Y Combinator invests in Monzo through its Continuity Fund - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/24/monzo-doubles-valuation-to-2point5-billion-with-y-combinator-led-funding.html <comment><USER2> I know there's a bit of scepticism about Monzo in particular, but here's the deal from my perspective as a customer and crowdfunder: it's a straightforward banking service, and has a great app (which is where I do basically all banking anyway). That's basically it. Fee-free foreign transactions are a nice positive too, though I'm not that bothered.

Some of the larger banks have begun introducing features to compete – stuff like being able to freeze and re-order cards. So that's good. At the point it was introduced though, the experience was notably better than any other option.

For me as a customer, the main goal of a retail bank is to store my cash, make it accessible, keep it secure, and notify me about transactions – basically, keep out of the way as much as possible. It's good at that, better than any other bank I've used, and I think that simplicity is underrated.

<comment><USER3> Bingo.

The fact that I can see all my transactions, automatically categorised, in an app that is much prettier, full-featured and simple than the crap that Halifax put out, is brilliant.

Combine that with a simple setup process, never having to interact with humans or call centres, and add tha bility to automatically save, interact with IFTTT etc and you have a very compelling package and I hope they continue to do well

<comment><USER4> > never having to interact with humans or call centres

Many people would argue this is a tech company's biggest flaw.

<comment><USER5> Never having to??

I can understand "never being able to" being a flaw. But if I can get my stuff done without talking to someone then that is brilliant. I don't have to go out of my way to go somewhere, I don't have to bother with a bad phone reception, I don't have to wait in a line for it to be my turn. I just do the things I need to do when it is convenient for me.

If I want to open a savings "pot" (Monzo version of a savings account). Then I can do it on the bus on the way to work. I don't have to take time off to go to a branch, or prove I am me on a phone call etc. I just use the app, and it's all done.

<comment><USER4> All I'm saying is they're less likely to invest in good customer service infrastructure if it never 'needs' to be used. There's always the possibility that something unaccounted will go wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm very hopeful for Monzo, with some caveats.

They have a lot of fascinating and useful DNA having gotten started in the UK before the US. The UK's regulatory environment for digital banking is leagues ahead of America's, w/r/t data access, APIs, etc. If they can persist UK style data features through their American rollout, they'll have something no other American bank currently offers.

While my strong suspicion is that the UK's push for digitization / interoperability in the financial sector stems from Orwellian nanny-state ambitions that would be right at home in China's playbook, it would be fantastic if we could somehow manage to empower customers with access to their own information without similarly empowering data-thirsty governments to surveil and oppress.

The scary parts are probably going make headway regardless, so cheers to the silver lining in the interim.

<comment><USER7> This is where they actually bring value right? - Delivering a good banking product outside of the UK.

Because as a UK customer I see no reason to switch after trying Monzo for a couple of months.

Positives:

\- a nicer mobile banking app

Negatives:

\- no credit cards and no option to top up using a credit card from another bank

\- no physical branches

Everything else is comparable to most other banks in the UK. Which isn't bad, just nothing worth switching banks for.

<comment><USER8> For me the killer feature is foreign currency transactions with no fees at the MasterCard exchange rate, both online and abroad. My "traditional" bank charges me a flat fee _and_ a percentage for any transactions in other currencies.

<comment><USER9> I don't know what the MasterCard exchange rate is. However, someone recently told me regarding their credit card: "they give me the wholesale exchange rate, which is great". It turned out not to be so great (~1% wide market). It's good not to pay an additional fee/spread on top, but it can still be a poor deal overall.

<comment><USER10> This is their convertor below.

$10000 dollars cost £7,867.91

I googled $100 USD to GBP and it comes out as: £7,859.50

Percentage difference: 0.106947%

[https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get- support/con...](https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get- support/convert-currency.html)

<comment><USER9> Google isn't really an authority. The Google rate could be bad and MasterCard 0.1% worse. They could be from different times. Also, the MasterCard site says indicative only - if I convert the amount back again, MasterCard claims they are giving me free money.

