour costs. Shrinkage is tiny, because of the high turnover of perishable goods and the greater security possible in a warehouse store. Cash-and-carry wholesalers still have very tight margins, but they have much lower costs than supermarkets.

Food retail is ruthlessly competitive on price, because there are so few other points of differentiation. The idea that there's a malevolent conspiracy in food pricing is utterly farcical to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the food supply chain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why make an iPhone app to keep track of planets owned when you could just make a simple paper based scorecard? Or am I missing something about the complexity of the game? An app might be useful but you want the game to be playable by the largest number of peopl possible and there could be some opportunity for recurring revenue from selling the scorecards.

<comment><USER13> I think the idea of an iOS app sounds great. Why waste paper when you can simply click "new game" on your phone?

<comment><USER14> Why waste plastic on dice when you can click, "new roll" on your phone? Some people might like games like this because they're not digital.

<comment><USER13> Because it's not as fun as physically rolling the dice. There's not much additional gain to writing down the score on a piece of paper versus keeping score on an app tailored towards the game.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, it's also possible that I considered that and disagree with you. I'm not saying that everyone will prefer keeping score on paper, but some people really do and some other people will appreciate not having an iPhone on the table when they play a dice game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "I spent a few hours hacking together a little rails app which would play out 100,000 rolls in a few seconds and tell me the chances of everything coming up. "

Why did the author write a rails app to run statistical experiments on what are easy to calculate probabilities? It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.

<comment><USER16> Maybe the rules are too complex to work out the probabilities directly. For example, landing on each property in Monopoly.

The _real_ question is why write a _rails_ app? How does a web application framework help you roll dice?

<comment><USER15> I can forgive that - I often accidentally say 'rails' when I mean ruby as well.

<comment><USER17> Except this is a Rails app, not just Ruby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "In space, noone can hear you roll! The fate of the galaxy is in your hands, as you race your friends to create (or destroy) planets. Who will be the first to 10? Only the dice know."

Ouch, two errors:

"noone" -> "no one"

"hands, as" -> "hands as"

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed this. Thank you!

<comment><USER19> There are also two icons labeled "supernova" at the bottom of the page, which seems like a mistake. Good luck!

<comment><USER20> ... and "blackhole" is not a word, it's two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For your next run you should shop around for a different tube supplier, it's a huge portion of your unit cost (24%) and I bet you can drop its price by at least half.

<comment><USER22> Or consider not using a tube! The bottoms fall out if you shake them to shuffle which has caused at least one case of Zombie Dice ending up in all corners of a small bar to my knowledge :|

I'd consider a bag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's eye-opening to see a breakdown of the process behind conceiving, designing, and manufacturing a product. I think that for many, this process is hidden behind smoke and mirrors, but Jon made it appear doable and worthwhile.

It's also empowering to know that he did this with ~$5000 USD. I have no doubt that small-scale production like this would have been prohibitively difficult (read: annoying/costly) even five years ago.

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome! (purchased) I've been reading about game design and playing with ideas myself. The prototyping was _this_ past Christmas? So you went from concept to sales in three months!? That seems fabulous. Congrats.

<comment><USER24> You mention that you've been reading about game design, any recommendations?

<comment><USER22> Only sporadically, much of it online.. I have found this book highly recommended and plan on kindle-ing it soon: [http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play- Game-Design-Fundamentals/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Play-Game-Design- Fundamentals/dp/0262240459/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Would love to see a follow-up on what you actually try to do in terms of marketing and distribution - as I'm finishing up my first 7-song album, I'm painfully aware that even after all the songwriting, recording, mixing, mastering, and product design, "release day" means that you are still only half done.

</comment><comment><USER26> In case you miss it in the middle of the article, these are the instructions for the game: [http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0218/2060/files/spacedice.p...](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0218/2060/files/spacedice.pdf)

<comment><USER27> All that work and there's still a typo on the first sentence, second page.

<comment><USER28> And the directions are still pretty confusing. For example, I had no idea the debris' orientation mattered until I saw the examples. And what happens if there's a dispute about whether the debris is aiming at a planet or not? And also, can I keep a planet if I didn't roll a sun with it? I assume not, but it's not explicitly clear. And what's the difference between orange and yellow space debris? Also, the How to Play section indicates I should only keep planets and black holes, but don't I also keep stars so that my planets stay habitable?

<comment><USER29> The answers are there, but I agree that it could be quite a bit clearer.

> Can I keep a planet if I didn't roll a sun with it?

No - suns make planets habitable (see the Sun section); you can only keep habitable planets and black holes.

>What's the difference between orange and yellow space debris?

There is no difference between red and orange space debris (there are no yellow -- the colors in the instructions are slightly off from what the dice actually show). There's also no difference between yellow and green planets/suns -- take a look at the image in the article that shows all the dice laid out. I think it'll clear that question up.

>but don't I also keep stars so that my planets stay habitable?

That makes logical sense, but since the instructions specifically state to keep only planets and black holes, no, suns go back in the tube. I think the logic behind this is two-fold: One, since planets and black holes are the only metric for score, any planet that you keep has a star in its imaginary galaxy, so a planet that is by a player actually represents not just a planet but also "at least one star." Two, a green/orange die going back into the tube helps keep the game points flowing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As a huge board-gamer, I always love seeing the "making-of" of different games, and this one is no exception. I especially thought the prototype was pretty hilarious, but it definitely makes sense to have one when working with a physical product.

I'm not too surprised at how much the costs ended up turning out to be, but I am curious as to how long it took to assemble everything together, from prototype to finish? I guess the main difference for a physical product is really the time it takes to get from prototype to sellable product, rather than just hacking something out in a weekend and getting it out there immediately.

</comment><comment><USER31> Did anyone come across some good articles on dealing with suppliers on alibaba (test-runs, QA, IP, shipping, customs, etc.)?

<comment><USER32> Use a throwaway account when dealing on Alibaba your email is either sold or leaked and you will receive a thousand scam offers per second after sending an inquiry to a vendor.

