Companies outside the tech industry are spinning off internal software - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/our-it-is-so-good-lets-sell-it-firms-say-11562664603?mod=rsswn <comment><USER3> I worked at a company that tried to do this - Willis Towers Watson. It went pretty badly for a number of reasons:

* The internal software was built up over a number of years as a series of hacks that rarely if ever got unwound. The people running the business were blind to the necessity of this and a lot of the engineers were not motivated to fix it because they were experts on the rabbit hole and were angling for job security.

* The internal software's infrastructure aged badly and we were stuck in a perpetual upgrade hell. This was again because the people running the business did not really understand the accretion of technical debt. Their abilities centered more around, say, pricing insurance and regulatory issues.

* They didn't know how to hire engineers and they instituted corporate processes that ensured that the engineers were both pissed off and unable to properly do their work and they were in a geographical area where it was hard to hire. Good engineers largely left, bad engineers stayed behind and continued building rabbit holes.

* They outsourced critical functions to cheap overseas labor and got crap as a result.

* Their response to slowed development and deadlines was to throw more engineers at the problem.

* They're also the only client I've had to sue for nonpayment of an invoice.

<comment><USER4> Let me ask an unpopular question: in which sense did it "go badly"?

You indicated a large amount of technical debt and issues, which the techie in me 101% empathizes with and shares your pain. You also indicated morale and hiring practices issue, which the person in me empathises with.

What you didn't indicate however was the business outcomes: Were there unhappy clients that left? Did the costs rise? Business fold?

Everything you mentioned, _unfortunately_ , is also the case for some wildly profitable/successful businesses.... :-<

<comment><USER3> They had one large customer lined up. I didn't really follow what happened with them after I left but I don't think that customer was particularly happy and calls with this customer were fraught and somewhat terrifying.

It certainly wasn't the case that this project was wildly profitable. Not sure if it will ever make money at all in fact.

I have worked for profitable businesses who have behaved like this too and it's usually the case that they have some kind of inbuilt unfair advantage (legal, governmental, monopoly/size/clout, etc.) that compensated for sucking at tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _While the basic strategy isn't new— Amazon.com Inc. was an online bookstore > long before it became a tech industry powerhouse_

25 years in and still not getting it.

Amazon has always been and will always be in the business of cheap, scalable logistics. Not selling books. Not selling the cloud. Selling access to low cost scale.

<comment><USER6> This is hindsight. When Amazon started, it was a pure e-commerce play. It later evolved into the company you describe.

For example, they signed a bunch of exclusive supplier agreements for their store. Then, when they launched Marketplace, they got sued by some of those suppliers for breaking exclusivity.

E-commerce success created the cashflow and in-house expertise that allowed Bezos to explore other markets. Some succeeded, like Marketplace and AWS. Some did not, like the A9 search engine and Fire phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In what sense can Celestica, a company which produces 'Communications, Enterprise and Cloud Solutions, Industrial, Aerospace and Defense, Renewable Energy, HealthTech and Capital Equipment', be considered 'outside the tech industry'?

<comment><USER8> In the sense that they weren't doing all of those things before they started doing them.

The cloud, communications and enterprise solutions are new fields for this _hardware manufacturer_.

<comment><USER9> "Tech" is not a synonym for "software". Companies that design electronics are tech companies.

<comment><USER10> While I agree, strongly, with you, software (or more pointedly, Web-and-mobile information technology) is what the general awareness of "tech" seems to be.

The reality is vastly broader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's worth noting that nothing Amazon built internally was ever directly sold through AWS. Rather, Amazon built something similar internally then used its engineer expertise to build a completely new product for AWS. Selling your big ball of mud directly is a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER12> That, but I also have a theory about Version 2. By the time something hits v2, it's popular enough to justify the work to get to v2, and the lessons that were learned from v1 can be applied, even if that leads to breaking changes.

<comment><USER13> sometimes, but also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second- system_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not sure I understand the negativity. Yes non tech companies might produce horrible programs, but at least this is a breath of fresh air vs the standard "vendors only" IT approach. There are plenty of horror stories of companies trusting "enterprise" vendors to avoid doing their own programming. For instance I have yet to see a salesforce implementation that works well and is adopted by salespeople, meanwhile something a bit more custom will most likely have automatic adoption. Anyway, I think extremes are always bad so I welcome companies moving away from the "standard vendor products" mantra.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Other companies to spin out businesses from internal tech efforts include > Choice Hotels International Inc., which offers a cloud-based reservation > system for hotelier

As if travel companies spinning off CRS systems is something new... every single train/airline/hotel reservation system out there is a direct or indirect spinoff from an internal company product

</comment><comment><USER16> Having worked for a few shops where the internally developed software I helped write was seen as an expense, and a tool to facilitate the company's _real_ work, I'm skeptical this will work all that well in the general case.

My data points, though limited in number, indicate a strong tendency on the part of these kinds of shops to build solutions that are over-fit to their particular workflows, and to under-resource their development. I was, in one of these environments, explicitly told that version control and separate development/test/production — or even just dev and prod — environments were a silly extravagance.

I'm sure there exist shops that don't do it that badly. I'm more sure, however, that they're not the norm.

<comment><USER17> Collapsing dev, test, and prod into one environment sounds like a 300% increase in efficiency - now that's a number management can really get behind!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think US companies are just now realising just how much of their business activity can fit into few lines of code.

The thing happened in China over last 5 years:

\- Restaurants run ordering APIs for food delivery companies

\- Restaurants run ordering APIs for online menu companies

\- Laundries run restocking, and order ready notification APIs

\- Logistic companies pretty much became a few layers deep API business with most companies having 0 user facing "frontend"

\- Hotels - some will deny you booking if you don't checkin online. Some went even further, and check in you remotely

\- Construction companies - now run with client facing construction site management software, and run joint CAD projects with clients

\- All kind of odd job service aggregators now do what is called o2o: dog walkers, handymen, porters, cleaners etc

\- Many business service companies simply went out of business because their entire businesses were turned into free apps. You can file your taxes with a free app that scans QR code or electronic invoices for example

\- All kind of retail store interact with wholesale suppliers only through some EDI stockkeeping or a more advanced API

\- And for commerce, things are all self explanatory: JD and Alibaba

<comment><USER19> You make it sound as if the Chinese are more imaginative than Americans. That's not the case. They just have more people. If I am sitting in NYC and need 10 programmers overnight for a boring IT project... no problem. But if I am sitting anywhere else in the US it's going to take more time. Not the case in China. Or India. The quantum of activity is directly proportional to how much labor you have access too especially in "unsexy" IT work.

And kids in the US rightly focus on the sexy stuff because when you compare just Apple to the entire Indian IT sector revenues are 3x more. Why would you want to go work on laundromat or construction company APIs when you have a shot at getting into Apple or Google.

<comment><USER20> I don't think China is more imaginative, but they are far more nimble. For instance, if a city is growing, they just plop down a ton of apartment buildings, throw in 8 new subway lines, connect a bullet train and they're done.

The US spends about that length of time discussing on whether or not to build a new tower in a historic neighborhood.

I don't know why this is the case, but I think it has something to do with a rapidly growing economy versus an already grown economy. If someone could explain to me why that's the case, I'm all ears.

My off-the-cuff guess: if a country is growing, the easiest way to make money is hop into a growing industry and building as fast as you can. If a country is grown, the easiest way to make money is to siphon it from somewhere else. So in developed economies you have stagnation and inefficiency because the elites are more interested in redistributing the wealth (to them), instead of creating new wealth.

<comment><USER21> The other big factor is the government can make unilateral decisions because they're not a democracy and their human rights are a joke. If they want to tear down your building to build a new one they'll buy you off or if you refuse that kick you out by force, historical value be damned.

The citizens in the US and their political power are the source of most of the inertia.

<comment><USER22> > If they want to tear down your building to build a new one they'll buy you > off or if you refuse that kick you out by force, historical value be damned.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain_in_the_United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER23> My old college is doing this to an old employer/business owner/friend. If anyone feels passionate about Eminent Domain being theft; check out their petition.

[https://www.change.org/p/eminent-domain-is-theft-save-new- yo...](https://www.change.org/p/eminent-domain-is-theft-save-new-york-sub-hub- and-others)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is somewhat a sequel to WSJ's "Why Do the Biggest Companies Keep Getting Bigger? It's How They Spend on Tech"

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-do-the-biggest-companies- ke...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-do-the-biggest-companies-keep-getting- bigger-its-how-they-spend-on-tech-1532610001)

</comment><comment><USER25> Certainly there are lots of internal IT teams developing solutions that could be useful elsewhere.

