I thought they were going to get around this by using a hidden flash player but most reports I've seen says it's going to be pure HTML5. I wouldn't put it past tech writers to get something wrong but if it is as they say and is pure HTML5, then yes it could be done.
They've F-ed them up worse than that, a few months ago I got a full feed of Fleshbot in the place of my Gizmodo feed. Fortunately I closed my laptop in time, or it could have been a much more interesting meeting at work (No doubt followed by one with HR)
Not sure I follow your reasoning for #3. Filling out this form seems to be the absolute least someone can do if they really want to work at a particular company.
I think taking 5 minutes to find someone at the company and emailing them a personal email will be way more successful for a candidate.
Plus I'd worry that you will sound like just another recruiter when presenting me to the company, so it may end up hurting my chances.
Involve your SO in your startup and then you don't have to choose. They don't have to be a co-founder, but maybe they brainstorm ideas with you or help with customer support.
I actually like the concept of color, but they really fucked up the launch. I don't see the use case as you describe.
Imagine being at a baseball game and in between innings you can pull up pics from all over the stadium.
Or you're a high schooler in a suburban town bored on a friday night and you can see pics of what your class mates are doing all over town.
The 150 ft range is stupid...it should automatically adjust to cover an area of interest whether that's a sporting event, party, apartment building or small town.
Anything with a human connection is great. For example , my wife and I got our app covered in the NYTimes because the reporter liked this narrative we gave her of a husband-wife team writing code on their honeymoon. Every news outlet including TC mentioned that though that is probably the least important thing about our app :)
I wrote an online payroll system that helps Canadian families through the employee tax issues they run into when they hire help around the house.
I ran into the same problems when we hired a nanny for our kids, and wrote some scripts to help me out. When the nanny left for another family she asked if I could write down how to do it all because the new family had no idea what they were supposed to do.
I realized I had a business on my hands and turned my scripts into a web service.
So if your company started out as a way to scratch an itch, or solve a problem, telling the story of how you solved the problem isn't a bad idea.
You're in education, right? Does what you make help overstressed teachers pressured by budget cuts to educate poor kids? Bam, a story. Tie it into a narrative they want to tell and you're just about done.
Eventually I developed stories like the following, each tuned to a certain category of listener. Here's the one for the journalists:
It's always fun to tell a journalist like you that we enable software developers to review each other’s code because your reaction is always: "Wait a minute, you're seriously telling me they don't do this already?" The idea of editing and review is so embedded in your industry you can't imagine life without it, and you're right! You know better than anyone how another set of eyeballs finds important problems.
Of course two heads are better than one, but developers traditionally work in isolation, mainly because there's a dearth of tools which help teams bridge the social gap of an ocean, integrate with incumbent tools, and are lightweight enough to still be fun and relevant.
That's what we do: Bring the benefits of peer review to software development.
Even if you don't have a personal story you should still be able to construct a nice narrative about how your product can help the end user. I think the important thing is to not just list 20 features and expect the user to be awed by your amazing product. Instead, give a description of situations where there are pain points and explain how your product comes in with just the right feature set and pricing to save the day.
Always offer your worst, most embarrassing moment -- the exact time you and your company were nearest death: the board meeting where your lead investor tried to have you deposed, sending you crying and running into the bathroom where you fall down, smash your head on the toilet bowl and end up in the ER for 19 staples and a CAT scan. The next day, an epiphany struck you, allowing you to patch things up with your big investor and send the company sprinting toward fortune.
A lot of people just talk about the epiphany. Don't forget about the tumultuous board meeting and the concussion in the bathroom. The bad times are as interesting--or moreso--as the good times.
Good stories will be told. Boring ones will go wanting.
Hey wasigh,
I'm in a similar situation, developer w/ teacher wife and education business. Two most important things I've learned:
1) You can sell to schools, but not by "selling" to schools. Instead sell to the teachers and they'll sell to the school for you. There are lots of ways for teachers to get schools to pay for stuff they want (grants, discretionary funds...). If you create a great product one teacher will tell another and before you know it a group of them want it and they'll pitch their principal.
I sold to 15 or so schools last year (big, small, public, private) and every one of them started with the school contacting me. I realize 15 is not a lot, but total time I spent on those sales was maybe 10 minutes and $0 each. I replied to emails, setup accounts and generated invoices.
2) As a developer you're going to want to solve the scale problem by coding. You need to fight this.
Talk to your customers constantly - make incremental improvements based on their feedback. Only when there is overwhelming demand add a new feature or in your case expand to a new area.
Do more SEO. You're top 5? Not good enough. The difference between #1 and #5 is huge. Figure out what keywords make you the most money (might not be what you think they are) and attack those.
A final note (this one is tough and I'll try to be tactful). In the end your wife (however awesome she was in getting the site started) is just a user. If she's not interested in the business side then you need to take ownership. That means you may make changes without consulting her and that are unpopular with her that are better for the rest of the community.
Currently most of our sales to schools go to teachers (that's why we keep the prices low, a teacher might even be tempted to pay by themself. We sold to over 40 classes.
I'll follow up on the invitation and e-mail you shortly!
I found that when I removed the second password field users thought they were signing instead of registering. This lead to users creating multiple accounts and panic-y emails about lost data.
HeyAmigo sounds like exactly what you are talking about. It was built by Carsonified a few years ago and sold (I think). The Bare Naked App blog was a chronicle of them building it.
Thanks for the link. I just visited and toyed around. I hate to be "that guy", but I didn't really love it. Does anyone here use Hey Amigo? What do you think? Good results?
- I can reserve online and they'll get it from any library in the network.
- Generally get new release DVDs much faster then Netflix
- Get entire seasons of TV shows at once instead of a disc at a time.
- Free
The big negative is I have to actually go and get them, but I generally pass the library daily, so it isn't that big of a deal.