Absorb as much of the customer's risk in giving you a chance as possible

Nice advice from Hacker News today: MasterScrat 2 hours ago [-] I am working on a long-term project (an app for collaborative voice translation). Since I will be running out of funding for this project by the end of the month I tried spinning up an "easier" side business: selling websites to veterinary clinics.The idea is that I know well about webdev, and my gf is a vet, so together we could provide a good quality service to vets. Turned out, there was nothing "easy" about that! We discovered about the danger of trying to sell what you are able to build instead of what people wants. We discovered the pains of cold calling. It was a quite formative experience so I did a quick write up yesterday. Feedback is very welcome since we still intend to keep pushing a bit in that direction before we give up! reply

sharemywin 1 hour ago [-] You need to sell the sizzle not the steak. Nobody needs a website. some business need new business. some need ways for existing customers to more easily schedule appointments, etc...Also, the more risk you can absorb the better. don't sell websites sell appointments. or take a commission.

Can bit rot be quantified and minimized?

Bit rot is the name of the fact that software is written for a particular context.  When the context changes, if the software doesn't change then it gradually dies.

I suppose that the same principle can apply to other things. Fashions change.  Ecosystems change as well.  A car or a computer part that was useful 40 years ago may not find uses any more.

It might be interesting to quantify vulnerability to bit rot.  Can it be measured?  Can your vulnerability to it be minimized?

4 classes of metrics

• How many people use your stuff
• How deeply to they use your stuff
• How good is it at doing the thing you say it's supposed to do
• How much money do you make

Avichal Garg during Ycombinator Startup School office hours

Some things are hard to think about but easy to do. So just do them.

There are some things that are much more difficult when you're considering them than when you actually do them.

For me, writing is one of those things, especially if it's writing fiction.  But then, if I can get myself to actually start writing, I end up having fun, almost as though I'm reading the book that I'm writing.

So the key for me is to have the courage to open the text editor and read the last little bit that I've written and then to let the story come.  It's a fear thing, I think.  When I'm not writing, it seems like there will be nothing to write.  But then when I'm actually writing the story comes.

Maximize awesomeness, minimize attack surface

When you place something out into the world for general consumption, suddenly you are asked to do a bunch of different things.

But here's the trick: if you do all the things you are asked to do, you'll likely increase of the complexity of your product.  This increases the number of things that people will want to customize or have their way, which will actually increase the number of things you are asked for.  It's a never ending cycle.

Alex Schultz' Summary

• Move fast (good plan violently executed today better than great plan later)
• Focus on retention
• Have one key metric that you care about for your companies' growth

(https://youtu.be/URiIsrdplbo at about 47:45)

Data, when used in the right way, gives you empathy about your users

It's a nice quote from Alex Schultz (https://youtu.be/URiIsrdplbo at about 28:17)