HN user
I can read and catch up on many group text messages very quickly but having to go through dozens of voice messages sounds much more time consuming, even if you can choose faster speeds.
Plus, unless you're a superb on the spot thinker or on a rip that day, it can be hard to express longer thoughts in one shot and having to rerecord is also not appealing. With text, you can edit it easily.
You might find the research about sensory processing sensitivity interesting.
"Theory and research suggest that sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), found in roughly 20% of humans and over 100 other species, is a trait associated with greater sensitivity and responsiveness to the environment and to social stimuli. Self-report studies have shown that high-SPS individuals are strongly affected by others' moods, but no previous study has examined neural systems engaged in response to others' emotions."
Quoting from https://old.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/hccco0/the_nova_sco...
My family uses Brinks all the time to make large deposits and withdrawals for business purposes.
While technically true individuals cannot collect from money from Brinks, you can on behalf of a business (the shooter owned a few).
Actually, Monica only realized what the stain on the dress was several months after and it was her friend Linda Tripp who encouraged her to keep the dress: https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/13/monica-lewinsky-shares-x-rate...
This part struck me as well:
But, no, the main constraint on MoviePass’s growth seems to have been the actual production of plastic prepaid credit cards, which it couldn’t print fast enough:
Given how much money they were losing, it wasn't possible use digital cards that could be added to phone wallets? Or am I missing something here?
Something that I found works well is just emailing influential people who you think would really benefit from your product and asking them for feedback. Since you're not selling your product, people (even busy ones) do reply. If you built a good product, they will keep using it (and maybe even tell other people about it) and if there are kinks that need to be ironed out, that's great to know as well.
This is apparently how Ilya from Datanyze got his first customer. He cold emailed Ben (then vice president at KISSmetrics) asking for feedback (https://artofemails.com/cold-emails#feedback).
Something I've noticed is a lot of companies use user onboarding and educational messages as a crutch for confusing UX and product experiences.
Many companies also have a one-size-fits-all approach to onboarding, where they send the same messages to all users, regardless of their in-product actions. Instead, it's better to trigger relevant messages if the user has taken a specific action and hasn't taken the next step to achieve Y result.
You can always send onboarding sequence to users who haven't taken any actions at all.
It should also be noted that for some established companies, a lot of their onboarding isn't necessarily to educate you but to force you to take certain actions that their testing has shown will make you active. For example, Pinterest forces you to follow certain topics when you sign up.
People buy based on recognizable brand names because it signals you're able to afford something in that price range and know "what's cool".
What's interesting is that some luxury brands's true high end lines are not really profitable (example: haute couture) and are actually supported by the brand's entry level "premium mediocre" products like canvas bags, perfumes, etc. In a way, the true luxury products acts as a marketing expense to bolster brand cachet, so their entry level products are coveted by the masses as status symbols.
What works for me is being able to toggle between a few different projects that requires slightly different skills and tasks. If I get stuck or tired of one, I can toggle to another project and still accomplish something.
Something else that works for me is letting go the guilt when I don't feel like something something (that's not urgent or time sensitive). If I'm not in the mood, I take a long break and allow myself to properly enjoy it without the guilt. This usually restores my motivation.
@csallen could probably jump in with some interesting insights. His site Indie Hackers was generating $5K a month from ad rev before it was acquired by Stripe (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14090063).
He actively reached out to relevant companies to ask them to place ads on his website.
If you brokered these type of ad partnerships, you could easily make a few thousand with your audience.
Ad types include: send a targeted email promo to users based on their analytics data, ads on the pages, etc.
Writing effective one sentence product descriptions can be boiled down to:
Describe in simple terms a major product feature that either or both:
a) solves the biggest pain point for your customer
b) makes you the most different from your closest competitor
Examples:
https://heapanalytics.com: Automatically track all website and app user actions - no coding required
https://mailchimp.com/: Easiest to use email marketing platform
https://www.pipedrive.com/: Drag and drop interface CRM - view all deals by type at a glance
https://www.getrevue.co - Effortlessly send a weekly newsletter to engage your audience
http://www.artofemails.com/ - Proven prewritten sales email templates
When you demand that your people bow and obey, and imprison people like A1 WW, this goes against promoting and nurturing innovation
This is a common misconception, especially by people who have never lived in China. Thinking political censorship means people are docile all spheres of life.
Chinese people are actually much more prone to rant and fight over everyday injustices: shopkeeper ripped you off, denied entrance somewhere, etc. etc. They just have to be careful not to publicly blame any politicians for the issue or try to organize some group activity to protest it.
Why do you think the government cracks down so hard? Because they're scared: massive and violent people rebellions have erupted throughout Chinese history.
Many Chinese people are also quite creative and innovative when it comes to making money and getting ahead. Some home cooks make deals with restaurants to let their patrons sample their homemade spices with their meals and to buy jars of it if they like it.
Others have started groups on Wechat where members pay to get advice on X topic (http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-11/13/content_22...). There are tons more examples like this. In fact, I'd argue it can be easier to get your idea started in China because regulations are lax and it's much easier to network to get what you need.
Also, just to point out, in the West, the majority of people aren't exactly "rebelling against the status quo" and showing "opposition to the norm" because they can march in a protest or sign a petition.
What can this teach us about SaaS pricing pages?
Even the most successful SaaS companies in the world don’t conform to the ‘best practices’ laid out by conversion specialists.
Not sure I agree with this conclusion. Obviously you should test to see what works for your audience but imo, the whole point of comparing how each company does X is to extract the most common patterns people can use as solid starting points.
The article would have been a lot of more useful if it listed at the end the most common elements SaaS pricing plans share like 63% offer a free trial. It's a waste of time to try to design from scratch instead of referencing what most of your peers are doing.
