What does WhatsApp's upcoming monetisation mean for the company and its users? - <AUTHOR> https://factordaily.com/whatsapp-monetisation/ <comment><USER2> I remember reading in some Brian Acton interview that Facebook leadership believes that ads would bring in more money than charging businesses for access, integrations and premium features.

Living in a country where WhatsApp is ubiquitous, I really don't understand that. Is it just a lack of imagination on Facebook's part? Companies, from tiny ones all the way up to enterprises, will pay _serious_ money to be able support customers over WhatsApp in an effective way. And then I've not even begun to consider the marketing channel WhatsApp could be (also without turning into a spam hotbed).

Facebook is the gatekeeper to WhatsApp, effectively a monopoly to a piece of core telecom infrastructure for a lot of countries. They could squeeze this out to the max. Right now, they give all of this away for nearly free and share the profit with the likes of MessageBird and Twilio. TBH i'd prefer they tax businesses than my eyeballs.

<comment><USER3> > I remember reading in some Brian Acton interview that Facebook leadership > believes that ads would bring in more money than charging businesses for > access, integrations and premium features.

Verbatim: it wouldn't scale.

 _Acton said he tried to push Facebook towards an alternative, less privacy hostile business model for WhatsApp — suggesting a metered-user model such as by charging a tenth of a penny after a certain large number of free messages were used up.

But that "very simple business" idea was rejected outright by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who he said told him "it won't scale".

"I called her out one time," Acton also told Forbes. "I was like, 'No, you don't mean that it won't scale. You mean it won't make as much money as…,' and she kind of hemmed and hawed a little._

It looks like to me that the multi-billion dollar company that Facebook is, with all the very intelligent people working there, is a one pony trick that only knows how to make money by putting ads everywhere.

<comment><USER4> You make it sound like Facebook doesn't know how. Of course they do.

It's just that ads is significantly more profitable than having to run sales teams in the 200 odd countries around the world. Especially since ads is largely self service even down to ML models monitoring abuse.

<comment><USER5> Also, fb already have an ad business. They don't have a b2b software business. If Salesforce had bought WhatsApp, they might be interested in the b2b idea. They probably wouldn't be into the advertising idea.

<comment><USER6> Keep in mind that Facebook's existing ad business is 100% B2B as well and they don't use an is school Oracle/IBM/Yellowpages sales org for that. Selling API access to WhatsApp would not necessarily have to be different.

Facebook already having an ad business can also be used as a counter-argument: cannibalization. Some of the ad-spending going to WhatsApp would definitely be spent on Facebook instead if WhatsApp remained ad-free. But I can't imagine that they are not fully aware of this (even Hanlon's razer must have limits somewhere), so what remains is that they consider the expansion of addressable ad audience more valuable than other monetization strategies plus the massive hit the WhatsApp brand will take from ad introduction. And because those ads would be almost worthless without the targeting ad customers expect from the Facebook brand, the whole thing is like an indirect confession about the existence and quality of shadow profiles describing those who are not registered with the mothership. Well, that group is about to shrink...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When Netflix a few months ago prompted me with "Hey your number is a Whatsapp account, do mind if we send notifications via Whatsapp?" I was generally horrified.

It felt a serious transgression of my privacy. Though in hindsight I realised it was an easy task, I can, after all, see if people are using Whatsapp if I have their number so there is little to stop companies doing the same lookup if they have my number.

But it felt very uncomfortable.

I don't want companies involved with my Whatsapp, it is exclusively for messaging my missus, and group chats with friends and family. Nothing else.

I did read somewhere that one of the founders said the aim was to integrate apps/companies into Whatsapp, but for me "No!".

I am dreading what the ad monetisation will be like. Since everyone I am friends with, related to or worked with use Whatsapp, their market penetration is ubiquitous here in my London ecosphere. Hope they don't ruin that.

<comment><USER8> Whatsapp specifically though, it is just your phone number. You don't have that control over your phone number. Seems a little harsh to hold that one company to higher standards than literally anything else with your number.

Direct marketing rules should still apply, in the UK you can't legally cold- call mobile numbers.

I mean, I get it I agree with you and use whatsapp the same way. The one time I tried to use it to message for a takeaway they just ignored the order.

<comment><USER7> To be fair to Netflix it was a polite question banner at the top of the screen. Though fairly large and in your face. They did re-prompt a few times, but I have not seen it for a while now.

But it caught me off guard as I was not expecting it. And did not welcome it.

I wonder what the stats are for their members' responses. Maybe was just an A-B test.

<comment><USER9> I get that banner. I don't have WhatsApp and have never used it.

The container Netflix is inside doesn't know anything about me other than my Netflix account. Presumably they've decided that annoying paying customers is a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I still remember the first installation of WhatsApp messenger on an old Samsung device of mine in 2012 as a high-schooler. It was incredibly liberating to finally discover an IM app that enabled me to send unlimited messages to my friends and not get hamstrung by SMS limits that existed in my country; especially one that was resource-light enough to run on my device's 866 MHz processor.

I'd largely glossed over Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp back in '14 as just another big tech company eating up a smaller 'potential future competitor,' but in hindsight it looks like it was the beginning of the end of WhatsApp as a simple, reliable and _ad-free_ private messenger.

Super glad I quit the platform in 2017 -- never been more tranquil.

<comment><USER11> What? If anything, WhatsApp has become a better product since its acquisition. It is currently the simplest, most reliable, ad-free messenger out there, which also supports state of the art end-to-end encryption for its millions of users.

Let's see how they deploy ads. But it would be a shame that WhatsApp shut downs because Facebook cannot monetize the application. If anything, I'm glad they're going this route instead of charging a fee to use the app.

<comment><USER12> I think the other two "mainstream" messengers I use (Telegram, KakaoTalk) are as simple or simpler and also ad-free. Kakao also has E2E encryption after a bit of a struggle, Telegram had it for a long time.

I think WA is the most widespread but I wouldn't call it the simplest or most reliable. They are all pretty similar imo

<comment><USER13> As opposed to the two you mentioned, WhatsApp has e2e by default. Kakaotalk and Telegram force you to use "secret chats" for that which are device to device only and cannot be shared among different devices with the same account.

<comment><USER14> Uh, well, both WhatsApp and Signal are single device only to begin with.

<comment><USER15> I can continue an encrypted chat in Signal from my desktop. I don't think I can do that in Telegram.

<comment><USER16> Do you need a password to do that?

<comment><USER11> Nope, scan a QR code

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Please join my protest:

If you see an ad on Facebook messenger or WhatsApp, don't hide it, instead Report It.

Report it as sexual content, report it as a scam, report it for whatever reason.

Guidelines, try to use different reasons and try to make it a realistic reason.

Facebook likes to gather our data for their ML, so let's weaponize it. If we feed their platform garbage data, the ML will block the ads automatically, driving advertisers away or making report handling prohibitively expensive.

We likely only need 0.01% of users to feed garbage data to trigger their ML decisions. They'll eventually be forced to find a better alternative.

<comment><USER4> No offence but this is hilariously stupid.

All you're doing is following the same blackhat strategy that has been tried and prevented years ago. You know the one where you keep flagging your competitor's ads as abusive in the hope of getting them taken down. It's basically the same as click fraud.

In your case it's even more stupid since I assume you're doing so with a logged in account and without using proxy services so your IP will be static.

I guarantee that your reports has changed nothing other than make it more likely that your account is going to banned for abusing their terms of service.

<comment><USER18> Or just added to the bozo-file, meaning all your reports will be deleted unseen automatically, but it looks like everything works on your end.

<comment><USER17> Shh, don't tell anyone, but it seems like I've been put on a blacklist from seeing ads altogether :)

Honestly, I assumed the same. That I would be put on a shadow-ban list for reporting. However, the lifecycle looked something more like:

1\. Reports went through without getting any response from FB. Definitely influencing their ML models.

2\. A few months later, I started getting emails from FB acknowledging the report was investigated. I imagine that means manual effort.

3\. Its been atleast 2 weeks since I've seen a ad in the FB Messenger iOS app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A better way to monetize than Ads would be to slightly follow the Telegram model, they should create a store, ability to access an API, bots... Whatsapp did not evolve much in the past 3 years, it's maybe time to make it larger than just a chat app and create a real platform. Especially when you have entire countries using the app.

<comment><USER20> I believe whatsapp is so popular exactly because it did not evolve. People love wa as-is, why break it?

<comment><USER19> They don't necessarily need to "break it" but to evolve it a bit into a service. I'm sure you have people who would be happy to pay for bots, larger groups and business features (including myself). In some countries, WhatsApp is larger than a chat app, it's a social network but without any features, there's a gap somewhere here.

<comment><USER21> That gap is the feature, and I'm willing to pay to keep it that way. The moment bots start spamming my WA feeds/groups I'll be gone. I'll move to Signal and if my contacts don't do the same, I'll just switch back to SMS with spam filters.

<comment><USER19> When I meant "bots" I meant only manually. I can't subscribe manually to a bot right now and I can't add a bot to a group I own.

