GH Archive - <AUTHOR> https://www.gharchive.org/ <comment><USER2> I actually used GH archive to mine github data! Two notes:

\- The easiest way to access the data is using Google Cloud Platform -> BigQuery -> githubarchive. Google lets you write SQL queries for 1TB of the data for free. So you can filter or aggregate the data you want, then download it.

\- This is the sad part. Github data is notoriously noisy, and not really valuable for data mining. [1] My work was on predicting GitHub collaborator skill using open-source collaboration data. Filtering out bots and people who use GitHub like a version of Google Drive was very difficult.

[1]: [https://kblincoe.github.io/publications/2014_MSR_Promises_Pe...](https://kblincoe.github.io/publications/2014_MSR_Promises_Perils.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Oh, hello there, co-author! :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is from the folks that make changelog nightly/weekly, a newsletter you can subscribe to to see what GitHub repositories were the most started in the last day/week. Nice work!

<comment><USER5> Can you please give the link for subscription?

<comment><USER4> [https://changelog.com/nightly](https://changelog.com/nightly) for nightly and [https://changelog.com/weekly](https://changelog.com/weekly) for weekly.

<comment><USER6> If you don't want to subscribe, you can access any "nightly version" by going directly to

      http://nightly.changelog.com/YYYY/MM/DD/

For example: [http://nightly.changelog.com/2020/08/28/](http://nightly.changelog.com/2020/08/28/)

There's a broswable archive of the weekly version: [https://changelog.com/weekly/archive](https://changelog.com/weekly/archive)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I archive github repos, for my own purposes, into my rsync.net account:

      ssh email@example.com "git clone git://github.com/freebsd/freebsd.git freebsd"

<comment><USER8> If you haven't already considered it, you might want to add -n to avoid the checkout (since the .git is the real value of that operation) and depending on your objective you might also want -r to pull down submodules in order to get the whole story about what's "in the repo"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a cool, similar project that stores a mirror of github on the decentralized cloud (STORJ) – here: [https://gitbackup.org/#/](https://gitbackup.org/#/)

</comment><comment><USER10> What I don't understand about this:

> GH Archive is a project to record the public GitHub timeline

What does that even mean? SO it's basically a massive mirror of Github. Isn't that an enormous undertaking?

<comment><USER2> There are a lot of events on GitHub by users. I don't think they include the object blobs, so the timeline is actually pretty small (I think dataset was in terabytes).

<comment><USER10> Oh thanks for clarifying. And here I was thinking this was a capture of all the binary blobs, which would be massive!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite forum? - <AUTHOR> Hello,<p>I am wondering what are your favorite forums for sharing and discussing work/hobby staff. <comment><USER2> Reddit! ps. please don't kick me out I haven't mentioned 4chan yet. pps. oops.

<comment><USER3> LOL, 4chan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Although not really a true forum, Atlanta's AWDG has a public slack that's pretty active.

[http://tech404.io/](http://tech404.io/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Nearly every forum I have enjoyed has been destroyed by over moderation.. Which made Reddit a joy to use at first but most of the subreddits are over moderated

</comment><comment><USER6> HN

<comment><USER7> HN

<comment><USER8> Your not allowed to have fun like that here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bogleheads.org is a great personal finance forum dedicated to low cost index fund investing. Great discussions just like here.

</comment><comment><USER10> I love HN for intellectual stimulation. For everything else nothing can top bodybuilding dot com's Misc forum.

<comment><USER11> Have they come to a conclusion on the number of days in a week yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Quora for when I want long reads, reddit for when I want to discover new stuff.

</comment><comment><USER13> nekochan.net

<comment><USER14> Wow... I haven't seen a Movable Type site in ages.</comment></comment>


How to sell a B2B product - <AUTHOR> https://calv.info/how-to-sell-b2b <comment><USER2> A rule I gave myself after running a company for several years is that I never reply to incoming offers or sales pitches. In my opinion it's very rare that someone really offers something that my company needs at that exact moment, so most interactions resulting from such offers will be a waste of my time. In the past I reacted to such incoming offers, but I always regretted it and usually burned some money and time as well. Now they only way I pick suppliers is by sourcing them myself exactly when I need something.

I think many executives / entrepreneurs have developed a similar adversity towards incoming offers, and my own experience with cold outbound selling seems to confirm this. I've contacted hundreds of companies myself trying to sell our service, but the only deals we closed so far were either with companies we already knew via our network or ones that did actively seek out our services themselves. It's of course possible that an experienced sales person would be able to generate outbound interest, but as a founder without much sales experience it is very tough. I therefore think inbound sales is the future, at least in B2B.

<comment><USER3> Well said, and I appreciate your perspective.

I also 100% disagree.

Inbound is a waiting game. Referrals are a waiting game. And hoping to be found at the right time by the right buyers ENOUGH times puts external factorsnin charge of your business but just thriving, but surviving.

My business exists precisely because we believe so strongly in outbound as a strategy. But wherein you are right that random cold outreach is distracting and a waste of time, outbounding that is targeted well and focused on problem solving can be the best ROI you have all year.

The difference, we have found, is between prospects who are aware their businesses are imperfect AND are curious about solving problems and prospects who know their businesses are imperfect and willing to live with those imperfections until such time they become intolerable. Those that choose the status quo until such time that they choose to go looking, as you have self- identified.

Candidly, there are a lot more of the latter than former but there are still plenty of the former.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I just didn't get any good inbound requests so far then. We're a small startup so I think we don't attract a lot of outbound interest, this might be different for larger companies of course. Taking time to learn about the specific interests and needs of a small startup with little budget is probably overkill, so we just get the "spray and pray" treatment I guess.

Do you have a good strategy for identifying open-minded companies that are willing to learn about new approaches?

<comment><USER4> > Taking time to learn about the specific interests and needs of a small > startup with little budget is probably overkill, so we just get the "spray > and pray" treatment I guess.

> Do you have a good strategy for identifying open-minded companies that are > willing to learn about new approaches?

The answer to both your questions is segmentation, segmentation, segmentation.

The trick with segmentation is to find clusters of companies who are likely to share like-minded problems, hone your messaging and positioning to reach them (Basecamp is a classic example of how to do this well, they have always had a very clear idea of who Basecamp is for and who it is not for), and then identify the _individuals_ within those organizations who are most open to change.

Again, the temptation is to head straight to the C-suite - this is usually a bad place to start. C-suites are time poor, usually quite cynical about new software, and removed from the problems of the people on the front line. Usually better to start in middle-management with PMs, and arm them to build a business case to take further up the org.

<comment><USER5> Don't forget to sell to the stakeholders under the management team as well. I may be just another DevOps guy in my company, but my opinion holds sway in purchasing decisions even if I don't control the budget - as do the other lead devs on the team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for sharing this. For me, this was the biggest takeaway.

> In every case, a viable option for the customer will be to "do nothing". > They don't have to buy your product, or any product for that matter. The > best way to prove the case for your product is with your metrics. Doing > nothing should be a very expensive option.

That fundamentally speaks for having a problem to solve and not a solution looking for a problem. I think this key distinction is a good sieve to filter out potential ideas especially if you're in the business of SaaS.

