christonog

So what about credit cards and bank accounts that have no annual fees (essentially free to use)? I suppose your money is the product being sold (in terms of interest) in this case.

This is great. Can I quote you?

Thanks for the explanation. This is a great resource. My only regret is that I wasn't there to listen in!

If the majority of your revenue was from the small & medium accounts, why not just create a single plan, remove the lower plans entirely? Why continue with the personal plan if that resulted in higher turnover and less desirable customers?

If you really wanted to follow your favorite service provider, wouldn't you just friend them on facebook or follow them on twitter? The relationship is already there, so wouldn't reviews be unnecessary?

Was all/most of that 5K used on the brand identity?

I wouldn't say it was a total failure. You learned something, and you can always reuse code (such as the 700 lines for credit card payments) for other projects.

You could go the Google Chrome Web Store route.

This works if you need to give friends or family access, but what about taking it one step further by using a finger print scan + security PIN? Trying to fiddle with your phone from your pocket and opening an app or sending a text message can be just as cumbersome as looking for your keys.

Great story. How has the TweetingMachine affiliate program worked for you?

I think what he meant was that you have to consider a hefty tax burden come April 15 because, as a contractor, you don't get taxes taken out of your paycheck. This is where having a good accountant and knowing what expenses you can deduct comes in (to reduce your taxable income).

If for nothing else, you should have a business just so you can claim more expenses and reduce the amount you have to pay Uncle Sam (from my understanding, all you need to have is a profit motive -- not necessarily profits).

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

-Abraham Lincoln

Honest question, can you possibly expound on how you got that message? Does it mean web apps are necessarily better than developing for browsers via extensions?

Well, I'm mainly referring to the very early prototype stage, where you spend as little as you can. If you have some early funding (either self funding or family) then you can use VWO instead of a free A/B testing framework (A/Bingo for example).

You still need to know how to manipulate some of the front end and back end code to show the user your A/B tests. On page SEO at least requires some knowledge of HTML. You're right about marketing such as adwords and LTV not requiring any code though.

The problem with this is what other value can you bring to a prototype stage project if you aren't doing do any of the coding? You do need some coding knowledge to make a/b testing optimization, SEO, or other marketing strategies of value.

Yes. You can look really good on pads, but when it's time to get in the ring, your technique and endurance goes to shit.

It'd be nice if your app had a video, demo, more than one screenshot I could play around with prior to signing up. jmockups had something to mess around in to see the value beforehand.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. As a non-technical person trying to become technical (as an intellectual exercise as well as work on my own stuff), the simplest, yet hardest, thing to understand is "something easy" really isn't.

You think you got a minimal feature set for your project? Think again. Cut it in half.

I have a travel site as my personal project, and I still don't have the ability to select the dates for when you're traveling. Sounds crazy, but it's something that not many of my users have asked for... yet. It probably helps that the main focus isn't about selecting dates you want to travel, however.

I could see this being a sort of shopping list companion for the iphone as well. You make a set list of recipes that you want to make for a week per say. You use the iphone to find the ingredients at the grocery store, and as you check them off on the ipad while making your dishes, the app is smart enough to keep track of what you have left, and what recipes you can still make. I bet food companies would love to have sponsored recipes with their branded food items as ingredients, and know how much of an ingredient a user has at a certain time for upselling through coupons.

I think their vision goes beyond parties/concerts/events. It's like a mobile Q&A for a specific area. What if you were at a brick and mortar store such as Bestbuy and had a question of opinion that both the other customers there and employees can answer? Or at a restaurant and wanted to quickly know what were the best dishes people are enjoying at that moment and at that specific restaurant? Many different business applications.

Just out of curiosity, to what extent do you do design? Is it just interface design, making that interface look good through Photoshop, or going as far as coding up the HTML and CSS? Additionally, what would you say are requirements for becoming good at business, strategy, and product vision? I'm looking to eventually move into these roles myself.

I enjoyed the mental thought process and geek speak of Zuckerberg when he tried to hack into harvard's network and hire the first intern. A lot of people in the theatre around me were visibly confused, while I was actually able to follow along and think to myself "hey, I know that term!." Pretty cool.

Coding up www.getsetapp.com and possibly entertaining the idea of bringing on a more technically skilled co-founder. Contact info in profile.

Yeah, but it's a case of "shoulda, woulda, coulda." In retrospect, it was an easy decision. But, if it were your startup, would you have tied yourself to a single, almost bankrupt, vendor? I don't think I would have. Though it is better to buy software rather than build in most cases, there didn't seem to be alternatives rather than rolling out their own solution.

You could have the initial text all highlighted, so after reading the user can literally start typing.

That is indeed ironic. I've never heard of Filipinos complementing on how tan someone is, though there is a certain shade of tan called "kayumangi" that sort of exemplifies "Filipino Beauty." Filipino views on the various shades of skin color can get kind of confusing.

Yes, I'm Filipino and light skinned, and the first thing people notice about me when I'm there is how light skinned I look. They associate this with beauty. People over there have this obsession with being white, with all the heart throb celebrities looking light skinned and "mestizo," and all the comedians and funny characters looking dark and more malay.

Well, aside from being an avid traveler, I'm currently working on a side project that helps people find the cheapest method of travel (air, bus, car) to a given location. Getting more information on how consumers travel and their interaction with online travel sites are what I'm most interested in.

I'd imagine this happens a lot with new ideas. Back in the day, people couldn't fathom having a mobile phone. Now, many people can't fathom not having the internet (myself included) where ever they go.

Would also be interested in this as well. tlack, what do you do specifically?