GBPUSD spot is 0.002% wide (so you'd expect to pay ~0.001% for a single, instant transaction up to several million). It's not actually too difficult to access this through a brokerage.

That said, if you could really get 0.1% from them it'd probably be considered good at retail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The UK bank space could do with some fresh players. Currently I'm looking for a new bank for my business, because:

1) I need to have foreign currency accounts. My bank has them, but I'm unable to see the accounts when I log in. They've known about this for 4 months now, and I keep getting sent in circles by the Indian call centre. They've sent me to branch twice, with no coordination, the people in the branch can't help me either.

2) I need to have an end-of-year statement for my taxes. It seems someone messed up the SQL or something, because I have statements for every month, except the end of the year. They haven't fixed this either.

So I've started looking around for other banks, but most of the challenger banks don't do multi currency accounts.

I'm in the market for a new personal account as well. Revolut works just fine technically, but I don't like what's being said about them and I'd rather not support them now.

It would be nice to have business and personal together, but that seems hard to find among the challenger banks, since they seem to not do FX. (I've emailed several over the past week.)

Lastly TransferWise does Borderless, which seems like exactly what I need, but it seems to not be a real bank account. Certain online businesses require withdrawals to be to someone (or a business) whose name matches what they have as their account details, and that doesn't work with their scheme.

<comment><USER12> We use Barclays and have EUR and USD accounts with them which we can see online and make transfers/payments online with. Allows us to have a USD Amex, and do a lot of our Forex with Transferwise. Saved tens of thousands over the years on Forex with this method, and expensing some of our USD infrastructure costs on Amex helps as well.

Last pain point for us is getting a USD account in USA so we can cashout Paypal USD balances. Found companies that promise ability to do this but after wasting lots of time turns out they can't.

<comment><USER13> Transferwise can give you a US ACH account with a USD balance which you can then convert and send. Not sure if that helps?

<comment><USER12> Paypal need a USD account in USA, with a bank statement from said account showing your business name. I don't think that would do it.

<comment><USER13> Seems that it works. It is a USD bank.

[https://www.icomparefx.com/how-to-send-money-from-paypal- to-...](https://www.icomparefx.com/how-to-send-money-from-paypal-to- transferwise/)

<comment><USER12> We have a business account - there is no ability to add USD account without having to go through support who require bank statements unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not to be dismissive, but would these challenger banks (Monzo, Revolut, N26, TransferWise) survive once the regular banks and AmEx stop adding fees on top of foreign-currency charges and withdrawals? I personally don't see any other differentiating factor, and frankly, maintaining multiple cards and having to top up, etc. are a hassle.

<comment><USER15> > maintaining multiple cards and having to top up, etc. are a hassle.

So don't do that?

I think I still have a 'regular bank' account open, but I don't use it at all. Salary goes into Monzo, and payments go out. It's the only debit card in my wallet and that I use.

<comment><USER14> > So don't do that?

I didn't switch wholesale because I'm not fully convinced. I feel these new banks and bank-like offers will for some time search for a right fit and may change or disappear in the next few years.

Also, no-fees-abroad is a great feature, but perhaps not the 10x to spur (my) wholesale adoption.

Maybe I'm just not an early adopter (although I use them abroad, so in a way, I am).

<comment><USER16> I have a standing order that just moves £200 into Monzo every Friday for regular spending money. Makes it a lot simpler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's it's plan for making money.

As I understood it current (checking) accounts don't really make any money, they're just used as loss leaders to lure in customers.