<comment><USER7> In enterprises there are plenty of problems that are just not important enough to spend money on. For example there may be a yearly reporting process which takes 30 days for an accountant to complete, which could be automated by a SaaS product. That is less than $20k a year of cost. The CFO may be perfectly fine with the manual process. Just because someone could save money with your product doesn't mean that they will want to.

<comment><USER8> Assuming I'm paying that accountant less than 20k for those 30 days, it doesn't make much business sense to switch when presented that way. Businesses don't always optimized for saved time even if it's obvious, it has to make business sense on an ROI level aka that solution only costs me 2k rather than the $20K I spent on the accountant. Also like you said they just may have bigger fish to fry since 20k is nothing compared to their other issues

<comment><USER9> > _it has to make business sense on an ROI level aka that solution only costs > me 2k rather than the $20K I spent on the accountant_

With these numbers, I'd stick with the accountant. They work. They are flexible. They can be easily replaced.

With a SaaS product, I have to worry about whether their product works, if they'll be around in a few years, how they'll safeguard my data, if they'll try to lock me in and increase prices, and if they can adapt to my changing needs. This decision process, alone, could easily nullify the projected savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Having been on both sides of this, I think this is great advice, but misses something key. If you are selling a relatively high-cost product (>$10k min spend), then there needs to be some acknowledgement of that up front. It's a waste of everyone's time if I'm running a startup that can easily spend $100s/month on a product, but simply have no way to invest tens of thousands in a product. Whereas, when I'm leading an established company that can easily afford tens of thousands of dollars, then I care about the value. In short, know your customer should include, know when your customer is a 2-3 person seed stage startup and either offer some version of the product at a price that they can afford and growth into/with you on, or just be upfront that it's out of range right now. A great example of this would be Looker. Great product (in my opinion) and provided a ton of value to Kiva, but it's a significant investment. I'd love to use it at my small startup but the price is out of range so for now we use Google Data Studio instead. And yet the sales agents come knocking anyways. Understand your customer, know when something would provide value they can afford vs. is way out of current range for current budget/scale.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, in enterprise Saas usually the pricing is not shown on the website without contacting a sales rep, so it usually eliminates companies which don't have a lot of money.

But even if a small company is reaching to you, as a salesperson, this is your job to qualify the lead, and to not loose your time on a lead that has low chance of signing

<comment><USER11> What's the reasoning behind not putting the prices up? For me that's always a huge downer and means "that's going to be quite expensive".

<comment><AUTHOR> In enterprise sales, the price is not the main decision maker, you will usually only disclose the price at the end of the sales cycle.

Not showing the price on the website is one way to push people to contact you. You don't want people to decide on their own if they should buy your product, you have a big sales team to help them do that.

I've wrote about it here, if you are interested : [https://blog.luap.info/why- most-saas-companies-cant-be-succe...](https://blog.luap.info/why-most-saas- companies-cant-be-successful-with-both-enterprise-and-smb-customers.html)

<comment><USER12> I just assume if there's no price shown then I (as an individual) cannot afford it, and it's in the tens of thousands. Seems to have worked accurately for me when I'm looking for individual-level use.

However when I'm looking at tools that can help my org, I'm definitely frustrated that there's no pricing mentioned in many offerings - clearly I have three tabs with three solutions open and I have no idea about the costs. I'm NOT emailing you because I as an engineer won't have the same interest in this idea tomorrow when you email me back (probably because tomorrow's Monday and I'm in sprint planning). These ideas just fizz out and I never get a chance to follow up because of this

<comment><USER13> Good case study. If it was more burning, you'd email.

Enterprise sales at 100k+/yr levels can take a lot of work by both sides to get to the finish line, at least until everything else is smooth, screening out inquiries like this saves everyone time.

An even better business would have a way to make you succeed early as a single dev with low interest, and grow to enterprise level.

But that is now building 2 products and a fancier business. Hard to do both at same time, esp. initially. Sometimes you are lucky -- Concept, $$$, etc. -- but probably not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > At the end of the day, selling well means that you are helping the customer > actually understand their problem, and the path to evaluate a solution.

Lipstick on a pig in 99% of cases.

I've been a CEO, CDO, a consultant, a middle manager and an IC. Well functioning high output teams (in any sector of business) almost never need a new tool/service to provide value. On the flip side, poorly functioning teams are constantly chasing new tools and processes as fixes to their broken organizations. So the vast majority of sales are convincing broken organizations to buy organizational nudges.

The single place where I am consistently happy to spend money is on things that our organization cannot internally build that we need to scale immediately. In the long run though, I want to eliminate as many outside dependencies as possible, so my goal is to either absorb you or build processes and systems that replace your service.

<comment><USER15> I too have had those roles, starting my career as an IC, then a middle Manager, then a consultant, then a CEO/founder, and now a CTO. What I've focused on is how to help my teams and then my company operate as efficiently as possible while spending our resources where it benefits our customers the most.

Some examples of decisions I've made:

\- IT/engineers won't spend time building and maintaining email servers, we'll spend $5/month/employee on G Suite and use their time on things that make our products more valuable

\- We won't outsource support even though that would dollar for dollar be more efficient, because understanding and building empathy for the customer is more important

\- no we won't spend money on email lists, but yes we will spend money on tools that allows our outbound sales team to more quickly determine prospects that fit our ideal customer profile

\- bringing finance in-house much sooner than other people recommended because being more efficient at Accounts Receivable, Renewals, and thus cash flow allowed us to grow faster than we otherwise would have

\- paying for a third party SSO solution for our products and instead using engineering time to build first class integrations between our products and complementary products, because having an artisanal SSO System doesn't benefit our customers

<comment><USER16> > IT/engineers won't spend time building and maintaining email servers, we'll > spend $5/month/employee on G Suite and use their time on things that make > our products more valuable

In-house email servers are not constrained by the time to build them, but rather by reputation/spam considerations. Sorry, but that's a lucky guess ;-)

> paying for a third party SSO solution for our products and instead using > engineering time to build first class integrations between our products and > complementary products, because having an artisanal SSO System doesn't > benefit our customers

That's one of vendorlockiest vendor lock out there, which is a very YOLO decision.

The idea that buying stuff is more efficient then building it yourself is at the cornerstone of the modern economic theory, but that's only a theory. In the wilds there's much, much more factors to consider then just comparing cost of building versus cost of buying.

<comment><USER15> Of course there are more factors. We are not blindly outsourcing everything to services and we are equally not blindly building everything in house. Those factors often come down to core competencies and "best and highest use" of time. These will vary by company. Case in point: lots of companies use highcharts and D3 for charting. why? Because building and maintaining a world class graphing system is not their core business and doesn't meaningfully advance their business. And outside of a small minority of companies building your own charting from Scratch does not provide a meaningful advantage for your customers or over your competitors.

Deciding what is core and should be in house and what is not is hard and it's only partially a technology decision. It's primarily a business/market decision and being able to do those is a mark of a good CTO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was on a call with their sales rep and he was awful. Even if I told him what kind of volume we're looking at, the guy didn't want to talk costs, over two meetings. Very poor experience. Seems like they're designing pricing around how much money you have.