I did manage to do a test run of 100 custom cellphones there though and it worked out fine. I had a friend who speaks Mandarin actually call the place directly though and didn't deal through Alibaba

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Coincidentally, I made a plastic d6 in my home workshop yesterday using silicone molds. This is just a prototype for more molding work in the future.

<http://365bowls.com/?p=175>

</comment><comment><USER34> Loved this post, great that he wrote a rails app and nice to get the costs at the end too.

I tried to make a wi-fi kettle with a wifi module in that had a API, the prototype alone was a huge expense (£25k+) and to get it into production was around £200k (CE certified etc). In the end I just wrote up the blog post (here [http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/introducing-the- twettle-p...](http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/introducing-the-twettle- project-the-kettle-that-tweets/))

Props to anyone who makes something physical, it's dedication, passion and investment

<comment><USER35> So did you make it onto kickstarter? You just spent the £25k out of pocket for the prototype?

<comment><USER34> No we didn't make it as at the time they wouldn't let UK residents apply to Kickstarter.

We didn't spend money on the prototype in the end, we just couldn't get the backing, it would probably be a lot easier these days tho (it was 3/4 years ago)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Purchased. I love hearing stories from people who just got up off the couch and did something.

Congratulations! Can't wait to play!

</comment><comment><USER36> Got a couple emails asking me questions, this is the company I always used in the US for prototyping. They are a little expensive but fast. They also have great resources that will answer all your questions:

<http://www.protomold.com/Resources.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER37> This really resonates with me. I am currently working on a physical product of my own. In a world where digital goods are the norm, I'm thinking of publishing a bi-weekly magazine.

I'm still really in the planning stages, as I haven't got any experience on this front at all. But I do have some of the digital backbone in place already. And I have my ideas stirring in a pot now. All that's needed is for me to start cooking.

Anyway, I would just like to say that I am inspired by what I'm seeing here. I'll work as hard as I possibly can. Wish me luck!

</comment><comment><USER38> Interesting post. The author could save another 0.83$ per package by skipping the included instruction manual.

I think it's safe to assume that very close to 100% of users will have an internet connection available when playing this game, unless they're on a vacation abroad. I would opt for: 1\. Full manual + videos on spacedice.com, aimed for use before the first time one plays the game. 2\. Abridged version of manual printed on the tube, mainly meant for recalling some specifics of the game.

<comment><USER39> It's hard to gesticulate wildly and throw digital instructions at your opponent while disagreeing on the rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm impressed by how fast you decided to go into production. How many playtests did you do? I know a bunch of people who failed with a game that wasn't sufficiently tested. I experienced that the main faults in game design are testing with the same group over and over again, and relying to much on calculations rather than getting real life feedback.

But hey, it looks awesome. Great Design. If you come over to the largest game fair in Essen (Germany) this year, I may grab one ;)

</comment><comment><USER41> Curious why you chose to spend $2.06 on the tubing stateside? That's a lot of money for packaging, and then to have to assemble the kits together. I'd try and get as much done in China as possible, especially the tubing, which would run you far less and you would be shipping a finished product and minimizing costs a ton.

Happy to help anyone who needs guidance on sourcing and manufacturing in China. I've become pretty savvy over the years.

<comment><USER35> Hi rianelli, if you don't mind I'd love to take you up on your offer and bounce some questions off of you. I can be contacted at hn.torvid at recursor.net

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The landing page is missing an important piece. The explanation of how the game works in _text_. Its beautiful, well structured, but missing that key part. I was _ready_ to give it a try, but I did not want to see the video. You have to include an explanation in text. Or even an image of how it works. You are losing sales to this. Fix it.

</comment><comment><USER43> Not sure if you are aware (or its designed that way) but on your website you have two different dice both labeled 'supernova'.

</comment><comment><USER44> The costs breakdown neglects his own time put into the project.

To get the real total cost (which must be estimated), we should know how many hours he spent on it, and what his expected hourly rate might be if he were an independent contractor.

You can't really decide whether or not the endeavor was a net gain unless you also take your own time into account.

<comment><USER45> Did you ever consider maybe some endeavors in life are pursued for reasons other than profit?

<comment><USER44> Well, it is possible to simultaneously enjoy your work and also put a monetary value on your time. These two things aren't mutually exclusive.

And besides, if profits are not a motive, why analyze them to begin with?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Good article. I've been working on a board game prototype on and off for a couple of years and have decks of cards with things taped on them that look very similar to your dice. My plan was to perfect the mechanics and then just make an iPad app, but I think this demonstrates a boutique print run is not that unfeasible.

</comment><comment><USER47> This looks great. I have no experience with selling physical products and so not sure what it takes, but I would think selling these on various specialty websites and specialty stores could work great. Thinkgeek.com is one that comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER48> This sounds really cool. Congrats on shipping it!

I'd love to check it out, but I don't think I'd enjoy it very much due to my being color blind. Have you given any thought to designing the images to not be dependent on color?

</comment><comment><USER49> Article read like an episode of Shark Tank. These sorts of real constraints is good information to mix into not-always-related-to-business technical discussions.

</comment><comment><USER50> I watched the video on the site and still didn't really get how the game worked. I couldn't find any written instructions on the site.

<comment><USER51> Neither did I but the video was so cute that I bought a pack (actually three with friends to lower the shipping per pack)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Very cool, but I missed a board when I saw the video of the game. Still seems to be very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER53> > I spent a few hours hacking together a little rails app which would play out > 100,000 rolls in a few seconds and tell me the chances of everything coming > up.

Can't people do the math anymore, they have to simulate everything?! And they have to do it with a mtf web framework?! A spreadsheet and some pen and paper to figure out the formulas would've sufficed...

<comment><USER54> And yet here he is, selling an actual product to actual customers, and you're sitting at your desk with your presumed 'advanced math knowledge' bitching about others not knowing how to do math...

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Have you considered selling these in Target or Walmart, or perhaps specialty stores?

<comment><USER56> Hobbyist stores will probably require keystoning: if the retail price is $20 then the maximum wholesale price they can pay is $10. Note the margins on the product, now wince.

Also, arranging distribution with them is very problematic. (Source: I had delusions of running one, once.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Every game I've ever played has a suggested age range, e.g., 5+ years old.