<comment><USER18> hey, i work at monzo

we're currently making money from interest charged on loans that we make to our customers, from interest that the central bank pays us on our deposits, as well as from interchange that we earn when our cards are used. this is what most banks do (except they also make lots of money from fees that we don't have)

there are several other ways we'll make money and we just started experimenting with a few of them. we launched a premium account that charges a monthly fee [1], we operate a savings marketplace in which we earn a commission [2] and we help people switch their bills to a cheaper provider if they are currently overpaying [3]

we release our financial statements every year and new ones are coming out soon. feel free to have a dig then :)

[1] [https://monzo.com/plus](https://monzo.com/plus)

[2] [https://monzo.com/features/savings/](https://monzo.com/features/savings/)

[3] [https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/08/switch-energy-supplier- thr...](https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/08/switch-energy-supplier-through- monzo/)

<comment><USER19> Any plans to be able to hold money in a different currency like the Forex features of revolut?

On another note, I love monzo and do use it, and don't want to offend but I just had a look at the monzo plus offering and it's a bit crap. A different colour card and (later this year, and not specified) interest on your account?

<comment><USER20> I imagine they are doing a sort of soft launch. It sounds like Monzo has lots of features lined upcoming in the future. The die-hard Monzo fans will all sign up (and will give good feedback).

A soft launch is a better idea compared to other companies launching new premium products, like the CityMapper Travel Pass, which is more like an Alpha than anything, and there have been lots of issues from the get-go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I do like Monzo, they are one of the few startups I have invested in. I tend to personally use them for my fun money and still use my long time bank for paying the bills and getting my wages etc I transfer my monthly spending money to Monzo and when that runs out the fun stops.

<comment><USER22> Same here. Something still prevents me from taking Monzo and similar banks seriously and manage my entire income on their accounts, though can't say what it is.

Maybe it's the "you can't possibly trust a bank that's not even profitable" despite all the effort of cutting costs, e.g. no walk-in offices and so on. That, coupled with being "ethical" as a selling point somehow doesn't sound great in the context of banking.

<comment><USER21> Yes, I think when I feel comfortable that they will stick around I will feel comfortable with putting my wages in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Congrats to Tom and the Monzo team. I've had an account since the days of 'Mondo', and the focus on user experience and trust has endured (and if anything maybe increased).

</comment><comment><USER24> I just found out about Monzo yesterday when I read an article regarding poor quality of Revolut customer service [1]. This banking app looks very promising, I would really like to try it but I'm in Dublin Ireland and here Revolut is basically the de facto of banking apps. How will they deal with this sort of competition?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20261823](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20261823)

<comment><USER25> That's a terrifying story in that link :-|

<comment><USER24> I know that's why I'm currently looking for a better alternative, but if no one uses Monzo here, I don't really see a reason to switch.

<comment><USER26> Dublin based here also. Agreed on Revolut, they have the best app in my opinion but I just recently signed up to n26 as they are a more solid company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Big congrats to Monzo, and I can't wait to see what their marketplace looks like when it's finally fleshed out.

What's the state of account switching in the US? I'd have thought a big part of Monzo's strength in the UK is the mandated account switching service:

[https://www.currentaccountswitch.co.uk/](https://www.currentaccountswitch.co.uk/)

Is there an equivalent system in the US to reduce the friction of switching banks?

<comment><USER28> I don't think an equivalent of the Current Account Switch Service exists in the US, which is a shame.

But I don't think this is crucial. We had around 5,500 switches via the Current Account Switch Service in May, but added around 200,000 new customers.

<comment><USER29> It's unfortunate that the fully automated service requires you to close your the source account completely when switching. I was about to push the button on getting my salary paid into my monzo account but a diversity of current accounts has its uses.

I think the justification for only providing switch and close was that it was the only way to reliably avoid double payments IIRC. Personally I would have taken that risk and resolved them manually if necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> India has its set of branchless digital banks, Paytm is the leader.

India also has other things which is driving digital payment adoption, Aadhar based KYC system, UPI payment interoperability system. Google Pay, PhonePe, Amazon Pay and many other payment apps are now bringing payment to the masses.

and suddenly we realise, India leapfrogged many developed nations in the process

<comment><USER31> Monzo is very heavily used in physical stores in the UK. Paytm doesn't have enough usage in the physical world apart from transferring money to friends. RBI releases bank usage every few month, here is a link to see statistics [https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/ATMView.aspx](https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/ATMView.aspx). Monzo is the standard bank account of a lot of millennials.