</comment><comment><USER18> As someone who has been on the other side of the table as a buyer, I'm not particularly fond of this advice. Especially when the customer is the one who reached out. Time is valuable and it's not feasible to have a close relationship with every vendor; I'm buying a product because a need has been identified, your product fits that need. Most likely I am _not_ looking for:

\- consulting

\- running a brainstorming session with a third-party

\- learning something I don't already know about x/y/z

\- sharing sensitive info such as success metrics

Sometimes you really want a hands-off, transactional relationship, where the partner simply delivers what you paid for, no more, no less. I understand this approach might be very valuable for a certain kind, or stage, of company, but it won't be ideal for every enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER19> Due to person experience, this strikes me as pretty ironic. My company had a very bad experience with Segment, so much so that we changed product roadmaps to move away from them. In my mind they're an example of how not to sell a product. Very much not a company I would want to partner with again.

<comment><USER20> Author here. I'm sad to hear this and want to understand how we can do better.

Do you mind following up over email? I'm calvin at segment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not sure why the negativity here. This is actually a great post that sets up a high level framework for thinking about the problem. Regardless of your personal experiences with Segment its good advice.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm late to the comment thread but want to add something based on my seven years selling and marketing B2B software:

1\. The user is not always the buyer. Many founders know who their users are, but may not know who really made the yes/no decision. The sales and marketing need to communicate value to the buyer just as much as (if not more than) to the user.

2\. Buyers need to be convinced that your product will solve their most important business needs--their __desired outcomes __. Things such as lowering overhead or meeting compliance requirements. (Similar idea to "Job to Be Done.") That's what your sales and marketing should primarily be about, with benefits, social proof, and other selling points as backup.

Simple in principle but it takes months of research, customer/prospect interviews, and experimentation to figure out your buyers' desired outcomes and how to talk about your product in a way that directly aligns with those.

(Slightly longer version of this: [https://www.gkogan.co/blog/buyers/.](https://www.gkogan.co/blog/buyers/.))

</comment><comment><USER23> Great post from Calvin. Every founder, even if they're the CTO, should learn at least the basics of selling. Having the whole team aligned on what moves the needle makes a huge difference. It's not enough to offload thinking about selling to the CEO just because it's not the CTO's primary responsibility.

<comment><USER24> And if possible this is a great lesson for early employees, up to maybe 50.

Having an engineer or PdM take 1 hour per week to jump on sales calls and just listen is one of the best things they could be doing early on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Very helpful post, actually included a lot of interesting tidbits that I hadn't read before with other b2b sales material.

One question that occasionally pops into my mind is, what is the legality behind charging BigCo A $x and BigCo B $x + y?

Surely one wouldn't be able to do this with products (I'll sell this burger to you for $5 but this other person must pay $10 for it), so how is it justified in b2b especially if the feature sets are the same?

<comment><USER26> Perfectly legal, afaik. For software, and hamburgers

<comment><USER27> That's right - that's how coupons work - price discrimination. [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price_discrimination.as...](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price_discrimination.asp)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I frequently recommend [https://openviewpartners.com/blog/founder-led- selling/](https://openviewpartners.com/blog/founder-led-selling/) as a good early stage enterprise sales framework. It is addressing a different, but complementary, set of questions to this post. If you're at a stage to need this kind of feedback, you should read it too.

</comment><comment><USER29> My brother and I cofounded a company together. We're both engineers and by far the hardest part has been learning sales. We're not full-on nerd stereotype engineers who can't talk to customers or network but a master's in comp-sci covers exactly zero sales or marketing.

We finally embraced that we are not going to be the best at sales or "always be closing" but the things we are really good at are automation, experimenting, and iterating which has enabled us to talk with more prospects and slowly improve conversion rates. In non-sales speak that means we have more customers having more success on our platform which is awesome.

We honestly believe we are offering something powerful to our customers to change their lives. That belief doesn't put food on the table though and shameless sales tactics like cold emailing, LinkedIn messaging, Instagram DMing, etc DO. (though we are super respectful and won't hound anyone that isn't interested)

I have a friend who works for transamerica selling financial packages and recruiting other people to transamerica. His ability to talk to anyone anywhere is constantly amazing and embarrassing.

<comment><USER3> I think there is some slant against "shameless sales tactics" here because many HN'ers aren't in a position to recognize exactly how valuable sales is. There are some well known and well loved "tech companies" that grow to be 90% sales and marketing and 10% engineering after they put their funding to use. And for those here that arent familiar, quite often VC money is meant for growth via sales and marketing, not via hiring more engineers.

What's interesting is that if you do think what you are providing is actually useful or meaningful, then there is nothing shameless about promoting it directly to those that might get use from it. And you promote it to people where they are: in their inbox, DMs, LinkedIn, etc. (We actually get tremendous results by supplementing cold email with phone simply because people are so surprised that we went through the trouble to call. But that's a discussion for another time.)

All that is to say that reaching out to people that might benefit from what you offer isnt sleazy in the slightest and is a practice as old as time itself. They will let you know if they arent interested, usually by ignoring you. Doesnt mean you should stop or feel bad about it.

Best of luck to you.

<comment><USER12> How do you find phone numbers and what are some best practices in making follow up calls?

<comment><USER3> There are free tools for finding direct dials but the hit 4are us pretty mediocre - 40 to 60% on average depending on sector.

HQ # are easy to find although navigating phone trees and gatekeepers is a job unto itself

Zoominfo and a few others are super expensive but have better data.

Google works better than you think. Sales navigator has some numbers.

We usually call when an email has been opened multiple times and get really good hit rates for demos when we actually reach the person (when talking about SAAS). Last week one of my guys used that to book demos with Disney, Sony, and NBC Universal at the VP level to demo enterprise marketing software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Segment is backed by a ginormous sales operation from its multiple successful funding rounds.

This article is very fluff heavy and contains almost no actionable insights.

</comment><comment><USER31> > my #1 rule for this is teach people something they didn't already know.

You just went full meta

</comment><comment><USER32> I wish I could even start a B2B startup, but I have zero experience in any other industry beyond software, which pretty much limits my possibilities to just making software tools.

God I wish I had knowledge in more domains.

<comment><USER33> Just start, you can read about starting all day long and doubt yourself or you can start, today. Decide on your first step and complete it, then choose your next step. You will have sleepless nights and tearful days but once you start, you learn. You don't have to have it all figured out or a plan, just start in the general direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why is the CTO talking about selling? Dont mean to be harsh just curious

<comment><USER35> A good CTO is at least involved in the pre-sales process if not the entire sales process of large deals. Especially when the product being sold was built by the CTO's team. That's been my experience anyways.

<comment><USER34> Thank you for explaining! Makes a lot of sense

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The biggest change I'll make in my life after reading this article. I'll ask the question "what does success look like?" more often.

</comment><comment><USER37> Step 1: Get tons of VC money.

Step 2: Hire a big sales team.

Step 3: Be really good at marketing.

<comment><USER38> The process really goes 3, 1, 2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Beautiful. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER40> Know your customer, works well for me. I focus on Fortune 500 at my job, and people forget to ask what the customer wants and go straight into a sale. Meta: not sure about this blog, it is in itself a sales page.

<comment><USER41> A miserable sales page, I still don't know what Segment does, something with analytics and apis?

<comment><USER40> I have no clue, always magic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > The infrastructure used to run our Salesforce instance probably costs > somewhere on the order of $100 per month. Yet, they charge us tens of > thousands of dollars per month… how?