But man having an IT team or just tacking on sales, account management, support, legal, customization, billing ... and doing it well is a big lift. Some of those things are "soft of" like what folks do internally, but man with another company it can be WAY different. Let alone problems like a company who hasn't done those things fighting its own momentum to do it right....

I'm reminded of a story from Amazon someone mentioned on HN (or linked it) where they were working on early AWS like stuff and supposedly Bezos shows up for a meeting / retreat late. He asks what everyone is talking about. They were talking about "more cooperation" between the folks working on early AWS stuff and their own storefront people and the challenges the storefront folks had using this early form of AWS. Lots of cooperation talk.

Jeff didn't like it and said something about how he didn't like this cooperation idea (more harshly than I said it IIRC). I'll get this next part wrong to some extent but I think I've got the spirit of his next actions right: He then setup a system where the back end AWS folks and the storefront IT folks were actually discouraged from communicating directly. Rather the AWS folks were required to write documentation to reduce the number of interactions directly with the the people running the Amazon storefront. If the storefront folks couldn't figure out how to do something and opened a support ticket (no more direct calls) it counted against the AWS team.

The general idea here was to establish the same systems / practices you would need to deal with outside customers who would one day use AWS... and hopefully keep using it.

It's also a good example about how working on internal applications and external are way way different.

<comment><USER26> That story sounds similar to Bezos' mandate in Steve Yegge's Google platform rant: [https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611](https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611)

<comment><USER25> That sounds very similar.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were MANY versions of the same story as a lot of people would have been impacted by the change in approach to everything, but they would have seen the implementation and results in different ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not the same thing, but I still find it amazing that Django was created by the Lawrence Journal-World.

</comment><comment><USER28> If it works, it's great. There are a lot of companies doing similar things that duplicate lots of effort building similar applications.

However, in my experience, internal software development is often tailored very tightly to specific environments and other tools that are used in this particular situation, and the pressure from higher-ups is to build something faster rather than generic (and even if it's built to be generic, that usually doesn't work well unless there are real use cases exercising it).

What I'd really like to see is several municipalities joining their forces and writing common open source software that works for their use cases. Would be soooo much cheaper in the long run than each procuring on their own.

</comment><comment><USER29> Many airlines could very well be tech companies at this point. Same for some other "old school" stalwarts like UPS and Fedex.

</comment><comment><USER30> I worked for a company 15 years ago that had build a nice collaboration website like Confluence/Jira for internal use. It was built by an internal team of 5 engineers. Very nicely done UI. The company had a lot of things going for it but it missed a few strategy opportunities and was bought for a song and split up. In hindsight, I feel like that collaboration software could have been a business of its own but nobody recognized it. Maybe 10 years too early.

</comment><comment><USER31> One of the things I'm most sick of in technology is home-grown software. I've been re-writing and re-implementing the same solutions for 15 years, because apparently nothing anyone creates is good enough. It's like we're in the business of selling door to door, but to do that we make our own cheap shoes that fall apart after a few years and have to be re-built again.

</comment><comment><USER32> Most companies can't afford a proper IT department and that just rules out a whole range of things they can do. IT is expensive; good IT is much more expensive. If it's not mission critical, SAAS is a great solution. Once you go SAAS, you can outsource some of the people using those solutions as well. You can outsource IT, HR, accounting, etc. Even sales, marketing, and support functions can be outsourced.

A lot of legacy business remains of course and this seems big business for the likes of IBM and Oracle. But I don't know of any young companies signing contracts with either and would recommend to actively avoid that kind of thing to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER33> But but but... what about focusing on their core business? What about outsourcing everything else? Not only that, this would require management to recognize value in something else. Were not in a Dilbert book here.

<comment><USER34> It's the other way around: if my business is making furniture and the company made a scheduling program I'm better off spinning it out to someone who will focus on it, and just continue to use the product. So instead of it being just a cost center the company gets a bit of possible financial upside and hopefully the product becomes better via market exposure.

Of course Coase would say that's a risky bet (the spun out business could fail for ordinary business reasons and then you'd have nothing).

<comment><USER35> >Of course Coase would say that's a risky bet (the spun out business could fail for ordinary business reasons and then you'd have nothing).

But if you've spun it off, and especially if you got in outside investors, you've both partly cashed in and largely hedged yourself against that risk. Now you can just treat them as an external vendor and if they fail, buy elsewhere.

<comment><USER36> If they could buy elsewhere why did they build the software to begin with?

<comment><USER37> If you _can 't_ buy elsewhere, _and_ don't care about keeping the software internal as your unique selling point, arguably the right thing to do is to open source it. That way you make sure it stays around, _and_ attract third parties to support it. But there's also a lot of internal software around that wouldn't yield any benefit from either spinning off a profit-seeking business to commercialize it, or open sourcing.

<comment><USER38> The right thing to do is whatever makes the most of your investment. Don't give it away - charge for it.

<comment><USER37> > The right thing to do is whatever makes the most of your investment.

Right. And if there are no alternatives on the market already, that tells you that charging for it is not going to be viable. The way to make the most of that investment is to keep it alive, even if this means giving stuff away!

<comment><USER38> Releasing things usually comes with overhead - you have to verify that everything you're releasing doesn't have anything proprietary, that all other code is following a license that allows for release, etc.

Or you could spend $0 and let the bits just rot if they're not in use - <USER2> lawyers reviewing licenses, no code reviews, nothing. Or you could send it through engineering to make sure there's no secret sauce, then through corporate legal (at $250/hour), then through business development...

It's almost always better to just smother the code with a pillow than it is to give it away, because giving it away actually costs money, and will bring you no profit. Screw that, if it's important enough, let someone else spend the time and money writing it.

<comment><USER37> > ...It's almost always better to just smother the code with a pillow than it > is to give it away

Sure, but the underlying play is that clearing the code for release will at least allow you to share support costs with other actors in the same or closely-related industries. In many ways, it's a marginal choice that sits awkwardly inbetween "smother it with a pillow" and "make it a full-blown proprietary product that can actually bring sizeable revenue". That doesn't mean it _cannot_ work in some cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Samsung started as a grocery store.</comment>


Ecuador will hand over Julian Assange to the UK - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/07/21/ecuador-will-imminently-withdraw-asylum-for-julian-assange-and-hand-him-over-to-the-uk-what-comes-next/ <comment><USER2> What I've wanted for Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and if Obama would have done it before leaving office, it would have earned him infinite respect:

Try them, possibly even find them guilty of something, but also award them with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

What these people have done is probably illegal, but it is unquestionably about the most American, patriotic act you could commit. Speaking out against perceived tyranny with no regard for your own wellbeing, is an incredible act.

It makes me profoundly sad how the world (or at least my world, mostly far left, liberal, educated, etc.) has turned so hard against Julian Assange. He's a hero in every sense of the word.

<comment><USER3> Just a curiousity, is "far left" and "liberal" even related? Seems like the far left and far right are two sides to the same totalitarian coin. Liberal implies a respect for the freedom of individuals while "far left" puts the collective over the rights of the individual. The word liberal has lost its meaning. The far left (and far right) is incompatible with freedom. Cases in point: Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union. The far left closer to fascism than liberalism.

[http://thedailyjournalist.com/thethinker/fascism-is-far- left...](http://thedailyjournalist.com/thethinker/fascism-is-far-left-not-far- right-on-political-spectrum/)

<comment><USER4> You might like the website The Political Compass, a quiz/self-test where authoritarian / libertarian are on a separate axis from the typical left / right of economic planning. It at least shows the lack of nuance in trying to reduce all politics to a single "left & right" dimension - and that by doing so, we ignore ways where both "sides" may actually share common views.

[https://www.politicalcompass.org/](https://www.politicalcompass.org/)

<comment><USER5> Probably inspired by the World's Smallest Political Quiz.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Smallest_Political_Q...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Smallest_Political_Quiz)

[https://www.theadvocates.org/quiz/](https://www.theadvocates.org/quiz/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is less a news story than a coat rack Greenwald uses to hang a bunch of loosely-related political arguments he wants to make:

* That Ecuador under Moreno is subservient to western powers, this according in part to Correa, who ran the previous Ecuadorian administration, which was widely considered one of the most corrupt in the western hemisphere (I have no idea if Moreno's was as well). OK? None of us are equipped to litigate the question of whether Ecuador is well-governed, and I doubt Greenwald is either.

* That the UK might (based on no evidence presented in this article) be wrangling to convict Assange under contempt statutes, because, I don't know, the UK is super corrupt and out to get Assange.

* That the US almost surely plans on prosecuting Assange because, despite the fact that US law makes it pretty difficult to prosecute Assange and despite the fact that it is extremely unlikely the UK or any EU country would extradite him, there are politicians in the US that really don't like him. OK? And?