I could see something like Monzo making it big in India, being an Indian living in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I had assumed that Monzo would sell to one of the big banks that forgot (or couldn't be bothered) to make their consumer experience better. But this feels more like they could publicly trade at some point, although they might need to make a profit sooner than in 10 years' time.

<comment><USER33> They always stated, they have no intention to be sold to a big bank.

<comment><USER34> Intentions can change.

<comment><USER35> Haha, that's ridiculous, I know for a fact they have had face to face meetings with RBS for example. I doubt they will sell while they are still growing, but they will sell.

<comment><USER36> They use RBS as a routing bank for international payments, so obviously they've had meetings with them

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I wish Monzo was available in continental Europe as an alternative to Revolut before expanding to the US.

As a product, I find Revolut to be much better thought-out offering for both, private customers[1] and businesses[2], but as a company I trust Monzo a way more.

[1] [https://www.revolut.com/our-pricing-plans](https://www.revolut.com/our- pricing-plans)

[2] [https://www.revolut.com/business-accounts-made- easy](https://www.revolut.com/business-accounts-made-easy)

<comment><USER38> They don't have FCSC protection, how is that a better thought-out offering for private customers?

"We can just throw away your money and you have no recourse, trust us with your ~banking~ beyond banking"

<comment><USER37> > They don't have FCSC protection, how is that a better thought-out offering > for private customers?

Revolut started out as a "prepaid debit card for paying abroad", not as "your main bank acccount", but is closing the gap quickly and should soon switch over its customers to an EU-licensed bank entity.

I find Revolut to be better than Monzo in terms of features and costs, but it's not suitable to be used as the main bank account yet because of the lack of protection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Monzo are great. For those who are interesting they built most of their backend in Go [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNwLjKeVRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNwLjKeVRE)

</comment><comment><USER40> Does Monzo plan to be available in other European countries? I live in France and would love to open an account with them - but you have to maintain a UK address in order to do so.

</comment><comment><USER41> I noted that stripe is an investor for this round. Strategic move towards more vertical integration?

</comment><comment><USER42> I use Simple (bank) and really like it. Seems like a lot of overlap with Monzo.

</comment><comment><USER43> > The company is one of several so-called challenger banks taking advantage of > the growing shift among consumers toward handling their finances on a > smartphone.

As opposed to handling their finances on a website, like people have been doing for the past decade? Even the smallest credit unions have apps these days. What is "fintech" about this?

> The branchless bank is now making £4 on each customer it signs up to the > platform, versus a £15 loss per customer last year, according to a company > spokesperson.

Where's the GBP 2.5 billion valuation coming from then? There's not much detail at all in the article. I don't want to default to cynicism, but this seems like a company whose profile fits the current SV hype train, puffing up valuations and eventually taking the company public, all before a single penny of profit has been made.

<comment><USER44> Not sure I agree with this. A huge number of young people I know in the UK have switched to Monzo as their primary bank account. The business model is simple: the same as any other bank. Their competitive advantage is:

1\. Having better technical capabilities than traditional banks (they _have_ apps, but they're usually limited and clunky).

2\. Not having physical branches, and the associated costs.

<comment><USER43> The article was very light on details, so I'd appreciate if could you elaborate on the technical capabilities of the app. I get suspicious when I see comments like:

> One reason that led Y Combinator to invest, Hariharan said, "was the > traction with which they hit 2 million users in the U.K., with engagement > metrics that almost look like a social network."

It's a bank app. I can't speak for most people, but I don't open my bank app more than a couple of times a month; it's to pay my CC bill, and to make the occasional bank to bank transfer. If I'm spending a lot of time in the app, I'm probably encountering a problem of some kind.

