"Make something managers want. "
The PG quote reformulated...
Small Projects, Big Companies
51–60 of 77 posts
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#52The point on selling to managers is the big one, imo. Not users not the company, at least not directly.
While the "decision maker" is not the user, they may be the project lead/implementor.
Certain managers are looking for low risk, high visibility projects & notable successes. They're expending a sort of social capital within their company, putting themselves on the line.
Those are the managers that need to like your thing.
Companies selling to these people need to focus on those individuals, and figure out what the hell "costs," are, irl, to them. It's not money
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#53It's kind of disappointing that the pioneer "RFA" projects are all "more of the same" SV. I don't see anything audacious , like "build a chip that competes with Nvidia" or "build a pharmaceutical model that improves over what we have", or "find a way to do high quality journalism without a paywall". For that matter, I don't see any inkling that any of these ideas have anything in particular to do with their self-styled goal of helping outsiders get in.
For reference, here is what their main page advertised as what they seek: "We fund projects and startups built by ambitious outsiders... Apply with any type of project you need help with. It could be a company, physics research, journalism, or art..." The RFA is basically a message, "but really, this is what we want"
I guess it's easier to talk big than take risks with big money.
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#54Number 7 seems like a no-brainer. Is there a reason this hasn't been done yet?
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#55Number 7 seems like a no-brainer. Is there a reason this hasn't been done yet?
Pretty sure LegalZoom does this?
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#56> The golden dataset everyone wants is the org chart. Who reports to whom. Who is new. Who has been at the company for a while. Find a way to get this data and sell it to companies. I suspect you’ll have many takers. Please don’t. Please. Really. Please don’t. Training my users to fend off social engineering attacks is hard enough as is. Please don’t use your talents in this way.
Why such a strong reaction against the idea?
For someone who has to sell stuff, this would be incredibly valuable if executed well. It's possible to build something like this using only publicly available data about people and organizations.
Genuinely curious - where is the ethical problem?
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
That might be the point of the article, but the point of the grandparent is that the only method to get this data is to be seedy as hell. And that we should aspire to use our talents for better things.
Better things don't pay, at all. The most betterest things you can do as a developer - make infrastructure that makes other developers more efficient, or invent protocols or fundamentals to build ecosystems and industries on - often you get nothing for it. Because you made it open source, because you wanted it to be useful. But to try to make it proprietary would have been to make it useless. Theres a reason probably…
Why do we have such an emphasis on making our tools open source?
How much does the license matter?
Would it be feasible to release source code for inspection while simultaneously retaining exclusive rights to operate the software?
Would that garner a negative response from the developer community?
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#58It's kind of disappointing that the pioneer "RFA" projects are all "more of the same" SV. I don't see anything audacious , like "build a chip that competes with Nvidia" or "build a pharmaceutical model that improves over what we have", or "find a way to do high quality journalism without a paywall". For that matter, I don't see any inkling that any of these ideas have anything in particular to do with their self-styl…
It may also be a case of different strategies for different channels.
If I were a VC, I might prefer to solicit these kinds of solid, boring business ideas in an RFA and source moonshot ideas through my personal network. If I looked for moonshots from my open application process, I would probably end up wading through a lot of applications that would be time-consuming to vet.
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I love that the post points out the importance of selling to executives instead of users. As much as users hate most of their tools, they have very little say on what gets bought. Executives make those decisions and no amount of grousing or changing from internal users will change that. It's possible to "sell" directly to users, but you have to have a particular pricing structure: free to individuals. This is what…
Slack? In every company I know that uses it, it was blessed by IT. It’s hard to adopt for a subset of users in the company.
People can use it outside work though, and then propose it at work.
Re: Small Projects, Big Companies
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I love that the post points out the importance of selling to executives instead of users. As much as users hate most of their tools, they have very little say on what gets bought. Executives make those decisions and no amount of grousing or changing from internal users will change that. It's possible to "sell" directly to users, but you have to have a particular pricing structure: free to individuals. This is what…
Slack? In every company I know that uses it, it was blessed by IT. It’s hard to adopt for a subset of users in the company.
I've had the opposite experience. The developers start using Slack, then invite PMs, BAs, QAs, etc, they work with. Then the PMs start using it to talk to each other. Eventually, someone from compliance says "we need to pay for this to have a full audit log", and someone from IT says "what's the JML process for this?".