The Next Generation Bends Over • Hacker News Board

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#161

Post by doki_pen » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:16 PM UTC

jasongullickson wrote: post #153

fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

" Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. " Selfish, short-sighted and immature...more words that describe the next generation.

Hmm.. People often forget the software is almost trivial compared to some of the worlds problems. What if you took your 50million and used it to help out hungry kids? Wouldn't it be better then trying to have some revolution around accounting software?

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#162

Post by doki_pen » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:17 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #148

hnal943 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loaning people money is the best way to turn your friendship in to a business. The borrower is slave to the lender; why would you want that dynamic in your friendship?

No, not always. It becomes a business when 1) you charge interest 2) you have some terms and conditions or attach some "strings" 3) you require collateral 4) you make your friend sign papers, and you leave "legal" options open When I loan a friend, all I say is "dude, this is just to help you, I know you are going through tough times. No way this is to insult or patronize you. you can return the money when you can, e…

It's bullshit. Invariably lending money to a friend leads to resentment. You are putting a dollar amount on the friendship. If they don't pay you back, will you still be friends? if yes, then why not just give them the money?

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#163

Post by itgoon » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:22 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #101

zackattack wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investme…

> pay off close friends' debts Honorable, but basically flawed. Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves. Should you ever find such wealth be very careful how you approac…

Your relationship with the people you know will change, regardless (been there, done that). Many of my long-time crowd are ecstatic to make $15/hr, and we still hang out on a regular basis.

After a few mistakes, here's the tack I've learned to take.

Treat everything you give as a gift. Don't expect _anything_ in return, and say so very clearly. This keeps you from giving more than you would like to, and prevents the recipient from asking for more.

Any kind of loan leaves the door open to additional requests; after all, they're going to pay it all back, so what's a little more? Which leads to resentment if you decline.

Considering it as gift prevents you from going overboard - if a gift is inappropriate (paying off a friend's debts falls here), then don't do it.

In my experience, the best way to give money to your friends isn't for the necessities, but for the luxuries. When I go to a party, I bring plenty of really good booze and/or beer. If we go out to eat, we go to nice places, and I pick up the tab. On trips, I pay the difference between the Motel 6 and the Sheraton (or whatever).

Part of it is couching it all in the right terms. You aren't doing this for them, you're doing it for yourself. I don't like cheap vodka, I like the good stuff. I don't like Motel 6. Then don't bring it up again.

The tone you want to set is that you don't want to share your money, you want to share your experiences. After all, that's how we all became friends to begin with.

ADDENDUM: it is also important to leave openings for your friends to help you, in whatever way they can. Right now, I'm prepping my house for sale, and I've had a stream of friends come over to help me clean and fix things. I could just pay someone, but this way is much more fun.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#164

Post by axod » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:23 PM UTC

malbiniak wrote: post #160

axod wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your belief that selling ads is not valid or useful to the user never ceases to amaze me. You sell a few online webapps, and get a full cut. People showing ads, sell them tech, finance, cars, whatever. Anything that's relevant, and get a smaller cut. A smaller cut of a massive pie is often better than a full cut of a very small pie. The website selling directly has a finite (small) number of things they can sell the…

I'm no 37signals, but I work closely with the advertising and marketing world. If I were to extend Jason's comments, I'd be shit nervous of making my primary revenue stream based on an ad model. It signals that the product/service I'm making doesn't provide enough value or utility to a single customer (even 1 out of 100) to compel them to give me some money. That's something to avoid, at least in the context of mitig…

Why is making money from advertising any more risky than trying to sell product directly?

It's actually the opposite IMHO. If you're selling directly to people, you have one chance to get it right. You need to be 100% sure they will buy what you're selling, at the price you're proposing. Also for several types of service, charging the user may not make sense - who would pay for access to a search engine?

With advertising, you're effectively acting as a middle-man, providing the users with the opportunity to buy millions of different things related to your own service. The risk is ridiculously low. That's why advertising as a model works so well on the web.

