andycroll

Seconded. Watching a live performance by Sam really is something else.

Slightly self-serving as the organiser but Sarah Mei's talk at Brighton Ruby this year was terrific.

http://brightonruby.com/2016/how-we-make-software-a-new-theo...

The Wayback Machine is your friend.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160127001734/http://feinternat...

Third listing.

A really solid, profitable business.

You're going to love http://deppbot.com.

(Disclaimer, some friends of mine made it)

I'd say _that_ is a hell of an assumption. The travel industry depends hugely on efficient PPC advertising with companies at any serious size.

This has been true of all three travel startups I've worked at. AirBnb may well have great brand recognition but I'd be amazed if they can acquire customers for zero.

I can definitely accept that Rails is now somewhat old hat.

And agreed that the Rails 2 to 3 jump was (and still is for many codebases) a tricky and difficult path.

However, I'd argue that doing your 'startup' in [Rails/COBOL/PHP/Logo/Java] is probably a decent idea if you have good engineers who can build something stable relatively quickly. Technology is _rarely_ the problem in any given startup.

If scalability and speed is a problem, congratulations, you're a success.

Rails is still good at giving you the tools to build decent CRUD-ish apps pretty fast and deployment is thankfully a solved problem.

Rails is not the new hotness, but it's still great at getting prototypes out the door and can scale you a long way. I think I'm cool with that.

our front end has gone from Prototype to jQuery to Coffeescript to Angular to React with major productivity improvements each time

Also rewriting your front-end four times doesn't seem that productive.

Doing a large rebrand is difficult, costly and time-consuming

And also a nice problem to have. Most 'startups' won't get to this stage, so spending time on a logo _is_ a waste.

http://www.wiener-gasometer.at/en/

Third party Twitter clients.

Tweetbot: https://gist.github.com/genadyo/295a5e8f0d743f57137f#file-gi...

Twitterrific: https://gist.github.com/genadyo/295a5e8f0d743f57137f#file-gi...

Twitterfon: https://gist.github.com/genadyo/295a5e8f0d743f57137f#file-gi...

Echofon: https://gist.github.com/genadyo/295a5e8f0d743f57137f#file-gi...

Am sure there are others.

This. This. This.

...and the web.

Sure he didn't do an app for Android (until someone did for him) and is a bit snarky about it as a platform, but the web version of Instapaper existed before the app did and powered the whole thing.

Plus 'The Magazine' has a significant web component (albeit a weird log in).

His preference for iOS seems to be aesthetic and income related, but he's originally (and still) a PHP web guy.

Not according to him as he was technically an employee, I did some analysis...

http://andycroll.com/2013/05/20/tumblr-founder-shares-and-di...

I'm not going to say he isn't pro-Apple, but he does at least attempt to find the nuance in the story. I was merely saying I don't dismiss him out of hand as some do.

Regarding the trend, I concur and I somewhat covered the excellence of most of the handsets now in the market certainly means a much more competitive marketplace.

I don't necessarily think Apple have stopped growing (their last quarter would seem to refute that[1]) but it wouldn't be a surprise if they are peaking.

[1] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/01/23Apple-Reports-Reco...

True, but there are equally large groups of people who 'hate' the 'opposition' blindly. The majority of the analysis seems to reflect this less enlightened viewpoint.

My bad. Didn't see it!

I think the best thing about this story is that the unnamed Chinese developer was doing the best work in the company.

You're looking for https://gocardless.com/ who I'm pretty sure are a YC company.

Sorkin's work does always tread a fine line into a slightly theatrical/stagey feel. Particularly the uber-dialogue he gets his characters to say... and I say that as a huge fan.

His TV stuff can get preachy (see Newsroom/Studio 60/West Wing) but it's never less than marvellous to watch even it is a bit of a heightened reality.

Github?

Amusing url for the story... http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/08/we-are-worth-at-least-3k/

I've seen it. But it's the same as anywhere.

Good people are hard to hire.

Singapore also has a relatively favourable short-term working visa with the US (H1B1?), which makes moving to the US more feasible for SG nationals.

The EntrePass thing is a ball of hurt. Initially it was set up with virtually no onerous terms, but they brought in the crazy conditions about 3 years ago.

Definitely using a local accountant & director to set up the company and then employ yourself is the best way.

I've looked on both iPad & iPhone, and it's a much better reading experience on the bigger device for these magazine-length pieces. Much like Instapaper in that respect.

I can't get any serious reading of any length done on my phone either.

I think iOS is his test bed and easy way to get paid, fast. Web could pretty easily follow. I even say as much at the bottom of the article :-)

So are the articles going to appear here after their 'The Magazine' exclusivity runs out?

The Guardian UK have a lovely iPad app, but the iPhone app isn't nearly as good.

Or you could use Jekyll (another one of Tom's open source projects).

We're in the same ballpark.

JetSetter started as very 'Gilt' (members-only, flash sales) but they seem to be making a huge push toward the OTA (online travel agency) model.

And they've had some internal problems recently - http://www.tnooz.com/2012/05/15/news/jetsetter-ceo-out-after...

I think there's significant potential for the creation of profitable niches (and product innovation in those niches) in the travel industry: families, last-minute, experiences, luxury.

There is very little money in flights, so if that's your business you need to have a long VC-backed runway (pun sort-of intended).

On the hotels side there is huge opportunity.

(Disclosure: I'm the CTO at http://impulseflyer.com so I have a vested interest in the industry)

Very nice, missed this.

Seems to me two reasons to set up in the US:

1. For US-based investment 2. For taking payments using excellent services like Stripe, Braintree etc

#2 should be inspiring localized entrepreneurs all over the world. Fix the payment problem and 'boom', instant business.