The one morsel of "news" in this is the intimation that Moreno is about to revoke Assange's asylum. Of course, people paying attention have known this was coming for months. Greenwald has an unnamed source saying the details are being finalized now. Great.

The rest of this is basically a very... impassioned... op-ed piece. Infowars does this stuff better, or, at least, more entertainingly.

<comment><USER7> Your comment is less an incisive analysis of the article than a coat rack to hang a bunch of loosely-related ad hominem attacks on the author along with unsubstantiated and unbelievable attempts to cast doubt on the article's thesis.

Namely that Assange is a political prisoner, likely to be transferred from eight years of effective imprisonment in the embassy to an actual prison, and to remain imprisoned for a long time, all without being charged of any serious crime.

<comment><USER8> While I agree in theory to your argument that Assange has been "Imprisoned" for ~8 years, the fact remains that, during time of the accusation of rape or assault in Sweden through today, he has maintained his innocence in the matter and if he had turned himself in he would have likely spent less time awaiting trial and proceeding through the trial than he did during his voluntary imprisonment in the embassy.

He turned an every day occurrence into a spectacle that gave him the perception of guilt.

Coupled with the fact that the indictment last week from Mueller's team all but implicates WikiLeaks as the distribution pawn for much of the 2016 election season's stolen emails, if he's so afraid of being extradited to the USA, why is he still poking at the US Government with sticks? If I don't get along with my neighbor, and my neighbor has the capability of ruining my life forever (whether that is justified or not is not the argument), I don't take every opportunity I have to take a shit on his lawn. Established journalistic publications like the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal take care when publishing classified materials that have been leaked to them by redacting irrelevant information and personal details. WikiLeaks seems to want to jump on that same bandwagon, but they aren't paying the fare by cleaning out information that is irrelevant to the story they want to push. There have been numerous instances of personal details like Social Security Numbers, Personal phone numbers, and street addresses being retained in the documents they release. By not paying the price to be a publisher of information in the public's best interests, it's not surprising that many in the Justice Department don't view what they do to be covered under the 1st Amendment and are not protected from certain laws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've always considered this bit of writing from 2006 to be Assange's (and Wikileaks') central thesis:

\----

"The non linear effects of leaks on unjust systems of governance

[...]

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption."

[https://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org:...](https://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936id_/http://iq.org:80/#Thenonlineareffectsofleaksonunjustsystemsofgovernance)

[https://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf](https://cryptome.org/0002/ja- conspiracies.pdf)

\----

I still believe that this will bear out in the long-run, and _has_ already begun to bear out in smaller-scale cases, but it is becoming apparent that in many cases this is like a "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" situation, and has really barely begun.

As for Assange personally, I still kinda believe in him, though I recognize that is on shakier ground than it may once have been. After 8 uninterrupted years of however an honest and empathetic person might describe his conditions, I would not be surprised, nor would I particularly fault him for losing it a bit, and letting his personal situation (... being fucking _personally_ targeted for destruction by an unfathomably powerful global-scale system of secretive injustice) compromise his personal pretence towards the objective neutrality on which his thesis's large-scale fruition is predicated.

<comment><USER10> John Young from Cryptome helped Wikileaks get started but then decided to distance himself from Assange and co.

Why was this?

[https://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder- bec...](https://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder-becomes-a- critic-q-a/)

Fundamentally the difference was that Wikileaks was all about making money, to pay for Assange and co to go about their special way, living life as kings in their own special world. Plenty of charities operate this way but John Young thought it would be more of a collection of people working together on the task in hand, not a revenue generating operation.

John Young's Cryptome website costs hosting fees and, although people can donate, this is paid for out of pocket, no vast network of fundraisers needed, no 'bitcoin' needed, no deal with Visa/Mastercard/Paypal needed. It is down to earth and not inflated with an Assange sized, planet sized ego.

I know people have got to eat, however, I personally found that the money making ambitions for WikiLeaks left a bad taste in my mouth. Assange's little difficulties with women and some of the silly things he may say are okay to me, not everyone has a squeaky clean character but luckily most of us don't have people sharing gossip about us with the press. But making money out of other people by presenting a 'saintly' self on a mission to do great things 'if only the funds were available' is not how I like my freedom fighters to roll.

Furthermore, throughout this whole saga it has always been about him. Assange with the planet sized ego. In some ways further theatre and charades and time in jail is what his story 'needs' for Assange to get the 'martydom' that he 'needs'. Let the spectacle begin.

<comment><USER11> > _Assange 's little difficulties with women ... not everyone has a squeaky > clean character_

To be clear about his "little difficulties", he's been accused of intentionally breaking a condom he was using when having sex with one woman (both of them have stated that the condom broke) and continuing a sexual encounter with another person while refusing to use a condom. As the article states, he's escaped trial because he hid from Swedish authorities and they weren't able to have the case tried in a timely fashion.

I will think it's a failure of our justice system if Assange is prosecuted in the US for leaking information (especially if, as described by the article, it's by Sessions et al. as a precursor for a leaking crackdown) and _not_ tried for the sexual assault case that he's actually been on the run from for years - because it means that anyone who's in a similar position to Assange can now get away with sexual assault, claim asylum for their political activities, and have the world ignore their "difficulties with women."

<comment><USER12> What is the evidence that happened?

<comment><USER11> What is the evidence that these are the accusations, or what is the evidence that the accusations are true? I obviously don't know that the accusations are true. Swedish prosecutors think they have evidence of that. That's what I was hoping a court case would decide. I think the government should treat him as innocent until proven guilty, of course, like any civilized person, but like any civilized person I also think trials should happen.

If you're interested in evidence that these are the accusations, see e.g. [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Sex-accusers- bo...](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Sex-accusers-boasted- about-their-conquest-of-WikiLeaks-founder-Julian- Assange/articleshow/7068149.cms) or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority#Complaints_and_initial_investigation) or [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian- assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange- sweden) or [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-14/julian-assange-to- be-i...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-14/julian-assange-to-be- interviewed-over-allegations-sexual-assault/8021186) or really a Google search for 'assange condom'.

<comment><USER13> _> Swedish prosecutors think they have evidence of that._

 _Some_ Swedish prosecutors, rather. The accusations were originally dropped, then picked back up by a more politically-oriented prosecutor. It was very, very iffy from the start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good. His lies about the Catalonia situation were Russia Today-tier of disinformation and fake news. It's completely normal that an ally of Spain doesn't want to cooperate with that.

<comment><USER15> What claims did Assange make in regards to the Catalonia situation?

<comment><USER14> Too many tweets to listen, but some of the most egregious claims he made:

\- Spain were going to physically invade Catalonia and cause a Tiananmen Square-like situation

\- The president of Spain wanted a "1000 year Reich" (ironic since that president was ousted by a no-confidence vote around a month ago. Guess the Reichs in Spain don't last long)

\- Spanish federal Police warned jihadist terrorists that Mossos were following them (Catalonia police)

\- Spanish people routinely mob Catalonians with total impunity

\- And my "favorite" one, the one time when he said that there's 7.5 millions of Catalonians and if they were mobilized they could oust Spanish armed forces. So yes, basically asking for a civil war.

<comment><USER15> >\- Spain were going to physically invade Catalonia and cause a Tiananmen Square-like situation

>The president of Spain wanted a "1000 year Reich"

>\- Spanish federal Police warned jihadist terrorists that Mossos were following them (Catalonia police)

[https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/910056476814794752](https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/910056476814794752)

[https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/917691333191585792](https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/917691333191585792)

[https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/931712044662792192](https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/931712044662792192)

He's posting links, he's not the one making these claims. The jihadist story is straight from a Spanish newspaper.

>\- And my "favorite" one, the one time when he said that there's 7.5 millions of Catalonians and if they were mobilized they could oust Spanish armed forces. So yes, basically asking for a civil war.

[https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/914477133195616257](https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/914477133195616257)

If this is the tweet you are referring to, I don't think that's a very honest description. He's clearly talking about their ability to keep polling stations running, and not calling for a civil war.

<comment><USER14> What difference does it makes that these are links? Is okay to publish anything if it's a link?

The guy lost his mind. Shame because I actually respected him before this.

<comment><USER15> It makes a huge difference, you attributed these claims to him. He did not make the claims. If he's truly the person you claim him to be, it shouldn't be very hard to find lies that actually originate from him.

Honestly, one almost gets the feeling that you're only reading the El Pais interpretation of his tweets.

>The guy lost his mind. Shame because I actually respected him before this.

What did you respect him for? What changed? Assange has always been about fighting the western powers. I don't see how his behavior has particularly changed, only his portrayal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hopefully he wasn't bullshitting with those insurance files. I have been waiting for some quality leak drama for a long long time now.