Not really. Unless the subscription is in tens of hundreds, that benefit-of- volume is not possible. Even more so when the solution involves bleeding edge stuff (AI/ML/real-time analytics etc). Easy to say, very very very hard to even achieve decent margins on such infrastructural cost. It's always a tradeoff between { feature-richness, time-to-market } and cost-efficient SaaS. Only the players who got a solid customer base would ever get to enjoy that privilege.

> Though it's far down in the acronym, the identified pain is really where you > should start with the customer. You should be able to answer in great detail > why their life is currently painful, and how they handle the problems you > solve today.

There's a slippery slope. Any "solution" won't help, in the era of "disruptive solutions". During the initial stages of industrial revolution, cities were scared of all the horseshit they thought they'd have to deal with. A 'con'sultant would've typically come up with an efficient way to dispose off all that manure into the sea. Only a mad scientist working on an automobile somewhere ended up solving that poop of a problem really. And in hindsight, every mildly lucky person would consider themselves "disruptive" without actually having to be one though. Such is our world! :D

[edit] just noticed that all comments in this thread that are critical of the narrative are voted down. one is fine, all of them?

<comment><USER43> The author was talking about the marginal cost of Salesforce running their instance. If they stopped being a customer, it would save Salesforce $100 in server costs, but Salesforce would lose $10k's. That means, Salesforce needs to deliver that much value to the customer in order to keep them. In addition, they need to deliver that much value over any lower cost competitors.

<comment><USER42> That's what am saying as well. Such thing works for SFDC. Not for any ordinary B2B firm that's struggling to gain their 10th/100th customer.</comment></comment></comment>


Nano Review – A microblog for reviewing academic papers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nanoreview.xyz/ <comment><USER2> Great idea!

\- it would be nice to know, prior to clicking, that these are pdf downloads and not web articles.

\- it would be useful for the subtitles math | physics | etc be links

\- the ~1MB image took about 15 seconds to load on my solid wifi connection.

\- more content, please :)</comment>


Google: What we talk about when we talk about cloud computing - <AUTHOR> http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about.html <comment><USER2> The punch line of the post: "ask a simple question: can I find the same economics, ease of maintenance, and pace of innovation that is inherent in the cloud?"

I wonder why he declined to add "... and security" ? ;)

<comment><USER3> That's a great question that had never crossed my mind.

How do you manage security in cloud? Can you even do it? Because someone else is administrating your servers, they can get access to everything you have. Is there a way around that? Or is there a way to write your applications to be secure even in that environment?

<comment><USER4> In theory trusted computing can solve that problem but it's not clear that it will ever become practical. I think customers are just going to have to trust the cloud providers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> where I stand, the best price per gigabyte of ram is obtained on dual-socket (8 core) opterons with 32GB ram (16x2gb modules). Right now, ram is my big bottleneck.

most single-socket systems only let you install 8GB ram (4x2gb modules) so I've got to buy twice as many single socket boards to get the same amount of ram. It's ok, I guess if you need more cpu than ram.

The other problem is that you usually have to go to a server-class board to get low-power CPUs. I know of no desktop CPU that can compete with the Xeon L series or the Opteron HE series. (Sure, there are low-power desktop CPUs, but none of them have the performance of the Xeon L or opteron HE. If you know of a quad-core desktop CPU that eats less than 75w I'd be happy to hear about it.)

I'm sure google pays less per watt than I do, but still, if you plan on keeping hardware around for two years, the ongoing cost per watt makes a big difference. Low power CPUs save serious money, even if they cost more up front.

Opteron HE bartons are ridiculously cheap right now. 1.8Ghz quad-core HE processors are around $100 on newegg right now. (2.1Ghz quad-core shanghi opteron HE cpus that you might actually want to use are closer to $300. Still cheap.)

Also, while I agree that you should prepare for any bit of hardware dying at any time, I think technologies like ECC in ram are important so that you notice when your hardware dies. I don't mind a box that is dead. I replace it. It happens. What bothers me is a box that is kindof acting funny. You know, when you can't tell if it is the software or hardware. Sure, you can do some of that at the application level with checksums, but it's difficult to do it at the OS level.

</comment><comment><USER6> A third of the price for gmail versus other mail providers. That's great, until you can't get to google tech support and you can't get to your email and nobody knows quite why. Sorry, in most organizations, I'll handle my mail myself. gmail's great for personal accounts, but I'm not ready to trust a business to it.

<comment><USER7> I also wonder how many business are ready to have all of their email communications indexed by Google. Granted, with any third party provider, it's going to happen, but I would at least prefer to keep my eggs in more than one basket.</comment></comment>


A new theory sheds light on the emergence of life's complexity - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/how-do-you-say-life-in-physics-rp <comment><USER2> This theory reminds me a lot of the folding funnel. It used to be thought of as a paradox that a protein could fold in mere minutes if it needed to explore each possible configuration before arranging into its "correct" configuration. This paradox was solved with the theory of the folding funnel ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding_funnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding_funnel)) which states that the potential energy surface is not flat, but rather it is 3 dimensional funnel with points where it is practically impossible to go backwards. The nascent protein does not explore the entire potential energy surface, instead it just folds into relatively few transition states before assuming its final form.

<comment><USER3> The wiki page still calls it a hypothesis, but also doesn't seem to have had substantial updates in a decade (where I define "substantial" as "an expert updated the information" \- not a critique of the other types of edition that have happened). Is there any more recent material on this? An animated visualisation, perhaps?

<comment><USER4> I did my undergrad in biophysics and this is basically a simplified version of the currently accepted view. We now also know that some proteins fold in units, and can have multiple stable fold stopping points along the folding paths, and a good deal of proteins never really have a single stable fold at all. Basically google scholar "protein folding energy landscape" for more details. [http://m.pnas.org/content/113/12/3159.short](http://m.pnas.org/content/113/12/3159.short)

Here's a nice visualization:

[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Manajit_Hayer- Hartl/pub...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Manajit_Hayer- Hartl/publication/26262477/figure/fig3/AS:272608570638341@1442006356158/Figure-1-Energy- landscape-scheme-of-protein-folding-and-aggregationThe-purple-surface.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The next step will be the realization that asymmetry of direction towards self organization on all levels, coded as energy consumption/dissipation efficiency, is a built in property of our reality, and life and counsciousness as we understand then are not random accidents.

Quarks -> protons/neutrons, nucleus+electrons -> atoms, atoms -> molecules, molecules -> proteins, proteins -> cells, cells -> organisms, organisms -> ecosystems, stars -> galaxies, galaxies -> clusters, etc.

<comment><USER6> There seems to be more of a bell curve of complexity as you move through the powers of ten... Galaxies have some general organizational properties at the very large scale, as do atoms etc at the very small end, but directly in the middle of those extremes lie us, the alchemical pinnacle of self organisation until proven otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not new.

Seems like a repost. Also: "This article was originally published in our "Adaptation" issue in March, 2016." Someone is really pushing this guy's scientific (or literary) branding.

<comment><USER8> Yep. Some of the headlines are particularly egregious. [https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=%22jeremy+england%22&qs=n...](https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=%22jeremy+england%22&qs=n&form=QBNT&sp=-1&pq=%22jeremy+england%22&sc=8-16&sk=&cvid=8252C82E770E48B68A879962307562BC)

I suspect he is up for tenure review :P His proposals are not knew just spun differently. You can find critics from other physics/chemist regarding their suspicions as well.

