ahoyhere

especially considering I’ve been running a SaaS for 12 years

You must be blocked… either for a reason, or part of a block list or I blocked you accidentally when blocking ads which has happened a few times. What’s your username?

Not yet, we're still very new! Being able to interact easily wherever you are is a high priority for us, however, so it's high on the list.

We do have a Slackbot already.

Not even tall poppy syndrome, because if you dare to talk about how something went horribly wrong (aka you're a short poppy), people react in the way you describe above.

It's the crab bucket:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1465278

If you succeed, people have to tear you down (to feel better about themselves). If you fail and dare to be honest about it, people have to tear you down (in order to feel superior). People are terrified of failure because if it could happen to e.g. patio11 or you or me, it could definitely happen to them so they must immediately distance themselves by giving themselves the feeling of superiority, and because just telling themselves they're superior in a quiet room alone isn't good enough, they must perform it in public for an audience to get an extra hit. Clack clack clack go the claws.

Freckle is Amy Hoy's biggest product (cite: my finances).

We used to do $240k a year in technical workshops, sold nearly $300k of ebooks, and have a million-dollar-a-year business… 3/4 of which is SaaS, not 30x500. And no, we don't have "multiple staff members." Freckle is run primarily by 1.5 people and it grows every year automatically, and grows very well every time we actually try to grow it.

And sure, we could make a lot more consulting too, especially since I have proven product chops. But who wants to deal with clients all day? All that negotiating and educating and meeting and trying to persuade them not to screw up their own projects, all their politicking, the invoicing and paperwork and phone calls and email change requests… no thank you.

I spent about 5 hours a month on Freckle, which is why it's not a multi-million-dollar business. But $700k/yr with 1 full-time employee works beautifully for me.

Try to beat that for an hourly rate with your consulting business.

That's why I said "new… for a vast majority of people."

Yes, lots of us are. The trick is, we've mostly given up on HN. First of all because we got tired of the "lifestyle business" sneer/smear. Second there is almost no content here for us any more.

In May, I organized a 100% bootstrapped product conference: http://baconbiz.com. We had 16 speakers, out of a total of 65 people. (All lightning speakers bought their own tickets.) Many traveled for hours to attend.

Why? Who? What happened?

Our trailer: http://cheerful.wistia.com/medias/i8my1fqcyt

Once we get all the conf videos posted, we'll be working on a discussion/community site for product bootstrappers as well, to fill the hole left by the demise of the early HN experience.

In true bootstrap fashion, we ditched the hotel ballroom and held the event in our office. Sponsors just paid for our "after" party (on 1st night, Thursday, instead of Friday, to save costs.) The conf itself was "ramen profitable."

Surely I'm not the only one who read the screenshotted exchanges and thought:

He just told the OP he's waiting for "answers" from the doctor. He can't make travel plans. He says it's long, gruesome, UGH.

Guys. In case you have the social instinct of a cockroach, this is what they call A SIGN. Not a subtle one, either. That is when you LEAP to care for your friend.

Here's what you do. You ask: Wait a minute, forget about whatever it is I wanted to talk about -- what's wrong? Are you okay? Do you want to talk? Why don't I come visit you instead of expecting you to travel?

Alas, the author just glossed forward with "Well if you decide you can make it, let me know!"

The sick (now dead) friend expressed well wishes for health to the OP, only to receive what kind of well wishes in return? None. Not even "good luck with your doctor's visit that I don't want to ask about cuz I'm not comfortable expressing feelings."

How self-centered do you have to be to not even wish a friend with obvious health problems "good luck" or "feel better"?

"Now you’re probably thinking I’m a real shitty friend."

Yes, but not because you didn't know he died. But because you didn't care enough to notice or ask while he was alive.

I'm sorry you went through that. Of course a memorial page wouldn't help comfort you, when you know your friend was murdered, you know who the killer was, and there would never be justice, just the thought of how you failed, and how the killer was taunting you right to the end.

I know how you feel.

work ethic, n: A word used by those trying to guilt others into doing what the selfish person wants.

The notion of a job/employment is a new one for the vast majority of the world's population, Americans included. Most people were peasants/subsistence farmers, or small time commercial farmers, or tradespeople (carpenter, blacksmith, furrier, etc.) who operated more like freelancers today than anything else. More recently, pre-WWI, many people were domestic servants, which is employment of course but not the same as working for a company today. Merchants are relatively new to human history. The legal construct of a company is much much newer than merchants.

The company-employment boom is clearly ending. When you look at human history -- even limited to "civilized" history -- it's pretty clear that mass employment was the exception, not the rule, and now it's going away.

That's not relevant to the fact that actual wages have gone down.

If you read the essay, it's clear he's not anti-startup, much less specifically anti-Y Combinator. He is pro- other things instead, and saying the "traditional" (lol) startup culture is overshadowing all other choices.

That's very different than "anti-YC."

"Om nom noooo!"

Is simply pointing out a mistake "making a big thing out of nothing"?

I don't understand why you claim I'm "making a big thing" and write a paragraph explaining yourself instead of just saying "Oops! So it is!"

Relevant to business? No. Common courtesy requires not mis-gendering people though.

Compass is not a course. It's not a strategy product, it's a mathematical modeling tool for inputting statistics and forecasting different scenarios. (Fact: It's a spreadsheet.)

You, the user of the tool, make the judgments about what the numbers mean to you. Not Jaana.

The expertise required to solve the problem is not about making business judgments, but getting the math required to crunch the numbers right (and build a spreadsheet without bugs).

This exchange proves part of Jaana's point -- her copywriting needs further work. :)

It looks like you're conflating me with people who run classes on how to create & sell internet marketing products. That's not even remotely what I do. No worries, I'm not offended, just want to set the record straight.