I also can't link "app engagement" with revenue. Banks make money on mortgages, lines of credit and other financial products. I suppose daily logins allow them to advertise this heavily (my bank does it too, and I hate it), but to draw a line from A to B is a bit of a stretch.

<comment><USER45> > it's to pay my CC bill

Most people in the UK don't put regular spending on a Credit Card. Nearly everyone will use their Debit Card for day to day spending.

A lot of the traction it has got has been with the 18-30 age bracket who are wanting better budgeting tools than what larger banks have offered.

<comment><USER46> Are you sure? All the best cashback offers are with credit cards, not debit cards.

<comment><USER44> Yes. Cashback from credit cards is mainstream in US culture, but not in the UK (maybe some people care about this, but only ~5% of my friends even have a credit card). Probably this difference is because card transaction fees are regulated to reasonable rates.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Have realeased a jQuery plugin to aid localization of single-page websites - <AUTHOR> http://darksmo.github.io/jquery-localization-tool/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty new at the moment (v.0.0.2) and development was pretty speedy... so I expect a bunch of fascinating bugs coming out. All constructive feedback and suggestions are most welcome.</comment>


Unity Learn platform free for three months - <AUTHOR> https://learn.unity.com/ <comment><USER2> [1] is the single best online course I had. It took ~30 hours to complete, and we all know how easy it is to drop a course after couple sessions.

It teaches from very basics, at the same time the projects are diverse and fun because 3D-assets and effects are provided.

Chunk size is perfect, few minutes video and then it's few minutes of work in the editor. Videos have short text summary so there's no need to rewind the video if I missed something.

Often it solves a problem in a naive but incorrect way, and then fixes it. So when I encounter a problem in real project, I often have experience dealing with it.

It has debugging projects, where you have a complete project which is broken in multiple ways. So smart. In my regular programming work I spend most time debugging, not creating from scratch.

The narrator (Carl D.) is charismatic, videos are very professional.

I wish there were more courses with same structure and quality. Can't recommend it enough.

[1] [https://learn.unity.com/course/create-with- code](https://learn.unity.com/course/create-with-code)

<comment><USER3> > The narrator (Carl D.) is charismatic

I just watched the intro video, it seemed like he was yelling the whole time...

<comment><USER4> Making good instructional videos is tough. Speaking loud enough, clear enough and slow enough to be understandable to as many people as possible with different levels of language proficiency can make it seem weird for some. I met Carl at a Unite conference and his voice sounded a little off compared to my memory of it and I realized it's because I've been so used to listening at 2x on those videos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would highly recommend learning Dreams for PS4. This is going to change the way video games are made. It provides an accessible way to get into game creation in a fun and accessible way. I would have killed to have Dreams when I was 12 years old.

Look up all the amazing things that can be made with this engine. It's incredible!

<comment><USER6> No PC version though sadly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps this is not the topic to ask but besides unity which other companies are offering free moocs and/or video tutorials because of the COVID-19?

<comment><USER8> Epic Games has offered numerous free courses about Unreal Engine 4. Both game related and industry related courses are available.

[https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/onlinelearning- courses](https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/onlinelearning-courses)

<comment><USER9> They have offered a paid course for free due to COVID-19?

<comment><USER10> They always have free coursework and content. Search their youtube. This is not in response to COVID

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was looking at getting it for my kids just last week. Went through a bunch forums, reading through what people are saying and the overwhelming tone was that it's just not good. An ad-hoc collection of tutorials with no overall structure and that are more confusing than helpful. Too complicated for noobs, too trivial with those with a bit of experience.

If anyone has a firsthand experience with Unity Learn, I'd love to hear about it, and I'm sure others will find it useful too.

<comment><USER12> _An ad-hoc collection of tutorials with no overall structure and that are more confusing than helpful_

This is how I feel about most open source software documentation and tutorials/articles about library or software usage.