Is this good for kids?

</comment><comment><USER57> Really cool. Just purchased!

<comment><USER57> Wow, my Space Dice just arrived. That was fast! I guess being one town away had something to do with it.

I'll play it later with my kids and see what they think (my opinion rarely counts these days).

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> This was front page all day, I'm surprised he has any left to sell.

</comment><comment><USER59> Very well done and finally. WoW! God does plays dice!

</comment><comment><USER55> How did you find the company to make the packaging?

</comment><comment><USER60> $69 for 1 yr of a .com domain? You need to shop around more.

But pretty inspiring! Good looking game!

<comment><USER61> Maybe he bought it from someone else or paid for multiple years.

<comment><USER60> It was only registered for 1 year so I was pretty sure it wasn't the latter. And far too cheap to be bought from someone else. But since it was an expiring domain I guess it was money well spent.</comment></comment></comment>


InfoQ: WinRT: An Object Orientated Replacement for Win32 - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/WinRT-API <comment><USER2> I'll wait till it is actually out.

You know, .net was supposed to replace Win32 to the point that it was all going to be managed code. At least that was what the Microsoft rep tried to sell to me in 2002. I've recently started a new .net project -- and found that 9 years later, there is still no .Net sound api, if you want to actually control the hardware video decoder you have to use Direct3D (!) from a C++ .dll, because DirectX stuff doesn't properly interop.

Even if they get everything done properly for WinRT in 5 years it will be a miracle.

Also, Win32 was never the _native_ API; There is a native API - and it looks very similar to Win32, but isn't. I wonder what they mean by "native" here.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a Windows/.Net developer by day and OSX/open-source geek on my own time, I gotta say (somewhat reluctantly) that I'm actually pretty psyched about trying Windows 8/WinRT out. Even though I'm very comfortable in Win32 and WinForms, it really is starting to feel pretty damn ancient.</comment>


You Can Now Trade Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash on Robinhood Crypto - sahin-boydas https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/12/you-can-now-trade-litecoin-and-bitcoin-cash-on-robinhood-crypto/ <comment><AUTHOR> Said it once before: do not link your bank account on RH with Plaid (i.e. bank login). Plaid is the API they use that includes access to your account balance and entire transaction history! ([https://plaid.com/products/transactions/](https://plaid.com/products/transactions/))

RH Privacy Policy: [https://d2ue93q3u507c2.cloudfront.net/assets/robinhood/legal...](https://d2ue93q3u507c2.cloudfront.net/assets/robinhood/legal/RHF%20Privacy%20and%20Security.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Hey! Co-founder of Plaid (plaid.com) here. RH does not pull your transaction history, RH is only using Plaid to authenticate your ACH accounts to make sure your actually the owner of the account and so you don't get over-drafted. They're using our auth and balance product, feel free to check out what information we return on our docs ([http://plaid.com/docs](http://plaid.com/docs)).

<comment><USER3> But they could potentially use you for more and users don't have insight into whether or not they do or if it will change.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed there is no transparency around which endpoints are being used. There needs to be a screen that shows what data you're providing like FB or Google login before you link anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Kudos to the product guys. They have figured out the demographic of their product with clinical precision. In Last 6 months, I have used RH app lot more than FB. Nothing is as addictive as using leverage to trade options and Crypto.

<comment><USER5> I have no comment on crypto but if you're "addictively" using leverage to trade options, I hope you're only playing with your throwaway money. You are practically bound to lose money to institutional investors when playing with options.

<comment><USER6> > You are practically bound to lose money to institutional investors when > playing with options.

Source? Explanation?

<comment><USER7> Do most non-institutional/non-professional traders even know how to price options other than some gut feel? Are they familiar with Black-Sholes and the Greeks? From my personal experience most of them don't. Plus to properly model these things requires quite a bit of research and calculations. At the hedge fund where I worked, there were well over 600 top of the line Xeon servers running to constantly pull in data and crunch the numbers. This was in the early 2000s. Things are probably even more lopsided now. Trading and finance are professions in the same sense software engineering is (there's quite a bit of overlap in skills too). Unless you're a professional who has the time and resources to do it, you're at a severe disadvantage and are going to lose in the long run.

<comment><USER8> One possibility is getting leverage via deep in the money options, which are very easy to price. But I guess that's not what most people are talking about.

But also, spreads are pretty tight for close dated near the money options. Just assume the price is right, pick a direction, and trade...

<comment><USER5> Sure, you'll make money 99.9% of the time but the time you don't, you'll be losing your money and then some.

<comment><USER8> But that has little to do with whether you have 600 xeons to run black sholes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Every time I hear "democratize" financial system from a FinTech or blockchain "company" it immediately raises alarm bells. Usually it's a euphemism for democratizing investor exploitation.

<comment><USER10> Nobody invests, specifically in these coins. Everyone speculates, even in bonds :)

<comment><USER11> there is a fundamental difference between securities which have a claim on real assets and produce cashflows and those that don't

<comment><USER10> I completely agree, and that also does not make those securities "investments". Additionally, even someone who "invests" (literally "putting clothes onto") into an account at Ally bank for 1.4% interest per year or something is still speculating on a few things-- namely that Ally will remain solvent and that their security measures are sufficient enough to ensure you will get your money in and out without much problem.

Bitcoin certainly is more speculative than GE stock, but look at GE's stock performance and dividend performance. Anyone who thought they were investing into the long term value of a major American company was actually speculating as to whether or not a blue chip stock could produce cash flow and maintain the value of real assets, which, they couldn't do so as well as they did 20 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Obligatory RobinHood Tweet [2016]:

"Trade fast, die young." [https://twitter.com/robinhoodapp/status/756262680537759744](https://twitter.com/robinhoodapp/status/756262680537759744)

<comment><USER13> I feel that at some point regulators will move on RobinHood for the way they push trading.

<comment><USER8> Why? Brokerages like etrade have pushed trading for decades.

<comment><USER13> What's important it's the way you push trading.

You are only allowed to advertise it in particular ways. Here, it feels like they glamorize YOLO trades (as they are popularly called)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Obligatory warning: don't trade more than you can afford to lose.