And I did a huge amount of little mistakes! I consider myself lucky in that I eventually reached the launch goal at all.

It's not luck, it's because you got the core thing right: You are killing a real pain people with money have. :) If you get that core right, you can make tons of mistakes and still help people and make money. It buys you the chance to improve and fix and grow.

Hi, I'm the teacher of 30x500, the course in question.

You're right -- by far, the product failures I see are caused by people who are self-focused (what do I want to make? what's fun?) vs service-focused (how can I serve people? create value?). Which is why I teach the exact opposite path:

http://unicornfree.com/2013/how-do-you-create-a-product-peop...

My students have cleared that one up already, I think :)

So let's address your #B — "what problems they have the authority to solve."

What is authority exactly? Who gives it? It's not really a term I use in the class because I think it's misunderstood. When Jaana wrote that she didn't have "enough authority," she meant reputation, not authority. But when you come down to it, it's not like Jaana is, say, a famous actress, who wants to break into rocket science. No, she's not famous or well-known at all.

Her real problem isn't authority -- or the perception of authority, or reputation, or trust. It's not a question of image but reach.

Her statistical chops are not at issue, only the size of her platform (readers, followers, fans). And she's working hard to fix that problem right now, using the "ebomb" strategy I teach in 30x500: Educate people, help them, and they will 1. read it, 2. share it, 3. remember you.

As you can see, since we're discussing her post and people are saying how useful it is, this strategy works :)

Now... if you have a platform already and you want to help people, serve people, and sell them something, and you're worried "They won't believe I have the experience!"...

Don't try to sell a teaching product. Don't let it rest on your judgment. Don't use yourself.

Instead, give them a tool that is "factual" -- "This is the math, just plug in your numbers" -- instead of based on opinion or your personal experience. This way you outsource the "judgment" to the end user of your tool. An alternate way is to do research and compile findings, and let the research speak its opinions instead of you.

In that way, Jaana did take my advice. :)

The name: Jaana. The photo: A woman. "He"?

The most important thing to realize is:

This isn't happening to you. You are doing it to yourself.

One guy doing a split-test on one client -- the second one you cite -- is not what I would call "a study": http://www.conversiondoctor.com/conversion-blog/coupon-codes...

Look at other reasons people abandoned carts in that PayPal/Comscore study:

Wanted to comparison shop: 37%

Lack of money: 36%

Wanted to look for a coupon: 27%

Wanted to shop offline: 26%

Couldn’t find preferred pay option: 24%

Item unavailable at checkout: 23%

Couldn’t find customer support: 22%

Security concerns: 21%

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Sad-Tale-of-Abandoned-Shopp...

When you look at the big picture findings from this survey, it makes you realize: 20-40% of people will abandon a cart for ANY reason.

And none of these "studies" have looked into what the conversion rates for people who DO use coupons are. When you introduce a coupon to a good customer, or at the right moment, does that INCREASE conversions? I'd would bet good money the answer is yes. And I would bet you money that that increase outweighs the seemingly random "25% of people quit a cart for every possible reason."

There is no such thing as a one-sided effect.

BTW -- abandoning a cart is not the same thing as quitting a checkout in progress. Beginning the checkout process is a much bigger indicator of intention than putting stuff in your cart. Many people just put stuff in their cart as a kind of shopping list, or "I might want to look at this more later." Which is no doubt why cart abandonment rates are so high.

If you first discover that coupons exist at the cashier, you must be an alien going to a store for the first time.

You hit the nail on the head with the first part of your comment -- you decided they weren't worth the time, and therefore you don't save the money. You don't huffily dump your items and leave the line. No, you think, "Hm, maybe I should clip coupons next time." (Although, of course, you don't.)

But he SOUNDS so sure of himself!

See also http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/deceptive-writing-styl...

Why is it absurd?

Do you think it's absurdly long? Their agreement in general is much shorter than any single one of the several I had to go through to get a merchant account and CC processing service before.

Is it absurd because you think the business types they mention are silly? Well, they are silly. But people do them.

Is it absurd because you are angry your business is on the list? Well, that's life. I, as a valid business owner who uses Stripe, am very glad Stripe protects their relationships / value / company / customer rep time by refusing to serve illegal or borderline illegal businesses, and those with ridiculously high rates of fraud. Yay!

Who wouldn't prefer to live in the forest than in the hospital pictured. My god. Poor man.

Don't let somebody off the hook for "naïvete" if they enter into a business with somebody who got their assets through theft, and his job is to disguise the theft.

That's collusion.

Everybody always thinks they're a special case. "Oh sure, he lied to THEM, but he'd NEVER lie to ME!"

That's why one of my lessons is "Expect the best of everyone, but always believe the evidence."

http://unicornfree.com/2011/lessons-learned-from-16-years-of...

Some of us value permanence. I own my house, and I have zero intention of ever selling it. It's mine, mine, mine, mine.

There is an incredible feeling in owning a home that you love and plan to spend your life in. We get to plan the changes we'll make over the next decade. We can plant a tree and watch it grow. We can truly unpack our stuff AND our lives… which it's hard to ever do when you rent; most people I know move every 1 to 3 years. At that rate, a lot of things feel like they're never worth it. You don't hang curtains because you think "I won't be here that long" then you wake up and it's been 4 years and you never had curtains and you wasted all that time. (Actual curtains… and metaphorical curtains, too.)

Granted, you don't get that feeling if you just buy whatever's available. (And probably nigh impossible to manage in a place like SF.)

Our house is a special place. It's historic; we feel obliged to take good care of it, because it will outlast us. It's an indescribable source of joy. And yes, there's angst, too -- that always comes with loving anything, be they people, animals, organizations, or things. It's worth it.

The money is the absolutely last concern.