Also, just because some SaaS companies don't conform to the best practices, it doesn't mean that their way necessarily converts better. Maybe they would convert more if they did certain best practices.
I think someone else mentioned this in another post about this. Thought it was a great idea so I'll repeat it here:
To prevent fraudsters from using you to authenticate their stolen credit cards, set it up so that every purchase automatically redirects to a 'order successful' page. After seeing that a few their credit card numbers all seem to work on your site, the fraudster will realize they can't use your site to test and move on. In the back-end, turn on manual approval of each purchase and let through the ones you deem legitimate.
Should a legitimate customer mistype their credit card info, send them a follow up email with a link to the order page briefly explaining to them the situation and asking them to enter their details again.
(If there's some issue with this method I haven't thought of, let me know.)
Definitely agree with this. I'm surprised so many companies still bother to produce content in the form of crappy articles on beat the horse to death topics.
It feels like having a blog is a must-have to be a legit company these days so a lot of companies hire someone to churn out $30 articles just to have one.
I definitely think companies need to reimagine content. First by moving away from the incredibly boring blog format.
Examples:
Beautifully designed beginner SEO guide (almost feels like a choose your adventure book): https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
Interactive visualizations: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/13/us/politics/20...
Collection of email templates: http://www.artofemails.com/sales-follow-up
What impact would this have on the already embattled Theranos?
Maybe I'm missing something but I always thought renting designer clothes has a limited market.
People who attend many special events a year where they need a new outfit for each one typically have the disposable income to outright buy their clothes or have companies borrow them clothes for the publicity.
The average person who goes to a few special events a year? You can buy a nice outfit for just a little more than what they're renting a designer dress for. And you get the keep it forever and wear it some time later.
The only time I've rented a dress was for prom and that was because it didn't make sense to buy a dress I was going to outgrow in a few years.
Here's a very relevant article about how French youth get radicalized: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-other-franc...
Major points:
Unless you have the right connections, go to the right schools, have the right French names, it's very difficult to get a good job. Even more so if you come from banlieues. With no job prospects and isolation from mainstream society, some Muslim youths retreat to religion and out of those, some discover and/or led to radical ideologies.
If you read the article, you'll see that there are some Muslims who are trying to rescue these youths. I feel this could be part of an actually solution. Since Muslim youth won't trust outsiders at all, the government can provide Muslim community leaders some resources to intervene in the lives of youths that are going down the wrong paths from crime to radicalization.
Also, they can consider setting up programs for parents to identify the signs of radicalization and educate them about how to intervene and de-escalate. Apparently, a father of one of the Paris attackers even went all the way to Syria to persuade his son to come home. Even after offering him a plan where he didn't have to go to prison but could resettle in Algeria and try to rebuild his life, the son refused. After a certain point in the radicalization process, there seems to be a point of no return.
Clearly, just bombing ISIS is not going to work when the majority of these terrorists lived in Europe.
They also explain the psychology behind the emails - pretty useful.
First off, men also compete against other men. Men also compete against women. Basically, humans compete against each other.
Now about her theory:
That’s the third theory of female competitiveness that I’d like to propose: We aren’t competing with other women, ultimately, but with ourselves — with how we think of ourselves. For many of us, we look at other women and see, instead, a version of ourselves that is better, prettier, smarter, something more. We don’t see the other woman at all.
The article already starts off weak because it doesn't define and separate productive competitiveness from unhealthy competitiveness.
But assuming she's addressing the unhealthy "competitiveness".
Girls don't so much compete against other girls as compare themselves with other girls. When we perceive themselves as inferior in some way, some express our displeasure in unhealthy behaviors (gossiping, overcompensating, etc.) and negative emotions.
Most of it stems from poor self-esteem, poor self-image and a scarcity mindset (if there exists someone smarter, prettier than me, it threatens my chances of getting what I want). I don't imagine this to be specific to one gender though, I'm positive guys go through the same issues.
Horribly misleading headline as well. It clearly states in the article that it's most likely having dementia makes the brain more susceptible to fungal infections, not that dementia is caused by them.
While in an ideal world, people should not trust headlines alone, a lot of people do scroll and skim. And just merely being exposed to something could leave a mark in their memories. I'm pretty sure this is how a lot of misconceptions start.
Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised:
Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off
I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off girls.
However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a work/business purpose until my twenties.
Why? I think this issue affects both genders actually. I was simply never exposed to people or situations that showed me you could built really cool projects/businesses with code. I never encountered anyone/anything until ~20 that inspired me to take it seriously.
Maybe it has something to do with my gender but I think a lot of people these days are being forced way too early to commit to an education/work track without being given to chance to explore what their options are.
It's hard to discover you like a topic by learning it a classroom. I think co-ed / internship programs at a much younger age will help a lot. It definitely would have helped me discovered my true passions younger.
About being feminine
I don't feel un-feminine in any environment where there are more guys than girls. Rather, I think the problem is, the professional/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.) much more than feminine ones.
Even in dress, women are encouraged to dress like a man (power suits, solid colors, etc.) in professional settings to be taken seriously.
Thus as a girl, you're forced to act more masculine to achieve business goals. But it's hard to suppress your natural state of being. Additionally girls are still expected to (and want to) act feminine in their personal relationships so women "who want to have it all" have to toggle back and forth between being masculine and feminine. It can be exhausting.
Another Buzzfeed-y content site? Meh.
What I would actually like to see:
Have journalists contact Redditors who post interesting stories for interviews to write up more fully fleshed stories.
A lot of Redditors post really interesting stories about their experiences, businesses etc. It'd be super cool to read more about it.