I can't see how making leveraged trading accessible to the large masses is beneficial to anyone other than the app makers and institutional investors.

</comment><comment><USER15> I signed up for Robinhood earlier this year and provided all my personal info including SSN but was notified afterwards that cryptos were not available for trading in California.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm happy to see more adoption of Bitcoin Cash!

</comment><comment><USER17> Hooray Litecoin...</comment>


Warmer ocean may be releasing frozen methane - <AUTHOR> http://news.agu.org/press-release/bubble-plumes-off-washington-oregon-suggest-warmer-ocean-may-be-releasing-frozen-methane/ <comment><AUTHOR> "We see an unusually high number of bubble plumes at the depth where methane hydrate would decompose if seawater has warmed," said lead author H. Paul Johnson, a University of Washington professor of oceanography. "So it is not likely to be just emitted from the sediments; this appears to be coming from the decomposition of methane that has been frozen for thousands of years."

Methane has contributed to sudden swings in Earth's climate in the past. It is unknown what role it might contribute to contemporary climate change, although recent studies have reported warming-related methane emissions in Arctic permafrost and off the Atlantic coast.</comment>


NYC Show and Tell for Hackers (Hack and Tell Meetup) - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/hack-and-tell

<comment><USER2> Joined. I will allow myself to re-plug my networking event next Thursday in case some NYC HN'ers missed it: <http://sunsandandstartups.eventbrite.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you sure you meant to say "Hackers"? Not "programmers" or "engineers"? How is hacking different from programming? I have always thought that a hack is making something unexpected out of things that aren't supposed to be used this way, hence "iPhone hacking" is an oxymoron since all iPhone programmers are using iPhone SDK in a way Apple permits/tells them to. Same goes for most web apps that follow various _standard_ best practices and recipes - that's as opposite from hacking as you can get.

So why destroy a word then? Hacking != Programming,

<comment><USER4> what great hackers have in common according to pg: <http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html>

<comment><USER5> That may have nothing to do with linguistics: quality hacks are _hard_ so they just aren't that common. So yeah, most of what hackers do isn't "hacking"</comment></comment></comment>


NVidia's FastPhotoStyle: Fast, Photorealistic Style Transfer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NVIDIA/FastPhotoStyle <comment><USER2> I'm literally playing with now and first impression is its not processing photos as shown in README file. I might be doing something wrong but I am just following installation steps with docker. Its running fine but results are not as expected.</comment>


Ask HN: Loosing Faith - the startup killer - <AUTHOR> I'm coding for 15 years, I've met a bunch of of bright, skilled and motivated people trying to build "their own project": Nearly everyone of them had on some point the idea to build a startup, a small web project, a passive income business.
And mostly everyone, including myself, failed.
We've failed not because nobody wanted our product.
Or because of missing programming skills. We've failed because we've lost faith in our product!
We may have started, wrote weeks of code, played with it. And finally abandoned it without finishing it.
I'm not talking about "missing market"/lack of customer acceptance. We just were not able to finish it.
What I wonder: We're all intelligent enough to understand, that it probably takes some time to finish a product (SaaS app for example). We all now, that it takes some time to get a few beta customers and even more time and hard work to attract paying customers in the end.
And we are all aware of idiots bashing every new idea, tellung us things like "that will never be as big as facebook!" all the time.
We know that, before we start. But usually after two to four weeks, the project just fails. We've lost faith in it. A few weeks, months, years later we try another idea. Same thing.
To clarify: It's not a tool-problem! I know a guy doing really "low" PHP4 things, but he is able to deliver a MVP to the market, several times. For years. As a part time business besides his full time project management role!
So instead of talking about technology, finance, SEO and all the crap, we should imho focus to deliver. JFDI!
But how? <comment><USER2> Get some cash. It's a real spur to action.

One time I had a project that was dragging on forever, I was trying to develop a product for an existing business but I kept missing my self-imposed deadlines. 1/3rd of the way in I'd realize I want to approach it a different way and throw away everything tangible I had and re-start. I did that twice. It was dragging on forever.

Then I hand-coded a crappy html sales page and started taking preorders at half price. Got like 60 of them. So, my most loyal customers have given me money just on my word. I promised it would get to them within whatever timeframe.

Now there was no going back, no perfectionism, just had to work my ass off to get it out. And I did! Towards the end I was so burnt out and delirious from all the work and energy drinks and lack of sleep that I actually paid two freelancers from Elance to clean up some of the rough edges on my work, since I knew what was wrong, but I was too broken to fix it myself. But it got out! (Actually, it was two weeks late - I apologized profusely, gave out some free stuffs, and made the second deadline I promised)

After that I had a product that generated some sales for a couple years, so that was awesome. Get some cash. It motivates on many levels. It's like the military commander burning his ships behind him - now there's no retreat, you've got to go forth and conquer, because it's the only way out. Except, unlike burning ships, cash is cool and useful and you can spend it on things, even using the cash you got to help pay to deliver your new product or service. Magnificent thing, cash. Get some. Huge motivator.

<comment><USER3> "Then I hand-coded a crappy html sales page and started taking preorders at half price."

Very interesting. What other ideas do you have for sweetening the deal for a customer willing to signup for what is essentially vaporware?

<comment><USER2> > Very interesting. What other ideas do you have for sweetening the deal for a > customer willing to signup for what is essentially vaporware?

Well, as I understand the term vaporwear, it means stuff that's never built that's never going to get built. It's a result of either a company grandstanding (Microsoft) or a company with perfectionism issues (Duke Nukem Forever). Taking preorders demonstrates that you're not grandstanding and forces you not to be a perfectionist. So I wouldn't call it vaporwear.

Beyond that, running a successful company people trust and delivering value to them helps immensely. Give them things for free - write a newsletter, write a free tool (even a simple one! simple tools are awesome), give some useful case studies, a blog, whatever. If Patrick McKenzie (patio11) announced that he was releasing an ebook in 30 days and charging $80, but it was $20 if you pre- ordered now, I'd jump on that in a heartbeat. Because I respect him, trust him, and would be happy to give him my money, and I know he'll deliver.