<comment><USER9> > His proposals are not knew just spun differently. You can find critics from > other physics/chemist regarding their suspicions as well.

I have a rule that people shouldn't post negative comments without including specific arguments and/or links. You just violated that rule.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very interesting! I wonder that if they are expecting to use dissipative mechanisms in small system how would they be able to control thermal noise and reproducibility of the calculations?

</comment><comment><USER11> >"Red," for instance, is a translation of the phrase "620-750 nanometer wavelength."

only sometimes.

<comment><USER12> Do you mean only sometimes, as in only when talking about electromagnetic waves? Or something else?

<comment><USER13> It can also mean a sum of wavelengths outside of that range whose average is in the range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Heard this before.

What do y'all think of this twist on "atheism vs intelligent design" debate? A wild swing from "life is improbable" to "life is almost certain".

I think there's some major flaw in this reasoning. Otherwise, how do you explain Drake's equation? How come every planet we have seen so far doesn't have any form of complex life on it so far as we know?

Here's what I think the flaw is: the more a planet heats up, the more it can radiate into space as infrared radiation. Obviously an equilibrium can be achieved without a constant increase in complexity.

<comment><USER15> I don't think we have enough data to be sceptical about the presence of certainty of life on other planets. We've only found ~3,700 planets other than Earth - and only ~20 of those are near the size of Earth[0]. We couldn't even see those planets directly until very recently, so it doesn't seem certain (to me, a layman) that we could even identify Earth as having life, at the same resolutions. That's assuming that we would recognize life, if we saw it. (Side note: Children of Men is a book I recently read that touches on this topic. ) I'll admit that I am very optimistic about the presence of advanced life on planets other than Earth, so this is definitely influencing my outlook.

[0] [https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2016/05...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/number- of-potentially-habitable-planets-in-our-galaxy-tens-of-billions/%3Famp%3D1)

<comment><USER16> But, what does life have to do with an earth like planet? And when you study the history of the earth you come to realize that life as we know it today is the result of countless events, some of them catastrophic.

As I understand it, if you simply shifted the location of Antarctica, that would change ocean currents, this effect weather, and so one. Life as we know it today might not exist if it weren't for Antarctica.

And the fact is, we'd be toast, literally, without a magnetic field. That's more important that planet size. How many planets have we found with a magnetic field like ours? What are THOSE odds?

So it seems to me, an earth like planet (in size) is a cute exercise but in the end close to irrelevant.

<comment><USER17> Our life planet data set is an N=1 so we are searching what we know. It is certainly possible life is found on non-Earth-like planets and isn't carbon- based, however we don't have any examples so we don't know what to look for. The initial search is focusing on Earth-like planets because we know the signs of life in that case.

As for Antarctica, that may true but there would still be life, maybe not humans, on Earth. The fossil record shows there was life before Antarctica existed.

<comment><USER18> Literally billions of years older, in fact...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's a better article without the theological nonsense: [https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics- theory-o...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of- the-origin-of-life-20140122/)

<comment><USER20> Never ceases to amaze me how some scientists can embrace a bunch of 2000+ year old nonsense.</comment></comment>


Why Windows embracing Android and iOS is a bad idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/a-bad-idea-windows-embracing-android-and-ios/ <comment><USER2> IBM did this with OS/2 2.0 and WINOS2, it was able to run DOS and 16 bit Windows apps inside of OS/2 2.0 and it did a great job. OS/2 2.0 was hailed as a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows. That is until Microsoft made Windows NT and 32 bit Windows applications and later Windows 95. OS/2 failed to get developers to support native mode as they could just write DOS and 16 bit Windows programs and they would run on OS/2\. Meanwhile Microsoft made development tools for Windows and Borland made them as well that made development for 32 bit Windows in Visual Studio or Borland Delphi a lot easier.

Blackberry has added the Amazon app store and the ability to run Android apps on modern Blackberry phones. They had to because few would develop for their platform.

I went to see a movie with friends, the Regal cinema, before the movie they had an ad that said to download the Regal movie app for Android and iOS. A friend yelled at the screen "Why not for Windows Phone as well?" It seems most developers target iOS and Android but hardly ever Windows Phone.

Microsoft should be sharing information with third parties and open source groups to make better and easier development tools for Windows Phone and the Windows Universal apps. A developer should be able to use free and open source development tools to write apps for Windows Phone and Windows Universal apps instead of having to use Visual Studio. So now Microsoft is changing Visual Studio to convert Android and iOS code to Windows Phone. Microsoft doesn't get it yet that not every developer is going to use their Visual Studio and you got a lot of developers using Linux or Mac OSX to write code that want to use the development tools they are already experienced with without having to learn a new tool.

Edit: fixed a typo and added more detail on the fall of OS/2.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it any wonder that mobile software companies, such as Kabam, have already abandoned Windows? I don't think so.

So true.</comment>


Japan's DPJ landslide victory - <AUTHOR> http://www.karelvanwolferen.com/index.php?h=1&s=70&sn=26%20%E2%80%93%20What%20Can%20the%20DPJ%E2%80%99s%20Overwhelming%20V&t=2&v=1&a=1 <comment><USER2> I admit I don't know much about Japan's politics, but isn't an old bureaucracy made up of professionals better then pure political leadership? In my country (Romania) we have the other extreme: every public institution has political leadership, changed every 4 years, up to high-schools. No only the managers tend to be less prepared, but if you add a bit of corruption, of which we have in large supply, you end with effectively a market for buying/selling these position.

I'm not saying this is the case in other democracies, of course, but I do have a healthy respect for a bureaucracy which discourages promotions based on political reasons.

<comment><USER3> It's a balance that constantly shifts, everywhere. On the one hand, we want professionals (on the condition that they are honest), on the other hand we want politicians (on the condition that they are competent). Making a certain function politically controlled isn't necessarily a bad or good thing. On the one hand, it implies some level of accountability. On the other hand, it brings along the negatives of politics over professional concerns.

There's probably a paradox in there somewhere, like so many others in democracy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you like to cook? - <AUTHOR> Programmers (anecdotally) seem to enjoy cooking more than the general population. So I'm wondering, what does HN like to cook? <comment><USER2> Doing parchment salmon tonight. I got a pound of salmon scraps from Berkeley Bowl for $6. Lay that out on parchment paper. Peel and slice a lemon. Slice up an onion and drape the onion + lemon on top. Asparagus sliced lengthwise on the bottom. Maybe basil leaves. Salt and pepper and maybe some olive oil (salmon is already oily, this is for taste). Wrap it up into an envelope. Bake at 400 for 20 - 25 minutes. Potato side or if you boil and slice you can put that in too.

You can eat it right out of the envelope. Baking salmon this way is bulletproof. Infinitely better than broiling. Very little cleanup, very forgiving.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love cooking, I'll have a burl at whatever i can whip up from produce on our farm or whatever I've seen on food lovers guide to Australia.

Japanese is something I'm a huge fan of, but have been itching to go catch some mudcrab from the creek down front and do up a Singapore sweet chilli mudcrab, haven't had one for a month or so. Tonight I'm helping do up a scotch fillet roast in a camp oven over a fire(cooking over coals is great). Can't wait for the peas and gravy.