<comment><USER22> I agree with you: if the subscription has to be by the user, the subscribed entity is managed like other contacts and I never get unsubscribed messsges/requests I would surely like to subscribe to the info that actually matters to me directly (conceptually opposite to "following feeds" on twitter). Completely personalized information and without installing one more app for every subscribed entity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Facebook killed their core platform by watering down the communication between my friends and family with business adverts and pages.

I suspect they will kill WhatsApp the same way.

</comment><comment><USER24> Whatsapp daily user here. I understand the need for them to monetize but the second they add advertising and companies into the mix, they lose the sheen of their app.

whatsapp is purely for talking to people I know. That's their selling point for me. I don't want to see companies, ads, offers, sweepstakes or curated content. Just me and my family/friends.

<comment><USER20> Call me naive, but I hope and believe there'll be a paid opt out

<comment><USER25> > _I hope and believe there'll be a paid opt out_

I don't. This isn't how Facebook works. Paid opt outs drain the highest- earning advertisees from the pool. That removes Facebook's ability to charge dubious ad rates.

<comment><USER26> Do you mean "user" by "advertisee"? If you do, it is like Stallman saying "used" for SAAS users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have many friends and a whole family who don't care about this. I tried to get people on Signal but it worked only for a handful.

It would be nice if at leat I could pay to keep WA clean (and please let me pay to keep my addresses to myself as well), because leaving it completely is impossible for now. Here in the Netherlands WA is _the_ communications standard, even most company helpdesks are on it.

<comment><USER18> I manage quite well without it, and many other Dutch do too. I will fight for a society that doesn't depend on a tool that can only be used by getting into a legal agreement with Facebook and makes owning either an Android or IOS smartphone a requirement.

Fuck these walled gardens.

<comment><USER28> > I manage quite well without it, and many other Dutch do too

I wonder how you can manage without WA in the Netherlands. For me, all group events, sports, kids' activities, trips, vacations, family things, etc are managed in a whatsapp group. To "App" has entered daily Dutch vocabulary as a verb (meaning sending a whatsapp message). I'm in dozens of groups (none of them created by me) and participating in anything without it would be very unpractical.

<comment><USER18> People mail, text, or call me. Those who use WhatsApp know this and have the decency to take that into consideration.

I'll gladly deal with any downsides if that means maintaining the principled standpoint that being a member of society doesn't require owning either an Android or IOS smartphone, being forced to run someone's black-box proprietary software, and agreeing with some foreign mega-corporation's dubious terms of agreement. It's harmful for democratic society as a whole to engender such a dependency.

Besides, if the experience of friends and colleagues is anything to go by, opting in to Whatsapp means you get its downsides too: that one group member who keeps spamming everyone with noise, the constant demand for attention, the gossipy, sometimes down-right stalkerish neighbourhood watch groups (glad my neighbourhood hasn't hung up those sycophantic Whatsapp street signs), not to mention Facebook looking over your shoulder at the metadata level.

<comment><USER29> Every friend group has one or two people that interact with others like you do: It has to be on their terms, they have principles that get in the way, etc. That's beautiful and all the more power to you for doing so, but if you believe it doesn't impact you much more heavily than you make it seem here you are deluding yourself. You've made it so that including you in anything is _effort_. Effort that people need to expend consciously, and will not be the ground state. You've isolated yourself (to a certain degree) for your principles.

<comment><USER18> Principles rarely come for free, and I accept plenty of usable alternatives that don't suffer from the limitations of Whatsapp — it's not like I'm shunning the internet, computers, or even electricity. If people don't feel like including me is worth the effort because they are stuck in a walled garden, then good riddance. No one around me feels like that though. They readily accept that expecting everyone to buy either an Android or an IOS smartphone on top of any other computing devices they may own is not reasonable.

Besides, I'm not alone in taking this particular stance here in this country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I like WhatsApp because it works really well and is easy to use. But on the day I see an ad and no option to get rid of ads by upgrading to a paid subscription, I will close my account.

<comment><USER31> > I will close my account. And here lies the issue. Just you closing the > account doesn't work. Your friends, your family, others you talk to on > whatsapp shall also migrate. And that's the biggest issue.

<comment><USER30> I previously closed a ton of other social media accounts and guess what, my friends are still my friends and my family has not abandoned me. In fact I have _more_ time for friends and family now. In hind-sight most social media use was just a giant waste of my time. Now people just call me or send me an e-mail when they need to contact me. Signal-to-noise is much better.

<comment><USER31> I think this explains my case clearly, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18432085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18432085)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I really don't mind the ads - they are a business after all. This will just push me to stop using the platform.

HOWEVER, I wish they had chosen a different monetization tactic. I would have _much_ rather paid their $1 a year for the service. And given the amount of users they have, that could generate more than enough revenue for them to fund development.

Additionally, monetizing businesses and their integration into the platform also seems like a great idea. The businesses that find value in the platform will more than happily pay for the service.

Or, another idea: why not make me just pay for chat backup (like $1 a year for the app, $10 a year for chat storage, $20 a year for chat and pic storage, $30 a year for chat/pic/video storage) or something like that. That's something that's user AND privacy friendly.

It just makes me really sad that these ads are what Facebook chose. It's an excuse to not innovate and find creative ways to increase their revenue. It seems like they're taking the easy way out.

<comment><USER33> They already had that setup. Facebook removed the $1 a year subscription when they bought it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if this will prompt Apple to open up group iMessage, such as BlackBerry (belatedly) attempting to go cross-platform with an app. Charge Android users $1/year or /month for access to the ecosystem or something. Bye- bye WhatsApp overnight, in lucrative developed markets.

<comment><USER35> If only it was so easy. Why would users pay when they can send messages sent for free? Also, iMessage is not materially adding new feature against what Messenger and Whatsapp already offer - so adoption is going to be a massive uphill battle.

iMessage succeeds on Apply only because it is the DEFAULT SMS app which Apple took over and converted into a full blown Messenger solution. Highly unlikely this playbook will work out on Android.

<comment><USER34> _Why would users pay when they can send messages sent for free?_

A combination of awareness that TANSTAAFL and network effects - RIM sold plenty of BB hardware to people who just wanted access to BBM because that's where all their friends were, so there's precedent.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that even if there were a paid option for FB, Insta, WhatsApp they would still do everything they could to monetise personal data, because that's just the kind of company FB is, rapacious.

<comment><USER18> You're not going to reach the tipping point with just that. Most users don't care one iota about why their lunch is free. They know you feel strongly about that topic, but feel that they just have nothing to hide, that targetted advertisements are really pretty convenient, that they are rather good at ignoring advertisements, that they are not the real target after all with their modest income — that you are just fighting the inevitable based on some vague principle.

The majority at this point in time does not seem to care about privacy, but they do care about the price.

Also, what's the point of moving to just another walled garden? Apple will still keep the service proprietary and closed to third party clients, so you'll also lose the vocal software freedom folk in your approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Its interesting that many people here don't seem to know that in most of the world WhatsApp is already the go-to business messaging platform and a large portion of its user base subscribes to business services via WhatsApp. Organic promotion groups, local business contacts, and messaging lists have existed in India and other regions for a long time now. Its interesting to me that it seems that in the EU/US users generally so shocked by this.

</comment><comment><USER37> I highly doubt that Whatsapp was ever for user privacy. Have you tried installing it first time? It won't function without permission to intercept your SMS, it won't function without giving it complete contact list (as opposed to select few numbers) and so on. And of course that data is sold... er... how they say it now - "analyzed" or "exchanged".

<comment><USER38> The SMS interception permission can be disabled.

It's only used the first time you register your phone number to whatspp, to send a SMS with a unique code to verify the number. Someone thought it was a good idea to intercept all SMS rather than have the user write the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> After moving to Portugal from UK, and terrible experience with local telecoms provider MEO (lies and horrific bills) I have to use VOIP. Recently I've switched to using WhatsApp instead of Skype for most voice calls, curious if others are doing the same?? Audio Quality is mostly good and it's much easier to find contacts than with Skype, because it's based on their mobile number not a Skype ID. On monetisation I would pay for voice calls to landlines/mobiles. Also maybe they could do some kind of deal for international data roaming packages linked to a separate WhatsApp number. Predictable reasonable costs for voice and data - linked to a single mobile number - is still a major unsolved problem for travellers.

<comment><USER40> I am in the UK/ EU as well, my friends and I mostly use Whatsapp, FB messenger, Facetime for voice/video calls (especially when traveling/roaming) as most of them use this. Skype is mainly used for business or other "non- quick" purposes.Quite a few of them don't even have Skype enabled in the "always on" mode, open and login only when needed, unlike the others I mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As a business owner, I would love to use Whatsapp to communicate with my users. Not to spam or advertise, just communicate. The email open rates for our target audience (Indian college students) are abysmal, and SMS is just too unpredictable (but what we end up using because that's the best we've got).

I reckon that there would be similar business owners in my predicament who would just like to genuinely notify users. Just like with email, users can have an opt-out option as well.

I think some of this functionality is already there in their Business API (which is quite opaque fwiw).

On the other hand, I can see how this can quickly devolve into spam if used incorrectly (which is inevitable).

</comment><comment><USER42> There's no stopping Facebook from shoving ads down our throats, but I hope they consider creating an option to remove the ads and provide extra features. For example, charge me something per year to add chat+media backups and group video calls.