<comment><USER13> Hell, this is how I feel about 90% of technical books and textbooks. Writing is hard. 10X harder for highly technical content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there something like Unity out there but with JavaScript support?

I know a bunch of JS game engines, but they all have no tooling.

<comment><USER15> Our tool Construct 3 runs in the browser, and has no programming required event blocks and Javascript support:

[https://www.construct.net/en](https://www.construct.net/en)

Mix of events/Javascript in it's simplest form looks like:

[https://s1.construct.net/images/v777/refresh/features/learn-...](https://s1.construct.net/images/v777/refresh/features/learn- to-code.png)

Documentation for Javascript in Construct 3 can be found here:

[https://www.construct.net/en/make- games/manuals/construct-3/...](https://www.construct.net/en/make- games/manuals/construct-3/scripting)

We're doing special offers for education due to the pandemic:

[https://www.construct.net/en/education- support](https://www.construct.net/en/education-support)

A key feature for schools is granting access to Construct 3's full features with access codes, meaning students do not need to proivde us with any login details/emails etc which is popular in educational institutes:

[https://www.construct.net/en/make- games/education/licensing](https://www.construct.net/en/make- games/education/licensing)

<comment><USER16> Hey! I worked with Construct 2 for a while - it's really cool :) If people are looking for a browser based tool to write games, check these guys out!

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the recommendation :) Much appreciated!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If Unreal or Cryengine took the effort to create better learning resources like Unity does, they would grow dramatically. To find the name of a function I need in the c++ is a research project involving a dive through years of old forum posts.

<comment><USER18> Isn't Unreal already the dominant engine for AAA games?

<comment><USER19> Unity's dominant on mobile compared to Unreal.

We (a FAANG) are actually looking for a dev experienced with _Unreal_ on mobile devices. If anybody sees this and is interested, hit me up. Contact info in my profile.

Edit: Added emphasis that we're looking for an Unreal mobile dev, not Unity.

<comment><USER20> At a high level, how is Unity used at FAANG?

<comment><USER21> I used both Unreal and Unity at FAANG. VR and AR apps are obvious use cases but you find the engines in all kind of random places. Especially common in ML research groups for scene and environment understanding

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Would this teach me to develop for the Oculus quest?

I have some locomotion ideas I want to try out but I don't know Where to start.

<comment><USER23> Most of the development you'd do for Oculus is 90% the same with what you'd do for any other game, so I'd say yes, but you'll need to supplement with tutorials specifically for Oculus/Unity.

<comment><USER24> What does the other 10% entail, when creating a VR game vs. a (first-person) 3D environment for PC? I'd never pondered this, and am curious exactly which elements are any different whatsoever. The only obvious thing that comes to mind is making the camera smooth and flexible in terms of variable degrees of leaning/bending/crouching.

<comment><USER25> You actually want the opposite, as little artificial camera motion as possible. The VR SDKs feed you the camera transform and settings against a reference point so you don't need to do anything special except render a view from that. The organic platform comes with all the motion smoothing built in. If you watch VR footage you'll get a feeling for how wobbly people's heads actually are.

In terms of level design VR has a looot more fidelity of input so the interaction design is richer and consequently there is more to setup. Game spaces tend to be less cluttered and have some slightly distorted dimensions. Both are more noticeable in VR. Games tend to have more fixed sight lines, the player is stood, crouched and maybe prone at most. In VR people will stick their heads everywhere.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the insight.

> In VR people will stick their heads everywhere.

Particularly when players have any level of knowledge about what kind of complexities or edge cases are likely involved (eg. any software developer or QA, even if not part of the gaming industry). Or... hell, maybe it's even worse when you have ignorant players who expect the VR environment to mimic real life so perfectly that they get frustrated and can't understand why certain actions aren't supported/working.