Both are completely valid, good business models. It's just funny how 37singles take every opportunity to make out that a business making money from advertising isn't a 'real' business.

The thing that hurts the model is silly people who slap up adsense, don't do their research or learn about how to make advertising work, and then moan about how they only make a few cents a day.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#165

Post by vl » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:40 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #124

zackattack wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investme…

pay off close friends' debts I think it would be a better idea to loan them money to pay off their debts. Of course, your loan should be interest free, shouldn't have any strings attached, should give your friends very long time to repay - otherwise there wouldn't be any difference between your loan and the 'other' loans in the first place.

Ironically, giving interest-free loan can produce complicated tax implications. It seems that loaner potentially may be taxed on the difference between 'reasonable marker interest rate' and (in this case) 0%. Receiver may potentially become liable for gift taxes.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#166

Post by vagostino » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:47 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #134

Isn't Aaron Patzer taking a fairly high-ranking job inside Intuit (as head of "personal finance software" or something) once the acquisition closes? If this was an acquisition fueled completely by a VC or investor, I doubt the founder would be interested or willing to then commit to the Big Evil Company that his revolution is being sold to. Therefore I think the main premise of Jason's blog post is wrong.

You've hit the nail on the head here.

See Scott Cook's (Intuit's founder) blog post: http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/intuit-not-out-to-change-mi...

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#167

Post by fallentimes » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:48 PM UTC

dcurtis wrote: post #159

fallentimes wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's partially true, but what also made them popular is exceptional PR, SEO and marketing. Yodlee has some features Mint does not and vice-versa.

No, none of those things made Mint popular. The quality of the product did.

That's just not true as the CEO himself admits and as their job postings and SERP rankings reveal. Mint were absolute masters of SEO and PR:

http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=-3624320565025573542

http://www.onecubicle.com/page/jobs/job/4581

"We didn’t have money for writers, so most of our original blog content then was guest posts from other personal finance blogs, plus a couple of columns on people’s worst financial disasters. To build demand, we started asking for email addresses for our alpha 9 months in advance of launch. Then when we had too many people sign up, we asked people to put a little badge that said “I want Mint” on their blogs to get priority access. We got free advertising and 600 link backs which raised our SEO juice."

Instead, we relied on press. It’s where I spent 20% of my time. I’m spending it right now while writing this."

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/the-value-of-techcrunch...

Having an awesome product certainly helped but it was in conjunction with their other efforts.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#168

Post by dpcan » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:56 PM UTC

steamboiler wrote: post #32

From a comment posted on the blog: "You may not realize how fragile Mint was. All the hard part was being done by Yodlee.com; Mint simply built a thin layer over Yodlee, and collected affiliate fees. Mint was not built for the long haul, it was built to flip. (Check out the free yodlee.com to see that this is true.)" I think this point is important. Mint was adding value to an existing set of services rather than cre…

Quickbooks Online has ways of connecting to bank accounts and getting balances automatically.

My guess is that Intuit will be able to dump Yodlee now and use their own systems.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#169

Post by zacker » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 5:58 PM UTC

adw wrote: post #105

zacker wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use Intuit software? Have you tried Mint? Everyone I've talked to that has a Mint account and has been forced to use Intuit software in the past is uniformly dismayed and confused by this acquisition. Banker math surely proves Aaron would have to show real hubris to ignore Intuit's offer, but founders rightly run startups, not bankers. Intuit is a $9B twenty five year old company. Mint could have given them a…

So you're arguing that Mint can make more by displacing Intuit than by getting bought, and that this is likely enough to offset the risk. Fair enough, judgement call. But what justifies it? 'Banker math'.

Motivation and conviction could have rightly trumped justification.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#170

Post by fallentimes » Fri, Sep 18, 2009, 6:06 PM UTC

jasongullickson wrote: post #153

fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

" Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. " Selfish, short-sighted and immature...more words that describe the next generation.

How's it selfish and short-sighted? And certainly that's better than making blanket statements about the next generation or having the gull to think a company is sparking a "revolution". That word is starting to become more overused than the word "celebrity".