Also, before Whatsapp was acquired by Facebook, didn't they charge something like 99 cents per year to provide backups?

</comment><comment><USER43> Whatsapp paid for itself, more or less, IMO. A lot of people don't need FB to stay in touch with extended family, just Whatsapp groups. They are still in FB ecosystem, of sort.

FB needs to worry about the next quarter so they might ruin this and allow other apps to take over.

</comment><comment><USER44> The article mentions ads on the private feed. I don't use this feature, is it the leftmost tab — statuses?

Since most of the world runs on Android, they are already accustomed to ad supported software. While not a welcome change for me, I doubt I will ever encounter them.

</comment><comment><USER45> I would gladly pay a "pro" subscription to get rid of ads.

I've already tried to move friends and colleagues to Signal. It didn't work.

<comment><USER46> Why do you think it didn't work? I've had the same experience, but with trying to move friends from telegram to signal. For me, I think it is because telegram is such a better experience from a UI standpoint. Signal is getting better, but it still feels clunkly.

<comment><USER45> I think it's simple inertia.

Maybe I should try again with Telegram. It looks quite nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Signal is open-source and can be forked if they ever add ads, it's the final answer.

<comment><USER48> AFAIK, It requires Google play services, which is a deal breaker.

<comment><USER49> For others, who may not have seen this reply to the same comment above, it's no longer required:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18434172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18434172)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> If I start seeing ads, I will move back to regular SMS. It is that simple.

<comment><USER51> I use whatsapp for tons of foreign numbers and sending images. SMS is torturously bad for this use-case!

I would tolerate any amount of ads for this service, or alternatively pay maybe $10 a year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> What about us who actually paid 1€/$ for WhatsApp in the first place?

<comment><USER53> That was a price per year and it's been a while since you paid that.

<comment><USER54> Initially IIRC it was a 99 Cent App on the App Store without an annual fee, as there were no in-app purchases on iOS yet

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Hopefully it means everyone stops using Whatsapp (Facebook)

</comment><comment><USER56> Can Anyone build a what's app replacement and does anyone want to JV to market and scale the app through the wave of pissed off users that is eminent upon the roll out of WhatsApp Monetization.

We know one thing. Whats app monetization will be so nefarious and parasitic that there will be a mass exodus. Be there to catch the fall out and provide a responsible replacement that respects data sovereignty of individuals.

The opportunity is inbound now.

</comment><comment><USER57> I wonder, could one use users as bridges- like in irc - and communicate with whats app groups from outside the walled garden?</comment>


How to Send Mail to MTV.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-hack-into-mtv-com/ <comment><USER2> Kids these days. This isn't "hacking into MTV.com".

If "hacking" were equivalent to "breaking into someone's house, making yourself a breakfast, cleaning up and leaving without taking anything and anyone noticing you were there", then this is more like "ringing the doorbell and running away". Just sayin'....

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't really hacking, it's just using a mail server, for sending mail... The problem is/was that SMTP AUTH was overlooked as a requirement from the original SMTP spec, and the bigger WTF is that it took about 20 years before it was added to the spec.

Edit to add:

"While he was on the computer I shut off all the power on the floor." - Because everyone can just stand there and shut all the power off on a floor... if it were indeed a 'hack' then give more specifics, if it's flipping the switch on a breaker... well... that's just that.

</comment><comment><USER4> why are all this guys articles on the front page of hn? They're just pointless crap not worth reading that culminate in "follow me on twitter I'm a super cool guy".

<comment><USER5> i guess they really stir something deeply inside of you. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think the point of the article was the "hacking" so no reason to really breakdown how good of a hacker Altucher is/is not.

<comment><USER3> If that is the case, then the title is pure link bait; the article wasn't about MTV.com; and the closest to a hack is the social engineering (to whatever degree) used to get the friend to the MTV beach house.

<comment><USER7> I guess illegally entering mtv.com and doing something with their mail server counts as a hack.

<comment><USER3> There was nothing illegal as far as entering... he used a mail server for what it was intended for. The impersonation of the MTV legal team is a different story, but it would not constitute a hack in my opinion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Three Golden Rules for Successful Scientific Research by E.W. Dijkstra - <AUTHOR> http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd06xx/EWD637.PDF

<comment><USER3> OCR:

The Three Golden Rules for Successful Scientific Research. This note is devoted to three rules, the following of which is necessary if you want to be successful in scientific research. (If you manage to follow them, they will prove close to sufficient, but that is another story.) They are recorded for the benefit of those who would like to be successful in their scientific research, but fail to be so because, being unaware of these rules, they violate them. In order to avoid any misunderstanding I would like to stress, right in its first paragraph, that this note is purely pragmatic: no moral judgements ara implied, and it is completely up to you to decide whether you wish to regard trying to be successful in scientific research as a noble goal in life or not. I even leave you the option of not making that decision at all.

The first rule is an "internal" one: it has nothing to do with your relations with others, it concerns you yourself in isolation. It is as follows:

"Raise your quality standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine problems, and always try to work as closely as possible at the boundary of your abilities. Do this, because it is the only way of discovering how that boundary should be moved forward."

This rule tells us that the obviously possible should be shunned as well as the obviously impossible: the first would not be instructive, the second would be hopeless, and both in their own way are barren.

The second rule is an "external" one: it deals with the relation between "the scientific world" and "the real world". It is as follows:

"We all like our work to be socially relevant and scientifically sound. If we can find a topic satisfying both desires, we are lucky; if the two targets are in conflict with each other, let the requirement of scientific soundness prevail."

The reason for this rule is obvious. If you do a piece of "perfect" work in which no one is interested. no harm is done, on the contrary: at least something "perfect" --be it irrelevant-- has been added to cur culture. If, however, you offer a shaky, would-be solution to an urgent problem, you do indeed harm to the world which, in view of the urgency of the problem, will only be too willing to apply your ineffective remedy. It is no wonder that charlatanry always flourishes in connection with incurable diseases. (Our second rule is traditionally violated by the social sciences to such an extent that one can now question if they deserve the name "sciences" at all.)

The third rule is on the scale "internal/external" somewhere in between: it deals with the relation between you and your scientific colleagues. It is as follows:

"Never tackle a problem of which you can be pretty sure that (now or in the near future) it will be tackled by others who are, in relation to that problem, at least as competent and well-equipped as you."

Again the reason is obvious. If others will come up with as good a solution as you could obtain, the world doesn't loose a thing if you leave the problem alone. A corollary of the third rule is that one should never compete with one's collagues. If you are pretty sure that in a certain area you will do a better job than anyone else, please do it in complete devotion, but, when in doubt, abstain. The third rule ensures that your contributions --if any!-- will be unique.

* * *

I have checked the Three Golden Rules with a number of my colleagues from very different parts of the world, living and working under very different circumstances. They all agreed. And were not shocked either. The rules may strike you as a bit cruel... If so, they should, for the sooner you have discovered that the scientific world is not a soft place but --like most other worlds, for that matter-- a fairly ruthless one, the better. My blessings are with you.

Plataanstraat 5 5671 AL NUENEN The Netherlands prof.dr.Edsger W.Dijkstra Burroughs Research Fellow

</comment><comment><USER4> great article. thanks for sharing.

As someone more of the startup bend however, I wonder about his pursuit of "perfect but useless" vs "imperfect but potentially useful".

He favors the former, but it seems to me that alot of companies make a big contribution to the world by 'doing the best they can' and pushing the ball slightly further along.

Examples: Google and Search (not 'perfect' but much better) Microsoft and OSes (OS for the masses) Apple and iPhone

etc....

It seems like the risk of pursuing perfection is that you become paralyzed, and the risk of doing something no one finds practical is that it contributes nothing to the world.

Isn't it better to find a slightly more effective solution that everyone finds they need rather than a perfect solution for a problem no one has?

<comment><USER5> I think his point is that good science strives toward perfection as opposed to being manipulated and twisted to appear relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure how sound rule # 3 is so can anyone please shed some light (or offer a different perspective)? I mean all the problems that I've in my mind right now can be tackled by people who're smarter than me (and I guess I mean it as I do fortunately work with people way smarter than me on daily basis) so should I abandon working on all those problems? May be I'm missing something?

<comment><USER7> I see two aspects to the 3rd rule: one, pick a problem that isn't currently popular with most people in your field - it may be so in the future, thus you need to think ahead, OR, you need to look at a "solved" problem that really isn't, something from the past which you have new insights on. Avoid just chasing the current fad(s), whether in science or business.

Two, develop skills that are unusual, relative to others in the field. For instance, in older engineering fields (civil, mechanical, industrial), there are many problems that could be tackled differently and/or better by someone armed with both engineering domain knowledge, and solid coding skills. But most engineers are terrible coders. And most coders know little about non- electrical, non-computer engineering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Totaly agree with first and third one. Second one should not be a rule.

