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Need startup ideas? Here's a ton of mine: http://ideashower.posterous.com

My magazine: http://www.interestingtimesmagazine.net

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Off-topic: way cool to see the name Antero Alli mentioned on HN! Which of his books have you read? I am currently reading Angel Tech and The Eight-Circuit Brain.

You know, in a way he is not that wrong. Bad things often are necessary for good things to happen. Crime may not the best example, though. But a good example would be striving for excellence. People who come from the rock bottom are often insanely driven to reach the ultimate heights. People who are happy and mellow by default most often don't feel the need to do so. Kind of like how a grain of sand irritates an oyster into making a pearl.

Many tech guys on HN often ask: what use are business co-founders?

Superior domain knowledge would be one thing. If I'm going to team up with a business guy, I want him to be a top notch expert in his field.

There's a tendency for tech guys to discount domain knowledge, believing that it's just a matter of "hacking something out in a weekend, after all it's just a matter of shovelling data" (I used to fall into this trap myself - now I know the value of domain expertise).

No Desire To Spend 14 years ago

I question how effective the Ramit Sethi tactics would be here in Sweden. Has anyone here tried and gotten a raise?,

I live in Sweden. When I was an employee I didn't get any sun on me during a significant chunk of the year.

I run my own business these days.

The reality is we spend most of our waking lives at work.

Bloody hell, that sounds so depressing when you put it like that...

I am wondering if you did any testing to determine your pricing? IIRC, patio11 recommends not putting a price for the Enterprise option.

What have you tried 14 years ago

And I've seen this in areas other than programming too. It's _really_ common for motorcyclists with a year or two of riding experience to be offering all sort of advice to newer riders - advice which riders with 10 or more years of experience will sometimes just roll their eyes at, and sometimes will step in and say "that's not just wrong, but dangerous enough to get you killed if you're not careful".

Tell me more, I'm curious about this :)

the orders of magnitude difference in programmers productivity

I am skeptical of this too. It makes more sense to have huge swings in ability, not productivity. Ie a poor programmer won't take 10x as long to code a given feature, he will just hit a ceiling of ability and not be able to do it at all.

Japanese people get in trouble on the tip thing all the time in the US

I think it's not just Japan. Here in Sweden, tipping is done at times but it's certainly not something mandatory.

Please do educate me more on US tipping customs. I don't want to be a fool when I go there in future...

That's interesting. I would imagine you would need precision to the hundredth of the millimeter when making guns? I hung around some people who reloaded brass once and they were using these measuring gauges with that kind of precision.

I have used Mongodb a bit, but only for applications that mostly need to read a lot. What issues might I run into if I need to do lot of writing as well?

To me, "growth hacking" evokes more than just marketing.

Let's say my startup hustles like crazy and carves out a deal with a major coffee chain (like Square did with Starbucks IIRC).

Suddenly we have access to a whole lot more users. We grew the user base drastically, yet it wasn't exactly a result of marketing but rather one of strategic dealmaking.

To me, that is the quintessence of growth hacking.

Another good one: using social support.

Say you want to get fit. It's going to be a lot easier if you recruit your friends to go to martial arts and cook healthy meals in bulk together a few times per week.

This can be extended to all areas. Social support lets you put hard work on autopilot. It's still hard work but you have a safety net of accountability which doesn't permit you to slip up easily.

Waking up really early makes me feel like I am getting more out of my life, the day seems to stretch out longer. I also feel more happy somehow, like I am doing the right thing.

I'm not so sure that I am more productive, however. I seem to spend those early morning hours browsing the Internet, mostly. Well, unless I have to get up and go to a job. Then I am productive. But that also negates the happiness bonus. And it would probably be the same if I had to go up and go to a job at 2pm in the afternoon.