rcvassallo

Great points, re: discrepancies. In a way, I'm seeing both sides of the coin with a client for whom I designed and developed custom business software. Initial monthly budget gave me the flexibility to be a rockstar that actually put in quality tests and refactored for long-term maintainability.

The client is happily using the software and has many more ideas to implement, some of which I supplied! The system helped them explosively grow their business but over time has become part of the daily business routine which inevitably means they want to reduce costs.

Naturally, this means we are building fewer features each month but the cost focus pressures me to sacrifice some refactoring, testing, and UX quality which makes me feel more like the grunt that maintains it. On the plus side, my effective hourly rate has improved since I negotiated a fixed monthly fee into our contract and I've had time to find a couple more clients :)

Agile is definitely an implementation detail but good clients will care about it for precisely the reason you provided.

They won't care to hear about the specific labor pains, but they will love it when you tell them your "agile" development process allows them to get prototypes quickly and provide further input as their ideas take shape.

"In other words, if your methodology is so great, use it to your business advantage."

I did and it resulted six-figures worth of contract work last year from just one client. Part of my sales pitch was to explain agile development in a way that focused on their business.

When I asked the client why they chose to work with me instead of the bigger agency, they mentioned 2 things: 1) They liked the feedback-driven development process and 2) I talked about their business instead of the technology that would go into the software.

The best part is that an agile process helps you position yourself as a trusted advisor instead of a commodity laborer. When you do that, your clients get better results and provide repeat and/or referral business.

TLDR: The best clients do care if you're agile about their business needs.

It's not that simple. Being "agile" does not necessarily makes you an employee in the US. From IRA Pub 15-a:

"The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if you, the person for whom the services are performed, have the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result."

As an agile contractor you can give clients options that allow them balance quality & cost without being under "behavioral control." The client gets to say they want to build a widget that does X and Y, then you choose to build it at time T using whatever tools and methods you deem appropriate.

Couple that with offering these services to the public: "People such as doctors, veterinarians, and auctioneers who follow an independent trade, business, or profession in which they offer their services to the public, are generally not employees."

That said, "whether such people are employees or independent contractors depends on the facts in each case" so make the facts obvious in your contract with a section like this:

"Independent Contractor. The Parties agree that Contractor is an independent contractor and that Contractor has full control over the methods utilized in performing the Services. Contractor will not make any representation of an employment relationship between Contractor and the Company and will not claim any benefits provided by the Company to its employees. Contractor has no authority to contract for or bind the Company in any manner, except with prior written consent of the Company. Contractor shall devote such amount of his or its time, attention, knowledge, and skills as may be required to create and deliver the Product and to perform the Services."

Baby steps. I got my feet wet by taking on a roommate at my first house for the extra cash flow. Once I had saved up enough for a down payment on a 2nd house, I bought it, moved there, and rented out my first place. If things keep going well I plan invest in a 3rd property by the end of this year.

Some factors that helped out:

1. I live in Texas so buying there is a healthy margin between mortgage payments and rent prices. Insurance prices eat into this margin but once you're renting this becomes and above the line deduction on your taxes.

2. I bought my first house when I was 22 and lived there for 5 years.

3. Luck - my first house was flooded by Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Insurance payout worked out to a free remodeling and a kickstart for the down payment on the 2nd house.

4. I found tenants through assisted housing programs. Put in the work to find people who feel your property is a dream house, then they will want to be long-term tenants. The housing program pays via direct deposit on the first of the month so you never have to chase down money.

5. Maintenance - get friendly with some people who work at home depot and local plumbing and electrical services so you can have a handyman to fix the inevitable problems that crop up.

6. I had a friend who was going to transfer to a college near my 2nd house so he's living with me as a roommate. The deal is win-win - he saves money, time, and vehicle expenses while paying the mortgage for me and then some.

Hope that helps!

"Never have to work again rich"

I'm almost there. At this point, I just resigned my full-time job and have enough cash on hand to maintain my current lifestyle for the next 10+ years before even thinking about finding a new job or withdrawing funds from my retirement accounts.