The first VR game I got to experience was one of the haunted house horror games, and you're damn right I bent down and tried to shoved my head into an open cupboard just to see if the collision detection stopped at the outer box of the model, or whether my head would be allowed to enter the space. Then repeatedly leaned/shoved my head against VR walls at various angles to see if I could get the camera to clip or bounce/reposition jarringly. Poor, poor developers who have to try and nail all that logic perfectly. It must be so rewarding to see final results when everything works out well, though. :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wait unity charges for their learning material? This and then charging for the dark theme is why this engine doesn't exist to me.

</comment><comment><USER26> Get them while you can. The only up to date/interesting courses are in learn premium. All the free ones are _years_ old and most just do not work in current versions of Unity.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is it good compared to Youtube tutorials?

</comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone know of a similar course but for learning to use Unreal Engine?

</comment><comment><USER29> Godot 4.0, with Vulkan support, will replace Unity really quickly.

<comment><USER30> No it won't, because it doesn't have the GUI tooling at the same level, an optimizing AOT compiler for .NET, ability to write engine pipeline stages in .NET (DOTS), the quantity of items in the asset store, the sponsorship from Nintendo/Google/Microsoft and most important, it isn't part of the curriculum of many top level schools in games design.

It is still a nice engine for small teams though.

<comment><USER31> AOT is in the making [0]. I also think Godot will win in the long run. Unity is a bloated mess. No sponsorship can fix that.

0 - [https://godotengine.org/article/csharp-wasm- aot](https://godotengine.org/article/csharp-wasm-aot)

<comment><USER30> It seems to be only for WebAssembly. unless I am misreading it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "the change you want was rejected" on creating new login...</comment>


Ask HN: What tips you have to learn Python? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, I am 30, changing career to coding. My current job sucks, am not interested in my current job. I am noob to programming. What do you suggest? <comment><USER2> The best free (and purchaseable) book out there for novices-to-intermediates is "Automating the Boring Stuff with Python". Not only is it well-written, it captures the main gist of why programming is useful in a variety of life's use cases: [https://automatetheboringstuff.com/](https://automatetheboringstuff.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I also recommend this thread [0]. This thread has same question, kind of "Python 101". One of the answer suggested for beginner, intermediate, and advance levels.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15932381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15932381)

</comment><comment><USER4> Tough, you mention Python specifically, related question was posted a few days ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15946136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15946136)

</comment><comment><USER5> Go grab "Learn Python the Hard Way" [1]

[1]: [https://learnpythonthehardway.org/](https://learnpythonthehardway.org/)

<comment><USER6> I recommend this to many friends as it's a great resource, but I have to always apologise for the name every time I recommend it, I wish it would re- brand, I turn the apology into a joke, but I feel like it's still off-putting</comment></comment>


Ask HN: My startup may fail soon, help me figure out how to land on my feet - <AUTHOR>

If my startup fails, I am in a pretty bad situation job-wise. My degree is in the humanities and my job experience is random and unimpressive (coffee shop, bars, crappy office work) -- with gaps working odd jobs while travelling. The last 2 years is completely blank because I was working on my startup.
Should my startup fail, I'll be left with big debts and no desire to go back to crappy temp jobs or bar work. Fortunately I have no dependants, other than those I owe money to.
I am a pretty good self-taught programmer. Strong web programming skills and knowledge, decent database skills, ok linux sysadmin knowledge, love everything to do with CS. Fast learner, love getting stuff done and working hard.
I am late 20's and live in London.
My plan B at the moment is waiting until I run out of money, then getting a temp job, whilst applying to every Python/Ruby/PHP job I can find. Alternatively, I could try easing in to the elance/rentacoder thing, maybe spending half my time on that and half on trying to keep the startup dream alive. I've also considered quickly learning C#, as I hear it is good for getting jobs, and it sounds like a decent language. <comment><USER2> Your situation isn't as bleak as you might think. Don't worry. You took a risk and it didn't work. You will be able to get a job, pay off your debts, then try again if you'd like.

