Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don’t bite the shit sandwich

unicornfree.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#41

Post by stanleydrew »

lsc wrote: post #10

hah. I love it. Now, personally, I don't have a problem with 'free' but I do think that 'free' goes more with "I'm doing this because I think it's fun" than "I'm doing this so I can get rich." - I think most of the problems you see with 'free' happen when you try to get rich off your free product, rather than just trying to create a good product that happens do be free. Craigslist is an excellent example. I mean, cra…

I wouldn't say Craig is working hard to make the free product good. I absolutely hate the fact that I have to use craigslist for apartment search. It is terrible (but simple, yes) and Craig has made a conscious decision to keep it that way.

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#42

Post by zeemonkee »

_delirium wrote: post #26
cookiecaper wrote: post #25

There's a place for free, but I agree that those who start businesses and then have to come up with a plan to generate money are doing things completely backwards. It's one of the reasons I am annoyed at Twitter; they should be shunned for starting this thing with millions of dollars of other peoples' money and ultimately having no idea how they're ever going to make any of it back, but instead they get played up lik…

It's not like Twitter started it with millions of dollars of other people's money without those people's consent, though. VCs have been practically begging to throw money at them! So it seems like the people whose money it is are 100% on board with spending their own money...

Perhaps these investors view Twitter as a useful service, that happens to help their own business in some way. Rather than see it as a direct investment, they see Twitter as a public utility they are willing to pay for.

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#43

Post by [deleted] »

tibbon wrote: post #36
_delirium wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist is an odd case, because I think he did actually get rich by global standards, or at least, he has more money than most VC-backed entrepreneurs with exits have. Estimates vary, but he appears to make somewhere between $10m and $50m in cash dividends from CL per year , possibly more, which would put his cash net worth comfortably over $100m, not even including Craigslist equity. There are plenty of startups…

And their model is pretty clear. They are exchanging goods (posting space for job listings) for money. The critique of free isn't that you can't give away a piece of candy to smooth over business, but that free isn't a business model.

[deleted]

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#44

Post by zeemonkee »

ahoyhere wrote: post #18
lsc wrote: post #10

hah. I love it. Now, personally, I don't have a problem with 'free' but I do think that 'free' goes more with "I'm doing this because I think it's fun" than "I'm doing this so I can get rich." - I think most of the problems you see with 'free' happen when you try to get rich off your free product, rather than just trying to create a good product that happens do be free. Craigslist is an excellent example. I mean, cra…

Oh, totally. I only have a beef with "free" as business advice! If you just wanna have fun, don't twist yourself into a pretzel trying to "monetize." EDIT: Clarity!

And don't post on HN saying "Rate my startup" when you have just made a website for fun. A startup is - or should be - a real business.

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#45

Post by agentq »

mcantor wrote: post #35
ahoyhere wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't tell you, I don't know. But their public mission is to index all the world's information. That much we do know for sure, since they've said it themselves. They are also clearly trying to cover ALL the bases, to have everybody sucking at their proverbial info-teat. They want you to store your calendar, docs, contacts, phone, videos, status updates, internet reading, spreadsheets, etc., etc., all on their se…

Did you know they used Goog-411 to collect spoken phonemes to improve their auto-captioning of YouTube videos (so they can search them)? Source?

LMDDGTFY:

http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=goog-411+phoneme&v=

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#46

Post by wgj »

ahoyhere wrote: post #18
lsc wrote: post #10

hah. I love it. Now, personally, I don't have a problem with 'free' but I do think that 'free' goes more with "I'm doing this because I think it's fun" than "I'm doing this so I can get rich." - I think most of the problems you see with 'free' happen when you try to get rich off your free product, rather than just trying to create a good product that happens do be free. Craigslist is an excellent example. I mean, cra…

Oh, totally. I only have a beef with "free" as business advice! If you just wanna have fun, don't twist yourself into a pretzel trying to "monetize." EDIT: Clarity!

BTW, http://everytimezone.com/ rocks! I've been using it quite a bit. Great work, hugely useful, free, and no pretzels.

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#48

Post by eru »

ahoyhere wrote: post #40
eru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, based on the way other SaaS entrepreneurs choke on their coffee and go "Monthly?!" when I tell them how much we earn per 1000 accounts (total), that extremely limited, fairly hidden account works extremely well for us. :) Could you elaborate on that? What's the use of your free account, if nobody uses it anyway?

I never said nobody uses it. We have several thousand free accounts. But we make it much easier & more appealing to sign up for a paid account. It's like clipping coupons: you segment your audience by price sensitivity by making the cheap people (poorer leads) work for their discounts.

OK, thanks!

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#49

Post by lsc »

tibbon wrote: post #36
_delirium wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craigslist is an odd case, because I think he did actually get rich by global standards, or at least, he has more money than most VC-backed entrepreneurs with exits have. Estimates vary, but he appears to make somewhere between $10m and $50m in cash dividends from CL per year , possibly more, which would put his cash net worth comfortably over $100m, not even including Craigslist equity. There are plenty of startups…

And their model is pretty clear. They are exchanging goods (posting space for job listings) for money. The critique of free isn't that you can't give away a piece of candy to smooth over business, but that free isn't a business model.

but they don't charge in a way that maximizes short-term profits. they charge in a way that maximizes long-term viability. They only charge for listings /if/ the poster makes money off the listing /and/ the section is so full that thinning it a bit might be beneficial to the readers.

Re: Don’t bite the shit sandwich

#50

Post by lsc »

stanleydrew wrote: post #41
lsc wrote: post #10

hah. I love it. Now, personally, I don't have a problem with 'free' but I do think that 'free' goes more with "I'm doing this because I think it's fun" than "I'm doing this so I can get rich." - I think most of the problems you see with 'free' happen when you try to get rich off your free product, rather than just trying to create a good product that happens do be free. Craigslist is an excellent example. I mean, cra…

I wouldn't say Craig is working hard to make the free product good. I absolutely hate the fact that I have to use craigslist for apartment search. It is terrible (but simple, yes) and Craig has made a conscious decision to keep it that way.

compare it to Dice or monster. or, hell, realtor.com I think it's really, really easy to make your product /worse/ by adding features.

That said, I personally have a few projects on the back burner that directly compete with craigslist in a very limited way. it /can/ be improved. I'm just saying, for most of the space, by resisting the urge to 'make it better' craigslist has ended up being the dominant player because craigslist is the best. being light on features has kept them from screwing it up too badly.

Post reply on HN