</comment><comment><USER4> I took a vegetarian Thai cooking class when I went to Chiang Mai and I love cooking those recipes. The great part is that I can do all the prep on Sunday evening and the meals take about 10 minutes to assemble/cook. The recipes also work really well for cooking individual or 2-person meals, so I've got it a ton of flexibility during the week.

</comment><comment><USER5> Half of my cookbook bookcase is devoted to pastry and baking. Much of my non- dessert cooking is either Italian (because it's what I grew up with) or Indian (my favorite), but, you know, varies with what's in season.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pudding. Pudding mix that is sold in the store is just cornstarch + sugar + flavor. You can make it yourself at 1/10 the price and not much work. (I'll Nep you up!)

</comment><comment><USER7> I thought the predominant stereotype was Hot Pockets.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's funny, most of my food doesn't require cooking (raw leafy vegetables and raw fruits, nuts, candy, fried packaged snacks, breads and spreads)

inb4 "THAT'S NOT HEALTHY" lol you can go have your cooked chicken breast elsewhere</comment>


Government responded to the petition against UK new surveillance laws - <AUTHOR> https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199?reveal_response=yes <comment><USER2> > It protects both privacy and security

I literally spit coffee all over my monitor when I read that, so thanks UK gov :/

> The Government is clear that, at a time of heightened security threat, it is > essential

Ah, because 'terrorists'. A tiny minority that these laws would never do anything to stop. Now it makes sense?!

<comment><USER3> I did expect some response along those lines, but this is utterly ridiculous. They say it protects privacy and security and essentially getting access to all your internet activities. What happened to get a warrant if law enforcement need to start monitoring on some one?

I wonder what the debate would look like? It would probably be well rehearsed with all the appropriate dialogues which has the right amount of words "terrorists" and "pedophile" mixed with it and life made difficult to anyone who calls bullshit on these kind of intrusive laws.

<comment><USER2> >and life made difficult to anyone who calls bullshit on these kind of intrusive laws

That started over a week ago.

A spokewoman for the Home Office said this when asked about ordinary people circumventing logging by using a VPN:

"Terrorists and serious criminals will always seek to avoid detection"[1]

In that context, this is basically implying that anyone who values their privacy must be a terrorist or criminal. It scares me where we are going with this...

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38068078](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38068078)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Remember kids, if you want any otherwise bizarre law passed, take a note from GCHQ and NSA: use the words "terrorism" and "pedophiles" in the text as frequently as possible. Then it doesn't matter how bizarre the rest is.</comment>


The Ouya debate: Who really wants indie gaming hardware? - <AUTHOR> http://avesom.com/the-ouya-debate-who-really-wants-indie-gaming-hardware/

<comment><USER2> I think this article's headline is a little misplaced. The massive backing given to Ouya on Kickstarter in such a short time period is testament to the sheer volume of people who want indie gaming hardware. Gamers aren't going to throw around terms like 'saturated market' and 'product differentiation' when a $99 game console comes out.</comment>


EU nations can force Facebook to remove content worldwide, court rules - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/eu-nations-can-force-facebook-to-remove-content-worldwide-court-rules/ <comment><AUTHOR> Not sure how this reconciles with the decision to limit "right to be forgotten" to just the EU when it came to Google searches.</comment>


Ask HN: What obscure encryption laws does your nation have? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious about what other deal with in different countries. TIL that in the US, apparently it's illegal to do things as simple as selling access to foreign servers that uses SSL or SSH if there are more than some arbitrary number of concurrent connections (250, according to Section 740.17).<p>Just out of curiousity, does anyone know of any other useless, annoying laws like that? Am I breaking bone-headed Bosnian biils? (I don't hate Bosnians, I just love alliteration :)) <comment><USER2> [http://www.cryptolaw.org/](http://www.cryptolaw.org/)</comment>


ReasonML: OCaml-like language by Facebook that compiles to JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://reasonml.github.io/en/ <comment><AUTHOR> I came across this briefly a few months ago when it was first announced, but I didn't realize just how powerful this idea is until I tried moving to TypeScript and running into its many features[1]. If TypeScript is an improvement over JavaScript, ReasonML seems like it _might be_ the next step towards (pragmatic) perfection. It's very exciting!

[1] [https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/FAQ](https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/FAQ)</comment>


What makes the ankle exo so effective is its simplicity - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a14923/ankle-exo-leg-wearable-tech/

<comment><USER2> Fucking. Sweet. I actually wrote this story!!

<comment><USER2> Also: Everyone should know this. There are still huge issues that need to be figured out before this becomes a commercial product. The 7% figure is bound to change depending on the speed you walk at (diff. speeds will likely require springs with diff. stiffnesses for optimal efficiency). Both Steve and Greg talked about future incarnations that could switch between multiple springs.

...and I didn't write that headline, or the dek (the thing under the head)

<comment><USER3> Did you get a sense of whether it required tuning to the user? It seems like the ratchet disengaging at the right moment would be quite important to making it comfortable to use.

<comment><USER4> To do this in full production mode, I would think you would probably make it user tunable.

As the article says, most of it is fairly simple. Just a spring for a cable and a ratchet that moves with the motion of your foot (kind of auto tuned), and grabs the spring.

If the spring was remotely tensible, you could probably just walk and adjust it until it felt best.

You could probably also do that at various speeds and then create a smooth mapping of ensuing parameters for various gaits.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I think it has to either be tunable or self adjusting. If the ratchet releases early, you are just carrying it around. If the ratchet releases late, I expect it will result in uncomfortable tugging.

So my question is more about the behavior of the implementation, not about the design space for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My grandfather was an engineer who suffered from a degenerative muscle disease. This exo bears a resemblance to the brace he wore to hike around the southwestern desert.

</comment><comment><USER6> CMU Robotics talk on this exo. Includes facts, figures and a lively discussion (75 minutes).: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j58ZP7vwcsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j58ZP7vwcsU)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's the link for the paper:

Nature: Reducing the energy cost of human walking using an unpowered exoskeleton [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14288.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how this compares to trekking poles.

<comment><USER2> Trekking poles increase your _overall_ metabolic exertion, but make walking feel easier because your whole body (e.g. arms and shoulders) gets thrown into the motion.

They're easier on the legs, harder on the whole body. (Assuming we're talking about trekking across level ground here.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> another nice example of `less is more`.

</comment><comment><USER9> This was discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9315424](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9315424). This one is different enough not to be treated as a duplicate, but we did change the title to a more informative sentence from the article.

<comment><USER4> On the topic of dupes, within HNs Parent relationships, would it be possible to create a meta-dupe tree? Basically, a meta-list above articles that adds dupes (or maybe just closely related) as quasi-children of the "best" or "highest comments" or whatever version of the article. If an article had a parent you could just keep goin up to find the old one.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure exactly what UI you have in mind, but yes, we do eventually want to have some kind of related-story grouping.

<comment><USER10> Some ideas I had about that a couple years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1975950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1975950)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There exists an amazing device which dramatically increases the efficiency of body-powered locomotion, not to mention speed. However, it is more cumbersome and cannot go to all the same places as an anke exo. This device is called a "bicycle".

<comment><USER12> I feel like this is a good time to remind you of HN's new guideline to avoid gratuitous negativity. :) Maybe I'm misreading, but you seem to imply that the creators of this device have never heard of a bicycle. Does that add to the discussion?

