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Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

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Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#21

Post by pacomerh »

Nice!, that's very inspiring, specially for the fact that you weren't afraid of asking for help. Lately I've been putting my pride aside and have been asking my friends, family and people I know about my services, and they don't necessarily give me work, but they link me to other people who need it. My whole point is that being open is really crucial, at first I didn't want to look as they friend who needed work really, but know I'm asking friends to help me with some projects (web production btw).

It would be nice to read about your whole experience though. Thx

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#22

Post by tptacek »

bmelton wrote: post #18

Congratulations -- but uhm... shouldn't you check back in with Patrick and make sure his needs are met? I mean, he's Customer #1, and it sounds like your reaction to that was to abandon him. I might be misreading, or Patrick may have backfilled you, but the 1 thing I know about business to be more true than most things, is you take care of your early customers, specifically if they were good to you.

Evolving relationships are a fact of life in consulting. Sometimes relationships grow, or even engulf the whole business, like Lucky Strike did for SCDP in Mad Men and Microsoft has done with a number of security consultancies. Other times, relationships become vestigial or vanish entirely.

The entire point of consulting arrangements is to allow businesses to set the most flexible and reasonable terms to work under. If Patrick wanted a Wordpress theme factory forever, he could have made that a contract term. Somehow, I doubt he did.

Matasano engaged Patrick. We may be one of his earliest clients! Somehow, I doubt he'll be as available for tactical one-off projects for much longer. That makes me happy.

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#23

Post by wwortiz »

bmelton wrote: post #18

Congratulations -- but uhm... shouldn't you check back in with Patrick and make sure his needs are met? I mean, he's Customer #1, and it sounds like your reaction to that was to abandon him. I might be misreading, or Patrick may have backfilled you, but the 1 thing I know about business to be more true than most things, is you take care of your early customers, specifically if they were good to you.

From Patrick:

> I'd be able to give you one project a month for $400 until you either got sick of doing them or decided to move upmarket.

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1171663]

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#24

Post by ynniv »

justlearning wrote: post #15

would you be willing to divulge details on your app/business and country you reside in? Does this income sustain your family? $300-400 usd seems very little to get by. At the time of your posting, it seemed like a "student" in need of the cash. It's pay back time - your experiences,lessons learnt will be appreciated.

$400 USD is quite prosperous in many parts of the world. Not in the US, or the wealthier nations.

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#25

Post by needmoney »

bmelton wrote: post #18

Congratulations -- but uhm... shouldn't you check back in with Patrick and make sure his needs are met? I mean, he's Customer #1, and it sounds like your reaction to that was to abandon him. I might be misreading, or Patrick may have backfilled you, but the 1 thing I know about business to be more true than most things, is you take care of your early customers, specifically if they were good to you.

You're right. But Patrick indicated to me that he was happy for me and that he would understand if I couldn't go on. I'll be totally honest, I should've kept in better sync with him and I felt terrible that my 2nd project fell behind schedule, but I really found myself totally engulfed in putting out fires in my personal business. Nothing went according to plan. I didn't abandon his project though, I finished it and got it to him a little late. I was just looking at it again today and I saw some problems I hadn't noticed before, so I sent him a patch.

It's really only now that I'm starting to get back a bit of time where I can do things like write this. I sent him an email telling him about this thread, but I'd bet he's asleep now.

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#26

Post by koepked »

eof wrote: post #2

Awesome. What is your business?

As I write this the above comment is 31 points! Please don't view this as a complaint, and to eof especially, I'm not saying the comment isn't worth that value. It just seems like an anomaly to me. Is it because everyone wants to know what the business is?

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#27

Post by bullseye »

koepked wrote: post #26
eof wrote: post #2

Awesome. What is your business?

As I write this the above comment is 31 points! Please don't view this as a complaint, and to eof especially, I'm not saying the comment isn't worth that value. It just seems like an anomaly to me. Is it because everyone wants to know what the business is?

>> Is it because everyone wants to know what the business is?

Yes.

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#29

Post by eof »

koepked wrote: post #26
eof wrote: post #2

Awesome. What is your business?

As I write this the above comment is 31 points! Please don't view this as a complaint, and to eof especially, I'm not saying the comment isn't worth that value. It just seems like an anomaly to me. Is it because everyone wants to know what the business is?

7 points 18 minutes later. People really want to know! I imagine it will stop when/if it is answered.

Re: Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.

#30

Post by [deleted] »

koepked wrote: post #26
eof wrote: post #2

Awesome. What is your business?

As I write this the above comment is 31 points! Please don't view this as a complaint, and to eof especially, I'm not saying the comment isn't worth that value. It just seems like an anomaly to me. Is it because everyone wants to know what the business is?

[deleted]
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