61–70 of 261 posts
Stupid question, how could you possibly automate lead generation? For that matter, how do you do it manually? Search for potential customers and read up about their business?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked for a mom + pop Amazon seller (manufacture + ship from China to America, stick packaging on it, send it in to Fulfillment by Amazon, collect a check) He's probably worth $50m as one of the top 250 sellers. Probably ~20 SKUs. Tons of competitors trying to bring him down but his product has so many reviews that it is just a money printer. He was smart to be at the right place at the right time. He undercut the…
What is this new trend of belittling accomplishments down to luck? At the very least, thousands of people had the same opportunity to do what your boss did. And that's if we take your word that this is all he did, and he didn't negotiate at all or spend any time researching what products to sell, or take a loss in the beginning to provide good customer service for future gain. Even seeing the opportunity is a skill i…
If you don't mind me asking, I'd like some help laying out what my next steps should be on one of my side projects. I had an idea for a side project, ran it by a hand full of friends and associates, expecting to have a bunch of holes poked into it (they have done that to me many times in the past). This time they all think I have something. Problem is I work full time, as a Linux systems engineer (30 years of Unix ex…
> The upshot is that it can be easily replicated by anyone in a similar space I think many problems are like this. We engineers to think that we have to build something "rocket science", but actually many businesses don't require "rocket science" software to take off. It's more about the execution. >I'm relatively new at modern advanced web apps, so things like taking payments, handling customers, integrating to a cu…
I would even go further than that, that's exactly the reason why Wordpress and basic CMS are very popular, most companies have some very basic and similar IT needs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked for a mom + pop Amazon seller (manufacture + ship from China to America, stick packaging on it, send it in to Fulfillment by Amazon, collect a check) He's probably worth $50m as one of the top 250 sellers. Probably ~20 SKUs. Tons of competitors trying to bring him down but his product has so many reviews that it is just a money printer. He was smart to be at the right place at the right time. He undercut the…
What is this new trend of belittling accomplishments down to luck? At the very least, thousands of people had the same opportunity to do what your boss did. And that's if we take your word that this is all he did, and he didn't negotiate at all or spend any time researching what products to sell, or take a loss in the beginning to provide good customer service for future gain. Even seeing the opportunity is a skill i…
Many accomplishments are mostly luck? Japan Rugby beat South Africa in a 7s match a while ago. Are the players now entitled to call themselves better than those on the South African team? I mean, sure they could, but it would be obviously false, and nothing of value is gained. This reduces all the way down to “accomplishing” choosing lottery numbers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked for a mom + pop Amazon seller (manufacture + ship from China to America, stick packaging on it, send it in to Fulfillment by Amazon, collect a check) He's probably worth $50m as one of the top 250 sellers. Probably ~20 SKUs. Tons of competitors trying to bring him down but his product has so many reviews that it is just a money printer. He was smart to be at the right place at the right time. He undercut the…
What is this new trend of belittling accomplishments down to luck? At the very least, thousands of people had the same opportunity to do what your boss did. And that's if we take your word that this is all he did, and he didn't negotiate at all or spend any time researching what products to sell, or take a loss in the beginning to provide good customer service for future gain. Even seeing the opportunity is a skill i…
There is a whole genre of get-rich-quick scammers claiming that exact thing:
https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-scam-lawsuit-bowser-washing...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/men-p...
Just because something is possible does not mean it is common. Why didn't all the hard-working software entrepreneurs from the 1980s end up like Bill Gates? Discounting luck and good timing leads to the Horatio Alger fallacy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked for a mom + pop Amazon seller (manufacture + ship from China to America, stick packaging on it, send it in to Fulfillment by Amazon, collect a check) He's probably worth $50m as one of the top 250 sellers. Probably ~20 SKUs. Tons of competitors trying to bring him down but his product has so many reviews that it is just a money printer. He was smart to be at the right place at the right time. He undercut the…
What is this new trend of belittling accomplishments down to luck? At the very least, thousands of people had the same opportunity to do what your boss did. And that's if we take your word that this is all he did, and he didn't negotiate at all or spend any time researching what products to sell, or take a loss in the beginning to provide good customer service for future gain. Even seeing the opportunity is a skill i…
I don't think OP meant as black and white as you see it. There is some luck factor involved in many of the successful projects. What people should be wary of is thinking of it as a formula for success - add x and then y and voila you win. It is not that simple.
I created a successful side project back in 2014. It is still running and making 20 times more than I would get with a normal job. But i was lucky. Lucky to be born in a rich country. Lucky because I was given a computer at the age of 5. Lucky because I had unlimited education opportunities. Lucky because I had a friend who gave me access to something I needed for my business. And many other lucks. I will never deny…
I worked for a mom + pop Amazon seller (manufacture + ship from China to America, stick packaging on it, send it in to Fulfillment by Amazon, collect a check) He's probably worth $50m as one of the top 250 sellers. Probably ~20 SKUs. Tons of competitors trying to bring him down but his product has so many reviews that it is just a money printer. He was smart to be at the right place at the right time. He undercut the…
> As a millennial there are few things that rank as desirable as finding a recurring source of income that doesn’t take much work That made me laugh! As someone much older I can honestly say that there are few things that rank as desirable as finding a recurring source of income that doesn’t take much work for me too.
If you want other people to buy, rent, invest, etc., you have to be able to find the right people and communicate with them in a way that will lead them to become your customers/partners. Unfortunately, I doubt many of us with CompSci degrees and years/decades of experience have those sales and marketing skills.
So I guess there's a business just waiting (for someone who knows sales + tech)! Teach nerds how to market. I might be a customer.
I actually did this too... I create Datastreamer ( http://www.datastreamer.io/ ) which (when I created it) was an RSS syndication platform as a service. You gave us RSS feeds and then we would index them and send you the output without having to deal with the insanity of RSS feeds. This was a decade ago though. I've been running it since and now it's more of a massive search engine of content - nearly a petabyte at t…
> I was more focused on enjoying life, traveling, backpacking, etc. > In retrospect when you're sitting on a rocket it might make sense to buy more gas and light up that bad boy. I can identify with this. I started a Facebook game in early 2008 that picked up a million users in its first year. Back then all the stars were aligned and if I would have had a bigger vision for it there’s no reason it couldn’t have turned…