Beyond that - solid concept that's demonstrably possible in the real world. If you announce something that seems difficult to impossible and you haven't figured out how to get there from here, people will be skeptical. But if you're doing a version 2.0, or you're selling media (a book, an album, whatever) where people have seen dozens/hundreds examples of it created in the past, or if you're just known as a guy that always delivers - then you should be able to get some preorders.

Really though, I didn't take preorders for the cash, I didn't need the cash. I did it to make a promise to other people. Most people take promises to other people much more seriously than promises to themselves.

<comment><USER3> In my case, I have built some trust with my users on a couple of small tools, so I have moved the needle enough to where I think I can try this. 'Half-off for life' seems like the kind of deal that would tempt anyone seriously interested.

Agree with you on taking the cash being a form of promise, to help motivate me to punch through the last 10%.. errr 90%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "finished" is a dangerous concept.

I'm not clear on what you mean by "losing faith in the product". Do you mean that you stopped believing that it had any value whatsoever; or that any/enough customers would ever like it; or that you lost faith in your own ability to accomplish it? Or do you just mean that... you ran out of motivation?

The key idea is not that "it takes time", but for it _not_ to take time. In other words, to get something done ASAP. I'm talking like 2 hours, not 2 weeks or 2 months.

esr said to launch a product you need something that (a) runs; and (b) has a promise that it can be turned into something really cool in the near future. It's code + words. Note: this means that the thing that runs is _not_ really cool. [many others also state this idea, but I really like esr's formulation]

For motivation in general (not just for launch), the same thing is true: you want to get something that works ASAP. Fred Brooks says of this style of incremental development: _I was stunned by the electrifying effect on team morale of that first picture on the screen, that first running system_.

I wrote the first version of my product in 2 hours (though I'd been thinking about it for a couple of weeks; and it took a 9 hour day to write the website). This isn't because I'm some great coder, but because the product was _that simple_. It wasn't "finished". It took a year before the first sale, and eventually I made enough to retire (for small values of _retire_ ).

tl;dr release before it's ready.

<comment><AUTHOR> > release before it's ready.

The technical community seems to have these virulent quality assumption: Everything test driven, inside out, full stack, behaviour drive. This is great and a must if you have a clear product requirement and/or a clear vision.

But I think this is conflicting with the "release a MVP, crappy, early" philosophy. Maybe I'm to "slow" when doing tdd things. Maybe I just aim too high?

Maybe I've a low frustration tolerance that does not allow me to survive the gap between "end of initial euphoria" and "the first paying customer". How to to improve?

<comment><USER4> You aim too high.

Is it because you are not convinced that aiming lower is the right thing to do; or do you believe it but you have trouble actually _doing_ it?

Perfectionism is common in programmers (perhaps because imperfect syntax doesn't work). It means that you compare your product with "perfection", instead of comparing it with "nothing" (ie. it not existing at all.) If you tend to be critical, and quickly notice faults and omissions, then _you may be a perfectionist_. It seems to me that perfectionism is the number one reason why many programmers aren't successful in business. It's very difficult to overcome, but one way to begin is simply try to find what _does_ exist in your product (and elsewhere), and just acknowledge that it does. You might not yet be convinced that it matters, but just being aware of it is a start.

For me, a crucially motivating thing was people actually being interested: feedback. When I launched that 2-hour product, I wouldn't have continued if there was no feedback. But there was (a single email!). Feedback can help survive the gap you mention, to _paying_ customer. Before then, just getting something that does _something_ can be very motivating (see my GP comment).

BTW: don't do tdd for a MVP! It takes too long. The advantages of tdd don't really make sense for prototype.

 _EDIT_ Ask yourself how you could cut corners, and yet still deliver some of the essence of the thing. Work out what your one essential idea is, and try asking of a particular line of code: is is absolutely necessary for that essence? Some other questions:

       - error checking? *cut*
       - corner cases? *cut*
       - "option to save your work"? *cut*
            (unless it's a DB etc, whose essence is storage)
       - cover the most common cases? *cut*
            (just cover *one* case)
       - documentation? *cut*
            (except: the essence + how to run)
       - debug? *cut*
            (provided it mostly runs)
       - integration test? *cut*
       - define formats/interfaces? *cut*

A more extreme cut is possible... No Code:

       - present slides of your product (Steve Blank)
       - pretend to have a product, but you just:
          post on HN
          one webpage (optional: a survey on it + Skype chat)
            (feels wrong to me, but can be done ethically)
       - adwords campaign + landing page

Consider your PHP friend... did he aim high? What _specific actions_ did he do that were different from your other friends?

Here's some essays that might help: "Mediocrity is underrated (or better is the enemy of good enough)" <http://nayna.org/blog/?p=11> "Getting Real" [6 very short excerpts, I suggest read all esp the footnote/quotes, in this order:] <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Whats_Your_Problem.php> <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch09_Epicenter_Design.php> [http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_Race_to_Running_Softwa...](http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_Race_to_Running_Software.php) <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_Shrink_Your_Time.php> <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_Done.php> <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch10_Less_Software.php> and pg's 2008 essay (on HN 2 days ago): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1525068>

_disclaimer_ I find it hard to cut corners on my present project. My excuses (which I'd like to overcome) are due to it being based on a new mathematical model:

        - if the maths isn't realized correctly, it won't work perfectly
        - showing off all its benefits (eg error checking) requires more work
        - getting the foundation right will be easier to build on
        - patenting (can't be done after release)

<comment><AUTHOR> My "PHP friend" has already done several profitable projects with the least amount of perfection. He knows how to do it right, has already the traction to bring already paying users over to his other new projects. Unfortunately he lives ~500km away.

When I ask my developer colleagues about feedback for my "crappy alpha", I'm just getting totaly bullshit responses like "you need javascript input validation before the user sends his form" despite the real problem I try to resolve.

So I asked serveral of my ~100 developer contacts on different projects, unfortunately feedback was kind of the same.

But only few of them managed to release something in their spare time. So they probably have the same problem as I have.