<comment><USER17> Assange and bullshitting, wouldn't be the first time... he said he had info that was going to bring down big US banks for a while... didn't do anything.

But let's say he had some such files, release them and he has nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> True about Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Not so true about Assange. And it's not just the legality. He didn't simply release documents, he collaborated (as far as it is understood) with another country, to undermine the governments that imposed sanctions on it for the crimes it has (still does) committed.

<comment><USER19> > he collaborated (as far as it is understood) with another country, to > undermine the governments that imposed sanctions on it for the crimes it has > (still does) committed.

Can I explain? Did I miss something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> People seem to be downvoting opinions here and the discussion is all turning so pale it's hard to read. Maybe just live with the fact that there will be statements you don't agree with and perhaps post a comment explaining why, if the counterpoint has not yet been made.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why does Greenwald believe that a prominent world leader in a wheelchair attending a conference on people with disabilities is a smokescreen for this Assange business, instead of, you know... _something he actually cares about?_

</comment><comment><USER22> >highly unlikely that Moreno...will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to the U.S.

I'm not remotely convinced that Moreno had any capability to obtain such an assurance. By what mechanism can a foreign agent nullify terms of a treaty between two unrelated states, even if the subject were an ecuadorian national?

<comment><USER23> It is a standard clause in most extradition treaties: if country A extradites person X to country B for a specific crime, country B is not allowed to to extradite person X to a third country, or even try them for a different crime (except crimes committed after extradition).

<comment><USER24> In the case of the treaties covering the European Arrest Warrants, you can be extradited to country C with consent of country A and country B. Of course, that means you can take things to the highest court in both countries before anything can happen.

The response in the Assange case has always been about Sweden either violating treaties or about the US performing an extraordinary extradition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Journalists love to argue that journalists should enjoy special first amendment rights, and a central theme of OP is the government prosecuting whistleblowers but not the media companies who publish the info. Even the most Snowden friendly outlets seem to write like that. That seems super weird. The exceptions should be due to public interest, not due to being a newspaper.

<comment><USER26> In the US, whistleblowers like Snowden are able to be prosecuted because they agreed to not disclose confidential information. The speech itself is protected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Julian Assange is not "effectively imprisoned". He can leave the Ecuadorian embassy any time he chooses. Ecuador is under no obligation to provide him domicile.

<comment><USER7> If you spend 8 years confined to a small space, unable to travel freely due to a well-grounded fear of physical harm, you're most definitely "effectively imprisoned".

<comment><USER28> Plus, the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has also found that he is in arbitrary detention... in 2016. The UK has conveniently ignored this breach of human rights.

Whatever Assange did or didn't do, and whatever this media and political spectacle is, it isn't justice.

<comment><USER29> UN working groups have no legal authority.

<comment><USER28> Yes, apparently. And that somehow makes it okay to ignore?

Meanwhile, the UK continues the farce, costing a disproportionate amount of taxpayer money given the accusations.

<comment><USER29> Yes it's okay to ignore the recommendations of working groups. The UK is under no obligation to take them seriously.

<comment><USER28> You already said that. Anything other than "we don't need no ethical opinions from nobody!" to add? Like if it is actually ethical? Or a giant waste of money?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Along with this being tremendously sad due to what I perceive to be a service provided for the privacy conscious people of the world (validation that, yes governments were unjustly spying on people in their own country and abroad), it makes me extra frustrated because what a waste of time and money this whole thing was. From the US, Swedish, UK and Ecuador governments.

</comment><comment><USER31> I am genuinely surprised by the amount of positive comments here about Assange. It is clear that at a bare minimum he was used as a tool by Putin to sway politics in the US and is it seems likely he was a willing and active participant in that plan. For people who still view Assange positively, do you simply not care about that fact or do you just think the good outweighs the bad?

EDIT: This comment is currently sitting at -3 points. I couldn't care less about the points, but it shows that at least four people have found problems with this question. Is it too much to ask that you engage in a conversation if you think this question is ridiculous?

<comment><USER32> I can't downvote, but in my mind to engage with this question is to lend it legitimacy. The debate then is unwinnable. See, if we frame our discussion on your terms (Was he a willing conspirator with Russia and Putin or merely a fool) then anyone with the beliefs like say, "Assange did the world some good by releasing documents the US government didn't want released" or "Assange was a powerful force for government transparency" then we have lost. I can't tell you why three people downvoted you, but my best guess is your comment is perceived as bad-faith.

Cheers

<comment><USER31> How is the question illegitimate? I don't think it is controversial to say that Wikileaks was part of Russias plan to influence US politics. (Whether they were a unwilling or willing participant is immaterial at the moment). If simply establishing that as a fact makes your side of the debate "lost" and "unwinnable", maybe that means you should rethink why you fall on that side of the debate.

<comment><USER32> Hey, now I've got downvotes too! My opinion is unpopular, and it was just questioning why _other_ people downvoted you, so I retract my previous guess, as it was clearly wrong. It turns out people just don't like things they disagree with What can ya do? :)

My comment mostly reflects how interesting I find it that people can justify anything they like based on their previous beliefs, cherry-picking facts that suit what they'd _prefer_ to believe.

I am guilty of this too, we all are. I __try __to attack my own beliefs by reading and attempting to understand other points of view, but I 'm not super- human, I have blind spots.

One thing I'm somewhat good at is seeing how language can frame things in such a way to make the counter-argument more difficult. Its all about perception, because language is so imprecise.

For example, You said

>...Wikileaks was part of Russias plan to influence US politics

That is likely true! But your point could be taken to mean that Wikileaks was complicit in this plan. It could be taken to mean a whole lot of things, and while we're debating the veracity of _those_ things we don't even get to debate on other things, such as the content of the leaks, and about the US government's persistent attack on whistleblowers.

Indeed, it frames the mind in such a way as to ponder whether the US's desire to prosecute Assange is proper given the circumstances.

Do you see what I'm trying to say? I may be pretty good at picking up on the nuances of speech but I'm piss poor at explaing myself.

<comment><USER31> I see what you are saying here, but I think that is a different argument than the one you made in the first comment. My question still remains, do people who view Assange positively not care about his involvement with Russia or do they think it is excusable because the ends justify the means? Whether Assange was a willing participant in that involvement would likely impact people's answers, but I don't think that unknown invalidates the question. I also don't think the question loses legitimacy just because I might not have chosen my words carefully enough in the setup to the question.

<comment><USER32> ah, and here I'll apologize for my inability to properly express myself previously.

rather, i was trying to guess the motivations behind your downvoters, based on my own reasoning, a hazardous proposition at best. i meant to distance myself from any critique/judgement of your position but my own opinion was made clear, wasn't it? oops.

you've guessed it, i don't wish to discuss your question at all, no offense. i _believe_ it's a distraction and of little importance. This belief, though i am confident it is a product of my incredible intellect¹, more likely comes mostly from my distaste the US government due to the things I've read in the leaks, and my belief that the US government would do anything to bury wikileaks, up to and including slander and libel.

¹clearly sarcasm, for those invisible down voters

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> _last April, Trump's then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now his Secretary of State, delivered a deranged, rambling, highly threatening broadside against WikiLeaks._

I watched the video linked and I wouldn't describe it as "deranged" or "rambling". Just because the author disagrees with Pompeo does not make him deranged. When reporters write blatantly political things like this, it really makes me question the fairness of the rest of the article.. what else did they mischaracterize to fit their political views?

<comment><USER34> He's not a 'reporter'.

<comment><USER35> Glenn Greenwald isn't a reporter? I'm sure that's news to him

<comment><USER2> I wonder if the parent is being a pedant here, and meaning to say: "Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, not simply a reporter."

<comment><USER35> no, I wasn't being pedantic. I don't care enough about him to have any opinion either way, just that I'm pretty sure he defines himself as a journalist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The lasting message will be that if, as a private person, you help people reveal State Secrets of the most powerful countries on Earth --especially including evidence of war crimes, illegal spying, and assorted abuses of power-- you will be hounded and end up a forced recluse, tortured prisoner, and dead. The widening use of drones is likely to provide evil politicians with the shortcut they generally desire.

Could Assange have organized Wikileaks and gotten such impact as he did while remaining safely anonymous? he must have known he was going to make countless enemies in seats of extraordinary power.

[added] My own lesson from this thread is that Assange is amazingly _polarizing_ in this forum, and there is more bile here than I have ever witnessed in HN (almost half of the comments are greyed out at the moment). Much of it seems driven by political inclination rather than reasoned discussion, driven by the substrate of the government abuses of power he set out to disrupt.

