David Heineimeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and partner at 37signals in Chicago, says that planning is guessing, and for a start-up, the focus must be on today and not on tomorrow. He argues that constraints--fiscal, temporal, or otherwise--drive innovation and effective problem-solving. The most important thing, Hansson believes, is to make a dent in the universe with your company.

Friends don't let friends scroll horizontally:

[Jchat] More APL (was: No More APL) Morten Kromberg mkrom at dyalog.com Wed May 27 20:15:50 HKT 2009

* Previous message: [Jchat] No More APL
* Next message: [Jchat] More APL (was: No More APL)
* Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

I have no doubt that J is growing faster in terms of numbers of users who "take a look at it" and enjoy playing with it. It's free and the training materials are excellent. The discussion forum is much livelier than ours, though PART of that may be because our users are busy making money and don't necessarily want to (or have time to) talk about how they do it ;-)

I can only easily measure our revenues, which have tripled since 2005, while the number of employees has gone from about 5 to about 15 (maintaining reasonable profitability). Our existing customers are generally buying more licenses and we have some new customers as well (sadly mostly through gaining APL marketshare at the moment) - but we're only just getting into some real marketing again...

ShopKeep is an iPad POS (Point of Sale) system that gives merchants the power to run and analyze their businesses in an elegant, easy-to-use and inexpensive cloud-based interface. By combining a iPad POS system with our detailed BackOffice reporting, you have the ability to generate powerful analysis of inventory, sales and customer relationship management with a service that never becomes outdated.

We’re very excited to be starting on this new adventure with Churn Labs.   As we take these first steps, it seems like an opportune moment to pause and reflect on some of things I’ve learned from the past 10 years and 5 startups.  Some these have been published elsewhere, and some are probably just common sense, but I’ve never posted them anywhere all together.  So, here we go

The Economic History Association owns and operates the EH.net website and mailing lists to provide resources and promote communication among scholars in economic history and related fields. The Economic History Society (U.K.), the Business History Conference, and the Cliometric Society also support the site.

The book, Almost Perfect, was originally published by Prima Publishing in 1994. It is the story of the rise and fall of WordPerfect Corporation from my point of view. The book sold a little less than 10,000 copies and is now out of print. The copy published here is almost identical to my original manuscript and does not contain Prima's edits. In this version, I have corrected two factual errors, fixed five typos, deleted a few pages at the end, and added a final paragraph.

Welcome to the #1 Marketplace for Voice Over Talent

Last week @robfitz asked me on short notice to join a panel at #foundersexchange about what first time founders shouldn’t do. I quickly took a moment to write down some suggestions into my moleskine to prepare myself. Things I witnessed in our company and things I noticed in other startups.

That “some suggestions” became a full page and that full page became a monster that had almost no free white space left. It was so full of stuff we did, it was ludicrous. It was dark like the night and microscribbled as if I hated that poor moleskine page.

My message at the panel was simple: “Don’t be a first time founder…” – or at least not the kind of first time founder I used to be ;)

After a gentle push by Rob and Sal I decided to share those first time founder mistakes we did publicly. I hope you can learn a thing or or two (to avoid) from this. If you have been through your first startup maybe you see yourself in some of them as well :)

helps creative people and businesses run their own subscription programs.

Sharesleuth.com is an independent Web-based reporting aimed at exposing securities fraud and corporate chicanery.

Call it journalism. Call it investigative blogging. Call it what you will.

More than 13,000 companies are listed on U.S. stock exchanges. Analysts for brokerages and independent research firms track fewer than half of them. Overburdened examiners at the Securities and Exchange Commission review only a fraction of the filings that come their way.

If you've spent any time digging through muck and rot in the lower reaches of the stock market, you know that many investment opportunities are not what they seem, and that some companies are the creation of predators and pretenders. Sharesleuth.com aims to create a new line of defense by using investigative journalism techniques and a worldwide network of amateur and professional stock detectives to identify suspect companies.

1) Angel List Fucking Rocks. Period.  it's the single greatest innovation in our industry in the last 5 years (aside from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, & Quora) and it's great for almost all participants. and while social proof can be abused / misused, so can gasoline... doesn't mean you shouldn't fill up your gas tank and go back to riding horses. if you want to effect change, either Engage Fully, or Compete.  inaction/boycotts are rarely useful & should be largely be ignored.

It’s fun to think about getting an MBA.

They’re attractive for many reasons: developing new business skills, developing a better business network, or — most often — taking what is effectively a two-year vacation that looks good on a resume.

In 2001, and again in 2004, I wanted to do all three things.

This post is the first of two that will share my experience with MBA programs and how I created my own…

Why 37signals Doesn't Hire Programmers Based on Brainteasers and my comment on HN generated a lot of responses, so much so that I'm writing this post to properly explain the essence of a good (IMHO) interview programming problem.

Have you thought about starting a program like Y Combinator in your city? That doing so would not only build a startup ecosystem but would also bring a good financial return? I studied Y Combinator, TechStars, Seedcamp, and many more programs to develop a framework for “Copying Y Combinator”.

(With apologies to Chuck Palahniuk…)

The first rule of copying Y Combinator is: Do Not copy Y Combinator.
The second rule of copying Y Combinator is: DO NOT COPY Y COMBINATOR.
The key to copying Y Combinator is to figure out how you can be just as good, but in a different way, than Y Combinator.

I get emails from people I've never met, asking if they can pay me money to improve some of my favorite open-source software. That's right. I get money. I get to do something I enjoy. I get good software. And I get to share it with anybody I please. It's one of the greatest economic arrangements in the world, up there with being landed gentry, a corrupt government official, or Dave Barry.