How did you do it?

I worked in IT at a community bank and built a reputation for software development. After ~5 years there, I started a consulting business on the side to develop websites and custom software. The CFO at the bank introduced me to a client that was growing fast and wanted to build their own software to eliminate their growth bottlenecks. By focusing on their business needs, I was awarded 2 contracts over 2 large firms and an independent developer that bid on the work.

How old are you?

I was 24 when I started working at the bank, 29 when I started the business. I'm turning 31 at the end of this month.

What was it specifically that made the cash that ended up in your pocket?

One of the contracts I mentioned above was to build and host a project management tool. I priced this hourly since I could see the potential for this to become a long-term project. Once the software was up and running, I packaged a hosting and support service together which effectively works as a perpetual 4-figure per month retainer.

The client thought this project would be done in 3 months but I was able to show them the software had much more potential than they expected. Yesterday marked the start of the 2nd year of development with a rate increase of 25% on development work.

All this was accomplished part-time and put over $160k into my pocket in the last year. I've used some of the money for real estate investments which have pushed my zero-effort monthly recurring revenue up to $3500 after expenses.

The client is now interested in selling the software, and since I carefully positioned myself as the provider of hosting and development services, they're open to a revenue share. If this works out then I'll officially be "never have to work again rich"

Do you feel happy in your life?

Yes! But the money didn't make me happy. The first few 5-figure checks were exciting but now the money is almost irrelevant.

In my experience, this is something you can learn as you go.

To get my first major gig started, a 1-page proposal that outlined how my services would help the client fulfill their goals was enough. A formal contract came later and we have been working together for a year now.

In fact, the client was asking "Where do I sign?" before I even mentioned the formal proposal.

What I learned was that the right clients care about their results and whether you can get them there first and foremost. Pricing and contracts are afterthoughts.

I've recently made the decision to go full-time consulting after a year of balancing contract work on the side with full-time employment.

In my experience one of the biggest reason to avoid being a full-time employee is the difficulty in climbing the value chain. As a consultant, I'm a trusted advisor that helps my client bring their business to the next level. As an employee, I'm just maintaining the ship.

I'm sure you can guess which one brings in more money :)

Thanks for pointing out some of the finer details on pet food, very informative.

Still, my basic point still stands, that our pets do just fine on essentially a single source of food. Why would it matter if it was blended into a glop? My cat has food allergies so he's been fed a single high-quality hypoallergenic food for over 3 years now. It stopped his excessive itching, made his fur softer, and he generally shows all signs of being very healthy according to the vet. I'm sure all the lab research contributed to the cat food's effectiveness and it would be great to see the same happen with Soylent.

>> claiming you can go on and on on just one food source for long periods of time without extensive testing is just irresponsible.

How can pets tolerate eating the same food for a long period of time? Most cat and dog owners get one brand of food for their pet and stick with it for years at a time.

Are our digestive systems really that different?

No. There's a reason why racers love cold air intakes, and it's not for efficiency, it's because you get to burn more fuel and thus make more power!

The extra fuel comes automatically because modern EFI (electronic fuel injection) motors use several sensors in a feedback loop to ensure that the air:fuel ratio is 14.7:1

There is an air temp sensor and compensation that adds roughly 1% fuel for every 10F drop in temperature. Then the oxygen sensor in the exhaust system measures whether combustion is hitting the 14.7:1 target and adds or subtracts fuel accordingly.

OP make a good point that comments help to make your intent more clear, while the code itself just explains what the program does. Very good reason to have some comments here and there.

But I'm with Toshiro - test your damn code! Testing first brings all the benefits of commenting and more:

Tests help document and clarify your intent. They convey your assumptions, expectations, and show you exactly how methods are expected to behave when you run the test.

3 months later when you're adding new features, a failing test tells you that you introduced a bug before you ever run the new code.