<comment><USER37> > _if, as a private person, you help people reveal State Secrets of the most > powerful countries on Earth_

Plenty of people are leaking all manner of things to the press every day. If you decide to accept leaks, make lots of money off it, align yourself with Russia and then fail to do any diligence on your sources or redaction of your products, you're doing more than just leaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Its time to send that Russian asset to prison.

</comment><comment><USER39> I will believe it when I see it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Good. It's quite clear that WikiLeaks is in cahoots with the Russians after the DNC hack, and their collusion with the Trump campaign to try to show their "impartiality" is despicable. I used to have some respect for WikiLeaks, but they are just Russian pawns. Snowden I respect, but not Assange.

</comment><comment><USER41> Holy shit. Why can one do?

</comment><comment><USER42> Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

[https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1020727843897118723](https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1020727843897118723)

> _Interesting to see Greenwald's continued toadying for Julian Assange here. > 2 / There are several layers of irony here. Before getting to those let me > say that I think it would be a big mistake for the US to try to prosecute > him, mainly for precedent and 1st am reasons. But also because we have no > interest in validating his martyr complex. 3/ As for the ironies, Assange > didn't seem 'asylum' over a threat of US prosecution. He was there to be > evade prosecution for rape. The bogeyman of us prosecution was always there > to provide a veneer of principle to the more mundane aim of not answering > rape charges. 4/ Sweden eventually gave up on that case because they > couldn't get access to Assange. So big picture Assange already one. He > leveraged his political celebrity into a get out of jail free card for rape. > The other irony is that at that time, Assange hadn't done anything the 5/ US > could charge him with. It was only from his Ecuador refuge that he began > actively conspiring against the US and U.K. governments, becoming some sort > of tool for the Russian security services. Glenn has another story. But it > was clear in 2016 and 2017 ... 6/ that while Ecuador was willing to grant > him refuge (albeit from rape prosecution) they did not want him using it to > plot against other governments which Ecuador obviously wants to maintain > some level of good relations with 7/ As I said, it would be very ill advised > for the US to try to extradite or prosecute Assange (at least on the basis > of any currently known or suspected evidence). But it would be ironic > because only the Trump admin (or rather its appointees) wld even try. 8/ And > Assange of course did everything in his power to get Trump elected and help > the white nationalities and racist xenophobe groups who were and are his > biggest supporters. 9/ It's never been clear to me whether Assange was > always who he turned out to be or was simply a data anarchist radical who > went down a racist/authoritarian rabbit hole because of the series of events > which unfolded after Wikileaks was formed. 10/ My hunch was always the > former. But it barely matters._

</comment><comment><USER43> His disinformation campaign has done incredible damage to democracies around the world, despite his great ideas and systems.

</comment><comment><USER44> Anyone want to start a gofundme to smuggle assange out of ecuador? I bet there numerous other south american countries that would take him in.

<comment><USER30> Hes in London, do you mean to smuggle him to another embassy of a South American state in London?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Lenin was an appropriate name for this man.

<comment><USER36> Why? "Lenin Moreno was once a wealthy businessman and politician. But in 1998, he was shot in the back as gunmen stole his car from a parking lot in Quito. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Moreno overcame intense pain and bouts of depression to become a motivational speaker. He's written books about the healing power of laughter." This seems to explain a lot of what he has been doing in Ecuador, more so than his first name.

<comment><USER46> Probably because he's willing to back Spain about being called out for abuses surrounding Catalonia, as mentioned in the article?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> To a lot of people Assange is a hero, and I'll grant that I liked a lot of the early actions of Wikileak under him.

But to me, he is first and foremost someone that ran from a sexual assault investigation and has spent the years since that trying to evade justice. I have no regard left for the man after doing that.

Some will argue that he would not have gotten a fair hearing in Sweden, and that they would have extradite him to the USA. My impression of the Swedish legal system, does not line up with that. So I have to respectfully disagree with those that think that.

<comment><USER48> Then again, to his credit, he eventually met his Swedish prosecutors from the safety of the embassy (and released the gory details a month later [1]). And there were genuine concerns from the get go that he'd get booted across the Atlantic had he stepped out of the embassy.

I've honestly no idea how warranted the rape claims in Sweden were - and to be clear, I'd tend to side with the women who filed them - but you can't just dismiss the whole thing on grounds he was escaping those charges.

In a similar situation I can't imagine anyone except the most naive idealist would have risked the wrath of US.gov (whose budget, remember, is on the order of magnitude of Germany's GDP) over miscellanea in Sweden (however important to the victims) that had 'excuse for extradition to the US' written all over it.

[1]: [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/07/julian- assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/07/julian-assange- defies-swedish-prosecutors-by-releasing-statement)

<comment><USER47> Sweden has a long history of being a neutral country, it spent the whole of the cold war as that, and is still not a member of NATO. They did departure that doctrine somewhat when they joined the European Union. But it is still very much alive.

Extraditing Assange to the USA over a political charge would have been a huge departure of the neutrality doctrine, I have a hard time seeing how any Swedish government would have survived doing something so blatantly un Swedish.

The UK on the other hand, is a country that boost it has a special relationship with the USA, and is imo. the European country most likely to extradite him. So it fairly weird he went there, if not getting extradited to the USA was the goal.

<comment><USER49> Swedish Cold War neutrality was a sham. They aligned their tactics and weapons acquisitions with NATO standards. From the 1950s onwards they secretly collaborated with the UK and USA on intelligence and defensive plans.

There really was no question that they were in the NATO sphere except for formality.

Finland was more truly neutral.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How we reduced our cancellation rate by 87.5% - <AUTHOR> http://blog.reemer.com/how-we-reduced-our-cancellation-rate-by-87-5 <comment><USER4> Seriously, one of the best and most actionable articles you'll read this week. (n.b. This sort of thing _prints money_ for companies at pretty much all sizes. Well, after you've got enough customers to worry about cancellations.)

I'll probably write something about this eventually. There are a lot of generalizable tactics which repeatably work well. (Email engagement is probably the highest bang for the buck, considering that you can implement it in about an afternoon and, coming from the starting point "We send no email", it will virtually immediately produce visible results.)

<comment><USER5> On the topic of emails and account cancellations: When I started sending out "Your Tarsnap account will be deleted soon" emails, the account attrition rate dropped by 50%. The change wasn't from people who didn't realize their account was going to be deleted -- they had received two emails already, 1 week and 2 weeks earlier -- but getting that last prompt seems to have shifted people's default action from "do nothing" to "pay some money to make the account stay around".

Some time later, I cut Tarsnap's account attrition rate by another ~50% by adding a line to the "account will be deleted soon" email: _"If you've decided to stop using Tarsnap, I'd love to know why."_ This wasn't deliberate -- I added it for the simple reason that I really do want to get that information -- but it seems to be causing people to stop and say "hmm, I can't think of any good reason to not use Tarsnap, so maybe I should keep using it after all".

<comment><USER6> Regarding that last bit:

I wonder if they feel a bit of social pressure to stay. Basically when you say " _I'd_ love to know why" all of a sudden there is an actual person who would be clearly harmed by their decision to leave.

<comment><USER7> Would like to see some A/B testing with "I'd love to know why" vs. "We'd love to know why."

<comment><USER5> Fortunately, the number of people who let their Tarsnap accounts expire is small enough that unless there was a huge signal it would take a very long time to get a statistically significant result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great analysis and I really want to believe in this but I am a sceptic and this:

 _Interested in learning how a cohort analysis can help your business grow? Get in touch – I work with select clients to help identify growth and retention opportunities, and build features to realize those opportunities._

Kind of killed it for me. Now I am not sure whether I should trust the results.

<comment><USER4> Do you routinely distrust code written by people who take money for coding, on the grounds that it might have been written with an eye to securing work?

<comment><USER8> I am not sure what that comparison is supposed to prove? Care to elaborate?

I have no doubt kareemm is a fantastic at his job. I have simply seen to many cases where a case study is used to create sales. Again nothing wrong with that. It just kind of makes me sceptic when I see fantastic results combined with a a sales message.

Thats just me.

<comment><USER9> Except that we probably don't have many gym owners here :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If the average time to cancel is 61 days, and they waited only 2 months since the changes to calculate the new cancellation rates, it stands to reason that the cancellation rate will rise over the next few months, right?

Assuming a normal distribution (probably not that accurate, but it's just a guess), the final cancellation rate would be about double that measured until now.

Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER11> The key here is that it is a cohort analysis.

So while your analysis is correct and the cancellation rate will likely rise over time, the key thing to check when comparing a pre-change cohort to a post-change cohort to test for improvement is that the cancellation rates at two weeks post-signup are significantly different. Obviously its the most ideal if you can run the tests in parallel to reduce the risk of selection bias. However, sometimes that is not always feasible, and with a result like 85%+ improvement is not really necessary to do so in order to assume that the control was beaten.