[http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news- guideline](http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline)

Downvoters: I'd appreciate if you would comment as well, since I can't imagine why you would downvote me for reminding someone of our community guidelines.

<comment><USER13> I haven't downvoted you, but i suspect that those who have have done so because they parse your comment as identifying kazinator's comment as a negative one, and that this identification is mistaken.

<comment><USER12> I understand. Can you explain why I'm mistaken though? His comment came off as fairly sarcastic to me, and didn't seem to contribute in any way. Surely most of us know what a bicycle is already.

<comment><USER13> Sorry, i meant that to read "and _they believe_ that this identification is mistaken". I don't understand what gratuitous negativity is, so i don't have an opinion on this myself.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Found a smart competitor with a 3y headstart. What to do? - <AUTHOR>

First, the context:
I just started building an MVP for a piece of software with a co-founder.  We have a couple of clients who will pay, including one who is actively involved in sharing insights on the problems she faces and why she would need this software.  We're looking to have the beta into our customers' hands in about a month. It will have taken 6w to build on nights and weekends.  I'm starting marketing efforts in earnest, and ranking highly for key keywords is doable.
The software is for self-employed people who do a certain type of work (let's call it A), but it can be used by self-employed ppl who do other types of work too (B-Z).
There is a market for this software for organizations that employ many of these individuals under a larger brand (let's call them BigOrgs).  The problem is that this software is overly complicated for self-employed people like my initial customers. So, we're aiming for simple and focused on the self-employed market.  Also, most of the offerings in this space are visually complex and don't leverage the things many of us take for granted (social media marketing, APIs, Ajax, widgetization, clean interface, etc. Not that these make for a good product, mind you, but when used in the right doses they can make for a much better experience than one built in the late 90s, which is when many competing products were built).
Me and my co-founder are not trying to build a multi-million dollar biz. A biz with $500k of sustainable annual revenue (it's a high margin biz) would put us in a great position to build more products without taking on outside capital.
Now, the issue:
Just found a competitor who knows what they're doing.  They're funded (a small round) by the who's who of SV angels.  They're aiming at the BigOrgs, but their software appeals to the self-employed folks I'm building for too.
They're ranked highly for valuable keywords and have been around for three years.  Their marketing strategy basically emulates mine, and they've gotten press amongst the usual SV blog suspects, along with sites like the NY Times.  Articles claim they have 10s of thousands of users.
Their site looks pretty but isn't as easy to use as ours.
My analysis:
I'm not worried about the funding - we're happily bootstrapping off of a long term, flexible consulting contract.  It also means they are required to go big (growth uber alles) and land big clients, which excites me - we're not interested in the BigOrgs market.  The self-employed one is the underserved one in my analysis.
Their high keyword rankings are worrisome, as are their press mentions and 3 years of learnings.
My question:
Do we continue on as planned, nichify (market our products for self-employed people who do A, B, and C even though D-Z can use it, and then grow after we have a stable base?), or pivot (there are a bunch of other lucrative products for the same market that we can build, but aren't related to the core product we're building right now).
Thanks for your help! <comment><USER2> It's good to know they exist, they'll probably be aware that you exist sooner or later as well.

It's a big world!

There is more than room enough for two, three or 50 companies doing what you're doing, the market is more than large enough for that, especially if you look overseas as well.

A three year headstart is _your_ advantage. After all, you get the benefit of their three years of product development without having to go the long way round. Check out what they've got and learn from it.

Stick to your plan, observe them like a hawk and make sure that you give your customers excellent service. They won't go looking for a competitor until you mess up.

Don't worry so much about keyword rankings, a solid business does not solely depend on search engines for its traffic. And there is always advertising if you want to go and acquire new customers in a higher volume.

As for going 'niche' that might be a great strategy to stay under their radar until you've been able to level the playing field and you have a bigger war chest.

But in the long run their existence shouldn't matter much, it's not like you're going to go head to head with microsoft or google on operating systems or search.

It's just another company, they come and go. Likely there are other competitors out there that you haven't picked up on yet.

In a market with no competition, anybody can be 'top dog'. Such markets are illusions, any way that you find to make a living someone else will come and see you and think 'hey, nice idea'. Some of them will be better, some of them will be worse. There is no hard and fast rule that says that the first mover will be the one to win the game.

The there is the subject of locality. If you are going to address the 'self employed' market then there are so many options so 'slice' that market that if you make it easy to adapt your product to a niche that you could also address many of these niches in parallel, effectively you are still 'broad' but you now have a unique advantage for each of those little sub markets.

Which should remedy some of your keyword worries, since it is much easier to rank high for combinations of keywords than that it is to rank high for individual keywords.

good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> great advice, thanks.

you're right: a 3y head start means they've made a lot of mistakes that we can learn from.

slicing the self-employed market in many different ways is exactly how i'm thinking about it, for the same reasons you mention: being broad and ranking highly for specific keyword combos.

thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A quick&dirty math approach:

At a very basic level, you're working with:

potential_revenue = sum(total_market) * P(customer) * LTV_over_period

(LTV usually stands for lifetime value of customer, but we're only considering annual numbers below)

First you must must must figure out what the size of your total market is; I assume you already know this number from the top of your head (if not, you've got bigger problems to worry about).

At this point, this becomes a problem of function maximization. Assuming your competitor is the market leader, and the rule of thumb for market leaders to take 50% of the total market, what percentage of the remaining clientbase can you realistically capture? Calculate your potential revenue with this scenario. Do the numbers add up for anything sustainable? If no, pivot.

With nichification, your total market is obviously smaller, but you might capture it better. Calculate it with markets [A,B,C] ,and see what percentage of these market you have to capture, in order for total revenues to exceed that of non-nichificated product. Can you capture that amount realistically? If yes, nichify; otherwise, proceed with original plan.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks - the numbers definitely add up for us.

hadn't heard the "market leaders have 50% market share" rule of thumb before. (curious: do you have a source for this, or is it from experience?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You already have a couple of clients prepared to pay for your software. If the 'three years ahead' competitor is so great, why aren't they using the competitor's product rather than yours?

It sounds to me like your competitor is targeting a different market to you, and picking up some of your target market as a happy accident. If you focus on the needs of your market, it becomes less and less likely that those sort of people will use your competitor's product.

I suspect the competitor is unlikely to care too much about your product - they'll see it as a 'low end' solution that only has the potential to take away customers they don't make much from anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. based on the research i've done of competitive offerings and talking to customers, it's nearly impossible to serve the needs of both markets (BigOrgs and self-employed) while keeping the software simple and enjoyable to use.

> I suspect the competitor is unlikely to care too much about your product - > they'll see it as a 'low end' solution that only has the potential to take > away customers they don't make much from anyway.

never thought about it this way, but probably true. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> First, you have to decide if you want to compete with them _head on_. This means beyond just having a similar product. It means going after the same customers and same everything.

If you _do_ go that route, you should make use of the upsides. One upside is, you can reduce your risk by emulating their proven product design/market strategy. Steve Blank has a post on how he was able to get sooo much out of his competitor's catalog/specs.

Simply put, if there is a company with a product and lots of customers and you want to compete with it, you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you can emulate individual components of the competitor.