I get a lot of value out of HN, but the biggest wins monetarily have been advice regarding consulting, often across multiple threads. Two favorites which stuck with me enough to be Googleable:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225179
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1191094
Comments rather than threads picked because they stuck, but the contextual threads were also good.

Summary: Eric Sink provides a geek-oriented overview of accounting and company funding.

On my weblog I write a series of articles entitled Marketing for Geeks. The concept of these articles is that a lot of technically-oriented people actually do end up involved in marketing decisions. Most software startups are founded by one or more geeks, often without the presence of experienced people in other areas like marketing. For these people, a little marketing knowledge can go a long way.

I have a wee bit more than a year of practical experience with a Twilio application in production, so I went to TwilioConf and did a presentation about how to “productize” Twilio applications: to take them past the “cool weekend hack” stage and make them production-ready.  Twilio has graciously released videos of many of the presentations at TwilioConf, so I thought I’d write up my presentation for the benefit of folks who were not at the conference.

Videos from 2011 and other years' Startup Schools

35 U.S.C. 102 Conditions for patentability; novelty and loss of right to patent.

A person shall be entitled to a patent unless -

So I've helped at least a dozen or so people on this subreddit rewrite their resumes, and I put together something on the advice I give the most:

Patio11 or Patrick McKenzie of Bingo Card Creator fame gave this talk at Business of Software conference.

What creates great men? What made Ted Williams the greatest hitter in the history of baseball? What made Shakespeare one of history’s greatest writers? How did Carnegie become one of history’s greatest businessmen?

The typical answer that most people give is that greatness is born. Nature blesses a few great men with some sort of innate gift that allows them to excel at what they do – Shakespeare entered the world with a peerless writing talent, and Williams was born to swing a bat. Under this view, you’re either born with talent and destined for greatness or born without talent and destined for a life of mediocrity.

So, you’ve decided upon, or are thinking about, a career in the restaurant industry, either as a chef, or proprietor, or perhaps both. As someone who has lived that life for a little over twenty years, my advice to you is both heartfelt and simple: DON’T.

There is a fundamental disconnect between the way most people see a hustler and what a hustler sees when she or he looks in the mirror. On a bad day, a hustler sees themselves as someone who needs to improve drastically. On a good day, a hustler sees themselves as someone who could have done something different to improve their hustle. The consistency is the fact that a hustler always strives to be better.

This page summarizes information related to digital financial reporting. Be sure to check out the wiki for digital financial reporting. You can follow this topic by following the category "digital financial reporting" on my blog.

Here’s what I’d do in the beginning:

Taxes for Hax0rs, 2011

The detailed version of Lightning Talk:

Exambuff was my exam preparation startup. I failed because I didn't know my customers, wrote code too early, tried to sell to institutions and didn't find a co-founder. Please take the code (30k lines, PHP/Flex), design & docs and make a go of the business.

Lessons, 20 reasons - for the TL;DR crowd.

An Introduction to Stock and Options

Entrepreneurs are always looking for an easy way to make a big PR splash.  If you are a local business that only serves a specific geographic area, then your local newspaper is still probably your best option for some free publicity.  On the other hand, if you offer a product or service that is available in multiple locations or via the Internet, then you must consider the following websites in which to submit your company to, and gain free publicity.

So you have a new startup company and want some coverage. This post will give you 36 places where you can submit your startup for reviews, mentions or at least some backlinks.

Business Plan. Write it down. Read it and review it monthly. Change it if necessary.Get an LLC, Inc, or what ever.Get Insurance and more than enough insurance. If you have a home office most insurance only covers $5000 worth of business stuff. That's not much when you add stuff up.Write stuff down. Have a daily/weekly task list.Set goals. Then create steps to achieve those goals.Figure out your money makers. Nothing is worse than wasting time on some thing that will make you little money.Don't be afraid to get rid of bad clients or customers. They will end up costing your company money. Be nice but firm. Tell them things like "I'm sorry my business can't fulfill your needs."Stick to what you are good at. Don't over extend your services. If you are an ice cream shop, don't try to be an upscale restaurant. If that is what you want to turn into later down the road once going, great, make a plan to do that.Create a proper image for your company. Spend the money on a good web site. Business cards, etc. Nothing is worse than looking like a fly by night company.Be professional. You can have your fun. And business can be very fun. Just don't act like a tool.Know your customer base and market. If you want to cater to the well off. You better have a business that acts like it and what they would expect. Opening a fancy high end computer store in a run down neighborhood is stupid.

In the last year I've seen thousands of startup pitches and coached hundreds of founders while working with the AngelList crew. I've also seen how quickly the AngelList platform improves, giving startups new ways to reach investors with every push. This is about using those tools.

A fully hosted, completely managed environment for creating and maintaining a website, blog or portfolio.

In general, no. More often than not, the lack of customers was predictable and is blamable on a bad business plan. I have a lot of sympathy for restaurant folks in general and small business owners in particular, but they tend to make the same mistakes over and over.

Have you ever had the experience of being the internal advocate for something which is a clear, obvious win?  Something like source control or unit testing, which is now so fundamental to the practice of building web apps that to not do it is just wrong?  Did you ever get pushback about that decision, about how there were higher priorities and uncertain benefits, despite the fact that the business was clearly, demonstrably hemorrhaging value every minute they delayed on starting them?

Freelancers Union and its members are building a new support system to help the growing independent workforce thrive. A free membership gives you solidarity, benefits, community, and a political voice. Learn more »