<comment><USER12> I don't really understand. Isn't the "cohort analysis" part of it how the data about the gyms that cancelled was extracted? That shouldn't affect how you compare the results once you've made changes. I'm also not sure I understand what you mean by "comparing a pre-change cohort to a post-change cohort" because we're not comparing the cohorts, we're comparing the cancellation rate among the whole list of customers.

<comment><USER11> Ah, the article is actually extremely unclear. What I took his conclusion to mean was that some cohort of gyms that had signed up post-change had lower cancellation rates than pre-change customers. If the analysis just took into account the overall rate across all customers is prone to all sorts of errors (including the one you mention).

<comment><USER10> My impression was that the pre-change cancellation rate was based on all customers over the lifetime of the product (they did calculate the 61 day average from this), whereas the post-change was only for the new customers in the last two months (the max it could be, and the only thing it makes sense to measure).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm interested in why you found Mixpanel hard to use. It satisfies every requirement you have described out of the box and only takes minutes to set up. Unless you wanted to process a ton of past data it probably would have been easier for you to skip all the manual data entry excel requires.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't used Mixpanel, only Kissmetrics. I wanted to run the analysis on all of our data and while that's doable in Kissmetrics, Excel is faster (desktop vs latency of web app requests), more flexible (I can do what I want vs being limited to what KM lets me do), and likely easier to get data in (import CSV vs ...?)

<comment><USER13> I had the exact same problem as you, so I'm writing <http://www.instahero.com>. It will offer everything kissmetrics etc offer, but will give you the ability to easily program your own reports, without having to download your data or anything like that.

Think of it like kissmetrics having an "edit the code that generates this report" option. You can leave your email or drop me a line if you want to try out the beta.

<comment><USER14> I would strongly suggest you drop the "websites not using us yet" line from your landing page. Showing their logos isn't a trick to increase conversions, but borderline dodgy -- and people _will_ notice.

<comment><USER13> Ah, sorry, that was just a joke, the logos came with the theme. I'll remove them asap, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> These are the sort of posts that keep me coming back to HN. Great analysis, and as a former Crossfitter - awesome product idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great post on the usefulness of cohort analysis (or of experimentation more broadly, which if you think about it, is exactly what cohort analysis is - <USER2> just uses the past as a control).

One thought on ways to analyze the follow-on problem of customers canceling after 61 days (a problem similar to what I've seen at every web company I've ever worked at).

First, perform the same cohort analysis you've already done, but look at the cancelling customers vs retained customers at day 1, day 15, day 30 and day 45, then use this analysis to figure out your triggers (things like # of Facebook posts needed by day 15, % of profiles claimed by day 30, etc).

Once you have your triggers, you can make proactively calling / emailing problematic customers a key part of your daily routine. While discounts might still be the way to go, this trigger based approach is one I've seen work well. Additionally, because you are in touch with problematic customers it often gives you insight into what do next.

</comment><comment><USER17> Related great post written by Shopify guys a while ago: [http://www.shopify.com/technology/4018382-defining-churn- rat...](http://www.shopify.com/technology/4018382-defining-churn-rate-no- really-this-actually-requires-an-entire-blog-post)

</comment><comment><USER18> Congratulations on the impressive result. It seems you have a good product but the real change appears to be encouraging those who wouldn't use your system properly to improve their habits.

I wish you could work out more concretely why the situation improved but with three substantial improvements (that likely impact different customers in different ways) that's difficult. I could imagine "drop[ping] prices by 15-60%" would help those not using your product fully for example as even if they don't use all the features they don't feel like they're overpaying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our hypothesis is that the biggest reason for the change was price. If it's a good use of my time, I'll run another analysis in a couple months to see if I can isolate the reasons for change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting article, two issues.

First, you changed two variables simultaneously, so its tricky to tell how much either contributed. The cynic in me, suggests that the article _could_ actually be summarised as 'we cut our prices'.

Second, you right:

> So we improved our onboarding to help a gym owner export a CSV of their > members' email addresses to send to us.

Certainly in Europe, that could fall foul of data protection legislation, you'll need to make sure that the customer has given permission for their data to be past to 3rd parties.

</comment><comment><USER20> Great article. I went to check out your site socialwod.com and was unable to scroll on my iPhone. You may want to check your analytics to see if this effecting a large percentage of your visitors. Keep up the great work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up - will take a look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Which items from your analysis made a the most difference?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure - will run another analysis in a couple months if it's important enough to figure out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Cool. I've read about JBara, which provides a CRM plugin that aims to predict when people are going to cancel and give you a chance to retain them.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think the real takeaway here is: "Email is a better marketing channel then Facebook"

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a good article. I have a few issues with price-reduction for existing customers, though, that I want to highlight. I think it's fantastic that OP got the desired results on customer churn, which was his goal - but I'd categorize pricing changes as "gray hat" retention improvement with regard to the overall health of his business and future revenue. Here's why:

On price specifically: In a subscription business like this one, you have to meet a minimum utility requirement in each month that a customer is able to cancel if you want to retain customers. Each customer's minimum utility is different and could even be comprised of different factors/features depending on the breadth of the product offering. But there is one factor that cuts across all of them: price. A significant element of churn is price because the initial purchase thrill may decrease over time and result in customer cancellation requests at a certain point in their lifecycle. So, cutting price is kind of an easy way to reduce churn in a subscription model...particularly because people bought in at X and are now paying fractional X. Boom - <USER3> customers. Also, price-cutting is habit-forming, and the customers who received a reduced price will come back asking for more reductions in time.

On features: Multiple times, I've seen the "get more people using our product" as a good way to reduce churn. I won't comment on permission customer marketing and whether or not what OP did was legal, but the results of a feature like this are great, and seems like he added more than just this one. He added improved functionality and invested in his product at reduced prices - great deal!

On onboarding & cohort analysis: OP was right to focus on onboarding features and adoption to improve stickiness among new cohorts. He would have also been smart to raise the price for new customers if he materially improved the product (which it sounds like he did). Over the same time period, he could have had newer cohorts of higher paying customers, making the older ones less important to the financials of the business. By "hiring" higher priced customers to increasingly recent cohorts and continually "firing" older-lower- priced customers, the balance of his revenue would have shifted to these newer, more valuable customers over time, making the older-less-happy customers less important to his business. That's how you really turn the crank on a subscription business, and if your onboarding is good enough to continually improve retention in new cohorts, you've really nailed it.

Overall, I don't mean to be overly critical of OP's choices. I aim to highlight where optimizing for customer churn alone can harm the financials of the business, particularly around price-cutting for existing customers. He's doing lots and lots right with his cohort analyses, onboarding improvements, and assumptions about churn impact of new features. However, we're in business to make money, so these have to be balanced with the health of the business itself.</comment>


Ergonomic mouse and mousepads don't work - <AUTHOR> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25479984/ <comment><USER2> Misleading title.

Personal anecdote: vertical mouse staves off symptoms for a little longer, not indefinitely.

<comment><USER3> FTA: _"The findings of this study do therefore not endorse a strong recommendation for or against any of the ergonomic devices commonly recommended for patients with CTS. Selection of ergonomic devices remains dependent on personal preference."_

They don't claim using a different device won't help individuals. They claim there's no evidence to categorically advice users with carpal tunnel syndrome to move to these devices.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Clipboard Plus, free and open-source clipboard manager for Windows - <AUTHOR> Clipboard Plus is a Windows utility to view and manage the Windows clipboard.
Download : https://github.com/oormicreations/ClipboardPlus/releases
It maintains and can display up to five copied items or clips.
Clicking on a clip loads it back into the clipboard and it is ready for pasting into another application. You can clear or save individual clips or all clips by clicking on the corresponding menu items.
You can edit the clips and open urls directly from the clipboard plus.
The clips can be added to sticky clips, which is like a built in sticky notes with reminders etc.
You can enable or disable password mode. When enabled, it masks the copied passwords. You can minimize the Clipboard Plus window to the tray.
This tiny but useful utility is completely free and open sourced. <comment><USER2> There's also ditto

[https://ditto-cp.sourceforge.io](https://ditto-cp.sourceforge.io)

<comment><USER3> Ditto is great. I tried several clipboard managers and I found Ditto the best.

A great feature which is not enabled by default is serching for substrings in any order, so if you want to search for an item which contains somewhere the strings 'dog' and 'cat' for example, then you just type 'dog cat' and it finds all entries which contain both of these substrings in any order anywhere.

<comment><USER4> My only complaint with Ditto (and they may have fixed it by now) is the clip database grows unbounded. I ran out of space on my drive and I found the Ditto database was taking up several gigabytes. There is an option to delete and it took a long time to finish (overnight).