It's hard to get in contact with people that made it, some of them just tell you "I was lucky" which is cool, but not really helpful - It's easy to say that when you've made it :)

<comment><USER4> So it sounds like you're convinced you should aim lower, but are having trouble actually doing it.

Oh no, you don't ask for feedback from your colleagues - you get it from people with the problem you're solving. From users. Your fellow developers can't even _know_ if you solved the user problem; the best they can do is point out things like grammatical errors which, as you say, is useless.

 _EDIT_ I guess your PHP friend wouldn't have been able to bring over users for his very his first app, and I bet he remembers it vividly. You could email him, or talk on the phone. He's not the only person in the world to have shipped, but you know him, so he's an excellent person to start with. You _could_ visit him. Consider: 500 km vs. 4 weeks. Sounds ridiculous, but if you take this journey, you won't forget his point of view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "But usually after two to four weeks, the project just fails. We've lost faith in it."

Well there's your problem. Assuming you are working part time, two to four weeks is not even remotely enough time to build even the simplest of businesses. Note I'm not talking about building an application, which you could complete in 3-4 weeks, I'm talking about building a business.

I would guess a more reasonable timeline for starting something in your spare time would be about 6 months until you get your first revenue, (or more likely your first 'pivot' because you finally have enough data to realize your idea sucks). I wouldn't be surprised if it took longer. So, whatever you choose to do, try to ask yourself if you are willing to spend most of your spare time for the next year working on it before you even see any money. As soon as you start passing ideas through this filter, I think you'll find more success.

Any more optimistic timeline is a time fantasy.

Side note: this is in my opinion the problem with starting something on the side. It's far too slow. Sometimes it looks like I'm going to be 30 before I make a dime! I think I could cut down this cycle to 2-3 months to my first 'pivot' if I was full time. In other words I think working full time would move things along 4X as fast. Add a competent cofounder and you could probably almost double that.

</comment><comment><USER6> Imagine this title: "Our 8 year old still crawls because we gave up teaching her to walk"

Absurd, huh? Not really. It's the same thing.

People walk because their parents _absolutely, positively would not give up_ teaching them to walk. It's that simple. We need more of that thinking when it comes to "raising our businesses".

When I hear about people starting businesses and failing, I wonder if it's because (a) the business never had a chance or (b) they gave up too soon. I suspect it's a lot more (b) they most people would admit.

I think the secret to not giving up is finding a cause that's just about as important as teaching your child how to walk. This depends upon how your hard work will benefit others, not on how cool it is, how much fun it would be, or how much money it will make. You will _have_ to succeed because of those who are depending on you just like your child depends upon you to teach them to walk.

<comment><USER7> I'm going to shift your analogy over to where rmoriz is the baby and walking is shipping. Babies and children want to imitate what big people are doing. Without active teaching, babies will still learn to walk because they see big people walking.

If you want to be motivated to walk, look at big people walking. Adjust your time online to make that your focus. Meet up with people who ship.

<comment><USER3> Might I add, this is probably easier to do than you realize. Call up a small business founder and offer to pay for their lunch in exchange for an update on the neat things they are working on.

3 reasons they will likely say yes:

1) A chance to show off the results of their hard work.

2) Since you're smart enough to be asking about them, they may by default think you're a heads-up person and worth taking a close look at (for a potential hire).

3) If you're asking about them, you may know something about their industry or their product that they don't, so they might be interested in finding out if you can provide feedback.

Bonus) Free lunch!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One reason I believe for this could be because often in these cases your project is a 'side' bootstrapped thing.

This causes the lack of motivation / reduces the chances of reaching success for a few reasons.

\- The first is that you do not need it to succeed.

Don't get me wrong, you would love it to succeed and make money, however you are most likely doing it after your day job and the reality is, you've not risked enough to 'HAVE' to succeed. Therefore it is very easy to fail / decide to try again when things get tough or haven't yet been as successful as you had hoped.

\- Another key reason is that, while bootstrapping time is tight. You find you spend hours / days / weeks / months of your spare time on something (while working full time at a job) and the reality is, you just burn out / want free time again. This is not unreasonable, especially if you have a family to look after, or your health is being affected.

\- Ultimately every idea goes through a dip, 'a hard' section. The fun idea / initial build has started (if you're a software developer like me, this is the best part), but now you must focus on the other elements such as sales / marketing / support, etc. We can easily diagnose and fix a problem in our code if our product is running inefficiently, but it's often far harder for us hackers to say exactly why the traffic is not pouring in, why the traffic is not converting to user sign ups or why the sales aren't increasing. At this point we think how much fun it would be to work on another exciting idea, doing the fun part again.

\- Finally (I already realise this is quite an essay), the idea may not have been so great to start with. It is a common thing to have 'great' ideas, which at first seem brilliant, but after a week seem weak. I always try to give any idea I have at least 3 days of thought before jumping in. Similarly I always ask other people for their thoughts and whether they would use this service?

Ultimately, there is nothing more demotivating than working on a project realising that no one actually wants it.

</comment><comment><USER9> _But usually after two to four weeks, the project just fails._

2-4 weeks? I've been working on my current project for five years... And I still don't know whether it's really going anywhere :(

But maybe I'll find out soon. My project's latest iteration is slated for release this week, after nearly two years of development.

<comment><USER10> Two years for one iteration? It sounds like you're in the same boat as me as being potentially a non-technical founder of a software related business. I've made that mistake before and in some sense continue to make it today, but iterations need to be made in smaller steps than that.

May I ask what the project is?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> (BTW it's probably "losing faith" that you meant to write)

<comment><USER12> i moved to a non-english speaking country recently and have taken (after half a year) to not correcting non-native speakers english. why? because they're actually regularizing the language when they make "mistakes"! and that's a good thing.

similarly, the "o" in "losing" sounds more like the "oo" in "cool", "school". maybe we should stick to it.

<comment><USER11> Some mistakes are just mistakes. You have to know when you're being helpful, and when you're getting in the way of someone talking, with your corrections.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Setting out to build "a passive income business" is a recipe for disaster. There is no substitute for intelligent work. Business exists to serve the community, not to maximize shareholder equity. The responsibility of business is to ensure that prices are kept decreasing, and that quality and wages are kept increasing. Focus on the right motivation and the proper methods and profits will follow. Here is a true saying: "he who is faithful in small things, will be entrusted with greater things".

