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Users You Don’t Want

themacro.com

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Re: Users You Don’t Want

#131

Post by nadagast »

CPLX wrote: post #50

Posting an article called "users you don't want" and then using a developmentally challenged teenager as the example of a user that you don't want is so spectacularly tone-deaf that I am left somewhat speechless. I keep thinking this will be the year that the valley types wake up and realize this kind of mentality puts them in existential danger from mobs with pitchforks, but it keeps not happening.

Do you think the 'existential danger from mobs with pitchforks' is justified? If they don't believe the outrage is justified, then they may be aware of this, but still speak these things out loud.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#132

Post by oz »

bsder wrote: post #79

Hmmmm. It probably depends upon how much money were talking. If the customer is throwing around a couple million dollars of NRE, it's probably worth bolting something on and pocketing the money. If the customer is only moving a couple hundred thousand, it's probably not. This seems more like a software-only startup issue. We have hardware and have these hard-nosed discussions all the time--generally about volume. Cus…

NRE = 'Non-recurring engineering', for those as ignorant as I was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-recurring_engineering

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#133

Post by phonon »

The is literally what every consulting firm does when they come in.

They create a "Whale" chart, aka "Cumulative Customer Profitability".

See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-feat... for a, umm, insider view of it.

and http://www.magesblog.com/2014/01/whale-charts-visualising-cu... if you want to see some sample code :-)

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#134

Post by bsder »

oz wrote: post #132
bsder wrote: post #79

Hmmmm. It probably depends upon how much money were talking. If the customer is throwing around a couple million dollars of NRE, it's probably worth bolting something on and pocketing the money. If the customer is only moving a couple hundred thousand, it's probably not. This seems more like a software-only startup issue. We have hardware and have these hard-nosed discussions all the time--generally about volume. Cus…

NRE = 'Non-recurring engineering', for those as ignorant as I was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-recurring_engineering

It could also be "non-recurring expense".

Sometimes things have a "setup charge" that you have to pay once, but then don't have to pay again.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#135

Post by bo1024 »

bsder wrote: post #79

Hmmmm. It probably depends upon how much money were talking. If the customer is throwing around a couple million dollars of NRE, it's probably worth bolting something on and pocketing the money. If the customer is only moving a couple hundred thousand, it's probably not. This seems more like a software-only startup issue. We have hardware and have these hard-nosed discussions all the time--generally about volume. Cus…

It definitely seems like a software thing because a hidden assumption in the article seems to be: if you build it for one person, you have to offer it to everyone. This makes sense for software where one customer alone will never pay for the investment of building the add-on.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#136

Post by athenot »

mwseibel wrote: post #2

Hey folks - slightly different piece today - trying to get away from investor/fundraising posts as of late. Would love your thoughts/comments/questions. I'll check in a couple times over the course of the day.

This really hit home as I was involved in another startup in the video streaming space. The founder was chasing every shiny use case and before long we had followed many rabbit trails and not moved on core product.

And you're 100% right: this resulted in us becoming glorified consultants.

I'd add that staying focused on the product is hardest for those from a sales background, who are accustomed to following opportunities. In all fairness, having an engineering background, I'm prone to the opposite problem: not recognizing fast enough when it's time to pivot...

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#137

Post by CPLX »

nadagast wrote: post #131
CPLX wrote: post #50

Posting an article called "users you don't want" and then using a developmentally challenged teenager as the example of a user that you don't want is so spectacularly tone-deaf that I am left somewhat speechless. I keep thinking this will be the year that the valley types wake up and realize this kind of mentality puts them in existential danger from mobs with pitchforks, but it keeps not happening.

Do you think the 'existential danger from mobs with pitchforks' is justified? If they don't believe the outrage is justified, then they may be aware of this, but still speak these things out loud.

If there are people half starving or barely able to survive, take care of their loved ones, or have any dignity, and you control so many resources as to be able to personally lift hundreds of thousands out of that misery, but don't, those people will eventually try to kill you.

We can sit here and academically discuss the degree of justification of that fact, but that seems to me somewhat tangential to the actual issue.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#138

Post by maxsilver »

derefr wrote: post #120
ryandrake wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yes, it's a difficult call. The customer might even start in with this (stop me if you've heard THIS one before): "Hey, we'll pay all your NRE for you and you get to sell it to everyone else including our competitors as part of your product!!" Do this, and your product people (if you have any) will all quit, and your engineering talent will start thinking "If we're just another custom engineering consulting compa…

Tangent: who are the "big consulting firms [who pay] actual money"? SAP? IBM? Salesforce?

I'd assume companies like Pivotal, ThoughtWorks, and such.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#139

Post by jdminhbg »

empath75 wrote: post #76
blfr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not profitable then why should Airbnb be the one to subsidize it? Why not the government? Or some charity? Or you? We don't expect anyone who meets a homeless person to offer them a place on their couch. That would be unfair. And an additional incentive to avoid homeless people. We have (well, not everywhere but at least we aim for) a systemic solution. There are homeless shelters for example, sometimes run a…

Yeah, those people shouldn't have made the choice to be disabled.

How is this at all a response to the parent poster?

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#140

Post by m4chth1s »

geofft wrote: post #114
blfr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not profitable then why should Airbnb be the one to subsidize it? Why not the government? Or some charity? Or you? We don't expect anyone who meets a homeless person to offer them a place on their couch. That would be unfair. And an additional incentive to avoid homeless people. We have (well, not everywhere but at least we aim for) a systemic solution. There are homeless shelters for example, sometimes run a…

Why would that argument not apply to "It's 1960, and I don't want to seat black customers at my fancy restaurant because it's statistically likely to be less profitable than seating white customers"?

I've never worked in the restaurant industry, but, I've heard from people who have that it's STILL extremely common for black customers to be considered undesirable. I.e. a server will get upset at a host(ess) if they get "too many" black customers assigned to their tables.

Why? Servers claim that black customers - on average - tip less.

I don't know how prevalent this belief on the part of servers is. And I don't know how much of a numerically accurate basis in reality it has.

But, as a thought experiment, imagine for a moment that there exists an identifiable group [black people, star trek fans, old people, dentists, ...] that are likely to lead a server to go home with less money at the end of the night.

There can be a really fine line between statistics/machine learning and "bias"/"racism".

Where it gets even more complicated is that there might be variables which are not expressed as "is the customer black" which ultimately predict/are highly correlated with the question "is the customer black" - but are also predictive of the question "is the customer profitable".

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