siddharthdeswal

Fascinating read, thanks for submitting this.

Agreed, most "cloud" software slowly try to lock you in, only to lose it in a few years when they get sold, or shut shop, or don't get the next round of funding.

It's a pain, and I now wish we just have internet connected hard drives where we can save whatever we want.

Can you give more detail please?

> Employees want to work 5-10 years max and end up with millions to retire peacefully while working in an intense environment which serves as the story of their accomplishment for the lifetime.

Nopes, founders want millions by (ideally) using technology to disrupt a market and gaining from the windfall.

VC want millions/billions by betting money on such founders.

They both agree to buy talent by promising employees a share of the windfall.

Employees don't start out thinking "hey I want millions, let me join this unknown company".

They usually start out "I need a good, well paying job where I do interesting work."

Edit: spelling

I can appreciate how you feel, but the winner writes history. Out of curiosity, what was the name of the tech accelerator that you're referring to?

Why are people downvoting your question? Seems like a legit thing to ask.

I suspect HN behaves a little like how many folks treat their national army... you can't ask a question that may imply a bad decision during an important human/national event.

÷ "Why wasn't your system able to scale to 60 users during natural calamity?"

~ "How dare you question such a noble cause? Have you ever even worked with govt?" (Downvote)

÷ "Yes I have, we had systems in place that worked you know. Most states do."

~ (oh fuck, she knows what she's talking about) "States and municipals don't cooperate, so fuck off now"

So maybe, instead of attacking the OP, try answering the question directly, more honestly?

Make your points with logic and class people, not assholery.

Dude you seem to have a problem. Beating folks into one inch of their life looks to me a significant overreaction.

I understand your frustration, I've wanted to behave similarly many times in life, but actually doing it is a different thing altogether.

Studies will also show that inducing and keeping them in coma is one of the foolproof ways to ensure a person never tells another lie over a period of 10 or 20 or 30 years.

Controlling or having a low calorie diet isn't a medical treatment [1], it's simply a choice an individual (in most cases) makes. They choose to not continue with the original choice after some time, so to club diet-control under 'medical treatment', and say that it doesn't work, is incorrect.

[1] https://www.wisconsin.edu/workers-compensation/coordinators/...

Edit, grammar.

This is a skill I want to develop. Could you give us the name of the book please?

I think parent is saying something similar to you, but you've just laid it out in more detail. They didn't say the other things you've mentioned don't matter. They said that the product can't be a scrappy MVP.

On the flip side, B2B conferences and tradeshows exist because they're able to give vendors face time with people they couldn't easily meet otherwise.

It's not cheap, the success rate isn't high, but it can be cost-effective. I've spent 20k USD on a small 6x3 feet booth space, but also gotten 40 to 50k USD over the course of a few months from conversations that were initiated at the booth.

Another point to factor in is that enterprise customers by nature have low churn... and that makes the RoI work out in the end.

Reiterating problems in the existing way of doing things is a fairly well known method of getting interest and buy-in from prospective customers, so I think the initial rant might actually be connecting with people.

Good point, I'll be happy to refer to a company as a unicorn if they do 1 billion in annual revenue and positive net profit.

Agreed, building a high cost high value brand, and then moving downmarket is known to work.

I compared this to Juicero because the "degree of innovation" in their product doesn't seem to justify the 20x price premium [1].

To compare, a cheap Nokia is ~INR 4000, a OnePlus 5 is ~INR 30000 and an iPhone 7 is ~INR 45000.

However, there's a world of difference in features, components, software in the 10x phones.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EZYA61K/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=...

Not defending him, but seems like a chump who had exhausted every alternative, but won't talk about it honestly, and prefers to go with "this wasn't a failure, you were amazing, I was amazing, product was batshit amazing, onwards to our next adventure!"

I want to point out that they weren't necessarily building a great lock.

The "great product" bit seems to be the usual consumer startup rhetoric by the CEO, which many people fell for.

I can confidently say that it is marketing rhetoric because a similar example already exists in the world: car locks.

I still drive a car where you have to manually insert the key and turn it to open the door.

I've also driven cars where the locks are remote controlled.

I've also seen cars where you press your thumb to the lock to unlock it.

There's nothing "great" about any of the above after the first two or three uses.

It's good this happened, else we'd have another Juicero on our hands.

Ridiculous price, beautifully over engineered product, a slight update to a centuries old problem, but at least they didn't get the opportunity to burn up as much investor money as Juicero.

What does "PC" stand for?

I'm Indian and I agree with you. Parent overdid it a little bit. People gives many shits about the H1B, and it isn't that easy to pull Indians back from the US.

Relatively easier than say ten years ago, but not at the level of bravado that parent exhibits.

You're way off on Magento.

See https://magento.com/news-room/press-releases/digital-commerc...

They're not a WordPress plugin, and they are a large company.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think you know what you're talking about.

Firefox Focus is good too.

Interesting point. Could you add more detail to your comment please?

Did anyone else feel that this post was very difficult to read? I'm not being insensitive. I haven't really understood what the author was saying in this post.

All I got was that some colleague (or her husband was it?) was feeling bad for the author. After that it was a lot of words & sentences, broken up into paragraphs. Couldn't get anything more than that.

Agreed, mature markets have usually been carved up, and competitors have to fight to gain even an inch of market share. In such a scenario, a dollar saved is a full dollar in the pocket.

A dollar gained would have many costs to gain that dollar.

Could you please add details about when you agree with Cost vs Revenue section, and when you don't... that'll throw more light on your actual position.

Or do you absolutely disagree with the Cost vs Revenue section?

- Dead simple call to action... agreed

- Diagonal lines are cool because they stand out... can't really comment on that. Have seen such points before on Smashing Magazine, back in like 2007 or 08, where certain elements break commonly accepted design paradigms and therefore standout.

- Illustration/hero image is nice because not too much detail... see this one I feel is force-fitted. You could say that about most hero images and you'd be right.

- Well executed typographic contrast... I'll look at it in detail again. Didn't notice some of those points, as opposed to websites of other funded tech companies.

- Color palate well suited to industry... read those points too, but I'm wary of them because they're like people's taste in wine, music or art.

- Interactive elements giving polish.... YES, this I 100% agree with. The mark of great craftsmanship is an incredible attention to detail and execution.

- Design I mention... just google "best landing pages" and took the first example in the first result.

I can appreciate why you feel my post was worthless.

I had a couple points:

1) There's a halo effect surrounding Stripe right now, due to which fairly common stuff that they do will be treated as if it's outstanding, and deserves extra adoration and respect.

2) This = "Stripe's design isn't great design. It's design that a certain people like. If you're saying it's great, then define for whom."

What do you think now?

Not my product, neither am I affiliated in any manner. I just googled "beautiful landing pages" and picked the first one in the first result to make my point.

Stripe's current design went live sometime in September 2016. Mixpanel's went live somewhere in Jan 2017. For a design overhaul of this scale, it's unlikely there was any 'inspiration'.

Thank you! Best laugh I've ever had on HN.