Read:

Ecclesiastes - <http://bit.ly/bFJruK>

Proverbs - <http://bit.ly/aJpmva>

Henry Ford's autobiography My Life And Work - <http://bit.ly/9fZkFG>

</comment><comment><USER14> _"But how?"_ We, startup people, are visionaries. We see possibilities in things that don't even exist yet. We envision our company as the next Google, and ourself as the next Steve Jobs. There is however a really long period of time, where you just have to be like a wind-mill and grind all day (mostly alone). Grinding requires a whole different mindset than envisioning. You need to switch modes in your brain and must find a way to enjoy the small activities, in other to make it.

 _How to enjoy grinding?_ Get absorbed in the daily small tasks and focus on them completely. Our brains are built up in a way, that it's impossible for us not to enjoy ourselves, if we really focus on a single task. Multitasking really kills the flow experience, so it's good to to avoid multitasking whenever possible.

Have a grand strategy and know where you want to be in life. Review your strategy every one or two weeks. Look at the week ahead, and the week just passing. Is there an activities you should focus on? Look for small improvements.

Track your resources (time and money). How much time and money do you spend on certain activities (you think you know, but you have no idea without actually tracking it). There are time tracking apps (eg. Eternity for iPhone), that could help. Look at your spendings (again time and money) each day and find things, that you could do better / things that you shouldn't do / things that you should do instead.

There are a million things that might work for you, but the bottom line is to find a way to enjoy the grinding process.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you are not talking about "missing market or lack of customer acceptance" I am assuming you haven't gotten one of your products in the hands of your end customer.

I would suggest building a very simple feature set that you an launch quickly (MVP in startup terms) or even a quick mockup and ask your end customer (or who you think your customer is) what they think of it.

If you have a prototype a customer wants then you will be excited. Set some deadlines, targets, goals, and really execute on it.

That's my 2 cents.

<comment><USER16> _If you have a prototype a customer wants then you will be excited. Set some deadlines, targets, goals, and really execute on it._

Yeah. Find ways to generate excitement on your side and actively seek it on a regular basis.

For me, in this phase I'm in, it's talking to entrepeneurs which really does help. I guess it's also about a supportive environment. Family and friends, people who believe in you and lift you up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some people convince themselves that they ought to start their own project, because it's the "right" thing to do. But deep down, it's not what they actually want to do. If you give up on a project after only 2 to 4 few weeks, it's likely that you're one of those people.

It's not all bad news though. You need to revisit your motivation for doing your own project. Money alone is rarely enough to offset the emotional drain of doing so. And as I said above, neither is doing it just because society values individuals who pull it off / go the effort of at least trying. Ambition for the sake of ambition won't cut it.

Find something you're passionate about. Change the world, change people's lives, or change a very tiny part of the lives of many people. Find a competitor who has stopped innovating because they have a monopoly on a market and fight tooth and nail to break their monopoly by providing a superior service. Pick a fight and don't back down. People don't give up after 2 to 4 weeks if they're passionate about something.

</comment><comment><USER18> The timing of this question couldn't be better because I think I know something that might help give you perspective.

Go out to the library, or borders, barnes and nobles (or digitally) and buy this book - [http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative- Battles/dp/04...](http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative- Battles/dp/0446691437). It's called the War of Art, and a really short read, 150'ish pages (but actually more along the lines of 75 pages). A friend of mine loaned me his copy and it's _definitely_ pulled me up from the doldrums I've been in recently to get some perspective. I suffer from pretty much the same thing and succumb to that resistance, or what other people sometimes call the "lizard brain", in getting something _DONE_. It's HARD.

Honestly - just read the book. It'll help. I promise.

</comment><comment><USER19> This happens to me alot. Let me see how do I deal with this.

Firstly, it maybe my personality- Resource Investigator then secondary Plant. Both type of of personalities are creative but get bored of things pretty quickly. Working along side a Sharper generally solves this problem. For more about belbin have a read: <http://www.teambuilding.co.uk/belbin-team- role.html>

If I'm by myself. I generally make the time scale large. Like right now, I'm trying to read a 373 page book. I could read it in a day. But instead, I am going to do it over 4 days. So generally, I expand my expected time for success. I talk about it in this post: <http://chegra.posterous.com/consistently-underperforming>

Also, when I'm finished a small task, I announce it on my twitter and facebook. The likes and the comments generally boost motivations. So, maybe like every two days I have some kind of news to report on what I'm doing. Like, I finish my low fidelity mockup design. I try as much as possible not to mention the future, it decreases your motivation for getting stuff done. Apparently, the brain rewards you for just saying you are going to do it and your friends too, hence no incentives to complete the task. So, do it afterwards and obtain the rewards from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried once to involve a junion partner (but 50/50) in one project. The idea was to give him a ruby introduction but with the main focus for him to do others things so that I can code e.g. he should checking out support-SaaS, googlemail, terms and conditions.

I thought that both partners are going to motivate themselves, don't allow one to procrastinatel off the roads.

In the end it did not work out. He raised more "no go" concerns than even I have when I start failing a project, e.g.:

A 2 hour discussion about: "when we focus on the US, who does support at night? I'LL NEVER STAY UP READING EMAIL TO 2AM EVERY SECOND DAY. I CAN'T DO THAT."

That was after approx. three weeks. Nothing worked yet. No customers of course.

TL;DR

I try to find cofounders but usually they have less motivation than I have. I probably don't do me a favour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm glad to hear this happens to someone else, haha. For me the biggest challenge was not to release the product though, but to keep working on it when no one is using it yet. Anyway, I think it's basically the same question of motivation.

