As well as readability (mentioned above), I find Evernote's Clearly to be a great extension for reading anything on the web (medium.com tends to be notorious to read)...
In situations like this, do startup founders leak the word that they want a buyer? It seems like they wanted to put the word out there, but doesn't that kill their leverage in acq discussions?
Heh, I found this amusing "We also obviously built this on Node.js, anything else and it would take to much time to configure or setup." Couldn't you just use a lightweight Ruby or Python framework (e.g. Sinatra)? And wouldn't any simple data-store do? I'm surprised you even considered MongoDB...
For me, when doing Node development, usually my first instinct is to go for MongoDB. I guess my post conveys that thought. But sure we could have used any simple data store, and we did (parse).
As for Node.js, as I previously said in another comment, I am a former ColdFusion developer, so again I bring many biases from that platform and found Node.js to be super simple to use.
I'm not a Ruby or Python developer but I'm sure it would have taken someone with those skill sets equally as fast.
I can see Buffer getting a lot of traffic via their guest posting strategy. I've seen several of their posts on HN. However, I would have a hard time imagining that these posts convert since they cover topics totally unrelated to their app. Also, I think their strategy it's generally dilutive for their brand. I recognize that startup blogs are a great way to get traffic but I'm turned off by it. Maybe I'm the only one though
I hadn't seen Chris Dixon's post on what startups need and don't need before. I disagree with vacation policy being unnecessary for startups. I know some startups don't have one and I feel like it's done to create friction whenever employees want to take time off which feels a bit insidious. And it creates the feeling that some folks are freeloading. I don't think it's overly "corporate" to have a well-defined vacation policy
> I feel like it's done to create friction whenever employees want to take time off which feels a bit insidious. And it creates the feeling that some folks are freeloading.
It's exactly that. The idea that people are more productive if all they do is work, for 50 hours a week or more, is such an insanely stupid notion. But I hear it time and again from founders who expect employees with a 0.5% stake to put in as much time as a founder who has a 30% stake.
Even founders should keep their work hours under control--they set the tone for the company, and a workaholic tone isn't healthy. People just burn out, they feel demoralized, and it creates conflict.
Working less also forces you to make hard decisions, to prioritize and focus.
Finally, founders should be HAPPY that employees take time off. It rejuvenates them and makes them that much more excited to get back to work. And often when they're not in the heads-down grind--when their mind is relaxed--they come up with some very good ideas.
But I think it depends -- if you're still only a team of 7, and the 7th hire still got 3% equity (probably not realistic?), then everyone's got enough skin in the game where you probably shouldn't be taking vacations too often.
But if the 7th hire has 0.1% equity, then there should absolutely be a clear vacation policy. It's exceedingly important that clear rules are laid down for what's "fair".
For our logged in user A/B testing (often relating to email), we've built an in-house solution that uses a MOD based system to track group performance (as opposed to storing each group member in our databases).
Pretty clever implementation by the data scientist on our team.
We're currently using Google Content Experiments. The Pros are that it's incredibly easy to get a test started thanks to the presence of Google Analytics scripts in the rest of the website. The major Con is the lack of true multivariate testing.
We experimented with Optimizely but had a bad experience. It seemed as though their javascript was synchronous and blocking. We may have been able to customize that but did not dig deeper.
Another flaw in Google Content Experiments (which was mentioned in the article) is that it doesn't distribute traffic evenly. This is a big bummer with seasonal products/services where having the control start getting 80% of the traffic during a high conversion period makes the test useless. Overall, even though testing is easier in some ways, I definitely miss Google Website Optimizer.
It seems like there's a much greater scope for casual/ad-hoc delivery than production, based on the safety/certification issues. Of course, there are still potential risks with poorly trained/equipped transport workers letting your food get too warm|cold|stale, etc.
I was thinking a little while ago about how we're almost at the point of making the digital timer pizza-box from Snow Crash a reality -- or in my scheme, something more useful, like a data logging thermometer.
It might be a little clunky still, but if you established some sort of ongoing service, an upfront purchase/loan/amortised lifespan device might make it practical to have a little temp + humidity + realtime clock with bluetooth/nfc comms to talk to your phone when your food gets delivered. And you have a solid audit trail if anything turns out dodgy.
Are these generally off-work or out-of-work chefs, or people specifically setting up to provide this service? In the TC article, it sounded like a current restaurant chef; in that case, isn't it basically takeaway?
I've always thought the game changer in this field would be based around bulk orders (group buying) - e.g., cheaper curry dish for you if others in your office or immediate area group together to improve scale efficiency for the chef and delivery.
The color-coding on this map was an interesting choice. Bright, stop-sign red is used for people whose income is in the top 1%. I almost felt as if being in the top 1% was a bad thing...
If the author sees this as a way to get product market fit, his points make sense. If a teacher with such a limited budget likes the software enough that he / she is willing to pay for it, then you are probably on to something. However, banking on teachers spreading the word and having a sales force focused on teach outreach seems like a terribly unscalable sales strategy.
