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Take the Money and Run

nate.io

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Re: Take the Money and Run

#161

Post by PhasmaFelis »

nine_k wrote: post #54
waqf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's an item of American culture you may be missing, it's probably that American restaurants can be very cheap.

In particular, a McDonald's is considered a restaurant in the US, and there are restaurants that are lower-key and cheaper than McDonald's. Of course, high-end restaurant also do exist.

I'm in the US, and I don't think I've ever seen a restaurant cheaper than McDonald's. You can get a filling meal there for $2 if you order from the dollar menu. Even at most other cheap fast food places, you couldn't do that for less than $5.

Re: Take the Money and Run

#162

Post by PhasmaFelis »

logfromblammo wrote: post #82
pyre wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post states that soup is easy to make in large batches. This is true. Cut up some stuff toss it in a pot with some water, and turn on the stove (for the most part). You're just limited by the size of the pot, and the mechanisms you have for storing the soup. I think it's rather hyperbolic to have some strong association between the word "soup" and cultural icons like "stone soup" stories.

Here's a thought experiment for you. Collect one copy of every restaurant menu written in English. Scan each menu to find food items that are primarily liquid in character. Note the word used to describe it, and the price of the item. Find the median list price for each word. In your thought experiment, does the median price of a "soup" differ significantly from the median prices of "bisque", "stew", "chowder", "brot…

> It would be for the same reason that some restaurants don't put $ or numbers with two decimal places anywhere on the menu.

I had thought it was a signifier that the place is supposed to be high-class; the implication to me is that open discussion of money is slightly distasteful and should be done as briefly as possible. (And leaving off decimal places in particular says "no one here is so regretfully poor as to consider quibbling over mere fractions of a dollar.")

Re: Take the Money and Run

#163

Post by PhasmaFelis »

pjlegato wrote: post #136
gamblor956 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American here. Everyone I know calls McDonald's a restaurant. They may choose not to eat there for health or ideological reasons, but everyone agrees that it is a restaurant, and has been a restaurant since its inception decades ago.

If I say to a friend, "What restaurants are around here?" nobody I know would ever reply with "McDonald's." It is a "fast food place," not a "restaurant." A "restaurant" has table service and a higher standard of food quality. The original comment said that Americans consider McDonald's a restaurant, in implicit contrast to unnamed other places where McDonald's does not qualify as a "restaurant," as a way to suggest…

I'm with Gamblor. That may be your experience, but in my experience McDonald's barely sneaks into the definition of "restaurant." It could certainly be mentioned in response to "What restaurants are around here?"

A restaurant would be anywhere that a group can go to have food prepared for them, and then sit down and eat it. Most gas stations don't qualify on either count.

(And incidentally I've been to some really excellent, chef-owned restaurants that don't have table service. Cajun places, mainly. Cajun seems to occupy a weird intersection between "classy" and "cheap" that no other cuisine can enter.)

Re: Take the Money and Run

#164

Post by PhasmaFelis »

Animats wrote: post #157
myth_buster wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I posted this above before I read yours. You also seem to have a knack for writing. Reading the beginning, I got the The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. feel.

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." That's so last-cen analog TV.

It amuses me to think that millenials would interpret that line as meaning that it was clear and sunny.

Re: Take the Money and Run

#165

Post by zodiac »

pjlegato wrote: post #137
steveklabnik wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industry calls them "quick serve restaurants" as well.

McDonald's is in some technical, economic sense a "restaurant" in that it serves food for pay. In non-technical everyday usage, the word "restaurant" implies table service, excluding places where you must carry your own food around.

> In non-technical everyday usage, the word "restaurant" implies table service

The english language varies considerably by geographical region, the speaker's socioeconomic class, etc. Your statement is not universally true; I've met people to whom it's true and people to whom it's not.

Re: Take the Money and Run

#166

Post by myth_buster »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #164
Animats wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." That's so last-cen analog TV.

It amuses me to think that millenials would interpret that line as meaning that it was clear and sunny.

Much like how poetry will mean different things for different generations. Perhaps 100 years down the line nature would mean vicious tyrannical entity.

Re: Take the Money and Run

#167

Post by adyus »

nkohari wrote: post #116
AwesomeGorilla wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zen looked nicely done. How would you compare these two platforms?

The new platform is light years ahead of the old one. Part of that is six years difference in technology, part of it is that I have another six years of experience, but mostly it's a difference in mindset. RethinkDB and React in particular are fantastic.

How do you feel about Meteor.js?

Re: Take the Money and Run

#168

Post by jacques_chester »

themodelplumber wrote: post #53
exelius wrote: post #23

Aah, so it sounds like one of the big reasons you sold was because of imposter syndrome? I don't mean that negatively -- I feel one of the things that comes with experience is you realize that nobody knows what they are doing. This dispels the impostor syndrome pretty quickly. Once you think you know how a business or industry works, you develop patterns to solve it. This can sometimes work against you because it can…

Hahaha. That is true. One of my favorite ways of getting used to this is thinking of my biggest competitors as friends (or trying to). I would say "keep your enemies closer" but I really don't think of them as enemies. On the advice of my business coach I usually call my competitors to chat every once in a while and I think we mutually realize that we're just trying our best not to go obsolete. We also need each othe…

> When a new competitor shows up, they are usually inexperienced and either won't last long or will end up joining our club of friends. That's just how it works.

Not that I am a lawyer, but depending on your jurisdiction, you will need to be careful about what topics you can and cannot discuss.

Antitrust and consumer protection laws can bite you if you stray into the wrong subject.

Re: Take the Money and Run

#169

Post by nikibeth »

bontoJR wrote: post #29

Very nice story, I have just one question: why did you guys not look for fundings or apply to something like Y Combinator? Also, I know there are a lot of other similar stories around the US. I would really like to find and ear something similar in an European country, in the hi-tech industry: a small startup doing a good job, with a tiny but prepared team, being lately acquired by a larger competitor. Is there any s…

We wanted to focus on building the product and getting it to market as quickly as possible, to see if people were even interested in what we were doing. Also, I was still in graduate school and under contract to teach an undergrad cognitive psychology class, so moving for any period of time wasn't an option. We were able to raise a small amount of grant funding, but the acquisition talks started soon after. We never spent any of the grant and ended up paying it all back once we were acquired.

Re: Take the Money and Run

#170

Post by to3m »

markdown wrote: post #159
nikibeth wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co-founder and "soup-maker" here. Not to dwell too much on the soup point, but it was our go-to meal for several reasons. I personally love making soup, especially when it's cold out. I can make it reasonably balanced in terms of meat, veggies, and carbs. It's pretty budget-friendly too because it extends more "expensive" items like lean meats. Lastly, it's convenient to make in between working on marketing content o…

> I personally love making soup, especially when it's cold out. out... ? outside?

Either is valid in many dialects.
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