</comment><comment><USER9> HTML: [http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD...](http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD637.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> I always spell his name Djikstra the first time 'round. :(

</comment><comment><USER11> He said 'loose'. huh huh

<comment><USER11> Dijkstra slipped up and used "loose" when he meant "lose", which I found to be humorous and a little bit jarring. That's all my above comment meant - <USER2> base! Apologies if anyone read it the wrong way. Also, pull my finger.</comment></comment>


Finding Files Fast (1983) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1983/CSD-83-148.pdf

<comment><USER2> Also known as the `locate` command? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right :) Funny that it was originally implemented as an alternate way of calling "find" because they didn't want to pollute the namespace.</comment></comment>


Republicans: We don't want SpaceX investigating its own rocket accidents - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-accident-coffman-congressional-letter-2016-9 <comment><USER2> I thought it odd that a Republican senator is pushing for government oversight of a private company, given that his party is the anti-regulation party.

Than I read this:

 _The senator now faces a heated 2016 reelection campaign in his district — the home of SpaceX 's biggest competitor, United Launch Alliance (ULA), which is itself a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Records show that Coffman has publicly accepted more than $51,000 in campaign donations from Lockheed Martin during his career._

Now it makes sense.

<comment><USER3> It's a sad reflection upon our country if the motives are so transparent.

<comment><USER4> Well, the transparency itself is actually pretty nice. Don't take the donations database for granted!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Regardless of the senators' motivations, asking the government to not trust self-provided analyses by private companies on matters of national security and expensive publicly-funded science projects( like NASA's) seems reasonable.

<comment><USER6> The analysis is being conducted according to a law passed by Congress, and it's hardly "self-provided".

<comment><USER6> And here's an example of Congresspeople saying that the analysis is being done as intended: [http://spacenews.com/house-members-express-support-for- space...](http://spacenews.com/house-members-express-support-for-spacex- accident-investigation/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an affirmatively misleading title, and not the title of the original article.

The members of Congress have simply inquired as to the sufficiency of the FAA, Air Force, and NASA investigations of rocket explosions that have damaged quite a bit of property paid for by tax money.

Better to read the original letter:

[https://www.scribd.com/document/325845340/Congressional- Lett...](https://www.scribd.com/document/325845340/Congressional-Letter-to-AF- NASA-FAA-on-Assured-Access-to- Space?content=10079&ad_group=Online+Tracking+Link&campaign=Skimbit%2C+Ltd.&keyword=ft500noi&source=impactradius&medium=affiliate&irgwc=1)</comment>


The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200 <comment><USER2> I'm halfway through reading this book right now. Honestly it's not that good, I wouldn't recommend it. The video might be good though.

<comment><USER3> The video is good. But if you didn't want to be walked through the evidence, just picture the menu of a typical New York Cafe, pretty difficult to figure out what you want without the specials page.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. Some of the scientific studies are interesting, but it's not anything that you wouldn't know already after reading Emotional Intelligence and other similar books. Yes, choosing from twenty different types of toothpaste may be a pain, but that's hardly a good reason to adopt a religion to artificially limit your choice.</comment></comment></comment>


My Second Year as a Solo Developer - <AUTHOR> https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-2/ <comment><USER4> Two cents offered because this post really strikes a chord with me, and I also spent some time chasing down rabbit holes early in my software business:

These products do not appear obviously commercializable and multiple years invested into them without materially improving the businesses does not decrease my confidence in that snap judgment. You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (appropriately priced; hundreds to thousands of dollars per year) product against those problems, build contingent on getting 10 commits to buy, and be at +/\- $100k in 12 to 18 months. Many people with less technical and writing ability have done this in e.g. the MicroConf community. If you want the best paint-by-numbers approach to it I've seen, c.f. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw&t=2s)

(I'll note that What Got Done is probably a viable boutique SaaS business if you somehow figured out distribution for it, at price points between $50 and $200 per month. My confidence on this approaches total. HNers skeptical because it is technically trivial should probably reflect for a moment on how much time is spent on standups at a company with 20 or 200 engineers, what one hour of their time is worth, and how likely that company is to put an engineer on this project specifically.)

If you run an API-based business in the future: Usage-based billing is a really tricky business model for a solo developer. Note that you can say "Usage-based billing but we have a minimum commitment", and probably should prior to doing speculative integration engineering work. Your minimum commitment should be north of $1,000 per month; practically nobody can integrate with your API for cheaper than a thousand dollars of engineering time, right.

This also counsels aiming at problems amenable to solutions with APIs which are trivially worth $1,000++ a month to many businesses which can hire engineers. Parsing recipe ingredients seems like a very constrained problem space. Consider e.g. parsing W-2s or bank statements or similar; many more businesses naturally care about intake of those documents, getting accurate data from them, and introducing that data into a lucrative business process that they have.

I would encourage you, to the maximum extent compatible with your sanity, to prioritize "Will this get me more customers?" over behind-the-scenes investments like CI/CD which are very appropriate to Google but will under no circumstance show up in next year's report as One Of The Most Important Things I Did This Year.

For similar reasons, I would suggest devoting approximately zero cycles to cost control. You don't have a cost problem and no amount of cost control will bend the curve of your current businesses to sustainability. You have a revenue problem. Your desired state in the medium term will make it economically irrational for you to think for more than a minute about a $50 a month SaaS expense; marketing and sales gets you to that desired state, not cost control.

<comment><USER5> _You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (appropriately priced; hundreds to thousands of dollars per year) product against those problems, build contingent on getting 10 commits to buy_

I don't doubt that you're absolutely right, but this bit strikes me as _hard_. I've struggled to find one business owner with a problem they perceive, let alone 10 with commitments to buying a solution for the same problem.

Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems.

<comment><USER6> > Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; > connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems.

This. Why hasn't this gap been filled yet?

<comment><USER7> >> Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems.

>This. Why hasn't this gap been filled yet?

It's called Upwork.

No seriously, hear me out. When a business owner has a problem they perceive could be solved with technology, they create a job or they go on job posting sites seeking either an employee or a contractor to try and solve their problem.

Where they get it wrong is that they frequently have unrealistic expectations about what it will cost and how long it will take. They have no idea what skills they should look for and who to trust.

Is there a market mismatch here? Absolutely, but you'll have to find a way above the fray of recruiting sites as that's really the state of the market.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I've tried another similar site and people's expectations are a bit loony, usually they want to pay the price you would charge a single customer for 1 year as a SaaS for you to develop the entire solution! Maybe non software folks don't get the difference between say paying Atlassian $1000/month or whatever it is for Jira and paying a dev $1000 to develop a JIRA clone, because it probably seems like the same thing.

<comment><USER7> Recent client: "I took a fortran class back in college, so let me know if you need any help."

Therein lies the problem: They know lawyers, doctors, accountants, heck even plumbers are going to be expensive because they are educated / trained and/or they get you out of an identifiable tight spot (the IRS isn't happy, water is coming into the house, I'm having a heart attack, I'm getting sued, etc).

Software developers? Outside the FAANGs technical people are viewed as fungible. Many, many small businesses are grossly undercapitalized such that a business owner might very well be paying that technical person a lot more than they pay themselves. Likewise, technical roles are typically compensated well above many other clerical / field / service / business type roles such that a business owner might not have ever paid so much to any other single employee.

<comment><USER9> > Outside the FAANGs technical people are viewed as fungible.

Fungible does not mean low-paying. Plumbers are mostly viewed as fungible, however expensive they may be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see a lot of comments criticizing your path and progress. Making remarks like "why didn't you stay at Google".

I applaud your decision, effort, and perseverance. I admire your risk taking and having skin in the game. Trying to make it out on your own.

People forget the journey is not just about the money. It's about learning, growing and bringing your ideas to life. Being an artist, and expressing yourself through products.

Keep on going my friend. There's no doubt you'll get there.

<comment><USER11> Nice words, similar words were said to me. Now I am broke and semi- unemployable. So onlookers beware.

<comment><USER12> May I ask why you find yourself semi-unemployable? I'm in kind of a similar position as the OP in that I have a significant nest egg so that even if I spend a few years derping around and failing at a bunch of things, I figure that I just need to stop before that nest egg gets anywhere near dangerously low and go back to looking for freelance or consulting work, even at lower rates, should that become necessary to survive. I'm asking about your situation in case there are other pitfalls I need to be wary of.

<comment><USER11> I am right now an illegal alien in a country (not the US). My home country monthly wage is 5 dollars or so, so returning is not an option unless I can get a remote job.

<comment><USER13> Without knowing your situation, if you're a good developer it may be possible to get an H1B visa which would allow you to work as a software developer in the US.

<comment><USER11> I love to program but I am a career switcher. All my professional experience is in logistics, I have a B.S but not in CS, also I am 41. By all means if you have any tip to get a H1B (I have heard is crazy competitive) let me know.

<comment><USER14> Why not Upwork? Or investing some time in studying up on digital marketing and building your own products?

It isn't easy but you should be able to clobber $5/hour. Two questions which my customers have never asked me:

\- What school did you go to? \- What country do you live in / are a citizen of...

<comment><USER11> Upwork rejected my resume some months ago. I am enhancing my portfolio to give it a shot again in the next weeks. I want to diversify my income so I have thought about producing digital products, but I need food-rent money now so that it is what I am prioritizing. I am also working on my Algorithms/Data Structures skills to try in TopTal, I dont know if you have any experience with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Happy to answer any questions or hear any feedback about this post.

Discussion from my first annual update last year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19054150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19054150)

<comment><USER15> So 2 years and you earned $18,000? Seems rather bad, you think you can exponentially grow that in the next year or two?

