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Tech Industry & Business
The most popular blog posts about tech industry & business on Hacker News. 507 posts.
A founder-friendly term sheet
When I invest (outside of YC) I make offers with the following term sheet. I’ve tried to make the terms reflect what I wanted when I was a founder. A few people have asked me if I’d share it, so...
A culture of beer and overtime
I quit my my last job after a little more than 2 months. Why? Did I jump into a position I was not excited about? ...
Why I Won’t Be Using BetaPunch for User Testing
Alternate Title: How NOT to Do Social Media for Your Startup This morning, I happily tweeted about the service UserTesting.com, which I’ve been using to ge...
GoDaddy, Media Temple, and the Horrible World of Web Hosting
There’s potential for massive profits: most customers of shared hosting and VPSes never come anywhere near their resource allocations so the machines can be extremely oversold, and most dedicated-server customers keep paying the “new” price of the server every month for years after its value has plummeted through the…
Stop Freelancing
I've been "freelancing" part time for the better part of the past 4 years and full time for the past 8 months, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that…
Ten Years of Bootstrapping: Lessons Learned
Note: I was holding off on posting this because I wanted to wait for our redesign to be finished…but alas, it is taking much longer than we thought it would…so as promised a while back, here is our story. Our Story: 10 Years of Bootstrapping In 2002, after several years of running a small but […]
LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network
The primary reasons LinkedIn is the mustached, trench coat and wire frame glasses wearing mouth breather of the internet are the “People You May Know” and “People Also Viewed” features.
Startup advice
In honor of the new YC batch starting tomorrow, here is some of the best startup advice I’ve heard or given (mostly heard): 1. Make something people want. 2. A great team and a great...
A horrifying startup accelerator story
Recently, I wrote a post called “Entrepreneurs Deserve Full Transparency” for my WSJ series. Several entrepreneurs wrote me, but this story really stands out as a warning to do your diligence and demand full transparency. Not all accelerators are created equal. I’ve posted the following email by permission of the…
My Experience in the Educational Apps Market – 2013 report
So after my 2011 and 2012 reports. Here's my 2013 report about my sales and experience as an indie educational iOS app developer. I hope yo...
Cisco to release BSD-licensed H.264 stack
As I noted last year , one of the biggest challenges to open source software has been the patent status of video codecs. The most popular codec, H.264 , is patent-encumbered and licensed by MPEG LA , under terms that prevent distributing it with open source products including Firefox. Cisco has announced today that…
Fertile Ground
One of my favorite patterns in our industry is when the old and established are wiped out by disruption, irrelevance, or changing fashions. Like a forest fire, clearing out the old is very destructive and shouldn’t be taken lightly. But what’s left behind is a clean slate and immense opportunity.
I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
I should have thought of it first. I walked into Starbucks one afternoon. Ok. Ok. I do this every afternoon, but something was different this time. Something really neat was going on.
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
Last Sunday, my post “What I learnt from bootstrapping my startup in Thailand for 6 months” hit #1 on Hacker News and then stayed there for most of the day. He…