<comment><USER5> I haven't used it in a while, but I recall a count limit that would trigger trimming when exceeded. In fact, as I recall, I had to manually increase or remove the default of... was it 500?, in order to get clips to stick around for the period of time I required.

Clips could also be flagged (I forget the terminology used) so that they would not be automatically deleted. For stuff you used chronically or really needed to keep around (in which case, you shouldn't be solely trusting it to the utility's database -- even though, backed by SQLite, that was pretty darned stable; not entirely, though, back then, as I had it bork on me once or twice).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the things I want is a clipboard manager that removes most (or all) text formatting by default.

I'm always opening up Notepad to remove formatting.

<comment><USER7> I use the URL bar for that :)

<comment><USER8> At least in some browsers (such as those built by search engine/advertising companies), I would worry about pasting anything into the URL bar because it will be immediately sent to third-parties to assess what search terms to recommend in the suggestion box. It's probably safe to do so in some browsers. But I would recommend using a network sniffer to see what happens when you paste into the URL bar.

<comment><USER9> This. You might be sending some private text or a URL that's not supposed to be publicly known and Google will know you better once more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Windows is going to get multi item, synchronized between devices clipboard in next month.

I don't know the details, but it sounds pretty nice.

Your tool seem superior only when it comes to masking passwords (how does it know it's an password that's copied btw?).

Wishing you all the best though, alternative apps can make a good push for Microsoft to implement useful stuff into Windows, plus they're nice for users.

<comment><USER11> > synchronized between devices clipboard

Holy hell, that sounds like the utmost crazy privacy problem. Is it end-to-end encrypted?

<comment><USER12> its synced to your personal Microsoft account, only if your email is tied to your OS. How is that a "utmost crazy privacy problem", plenty of people do the same thing with cross platform tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good example of similar battle tested application could be also ClipX [0]. It's ten years old (untouched since release), written most likely for Windows XP, and working to this days in Windows 10. I'm absolutely addicted to it. Tried many alternatives and always came back to this gem.

(The only nuisance I ever had with it is recent clash of some Win 10 update and ClipX DiskLog plugin that causes annoying delay of clipboard item after copy. I had to disable that plugin after ten years.)

[0] [http://bluemars.org/clipx/](http://bluemars.org/clipx/)

<comment><USER14> +1 for clipx. Plenty of Customization, easily installable via chocolatey too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cross platform and scriptable with JavaScript:

[https://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/](https://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/)

And translated into 22 languages:

[https://github.com/hluk/CopyQ/tree/master/translations](https://github.com/hluk/CopyQ/tree/master/translations)

</comment><comment><USER16> Interesting, will check it out.

Coincidentally, I had come across pyperclip, a Python clipboard module recently, and tried it out here:

pyperclip, a cool Python clipboard module:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2018/08/pyperclip-cool-python- cl...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2018/08/pyperclip-cool-python-clipboard- module.html)

That post shows a way to use pyperclip to do a quick word and line count of any text you are working on, such as a blog post or article (as long as it is within the clipboard size limit).

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting that you can secure text that is a password/passphrase. For a moment there I thought this was something like Tails OS' encrypted clipboard[1] feature, but alas, no.

[1] [https://tails.boum.org/doc/encryption_and_privacy/gpgapplet/...](https://tails.boum.org/doc/encryption_and_privacy/gpgapplet/decrypt_verify/index.en.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Recently found 1Clipboard which is simple and seems to do the job. I find it amazing how Windows lack quality app for these tiny tasks. It's usually somehow ugly and does more than you need while not easy to do the thing you want to do.

Also wonder how none of the OS has any sort of decent clipboard manager for decades when it should be their default feature.

There are plenty to choose on Mac but Unclutter is great.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd be surprised if that's not a trademark infringement; there are a lot of "clipboard plus" projects going back years.

</comment><comment><USER19> That's a nice clipboard manager! I like the password mode. Here's my attempt at a clipboard manager for programmers. [https://github.com/DOKKA/MultiClipboardDeluxePro](https://github.com/DOKKA/MultiClipboardDeluxePro)

</comment><comment><USER20> What I want is an alternative clipboard. Sometimes I need to paste two things many times and fairly frequently together.

I want a save this to my second clipboard and then be able to paste from that clipboard without changing the default clipboard.

</comment><comment><USER21> your "clipboard commands" feature is pretty cool. have you considered implementing a plugin API for developing new commands?

your UX on this could use some work, however. i don't want the clipboard window to always be present, and i want "paste from history" to be a process similar to the normal "paste" process.

</comment><comment><USER22> I recommend [http://nes.bplaced.net/clipboarder.html](http://nes.bplaced.net/clipboarder.html)</comment>


The strange, twisted story behind the peach vagina startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/technology/founders-fighting-sweet-peach/

<comment><USER2> Heinz forwarding that woman's personal information unsolicited to a third party without her consent is awfully flaky...</comment>


X-Ray "gun" assembled from Junkyard parts - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shV2qoZShV0 <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting is that in their follow up video they effectively measure radiation up to 9 roentgens/h (which is 90 mSv/h if I'm not mistaken) which is the limit of their detection equipment. See [https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)

It's quite a lot.</comment>


Gitdocs: Open-source Dropbox using Ruby + Git - <AUTHOR> http://www.rubyflow.com/items/6883-gitdocs-open-source-dropbox-using-ruby-+-git

<comment><USER2> This is a good effort and it's always good to see people using a SCM repository as a collaborative document store. Even better that it has such a nice simple command-line.

However, all four things that make Dropbox Dropbox for me are missing:

* A UI so straightforward that my technophobic mother-in-law (or even a project manager) can use it

* Block-level sync (in particular, the rsync algorithm) with server-side dedupe on binary files (git is suboptimal in my experience on large binaries, and it's unclear whether this project resolves the issue). Incidentally, integrating that with simple versioning behaviour is what lifts dropbox into the "Ooh, clever, I see what you did there" category for me.

* Local-area peer-to-peer sync.

* Click-to-share instant access granting.

Building an open-source tool that has all four is on my to-do list. Unfortunately it's quite far down that list. Anyone else having a crack at it?

<comment><USER3> I'm having a go, as a side-side project, at defining a strictly RESTful protocol for implementing DropBox-like functionality - I'm building client and server components which will be FOSS. I started this mainly as a learning experience for designing a strictly RESTful interface, but I plan to use it personally. Some random notes:

\- Strictly RESTful interface (HATEOS, single base URL, server controlled namespaces)

\- Simplicity over performance - easy to do everything on the command line using curl

\- Supports block level transfers

So far this has stricly been for my own amusement/education - happy to write something up and put the code on github if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER4> I think it needs more strict RESTfulness

<comment><USER3> Quite... the dangers of posting in a hurry :-)

While I was repeating myself a bit there I meant to get across that when I started I _thought_ I knew what a RESTful interface was (nice URLs, HTTP GET/POST/PUT/DELETE) then I discovered that the term is used pretty loosely and a lot of what are described RESTful interfaces aren't really anything like what Roy Fielding meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From my perspective, the main Dropbox feature that all the "thin layer on top of VCS" clones miss is the conflict-resolution behavior of Dropbox. If both you and someone else edit a file called "stuff.txt" at the same time, you'll end up with two files: "stuff.txt" and "stuff.txt (other guy's version)". Neither person's changes are blown away, there's never any merge conflicts, and the history remains linear.

I'll have to see if Gitdocs does anything like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oo. Great idea. I'll add that.

<comment><USER5> It's not as simple as it sounds. What if there's already a file called "stuff.txt (other guy's version)"? There's lots and lots of edge cases. You basically need a function that can _always_ return an appropriate but not- already-existing filename.

<comment><USER6> I think graceful file conflict resolution will be an essential part of gitdocs and we will work to handle these edge cases as best as we can. Thanks for bringing it up.

<comment><USER7> You might want to look at this bit: [https://github.com/hbons/SparkleShare/blob/master/SparkleLib...](https://github.com/hbons/SparkleShare/blob/master/SparkleLib/Git/SparkleRepoGit.cs#L293)

It tries to copy the Dropbox conflict behaviour.

<comment><USER5> Interesting. I'll have to try it out again.

Although, if I'm reading this correctly, the logic isn't quite right. It uses the timestamp of the time when the conflict is detected, when it should really use the conflicted file's last-modified time, or maybe the timestamp of the conflicting commit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Git is terrible at dealing with big binary files and by terrible I mean very slow, it's optimized for text files only. Linus wrote about that a while ago, you can google it.