That said, comments have a place in the tests themselves. Much better than scattering comments all around the code base.

The other place for comments is in the version control. Make small, frequent commits and set up your version control so that it forces you to comment each time.

When you're doing these things, comments in other parts of the code are just redundant and noisy.

Not sure why the trunk mount is relevant for interfacing with the car. The brake switch signal activates your brake lights, those are typically at the rear of the car :)

Admittedly, for a universal application you want to interface with as little of the car as possible.

That said, in the US all cars made after 1995 comply with certain On-Board Diagnostics protocols (OBD-II) so you can interface with several standard systems.

One such sensor available in OBDII is the VSS or the Vehicle Speed Sensor. Check out a device like the Scan-Gauge[1] to get an idea of other sensor that can be interfaced with universally. It would be trivial to run some wire under the carpet and plug into the OBDII port to give the hybrid system access to all kinds of engine & sensor info.

[1] http://www.scangauge.com/products/scangaugeii/

You're making the problem harder than it needs to be.

Knowing when the car is braking is trivial - the vast majority have a dedicated brake switch wire.

Why do you want to prevent the normal brakes from engaging when regen braking is happening? Since the electric motors are on the rear wheels, braking traction will be severely limited. The majority of braking needs to happen up front due to dynamic weight transfer.

Instead, use a simple brake balance controllers to reduce the mechanic braking effort at the rear and make up for it with the regenerative braking. Brake balance controllers are readily available in the aftermarket, so this is a solved problem.

It was meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek, I like to poke fun at the mystical math connections as well. I will remember the smiley next time :)

I do prefer the 16:10 monitors though. I recently tried to get a warranty replacement on a 16:10 8-bit IPS monitor from dell, but they kept sending me a monitor with a 16:9 6-bit AFRC panel. Seems that everything Dell offers in the 22" range is a 16:9 now :(

Right on. I think the proximity to φ says it all:

φ = 1.618 16:10 = 1.6 16:9 = 1.777

I just saw this at my job last week - literally.

Walked into the bathroom and the CEO was in action with a mop in his hand. He looked up and said "Oh hey I'll be out of the way in a few seconds, sometimes the toilet in here leaks."

I applied as a solo founder with no idea, so I knew a rejection letter was inevitable. In all fairness I am not quite ready to build a company but I took the opportunity to apply with no idea anyway.

I currently work as a sysadmin for a 1bn bank, but developing software is my passion and what I really want to do is start my own tech company.

I'm taking small steps. I've completed 2 bonus projects for my bank to build useful web-apps. I work on my own time & maintain IP ownership to my software so you could say I just need to start selling to other businesses.

Applying to YC is another small step to help push myself in the startup direction. My goal for the application was just to get my name in front of someone at YC. If my video was watched then I consider it a smashing success.

I applied as a solo founder with no idea, so I knew a rejection letter was inevitable. In all fairness I am not quite ready to build a company, I just hope my application was read once or twice.

So who am I? Just a guy who started as the online banking help desk at $1B bank. I took the position just to get my foot in the door, and promptly proved my awesomeness with jack-of-all-trades problem solving that revamped their IT department from the ground up. My accomplishments drew c-level attention (walking into the CEO's office and telling him how much money I save him helped) so I'm now the lead sysadmin and further promotions are in sight.

But like many here on HN, developing software is my passion and what I really want to do is start my own tech company.

I'm taking small steps. I've completed 2 bonus projects to build custom web-apps for the bank intranet. Semi-formal contracts between myself and the CIO for the bank to purchase software I built on my own time and maintain my own IP. Yes it is awesome that they let me do this.

From that point of view, I'm already developing and selling software to a small business, I just need to expand. If I had explained myself this way in the application I may have generated some more interest.

Instead I mentioned that the timing wasn't very good and I want to learn some things from gauntlet of challenges ahead in my current job.

Applying to YC was another small step to help push myself in the startup direction. My main goal was just to get my name in front of someone at YC. If my video was watched then I consider it a smashing success.