I was thinking about writing a short post on this. I suspect this whole agile culture with releasing crappy version 1 and iterating may be misleading for some people. For example, I've never heard of authors iterating their fiction book - they write it and sell it. If they don't sell right away, they may sell it later, so it's not an immediate failure. I think maybe this, at least partially, may be applied to the software world. Games and iPhone apps pretty much fall into this model. But maybe webapps could somehow do the same. The point is, I see nothing really wrong with this attitude of working hard for some time, but not wanting to continue to invest your time and energy into the product after its release. It maybe be good for some products, but bad for other. The real problem is the current trend towards iterations and continuous development, which may fool some people and make them unhappy.

</comment><comment><USER21> _"... We've failed not because nobody wanted our product. Or because of missing programming skills. We've failed because we've lost faith in our product! ..."_

Faith in product or self?

I think you are right to question the ratio of HN articles readers obsess over at the expense of psychology. You want to build something, but first you have to overcome many hurdles. Somewhere along on the way the balance of motivation and flexibility that keeps hackers working on projects gets out of whack, code stops getting written and your project dies.

Overcoming obstacles is what it's all about. If you avoid signs of failure [0] you have a better chance of completing the project. This of course doesn't mean the project is worthy of being called a product. Users just might not like what you have to offer. Not completing the project/product is the quickest way to failure. There are no easy answers here. Keep moving forward.

[0] Reading this motivates me to finish an article I've been planning on failure. Here's some patterns of failure I've noticed ~ <http://seldomlogical.com/2009/08/12/10-signs-of-failure>

</comment><comment><USER22> I think you're simply suffering from not having found the right idea yet. It's like building a fire. You start off with a match (idea), then you put some paper around it (first demo, businessplan), then you add kindling (launch, release). Now you add some wood (real effort, making the user experience 'good enough' for real work). If at this point the fire does not sustain itself it will burn out because the cost of continuing to tend a dying fire is too high. If on the other the fire starts to make it's own wind (like a real fire does) and starts to consume more and more resources because that's what it needs you'll be too busy to notice the years flash by and holding on to it without crashing it.

So keep on building fires, one day you'll hit one right out of the park as long as you learn from previous fires and why they died out.

</comment><comment><USER23> Losing faith is a form of procrastination, and procrastination is a way of not experiencing some feeling that for some reason we are unwilling to experience. As a general rule we procrastinate because we are scared of the results we would get if did not procrastinate.

In a roundabout way the feelings we are unwilling to experience end up running our life. So maybe it would be a good thing for you to take the quiet time to discover what is beneath the behaviour you abhor.

One way to do this is to ask yourself what is it that you would lose, or tightly held belief that would be invalidated, if you were incredibly successful. And then rather than try to answer this question with reason or your intellect, just write a page or two without thinking, and see what comes up.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER24> One issue is that you probably created something that had a discrete 'idea' behind it. I find if you just start coding 'the project' but aren't constrained by a specific idea, but remaining in the same codebase, it is liberating and allows you to cross the 4 week gap. 37signals talked about this when creating basecamp, they mastered a small messaging app first. These days probably half of all web apps could start that way.

</comment><comment><USER25> You haven't even made it to 'fail'. If you are losing faith during initial development then how do you expect to get through the really tough part of selling / promoting it after release? If you are serious about this then just find a way to get to something released. Otherwise you'll never know if you enjoy or excel at the main challenge of a startup. The only other option is to treat it as a hobby.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. It's a kind of pro/cons.

The subconscious starts to think of all reasons why this will fail for sure.

Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: You work less, waste time and focus, procrastinate.

Then it's over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I recognize this as well. After a few side projects running out of interests from my side, while still liked but my early users, I also started to question why.

I found the biggest motivator is user feedback. Especially positive ones.. It makes me stay up late to get another thing implemented or fixed etc.

If I would run out of encouragement from users or people around me for a while, I think that is when I lose interest.

<comment><USER27> This. The best user feedback is someone actually giving you money for your creation. I feel that I owe each person who buys my iPhone app the best type of that app possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The problem is that you need to accept that you are a starter not a finisher.

You loose not faith but interest as soon as you realize that you could actually do this and here comes the important part *if you wanted to!

So if you want to do something about it, you need to make sure that once you have established the groundwork someone else will take over the nitty gritty of finishing.

<comment><AUTHOR> that really might be.

Unfortunately people are only willing to take over if:

a) it makes them easy money, or is near to be profitable b) you pay them for doing your work (you trust your idea, so you it will pay others, too? sure..) c) you can make a big marketing around selling your pre-alpha-incomplete company (unrealistic)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Maybe the idea to get you started is something very simple, it's possible that your searching for ambitious products and big market gaps where something you can fit into a month of development can break even and get the ball rolling.

</comment><comment><USER30> Losing faith will kill a startup. Having faith in a bad product can be more disastrous.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have this, but not because I "Lose Faith" its more of a race between me finishing a project, and me getting the idea for the next greatest thing and wanting to work on that. At the moment I have 3 projects I'm juggling. I work on each rotating between them each week. Its a terrible way to work.</comment>


Why there's no Nobel Prize in Computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/060611-nobel-prize-computing.html

<comment><USER2> Next up: why Shakespeare never wrote a play about the Internet.

Now, if you want to discuss why there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics...

<comment><USER3> Sadly it's not because Nobel's wife/mistress had an affair with a Mathematician [1] :)

[1] <http://www.snopes.com/science/nobel.asp>

<comment><USER4> Even from the article you mentioned it is not exactly clear if that was true. It was a juicy read though for 100 year-old rumor from a pseudo-gossip column though.

I used to hear similar kinds of stories between Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. It doesn't mean they're true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the de facto Nobel Prize in Computing:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award>

The Nobel Prizes were established in 1895, before Alan Turing started the field of Computer Science.

<comment><USER6> But quite a bit after Lady Ada started it in 1842 :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've don't believe that there should be a specific category for computing. I believe many of these categories should be consolidated into one. In many years there hasn't been enough advancements to warrant an award. Mankind's process has not been rapid enough where it is necessary to have a category for separate scientific fields. This also includes computing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't that since Computing falls under umbrella of Mathematics and there is no Nobel prize for Mathematics (due to Nobel's wife having lover who was a Mathematician, so Nobel excluded the whole Math field from getting the prize) - Computing must have Turing Award instead</comment>