<comment><USER16> The totals on the first chart are wrong. In 2 years he _lost_ $23k. (Or you could say the "totals" are correct, but calling it "net profit" is wrong.)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, either way, financially that would never make sense to me.

<comment><USER17> OP has significant savings. They are their own VC. Think of it in terms of a startup, most of which don't turn profits for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Good stuff.

I've seen a bit of negativity about this being a waste of time since you're not making equivalent money to old job. For those people: This isn't any different from spending time earning a degree by returning to full-time study. And your attempts are growing. The compound interest from these investments in time and effort will help you regardless. Even if you fail on every business at first you'll still get so much experience and momentum you can't help but do better next time. And I doubt any will actually fail: each will have an element that wasn't good enough but still capable of being tweaked to fix it. Even if you don't fix it, you've still learnt something in the attempt.

<comment><USER19> OP isn't explicit about it but he's effectively F.I.R.E'd. These are projects to keep the mind fresh in what is early retirement. If that weren't the case building an actual business requires a lot more time, energy, resources even as a solo founder than what I'm getting from the blog post.

<comment><USER20> Or OP could be T.I.R.E.D. :) He's doing his best to bootstrap his multiple products, but is prioritizing intellectual curiosity, building neat things while not burning out. At least, that's my view of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just some honest feedback.

I have a use for Zestful, and the price is good. But playing around, it seems good at the easy stuff (but I can do the easy stuff myself) it's not so good at the hard stuff.

For example the string "3/4 cup risotto rice, Arborio or Carnaroli"

It identifies the unit and quantity fair enough, and it's right when it says "Risotto rice" is the product. But then it says "Arborio or Carnaroli" is a preparation method. I can totally see WHY it says that. But I'm not sure that's correct.

At your price point though, I might still use it. Ultimatley to parse everything I need to parse it would be a lot cheaper than spending even an hour writing it myself. But that was my first thoughts playing around with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading and for testing out Zestful!

> _For example the string "3/4 cup risotto rice, Arborio or Carnaroli"_

> _It identifies the unit and quantity fair enough, and it 's right when it > says "Risotto rice" is the product. But then it says "Arborio or Carnaroli" > is a preparation method. I can totally see WHY it says that. But I'm not > sure that's correct._

Yeah, I'm constantly improving the model, but there will always be cases it gets wrong. For most of my customers, that's a mostly fine result, because very few of the clients actually use the preparation note field. Most care only about the quantity, unit, product, and USDA fields.

I'll fix the bad result on the risotto example, but it's definitely a game of whack-a-mole. There are so many variations and corner cases that it'll never be 100%.

> _At your price point though, I might still use it. Ultimatley to parse > everything I need to parse it would be a lot cheaper than spending even an > hour writing it myself. But that was my first thoughts playing around with > it._

Haha, maybe I should raise my prices. But seriously, I'd be happy to have you as a customer. If you'd like to chat more about about your use case, shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER22> Aren't you going to make him pre-pay for 3 months and not charge him until the feature is implemented???

Just got to call you out on your own article. lol

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, minor bugfixes I can do without pre-payment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Naive question by someone who's never started a business: when bootstrapping companies while keeping your day job, how do you deal with intellectual property clauses in employment contracts, such that your employer owns the "inventions" you create in your free time, on your own equipment, unrelated to the business area you work in? I know laws vary by state, but I would find it especially disheartening if you spent years of effort and sacrificed your social life only to have your product snatched away from you once it finally became profitable or popular.

My non-lawyer reading of the internet's opinions suggest that you need to discuss it with your company, or possibly edit your employment contract before signing, but the latter seems a bad suggestion if you're afraid of not getting a job. I've also read that these kinds of clauses can even apply several months after you terminate at your day job, which suggests that you can't even _start_ on the product until months after you've left.

All of that makes me unlikely to try to build a business in tech, since I would never have the capital to take such a long break away from a company, nor to build a product for a long time before it's profitable without having a day job to support me.

<comment><USER22> Generally, when an employer owns your "inventions", this only applies to "inventions" created while using the employer's resources. Most employement contracts will make it sound like they own every waking thought, but in most cases when this has been taken to court, the precedent has been set, that it really only applies to inventions or ideas that happen in relation to and using employer's resources.

So this means that an employer can argue they own software that you build:

\- On a company-issued computer

\- Using contacts you garnered through work

\- On company time (this is complicated for salary employees, but definitely applies to time in the office, or standard business hours when you are expected to be working)

\- Work collaborated on with other co-workers

Now I should clarify, I am not a lawyer. None of this is legal advice, yada yada...

But generally you can work on side projects and skirt around intellectual property clauses as long as you make sure to distinguish work time and work resources from your personal projects. The biggest thing is to avoid doing it while at work (or when expected to be actively working if you are remote), and avoid using a company computer or piggybacking off company resources (for example making a sub-account in your employer's CI/CD tool to run tests for your software).

So make sure you have seperate accounts for everything, avoid doing it on company time, and use a personal computer (not a work-issued computer) and you should be absolutely fine with working on a side project.

<comment><USER24> > Most employement contracts will make it sound like they own every waking > thought, but in most cases when this has been taken to court, the precedent > has been set, that it really only applies to inventions or ideas that happen > in relation to and using employer's resources.

A simple example of this that I like to point out to people in tech to help them understand that an employer doesn't inherently own your soul, is picture yourself starting a Pizza Hut franchise (convenience store, or anything equivalent) strictly on your own time and dime entirely outside of work. Does your employer get to own that business, get to take it away from you, just because you work for them 9 to 5? Nope and it sounds particularly absurd when you frame it with something more traditional. Or imagine starting a real- estate renovation business, where you renovate houses in your own spare time; same thing, does IBM get to own your house renovation business just because you pull 9-5 for them? Hell no they don't.

The only serious risk difference re starting tech businesses (vs other traditional businesses) while working in tech is in cases of competitive issues if you start something directly in the employer's wheelhouse. Then you better lawyer up well ahead of time and navigate it very carefully.

<comment><USER25> But it's really more like starting your own fast food franchise while working on a business team at Pizza Hut. It's an IP issue and could be a conflict of interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Thanks for writing this. It is good to see a perspective where a business is being built up slowly as opposed to the typical "I quit my job and now my side project makes $30k a month two months in" posts we usually see.

Do you ever feel issues with motivation when you don't see growth as quickly as you'd like?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

> _Do you ever feel issues with motivation when you don 't see growth as > quickly as you'd like?_

Good question. For me, the more dominant feeling is frustration when I do something that I expect will bring growth, and then there's no measurable effect. That happened over and over again with Is It Keto. It was especially tough because the site's growth depends so heavily on Google, and there seems to be a lag time of weeks or months before Google reacts to certain changes or decides certain pages are worth putting at the #1 slot for related queries. It was tough to make a site change or publish a new post and think, "Okay, I guess I'll just wait 6-8 weeks to see what Google thinks of this."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I read your previous post about Zestful, and this years update, and I just don't understand who would buy this as a hosted API. To me, it sounds like this should be a library, not an API. For every use case that I can think of, having a library would be 100x better than an API.

In my experience, APIs are generally slow, unreliable, and tend to change without notice.

I don't understand what advantage an API has, except making it easier for the developer to charge based on usage.

Do people really buy APIs like this? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER28> Zestful uses machine learning, so there could be a fair amount of storage, CPU, and memory requirements that make using a hosted API preferable to a local library. Also, if you read Michael's posts on [https://whatgotdone.com](https://whatgotdone.com) you'll see that he is frequently improving the model. With a hosted API, customers benefit from improved accuracy immediately without having to update anything.

<comment><USER29> "Without having to update anything" seems a bit disingenuous - does this software even work offline, without having to ask for some data from an online server, just to load the front page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you're netting at best a few grand a year and need to survive on savings anyway, why not just drop the business pretense and work for free on stuff you actually find interesting? A popular open-source project could yield more long-term value for one's career than an unprofitable or barely profitable "lifestyle business".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

The plan is for my income to increase over time. The benefit of launching businesses is that each time, I learn skills to increase my chances of success in the next attempt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Sorry to say but this proves that for someone who actually has to work for a living ie earn money, corporate life is absolutely the correct choice. Even for Mr Lynch these experiments in charity wouldn't be possible without the nest egg from google (which he acknowledged). To go from net 100k+ to below zero and still be unprofitable after two years is a financial disaster.

<comment><USER32> > _Sorry to say but this proves that for someone who actually has to work for > a living ie earn money, corporate life is absolutely the correct choice._

Not really. This just proves that corporate life isn't the most profitable option for the OP. You just can't make sweeping statements like this based on a single anecdote.

I'll offer this to other "corporate" folk out there. I was self-employed since late 2010 until I recently (last month) joined a mid-stage startup. During my last year of self-employment I took home ~$400k in cash, and lots more in early-stage stock, and worked _maybe_ 15-20 hours per week. There are very few corporate jobs that would even come close to that balance of take-home pay and work-life balance.

<comment><USER33> I'll offer a counter example in that the startup I joined failed miserably and I ended up losing out on a LOT of income.