Now that you are close to even with them on product/marketing, you can find an area where you will be better than them. Pricing is weak. May be you can offer an added service. May be you can make some component more efficient and highlight the fact that you are more efficient than that competitor.

Competition can be real good if you know how to use your (successful) competition as free R&D.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. not planning to go head to head with them, but your perspective on pulling even on product/market adn then differentiating is a novel one to me. appreciate the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If it took you a while to find the competition, it will also take your customers time. And by that time, they will be used to your software.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, that's what i was thinking too. i've been talking to customers / wireframing for about a month and hadn't even heard of these guys, and neither had my initial customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every piece of software in existence has competitors. If you can't beat your competitors (even by iterating), then listen to your existing customers, and find out what they want.

You might drift into a vertical niche, if your product is a good fit for that niche.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. our plan is to always listen to our customers while keeping an eye on competitors. figure the company that wins is the one that's closer with their customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It actually depends a lot on the type of service that you are considering: will that competitor make your life easier or worst?

A simple example: my brother sells pearls. He considers other pearl sellers as competitors, but actually the more people see pearls being worn, then more they'll assume it is a legitimate jewel — so diamond sellers are his real competitors, and other non-stone gems should help legitimize his business. Therefore, when he can't accomodate a prospect (say, he doesn't have the right color) he should advertize for other pearl providers.

Another similar tech example: e-mail; the more companies used e-mails, the more IMAP became a useful protocol. The complete opposite would be ERPs: it's much easier to share the same ERP as your customer & provider. Therefore, if you are a competitor of SAP (the ERP for BigCorp) trying to specialize towards SMB, you spend a lot of commercial effort to explain the benefits of ERP in general to small businesses, only to pave the way for them switch to SAP——because that's what their customer use, and those are too big to change.

That why you have many e-mail providers, several cell phone makers, but only one dominant search-engine, one dominant ERP provider, one dominant social network, etc. To tell the difference is hard —— for instance, encouraging open standards might help your customer to switch to the leader more than it would help you offer a compatible service.

I'd love to help you (all that is what my PhD is about ;) but I'd need more detail about your specific industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> largely better, since they're spending VC dollars to educate the marketplace on why it's a good idea to have the product. i just need to find and compel the self-employed folks to buy from me instead of them.

thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Do some market research, actually having some competition will make market research much easier - phone their clients and simply ask them which new features they would like and what things do they have trouble with, then target clients with similar profiles.

2\. You could build a migration tool so that you can approach their smaller clients, offer a cheaper package with the guarantee that you can migrate their existing data.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, i like both of these, especially the idea of a migration tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How many customers do you need to hit your mark? it is less than 10% of your competitor? Think about churn and picking up their scraps, as it were. You may be able to survive as a small fish, if you are trying to build a so-called lifestyle biz.

<comment><AUTHOR> way less than 10%. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A lot of people are making good comments about there being room for more than one competitor in a marketplace. I totally agree with that but I would add that this is true if the service stands alone.

If your product depends on network effects, it is no longer true. Services like Facebook and twitter are more valuable when all of your friends are using it too. These tend to be winner-takes-all.

I suggest that you stick to your strategy until you hear a customer mention a competitor by name, or otherwise have proof that you are losing customers to your competitor.

<comment><AUTHOR> agreed re: network effects. this isn't one of those businesses though.

> I suggest that you stick to your strategy until you hear a customer mention > a competitor by name, or otherwise have proof that you are losing customers > to your competitor.

i like this - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There have been a few similar posts on here in the past. The consensus is usually something along the lines of... keep building your product. Don't let your competitors scare you. Think of it like driving; if you drive down the highway staring at the car next to you, you're going to crash. Look forward.

Given that you already have a paying customer helping you develop it, and that your product is supposedly easier to use, this doesn't even seem like a difficult decision.

<comment><AUTHOR> yep, after sleeping on it i think i was more startled than scared... startled i hadn't even found these guys after looking for so long. which, i guess, it a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It probably means its a good idea. Nobody ever gets total market and at the beginning you both have essentially zero market share. So compete hard for the clients they don't get. Or rope in people who've never heard of them. Just b/c they have nice uniforms and helmets doesn't mean they've scored lots of touchdowns.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Just b/c they have nice uniforms and helmets doesn't mean they've scored lots of touchdowns.

haha, i love this line. there's definitely lots of room to play in this market, which i like. thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Find out what you hate about their service, and make sure it is improved in yours. 37Signals' book had something about this, its the chapter on "Have an Enemey, pick a fight" - <http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. complex, hard to use and ugly software is an easy enemy, which we're happy to pick a fight with :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This will make essential reading:

<http://businessofsoftware.org/ebook.aspx>

Although it's primarily concerned about pricing, the process of pricing requires consideration of your product placement with regard to the competition. Enjoy!

<comment><AUTHOR> got it already - appreciate it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unless you are actually losing business to them I wouldn't worry. You are taking a niche market approach and should be able to find ways to differentiate your offering. From your description you are targeting a different market,

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks sean. had one of my clients walk through it while i watched, sat on my hands, and shut my mouth. it was heartening to see that she was pretty confused about how to solve her problem with their product. happy to see that even though they overlap on our target market, we can still build a better product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What do you do? You man up and kick their asses.

<comment><USER17> ...And then some.

I'm in a similar situation. It's me versus Chegg.

<comment><USER18> And if anything that should be a great motivator. A few years ago Chegg was in your shoes against EFollett and the bookstores. :-). Good luck, you can do it!

<comment><USER17> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Instacart launches Shop With Friends - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/12/new-instacart-feature-lets-friends-and-colleagues-share-a-shopping-cart-exclusive/

<comment><USER2> I liked the part of the article where they explained this new Shop With Friends feature... Oh wait.

Edit: they have edited the article and now it explains the feature

<comment><USER3> Read the article twice trying to figure out if I had temporary amnesia...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really fun to watch the carts change in real-time across multiple computers - how did you guys achieve this? Very cool.

<comment><USER5> We use Firebase (<https://www.firebase.com/>) for real-time cart updates. It's super fast and pretty easy to setup.

<comment><USER6> Have you guys looked into using redis pubsub and socket.io?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> events / ticketing websites need this feature. I'm forever frustrated with events where allocated seating is the only method of ticket purchase and you're needing to organise and balance payments.

</comment><comment><USER8> Since it looks like InstaCart people are posting ITT, what are your plans to spread this business model into other cities. Is it viable in a place like Atlanta, GA where residential areas are less-concentrated?

</comment><comment><USER9> Best of luck with this, I just don't see how it can scale successfully. And what did you need those millions in funding for? To pay the delivery wages which you can never make back?

</comment><comment><USER10> congrats Instacart! your team and your product are fantastic.

<comment><USER11> That is very kind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Off-topic, but I don't think Whole Foods really qualifies as a "yuppie chain" anymore. I feel like they've successfully transitioned to a full-blown grocery store for people who want to live an organic lifestyle, which is no longer a small-market trend.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it has anything to do with size really, it's more about the variety of people who shop there. I don't shop there often, but the times I have, I have noticed the people shopping there weren't exactly representative of the general population.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Coming to Texas anytime soon?

</comment><comment><USER14> Instacart is a useful case study. Even though I do not like the product, and have had a few bad experiences, it solves a pain and I'll keep using it.</comment>