Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#81

Post by fsckboy » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

p3rls wrote: post #80

fsckboy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $240 per truck for the first hour in labor and $160 after that. That's a bargain! I needed a kitchen faucet replaced (the kit kind you can buy at Home Depot) in Los Angeles and was quoted "$225 per plumber and two would be required, one hour minimum" and this was not from a large plumbing contractor, but the one recommended by the condo front desk. And I got to thinking, "unless they show up with everything they ne…

There's no reason a non-disabled stem person should call a plumber for a faucet install unless they want to check out some plumber ass :)

in a condominium, I am responsible for damage my apartment does to other apartments, especially plumbing, especially downstairs from me. Plumbers would be expected to do a better job than me, and they also have insurance. Never do anything yourself in a condo if you can avoid it. IANAL, but that is my legal opinion. Perhaps I should outsource that as well :)

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#82

Post by garrickvanburen » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 8:41 PM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #77

garrickvanburen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree the combo is death, billing hourly and consulting are two different things. Consulting with value—based fees is a fantastic way to deliberately allocate our finite time .

No consulting is always death, you’re dividing up your energy into little packets of focus and you just can’t accomplish much You can only get the value of your work over time though equity. If your impact really is large, nobody could afford to pay the net present value up front (and only a lowlife would want to damage the company by taking out cash like that)

I think we are using the same word to reference two different things.

Equity increasing in value, as has been discussed on HN multiple times, is not a guarantee - and businesses engage all kinds of other businesses for all kinds of help.

There are lots of ways to structure a temporary engagement that's mutually beneficial to both parties - in the short & long term.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#83

Post by ozim » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 10:22 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #70

ozim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this has to be 2 way street, you might want to do it properly but a lot of customers don't want to invest time. They want to have stuff done and move on so drop the money and you have to figure out how to do what they want.

Those aren’t the customers you want.

Thing is that is 90% of customers.

I don't want to discuss with plumber how he is going to fit the pipes I want him done and gone from my house as soon as possible.

The same with people using my software, they want to tend to their customers not spend time making my software better. Most of people don't even care about filling in bugs unless it is something that breaks their work.

Lots of entrepreneur porn is about "how we get nice meetings with the customers while sipping pumpkin spice latte" ... sorry but no that is not the way world works. If you want to earn money make yourself useful and do your job in efficient way.