</comment><comment><USER9> While I'm a big fan of open source in general and of using standard components yadda yadda yadda

For me the biggest draw of Dropbox is that it's not self hosted but that it's run by an entity that's 1) large enough to not go away any time soon, 2) fairly unscary (unlike, say, facebook), and 3) 100% dedicated to keeping the service running so I don't have to worry about my files anymore.

Self hosting only gets you 2).

<comment><USER6> But in this case, we are storing your files in a simple git repo defined by you. A git repo you could store on say github or bitbucket of which both are git hosts that are not going away anytime soon. In a way, this is just replacing a hosted dropbox with a hosted git repo should you choose to use it that way.

<comment><USER9> Do github and bitbucket look kindly upon storing gigabytes worth of data on their services? The overviews of their plans don't mention anything about size, but it seems to me you're stretching their terms and conditions quite a bit when you start using their services for hosting gigabytes worth of binary data (which is what I use Dropbox for, ymmv)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For me the biggest misssing feature of all approaches to online folder synchronisation (including Dropbox, in a sad way) is secure backend encryption. For me, this includes an open source client and a free choice, where to store my files. Ideally I could have several decrypting clients to work with my files, while an arbitrary amount of encrypted clients would store my files on various backends, one of which could be a company offering this as service.

<comment><USER5> It seems like Gitdocs fits the requirement for encryption. Just use git+ssh for the remote of the repo, and transfers will be encrypted. Then, I guess, you need to set up ecryptfs or something on the server side so that things are encrypted on-disk, and then you can back up the encrypted files.

Not simple, but possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would use this for my company if I were able to install something as an OS X app. I'm not comfortable on the command line, and I want contractors and new employees to come on board just as easy (I don't want to have to admin their machines.)

This is very interesting indeed. I wouldn't mind paying for an OS X app that would take care of this problem (the setting up on each machine).

<comment><USER6> Not a bad idea at all. Gui wrappers for osx, and later linux and windows would be an awesome way to allow this to be used by less tech saavy people in the future. I suspect an osx cocoa wrapper would be pretty easy to write. We also plan to build out a web front-end that allows users to browse,edit,and upload files from right within their browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does this address any of the issues people have with SparkleShare? (Another dropbox clone based on git - <http://www.sparkleshare.org/>)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it's probably much simpler. And it relies on fsevents to do the pushes. But, aside for that, what issues are people having with sparkleshare?

<comment><USER12> Lack of windows support and the difficulty to install the server side components are the two ones that I've heard a lot of complaints about.

<comment><USER7> SparkleShare doesn't require any special server side parts: just git-core, which may be easy or hard to set up depending on your sysadmin skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hm, if I use this to store large files 50+ MB that don't compress well, won't the local repo grow out of proportion soon? Git will keep around the history. Or is this disabled?

</comment><comment><USER14> How does this compare to lipsync in terms of binary files?

<https://github.com/philcryer/lipsync>

</comment><comment><USER15> This is cool. A simple hack, but opens up many possibilites like versioning and remote backup of documents.</comment>


SWTOR Slicing - Gathering Crew Skill - <AUTHOR> http://swtorblog.info/swtor-slicing/ The post discuss the Slicing crew skill for SWTOR and how it can be combined with crafting. Furthermore it presents Slicing Leveling guide, short, but worth reading. <comment><USER2> Great job Hunterr

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The game I'm playing, this is post for Slicing, gathering crew skill. The post discuss the Slicing crew skill for SWTOR and how it can be combined with crafting. Furthermore it presents Slicing Leveling guide, short, but worth reading.</comment>


What's Really Going on in the VC Industry? What Does it Mean for Startups? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/07/16/whats-really-going-on-in-the-vc-industry-whats-it-mean-for-startups/

<comment><USER2> "Try selling your product at a fair price when you have 4 competitors who've each raised $10 million in VC and who expect it will be easy to raise the next $10 million. Over funding drives poor market behavior and makes it difficult for strong players to earn proper returns."

Every entrepreneur that bootstraps their company has to deal with this. Sure it would be 'fair' if everyone had to make their own way but then it wouldn't feel like success to beat the competitors that did get funding when you decided to take none. Just because you're competition chooses to get VC funding doesn't mean they know what to do with it. I'd love to see a reduction in the attitude from a previous HN post where a VC was quote about "dipshit" exits at $25 million.</comment>


Ask HN: Was I just offered horrible convertible note terms? - <AUTHOR>

Was just offered $120K investment w/ a $500K cap; and 25% discount.
Some background: This is my first time taking money for my startup, so I ran it by my "silicon valley advisor" (a buddy from college who runs a notable tech startup in SV).  I asked him what he thought of the terms, and he said that they are the most entrepreneur-unfriendly terms he has ever seen.  His main concern was how low the cap was set at.  He said I should insist on a $4M cap, and not accept anything under $2M.
My dilemma though, is we're currently pre-revenue; and I need this cash injection to propel my startup through our launch.
Isn't the cap on a convertible note akin to a pre-money company valuation?  If so, I honestly agree with the investor that we are only worth ~$500K. I mean, we're pre-revenue, so $500K is optimistic IMHO.
Personally, I have a proven track record of building and exiting companies.  Nothing huge; my last business was acquired for $250,000 last year.
I'm confident that I can make this business successful; but I don't want to screw myself over by taking this cash now, when in a year or so I may be seeking Series-A financing from a large VC; and don't want to turn them off by having accepted such poor seed investment terms.
Couple questions:
1) Do you feel like $120K with $500K cap, and 25% discount is really that bad of a deal?
2) If I take this deal as-is, do you anticipate backlash from future investors?
3) Where do I have negotiating leverage? Should I tell him I want a $2M cap but am willing to increase the discount to 30%? Should I offer to pay interest on the note?
4) I realize posting to HN is no substitute for bonafide legal counsel; so is there someone you would refer me to?
Thanks everyone. <comment><USER2> I'm no expert but that sounds pretty bad.

You say you "need" the cash. What do you need it for? At the very early stages you may need cash much less then you think you do. Cash feels like it will remove headaches but you are adding an investor to the mix at terrible terms which could add headaches. Could be a wash.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've got a team of 8 full time people (half are salaried and half are only commission). We're hemorrhaging cash as we roll out our marketing plan. Plus we have features on our site like "Refer a friend, earn $10 when their first order ships." That money has to come from somewhere.

My only other option is to get as many personally-guaranteed credit cards as I can and just use them instead of taking on an investor. But this seems more high-risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> -This is a bad deal. The discount is sort of bad; it's somewhat unfriendly as it's on the high side, but it's not unheard of. The cap is pretty bad, though, and you combine both of those and you have fairly unfriendly terms.

-Convertible debt notes already come with a (low) interest rate.

-It's pretty clear _the reason you are getting such bad terms is because you have no leverage in the negotiation_. You've made it clear that your company desperately needs the money; the investor probably knows you're desperate and that's why you get such bad terms. There is a lot of truth to the saying that it's best to raise money when you don't need it: because then you can afford to walk away from the deal or spend more time finding other offers. Firstly, try to negotiate better terms. When someone presents a term sheet to you, it's meant to be the beginning of a longer discussion. Ask for a $4MM cap at 25% discount, and work your way down from there if you are refused. While that's happening you need to explore other options: 1) Find a better offer (get competing offers), 2) Position your company in such a way that you can afford to go without funding (firing people, cutting expensive programs), 3) If you're desperate you'll have to bite the bullet and take the deal.

-Keep in mind that if you don't get better offers and can't negotiate a better offer, and if there is absolutely no way your company can survive without funding, then obviously you need the funding.

-I'm not able to refer you to a lawyer, but keep in mind that you should involve a lawyer in the negotiation. Your friend probably knows more.

Other points:

-Why the hell do you have 8 full-time employees? How are you paying them? How can you justify that expense? What kind of business are you running that has such a high burn rate?

-Can you raise money from non-traditional sources such as family & friends?

-Are you actually truly pre-revenue (as in negligible revenue)? If so, that again begs the question as to why you even have 8 employees and expensive marketing referral programs. Those are not things you do without already having lots of funding.

-Since you're "pre-revenue," why do you even think you've found product-market fit? Is it your daily active users number or monthly actives?

-I wouldn't consider a $250k exit a "proven track record of building and exiting companies." Though it is a positive for investors, I don't think investors would consider it a proven track record.

<comment><USER4> New to term sheet...

Can I ask what does discount mean in this context... "$4MM cap at 25% discount"

<comment><AUTHOR> It means if another future investor makes an investment where the pre-money valuation of the company is LESS THAN $4MM (like, $350K for 10%), then the initial investor's shares would convert at 1.25x the rate of the new money coming in. So new investor would get 10% for $350K while past investor's convertible note would convert to 12.5%.</comment></comment></comment>