I am now working for a decent 6-figure income and EXTREMELY happy with the stability and 40-50 hour work weeks...in comparison to the ABSOLUTE GRIND I went through trying to help that startup get off the ground - this is a godsend.

Your scenario is VERY UNLIKELY IMO.

<comment><USER34> WHAT is WITH the RANDOM CAPITALISATION?

<comment><USER35> Hint : it's not random.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> How did you cut down so drastically on expenses in the second year, +50%, or was there a large investment in the first year, sorry I havent read last years update yet!

Also, I'm just coming accross your Zestful service and can't believe that is exactly what i am looking for and actually started to write, but I have other stuff to do so no point re-inventing the wheel!

Consider me a new client sir!

PS: Congratulations !

<comment><USER37> "in August, I bought a modest two-bedroom home in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Population: 17,500."

"My living expenses here are ~$2k per month, which is close enough to the rate of return on my personal investments that I'm kind of at equilibrium."

\- i.e. Michael moved to a much lower cost of living area.

<comment><USER38> If that "I bought a house" is literal then he doesn't have rent or a mortgage to pay. That's a _big_ chunk of most people's outgoings.

<comment><USER39> Outside of the super-star cities, housing is pretty affordable!

<comment><USER38> Sure. Thankfully most people can afford their outgoings if they're sensible. It's still a lot easier if you don't have rent or a mortgage though.

If you're trying to suggest houses are cheap enough that lots of people can afford to buy one outright then you're absolutely wrong regardless of where it is. Very, very few people manage that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> All personal stuff aside (and on that note - I'm a huge fan of this story Mike and love what you're doing!)

This is a great piece of advice for solo devs out there:

> Great! You can pre-pay for three months of service, and your billing cycle > won't start until that feature is available.

> I've never been burned on a feature request since.

I imagine it's super easy to fall into the custom feature trap when the temptation of a big new customer is right around the corner, and this seems like an excellent solution!

</comment><comment><USER41> I like how you call that home "a modest two-bedroom home" in the linked blog. I guess it's a matter of perspective. Here in Israel, where everything is cramped, this would be something I'd be very content with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I moved here from Manhattan, where I lived in a 1 BR that was luxurious by Manhattan standards but tiny by real world standards.

I'm very happy with my house, but I think it's probably smaller than what most software developers in the US would choose if they lived in an area this inexpensive.

<comment><USER41> If you don't have children, a larger space would be more burden than necessity. Be happy that you moved away from the jail cell. I'd move if I could too. ;-)

<comment><USER42> At least the jail cell comes with an amazing variety of food and unrivaled convenience

<comment><USER41> Both a blessing and a curse. When you cook your own meals, you end up eating much more healthy. Having a yard also means you can grow your own vegetables, which is also normally much healthier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So awesome seeing your posts at the top of HN!

>> I've also noticed that readers are less interested in business lessons unless the story involves thousands of dollars — earning or losing large sums both seem to work.

I would love to read more about the mundane, small business lessons, because that's where I am. And I'm positive I'm not the only one.

Keep writing about the smaller day-to-day struggles, you got readers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Dhruv, thanks for reading! Always fun to hear from you again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> last corner of graphic right bottom is a wrong amount.

I use to be a number guy, ie accountant hacker. Its not 18k positive as far as net revenue increase from the two years.

the percentage is probably right but not the sign before the net rev number.

and note you have to reach profits soon per how you file with the IRS..sorry to burst your bubble.

same sort of errors in the saas net rev numbers.

bone up on your accounting stats as there are books out there on how to do it

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

> _I use to be a number guy, ie accountant hacker. Its not 18k positive as far > as net revenue increase from the two years._

Can you clarify what you mean? What is the correct way for me to present this information?

> _and note you have to reach profits soon per how you file with the > IRS..sorry to burst your bubble._

Can you elaborate? Are you assuming that I file as a corporation or a sole proprietor?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Encouraging to see your progress, keep it up!

Reading about your projects, it strikes me that some have different potential than others for perhaps one clear reason: solving a problem vs not. Why not double down on Zestful? There is demand there, and some are willing to pay...

This post I wrote recently may be helpful for you: [https://tinyletter.com/garybasin/letters/how-to-know-what- pe...](https://tinyletter.com/garybasin/letters/how-to-know-what-people-want)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

> _Why not double down on Zestful? There is demand there, and some are willing > to pay..._

Mainly because I don't know of any action I can take to grow Zestful. Large companies have already rolled their own solution. Smaller companies who need ingredient parsing have figured out some solution and they usually don't see it as worthwhile for them to take a chance on a new service if their old one is working fine. Customers need to find me at the time they're building a product that needs Zestful, but I don't know other ways of helping them find me beyond the SEO steps I've already taken.

<comment><USER45> Large companies often end up getting hamstrung with homegrown solutions as they try to scale, and look for specialized SaaS solutions

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If folks liked this story, check in with Daniel Vassallo who quit a job at Amazon on well over 500k / year salary and benefits to start out on his own as a solo, small-business founder. [https://twitter.com/dvassallo](https://twitter.com/dvassallo)

He shares lots of personal stats like his incoming & expenditure - <USER2> inspirational and can show that circumstances and luck can also play a part.

</comment><comment><USER47> Side note: when presenting a simple revenue-expense-profit-loss chart, it can help to chart the expenses as cutting from the bottom of the revenue (tough though, when you are funding the expenses externally, in this case you have to put the loss below the zero line). Anyway, it makes it clear when your expenses intersect your revenue, and you switch to profit rather than loss.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think it's especially important to make sure that you interview customers and find out what their problems are before you even think about writing a single line of code. You should strive to get a mix of qualitative (because the stories you hear will let you empathize with the customer problems) as well as quantitative via surveys / small ad experiments. Once you have some signal, then proceed to start exploring solutions (and again, this isn't about writing code, you can do this entirely with mockups/napkin drawings, whatever it takes to get your point across) and _test those solutions with the customers you interviewed earlier_. Once you have some evidence that a) you have a problem that customers will pay to solve, and b) you have a solution that you have validated THEN you proceed to start writing the code.

The biggest change at my company is doing product development this way: understand the customer problem and the solution before writing code.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER49> Great post Micheal, and awesome to see it hit the top of HN - a reminder I guess that the core bootstrapper/hacker community is on here and strong as ever!

The numbers and stuff aside (which are looking promising, btw, congrats - <USER3> forward to see how the trends continue in y3) the part I liked best was the _I still love it_ section. It's incredibly important and, I'm sure you know, the real driver behind doing what you're doing, not money.

I think there's a tendency, maybe especially for technical people, to want to quantify and maximise etc, and money is an easy metric for doing that with and therefore to focus on. But on reflection, it's pretty obviously not the main reason we do what we do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading, David!

> _It 's incredibly important and, I'm sure you know, the real driver behind > doing what you're doing, not money._

Yeah, definitely. I ultimately do need to figure out a way to make _some_ money, but I'd be happy to work for myself for 1/10th the compensation I'd get at a FAANG.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> FYI: on isitketo.org/cream-cheese, the link to "keto dessert recipes" is broken (it's an internal link). Looks like it's being prefixed with the domain and the url ends up having two http segments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed! Thanks for the heads up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I can closely relate to this post. Often times I build and develop software that is simply not worth my time. I think one important thing that you are doing well is capturing data for revenue. I think you should also take your hourly rate and multiply it by the amount of time it is taking you and that will give you a better idea of what this is costing you to build. I've started to capture this data for myself ([https://marcell.me](https://marcell.me)) to get a better idea of what it is actually costing me.

</comment><comment><USER52> love it! If my two cents matter to you... I did a similar thing for a few years, and it wasnt until I went all in on one product/problem did I finally start to see some great returns.

With that said, I have a friends dad who owns like 10 different businesses and he has people manage all of them, while he sits back and collects. These are not software businesses they are more brick and mortar like long term storage, etc, but maybe you can build the same model with online businesses! :)

Good luck, and thanks for posting, really enjoy reading the content!

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm also a solo developer, or at least building a Ltd company starting at one. I wrote up about my developer setup here, and thought it might be of interest.

[https://blog.alexellis.io/building-a-linux-desktop-for- cloud...](https://blog.alexellis.io/building-a-linux-desktop-for-cloud-native- development/)

Would folks like to see more posts about branching out and working for yourself? I'd consider writing-up my perspective from the UK if it was interesting to people here.

</comment><comment><USER53> What Got Done is basically Google's internal Snippets. I wish there was an on- prem setup to do that. The idea is basically every week you write, in free form text, what you've done, and possibly what you're planning to do, and your team mates get to view it, and subscribe to updates conveniently. If you're anything like me, you will find this valuable not only day to day, but also when the review time comes and you need to beat your chest a little. I tend to forget how much I've done.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish I'd found you when I was trying to gather enough customers to make What Got Done a business!

Yeah, I loved Snippets as well. I wrote a little ode to them last year.[0]

> _I wish there was an on-prem setup to do that._

What Got Done is open source now. The standard version has a dependency on Google Cloud Firestore, but I have a working branch that runs on Redis.[1] You'd need to implement a new auth solution because What Got Done depends on UserKit, which is still in closed beta, but you can still use their dummy backend (configured in What Got Done by default) which accepts "password" for any username.