I think you have a good plan there. Be sure to list your startup on your resume-it's two years of valuable experience. If you're embarrassed that you've "failed", list yourself as an employee of the startup and say it went under. I'm willing to bet that 9 out of 10 employers won't even ask if it was yours.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a good point about the resume, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My genuine advice, after hearing how've you already exhausted two years and haven't gain enough traction to be profitable, is to treat it more as a side project than a full time startup and work towards finding ways to generate revenue until your side project picks up enough to warrant full time commitment as a startup.

Don't let your excitement of starting a company blind you from the things you need to handle day to day, like finances, and wait till things dry up. Do what you can to produce income while working on this startup part time.

Alternatively find a cofounder who can share the workload with you. But before you go down this route or do anything else, I highly recommend re-evaluating your roadmap, strategies, and plan. Two years is a long time to be working on a startup with no traction yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Relegating it to a side project sounds like a good idea. Just need to figure out the best way to earn money in the meantime.

I know two years is crazy long without traction. I was very naive when I started, though in my defense I have 'pivoted' a couple times. I am doing a lot of re-evaluating right now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Random comments - make your own assessment as to their value ...

Get a part-time job now flipping burgers or waiting tables. Use that to stretch your deadline a month or three. Continue to consider the "startup" as a genuine potential future job, and find a way in the next two months to get some money - any money - coming in from that.

If you continue to be serious about the startup, why are you living in London? that's got to be more expensive than other options. Are you renting? Do you own the house? Are you sharing? Are you living with your parents?

What is your degree? Consider doing some Project Euler problems in both Python and C#. Compare and contrast. Don't spend too long on them, but a solid range of worked solutions tells potential employers that you can code and solve problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points, thanks.

<comment><USER4> I'm in London next Tuesday and Wednesday - if you email me and we can make the arrangements, I'll buy you a coffee or other beverage of your choice. Email in the profile - take note of the comment about anti-spam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't bother with elance, rentacoder, or any of the other freelance sites out there. I had this idea a few months ago when I got laid off.

It's flooded with Indian groups and coders from eastern Europe that will do the job for $5/hour. The problem is that they pretty much set the market price on these sites and the people hiring you now have it in their mind that this is the going rate.

There are a few projects here and there that might actually make you money, but I think your time can be better spent elsewhere.

Craigslist is a good place to look. Find some companies locally that need a freelancer/contractor.

How much money do you have left? Also, how much are you burning through each month?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have about 3 months of frugal living left (£1000/month), hopefully.

Craigslist and similar is a good idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seeing as you enjoy programming, you could consider freelancing on the side. Plenty of people put there need web programmers, and with a bit of searching you can probably find someone that will pay a decent rate. It would help with the money side of things, as well as giving you something put in your work history.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was under the impression I'd need contacts to get freelancing gigs. Any suggestions for how to get started?

<comment><USER6> I got my first client from a freelancing website (odesk), and after that all my work has come from referrals. As others have said, these websites are a bit hit and miss, and you end up competing with some low prices. They're ok for getting your foot in the door, but I don't think they're sustainable for most people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> ok, and your startup is....? We'd need to know, at the very least, what the domain is, so people could advise you about pitfalls/things you should look out for.

<comment><AUTHOR> The details of the startup aren't really relevant to my situation, and I'd rather not have it attached to this post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> this is relevant <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2062806></comment>


Amazon announces Halo, a fitness band and app that scans your body and voice - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/27/21402493/amazon-halo-band-health-fitness-body-scan-tone-emotion-activity-sleep <comment><USER2> The tone of voice analysis could be a game changer for people with Asperger's. If it works well, it could provide valuable feedback. For neurotypicals I'm not so sure of its utility. Seems like it could cause anxiety.

An interesting feature would be the ability to replay what the microphone picked up. This would give more context to the analysis. Though again, this could cause a lot of anxiety as people replay situations and worry about how they sounded.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this the first step in an inevitable move towards healthcare as a service for big tech?

</comment><comment><USER4> Now that's data slurping on a whole new level.</comment>