HN user
Did you get that memo?
I made it clear that the product was under development and a form to collect emails, after the user clicked on the "Sign-Up" button.
I think Google's approach is "Why is this guy paying money to promote a software that is still under development? He must be a spammer!". Of course I'm just guessing that: Like I said before, they refused to give me an actual explanation of why they banned me.
I tried exactly the same approach (based on the Lean Startup blog) but I got burned: Google Adwords banned me for life. Seriously! I tried to create another (unrelated) campaign and created a new user for that, and they still blocked me (I guess they are able to track my name through my credit card).
Anyhow, to this date I don't know why (they never explained, and they were quite rude and abrupt on the email). I believe it was because they found out that I didn't actually have a real product. I analyzed the access logs and I believe they actually verify the sites by hand before approving the ad.
In summary, be careful when you use Adwords without a real product.
That's a good article, but these strategies should be thought-out BEFORE your app is launched. In fact, way before, like before you even start writing code.
EXACTLY! As a big movie fan, I also have that same theory. In fact I have read Robert Rodriguez's "Rebel Without a Crew" (from where the "10-minute Film School" comes from), and I see so many parallels between indie film-making and bootstrapping a company.
http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-without-Crew-23-Year-Old-Filmmak...
I would argue that with a movie you actually do iterate and evolve: That's during the editing process. I believe Scorcese once said that his key job as a director was not during filming per se, but during editing.
Also, a curiosity: Rodriguez is a major geek. He does his own special effects on his own studio in San Antonio.
Pimsleur CDs. They are great for car driving, because the programs are organized so you listen in a continuous play (as opposed to normal language CD books that assume that you will be holding the rewind button to repeat the last sentence). They also leave pauses so you can speak without having to pause the audio manually. And no workbook to follow, so you can keep your eyes on the road :)
Of course such course will not make you fluent, but it's excellent to put you on a good path.
> And Jobs himself? Forced out of Apple. Builds up Pixar. I mean, Pixar!
Also, before Pixar he founded NeXT, absolutely breakthrough stuff, though not a big commercial success:
> Each week, a renowned Russian Science Fiction writer like Sergey Lukyanenko [...]
Wow. That's the guy who wrote Night Watch, one of the best sci-fi/fantasy movies I've watched in the last 10 years: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/