[0] [https://mtlynch.io/status-updates-to-nobody/](https://mtlynch.io/status- updates-to-nobody/)

[1] [https://github.com/mtlynch/whatgotdone/tree/redis- persist](https://github.com/mtlynch/whatgotdone/tree/redis-persist)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Great read, thanks for writing this. One of the hardest parts of doing a bootstrapped startup is the peer pressure and the perceived opportunity cost. The numbers won't add up for a bootstrapped business for many years (I am talking upwards of 5 years even). The only thing that keeps you going is your ambition ('this is what i want to do', 'nothing else i would rather do').

The best way I have learnt to deal with this is to surround myself with people who think similar.

</comment><comment><USER55> I work at a big tech company and also have my own small firm for freelance work. Even though I don't have my own product and implement what customers need, ranging from new website to SIEMs and stuff, I find it pretty lucrative. And my prices are about $20/hr. But yes, I don't know if I can survive without working full job.

LE: and revenue is not that small, about 25k per year.

<comment><USER11> $20/h is shockingly low. That is an effective rate of around 10 bucks an hour, at or below minimum wage level.

<comment><USER56> Depends where

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> These businesses all seem like something that very well could make you money, but would never scale into a growth startup. And it seems the time it takes to build one of these or a growth startup isn't going to be too different. I might even say that you similar chances of making a similar amount of money from either.

So why not shoot for the larger moon?

<comment><USER25> Ingredient line parsing is a really small market and something that sounds like a fun project to work on but is probably not a business venture that has room to grow. The number of companies that have enough recipes to justify automation, profits to justify paying for it and nobody inhouse who can implement it is really small. There's no viable price point for a product like this when you factor in the cost of customer acquisition.

Content based consumer sites are also really hard to get off the ground and it's not something that I'd recommend any bootstrapper to try unless you can charge for it.

I'm sure it's all a great learning experience though and if Michael keeps iterating the way he is now he'll definitely end up finding a worthwhile business venture.

<comment><USER58> > Ingredient line parsing

if he can scale his tech to more general cases, it can be very strong proposition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Interesting analysis. I especially like your personal goals and the "Raise prices, even if nobody's buying". This is a really valuable insight. Thanks for sharing that.

I have one question: Do you have a feeling about the market size you are in and how does this influence your planning?

</comment><comment><USER60> I read your original post 2 years ago, and was waiting for the conclusion. Thank you for posting this.

</comment><comment><USER61> Reading the post makes me most curious about how you live so cheaply? Halfing your burn rate doubles your time to death which more than doubles your chances of success

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

> _Reading the post makes me most curious about how you live so cheaply?_

90% of it is just location.

When I was in Manhattan, I was spending ~$7k/month. Part of that was higher cost of my apartment and health insurance, but another big part is just the culture. In NYC, it wouldn't be unusual for me to go out to a $80/person dinner, spend $25 on drinks afterwards, another $25 on Ubers, then another $20 on brunch in the morning.

In Western Mass, I do make efforts to live cheaply, but so much of it is just the ease of not spending money when nobody in your social circle spends like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Michael - firstly, kudos for sticking to your solo dev plans. Hiccups are part and parcel of the game. I like your Is This Keto app. And second, keep at it!

</comment><comment><USER63> @mtlynch you're brave for sharing your experiences and struggles with the world. What kind of help are you searching for?

</comment><comment><USER64> God bless you for writing such a good post

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Question: why did he leave a job to build these sites? He could have built them while continuing a full-time job.

</comment><comment><USER66> Are health insurance costs included in your current $2k monthly expenses? Did you buy the house outright?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep and yep. Health insurance in MA is $250/month for a high deductible plan (I was paying $500 in NY). This year, my insurance is only $40/month because I qualified for a subsidized plan based on my 2019 income (or lack thereof).

<comment><USER66> Interesting. I am in MA as well and it seems health insurance would be 500 a month for me(1 person). Maybe thats the higher end plans though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> @mtlynch what tech stack do you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> Different things for different projects. I'm trying to move toward mostly Go + Vue stuff.

* Zestful: Python + Docker + CRF++

* Is It Keto: Flask + AppEngine

* What Got Done: Go + Vue + AppEngine ([https://github.com/mtlynch/whatgotdone](https://github.com/mtlynch/whatgotdone))

* WanderJest: Go + Vue + AppEngine

* mtlynch.io: Hugo ([https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io](https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io))

<comment><USER59> @mtlynch I've directly recognized the coder theme you use for the blog. I like it pretty much. How do you host it? Do you use github pages?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, I like it too! I host on Firebase. You can check out my deployment script here:

[https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io/blob/f35d9cf947a3d2c23...](https://github.com/mtlynch/mtlynch.io/blob/f35d9cf947a3d2c2341775ad34f92dc0ea9a1224/.circleci/config.yml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> The data for North Korea is missing.

</comment><comment><USER69> Very illustrative warning to other devs.

Just because you're coding and building things, doesn't mean you're doing work, or that you're going to make any money.

Most devs are salarymen because that's the best role they can play in society. Their employer plugs them into what the market actually wants. 99% of them are inequipped to perform any that business aspect themselves. They just want to build stuff. Like this devs projects -- a hobby not an enterprise.

The best thing any likeminded dev can do is this: do not write a single line of code until you've vigorously screened for market demand. If you can't pick up a phone and talk to businesses, this isn't for you, or you need to partner with a so called "extrovert" or sales type.

Do not even so much as ponder the technical implementation of an idea for at least a month, don't touch a terminal, and don't type a single char of code.

If you can't restrain yourself from doing so, save yourself the wasted time, money, and energy. If you want a hiatus, just have a real hiatus and fly to a Thai island for 6 months.

<comment><USER70> Part of the problem that I have with some of these accounts is that they so often focus on tiny and mundane problems that individuals have. I don't know if this is a conscious decision or just an unintended consequence of the fact that B2C ideas are easy to find (you just watch your own daily routines) and are more shiny since everyone knows about customer-facing products but fewer people know all the gears that power corporations large and small.

The "Is it Keto" site is a nice hobby but if I seriously wanted to make money with a product/SaaS/platform I'd ring up everyone I knew from previous jobs and ask them which problem I should solve to save them hours of work every day. If you do that your product will become irreplaceable, while a site for helping you with your Keto diet is probably the first thing anyone would cut out if they wanted to save some money. That's the issue I have when founders focus so much on these lifestyle and purely optional products.

<comment><USER69> It's worth noting quite how vigorously you have to apply this concept.

My first business attempt _did_ factor in market demand, but didn't consider the depth or capacity to pay ("nice to have" vs "take my money"). So I burned out doing 70 hr weeks for something that was never going to make real money vs what I could get as a salaryman or contractor.

If you're starting out, you really really shouldn't be aiming for a new unique solution to something, unless you're planning on the VC route.

It is far wiser to copycat. Aim for a massive crowded market (e.g. weight loss), because your chance of missing is hundreds of times lower.

Indeed an even more effective tactic is to buy an existing business in a space, and develop it. It rips out all the market risk. This is how freelancer.com started for instance.

<comment><USER71> > It is far wiser to copycat. Aim for a massive crowded market (e.g. weight > loss), because your chance of missing is hundreds of times lower.

And hence ... the fuckery of the modern economy.

"Too many hands in too many pockets / Not enough hands on hearts." \- The Housemartins (80s)

<comment><USER69> Nope, once you have revenue you can maneuver into fresh territory. One step at a time.

<comment><USER72> Or just be a strong competitor in an obviously valuable space. Nothing wrong with that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


White House Can't Stream Biden's Speech; So Uses Justin.tv Instead - <AUTHOR> http://techdirt.com/articles/20100308/1905038468.shtml

<comment><USER2> Non linkjacked version:

[http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon- valley/technology/85481-wh...](http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon- valley/technology/85481-white-house-relies-on-justintv-to-stream-bidens- speech)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone else getting tired of the phrase 'dead simple'?

<comment><USER4> You make it sound like some kind of overdone recent fad, but the phrase 'dead simple' has been in use since at least my childhood.

<comment><USER5> A quick check with Google News shows that the phrase 'dead simple' has been around in print for at least 70 years.

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,763622,00.h...](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,763622,00.html)

<comment><USER6> This is why I love Hacker News.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


YQL: SQL for the Web - <AUTHOR> http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/

<comment><USER2> Facebook/FQL should also have something similar to this. A console to try out queries. This is a nice idea.

<comment><USER3> there's a test console @ <http://developers.facebook.com/tools.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This link requires some kind of signup.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just a Yahoo account. I was logged in so I didn't notice. Sorry about that.</comment></comment>


The Unwritten Laws of Engineering: What the Beginner Needs to Learn at Once - <AUTHOR> http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/October/Unwritten_Laws.cfm <comment><USER2> If you are interested, you may find the second and third installments here:

[http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/November/Unwritten_...](http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/November/Unwritten_Laws.cfm)

[http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/December/Unwritten_...](http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/December/Unwritten_Laws.cfm)

</comment><comment><USER3> Fail Safe. Shit is going to go wrong at the the most in opportune time.

Ensure your production environment will kill your applications at random times. At least you'll be practiced. Uptime is your enemy and gives you a false sense of security. Given enough time, eventually someone will trip over a power cord despite your triply redundant power supplies and backup systems.

I learned this when a memory leak became impossible to track down and so we just killed the process when it reached a certain point. That program was the most reliable thing I've ever seen, eventually every inopportune moment it could have died had been found and the code knew what to do. It would never crash despite always crashing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't really like the 'In relation to your supervisor' part, maybe I'm just frustrated, or maybe in america things are different.

 _\- 'Do not overlook the steadfast truth that your direct supervisor is your "boss."'_

Right, I'm an engineer, a _technical person_ , and as such, I'm the one doing all the hard work. If I'm very good at my job, there will be no reason to promote me or assign me a responsability position, I'm perfect at doing what I do. I'm the only one with the ability to get things done. My boss instead, a non-technical _people-person_ , can roam around and chit-chat all day.

 _\- 'Be as particular as you can in the selection of your supervisor.'_

What? How do you select your supervisor? In the real world, you get assigned a supervisor.

 _\- 'Whenever you are asked by your manager to do something, you are expected to do exactly that.'_

Exactly. You're a beast of burden, it dosen't matter if his/her requests are utterly absurd or impossible, you are expected to do exactly that. Obey your master.

<comment><USER5> Every company I've worked at as a software developer or a manager, my managers have been technical. I got to my position by being capable both technically and managerially. If you don't believe that doing what you are told to do is important, _that_ is the reason that you won't be promoted, not because you are a "beast of burden".

<comment><USER4> Clearly, our stories are different. I posted my thoughts based on my 3 years experience in a major Fortune 500 IT corp., where 90% of managers are top- school MBA graduates.

My objection to the article was that too often, engineers are considered subordinate by definition, and seen as mere doers with no say in the matter, which is in great contrast with the idea of being an engineer I had back when I was at the university.

Reality is that in some workplaces what you call 'managerial capability' ends up being the ability to carefully choose whom you're going to spend your coffee break or lunch with, false empathy, or just plain arsekissing. Some says this is office politics, but it's a game I don't like to play.

<comment><USER5> I agree, that's why I don't work in those types of organizations and don't recommend it.

My rule of thumb is this: if technology isn't a major component of what your company "does," you will never be treated with respect by your company as someone in technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great content. I really wish someone had told me about the point of focusing really hard on the first (and often trivial) project you're given when I first started. I've only been in the workforce a year, from a business degree at a large bank, but these laws still apply.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is the first ASME article I havve seen on HN in a while -- so this question is somewhat scoped:

Are there any companies with representatives here on HN which hire or are looking to hire Mechanical Engineers? Bonus for an emphasis in numerical methods and optimization.

I saw one job posting in a "Who is Hiring?" thread several months back but nothing since.

</comment><comment><USER8> Damn, the stuff about how to treat and think about other people in Part III is solid gold. It's really speaking to me.

[http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/December/Unwritten_...](http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/December/Unwritten_Laws.cfm)

</comment><comment><USER9> "One of his jobs after an explosion was to plot where the body parts landed, and to figure out what caused the explosion."

And I thought my job had bad days.</comment>


Ask HN: Suggest ways to redeem myself of my poor academic performance - <AUTHOR>

My academic performance has been poor though I have managed to get postgrad (CS) from one of the best (arguably THE best) institute in my country.
My academic performance was poor because I generally spent time doing things that interested me but were not related to the curriculum. I have been working with startups, teaching and mentoring budding coders, involved in several management and team building exercises where I organized and managed events, gathered teams to execute short term projects and so on.
I feel I have gathered considerable expertise in following areas
1. Team building. 2. Managing projects. 3. Web Development. 4. Giving ideas that add significant value to various startups. ( I have testimonials from my clients which they gave me proactively)
5. I love taking risks.
My university culture is to look down upon such skills.
However my confidence takes a blow when I look at my grade cards. They are one of the lowest. I have got AA in all management, software engineering, communication & articulation and programming courses but rest everywhere its the lowest.
Does that mean I am not capable of making significant contribution to the world of research ? <comment><USER2> _Does that mean I am not capable of making significant contribution to the world of research?_

No, it does not, but it does mean that there are few open doors for you to make contributions to research, and it likely means that it will be hard for you to get up to speed on the current literature, something necessary to make a useful contribution in any scientific field.

The list of what you think you are good at does not suggest to me that you would be particularly happy in a research environment. Why do you want to do research?

It is possible to come back to university from industry, and I am aware of people who have done good Phds that were grounded in their experience of non- academic problems. One of them had started his Phd with the intention of doing pure research for its high intellectual challenge but realised after less than a year that this motivated him less than he had thought and switched to research relevant to his previous job experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel that building some research profile would give me the confidence that I can excel in some field that requires significant intellectual work.

<comment><USER2> To do a Phd, you have to find a problem domain you can obsess about for years. Do you have one?</comment></comment></comment>


This video is no longer available : a critique on copyright claims on youtube - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgoDDh4kE0

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't have time for the full video then start at 9:10. This skips the specifics of this copyright claim and goes into the general issue at hand.

(copied from [http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1ous3b/totalbiscuits...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1ous3b/totalbiscuits_day_one_garrys_incident_video_was/ccvvgpf))</comment>


We Need Cruel and Unusual Punishment - <AUTHOR> https://outlookzen.com/2016/06/18/we-need-cruel-and-unusual-punishment/ <comment><USER2> This seems a bit strongly stated. However, it doesn't make sense that corporal punishment is off the table. Why is the same punishment prescribed for pretty much every crime, only varying the duration? From what I can tell, Singapore uses corporal punishment in an escalating sense - to deter criminal behavior before it becomes ingrained. So, for 1st or 2nd time offenders.

Putting a pedophile in prison? Of course the pedo will not be a problem there - there are no children to molest!

</comment><comment><USER3> The author needs to do some self-reflection. The idea doesn't hold water. Caning has all the punishment of a long term jail sentence? Someone is divorced from reality</comment>


Y Combinator Success Leads To Copycats, Incubator Raiders - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/04/25/y-combinator-success-leads-to-copycats-incubator-raiders/

<comment><USER2> AGHHH.

"The so-called Y Combinator model, in which small amounts of money as well as office space, mentoring and networking opportunities are sprinkled among a dozen or more promising businesses, is gaining more attention from investors."

Y Combinator is extremely explicit about NOT giving office space to its startups. Why does every article get this wrong? Presumably because so many clones get it wrong too?

<comment><USER3> I guess I would ask why Y Combinator doesn't provide office space. Our company went through one of these so-called 'clones' and really appreciated the office space. It made the mentoring and collaboration much easier.

<comment><USER4> Emmett can speak to this better than I can, but if I recall correctly, it's so that companies can foster their own cultures without being cross bred as directly from YC.

<comment><USER5> The logic when we were in YC was that office space does not foster the same kind of scrappy culture that working out of your garage or apartment does.

Working out of an office takes away some of the urgency and gives you a more laissez-faire approach to building the company as well as clear work/life separation, which isn't really a good thing very early on in a company's life.

<comment><USER6> Having all companies in one location also, to an extent, inhibits each company from growing or fostering its own personal culture. At the very least, their culture changes as a result of being in that environment.

My takeaway is that YC would rather each individual company decide with whom and where to work – it's all in the spirit of encouraging entrepreneurs and not forcing them down a predefined path.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suspect that HN is a massive advantage over other incubators that really doesn't ever seem to get talked about. The treasure trove of data for finding and keeping the best candidates alone... and it's not something that can be easily copied - though how the magic can be kept alive as it grows seems to be an open question.

<comment><USER8> What data are you referring to, specifically? Anyone can lurk HN threads or crawl user profiles for karma data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Supply and Demand.

The issue that's being ignored by this article is that there is an explosion of interest in technological entrepreneurship, and because of Angel List and many other factors, a much more efficient market for early startup equity than has ever existed.

The fact YC has thousands of applicants for only 40 slots, and the fact that Angel List has helped get 280 companies funded in the past year means that the YC model isn't scaling to meet the demand both on the investor side and on the founder side.

There are holes in the market that are being filled with competing incubators, and as with any market, I believe that competition and innovation is a good thing.

<rant>But, "Copycats and Incubator Raiders"??? Really? Since Murdoch took oer the WSJ, there has been a marked decrease in quality of writing.</rant>

<comment><USER10> > The fact YC has thousands of applicants for only 40 slots, and the fact that > Angel List has helped get 280 companies funded in the past year means that > the YC model isn't scaling to meet the demand both on the investor side and > on the founder side.

The founder side "demand" isn't (at least not in the usual economic sense of "supply and demand"). The founders _supply_ risk. YC has limited _demand_ for risk. For all we know, out of these thousands, only 80 are going to have positive returns. There could be millions, and still only 80 worth funding.

It only makes sense for YC to scale up if they lose out on supply for "positive return" risk. While it is clear that there are great companies applying to YC all the time and getting rejected, it is not at all clear that YC can be more successful (by some metric they care about) than they are now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" --Charles Caleb Colton</comment>


Uber passenger rating hack is back online - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@aaln/how-to-find-your-uber-passenger-rating-4aa1d9cc927f

<comment><USER2> Looks like they might have blocked this one now as well, I'm getting undefined passenger rating.</comment>