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

Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money

thenextweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–86 of 86 posts

Re: Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money

#81

Post by nhangen »

redguava wrote: post #67
juddlyon wrote: post #33

One detail left from the analysis: these guys are already well-known for their UX work amongst the crowd most likely to purchase Flow. Reminds me of when Guy Kawasaki launched Alltop for "only 10K." Yeah, 10K + 500K worth of PR that comes with having an enormous following. This is not to diminish what Metalab or Guy Kawasaki do, I'm admire both. But it's not like these results are as reproducible as they infer withou…

It's not luck that they are already well known for their UX work. That is part of their hard work to get them to that point. You say these results aren't as reproducible without significant connections... but getting significant connections is reproducible. I guess you could consider that step 1 in their process. I would also say that you can build an audience and get connections with some hustle and/or money. A well…

This is true, not to mention guys like Merlin Mann talking about them on 5by5. Nothing wrong with that, but it does certainly help.

Re: Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money

#82

Post by nhangen »

TamDenholm wrote: post #49
guynamedloren wrote: post #47

> We usually clock between four and six hours a day, and most of us don’t even get to the office before noon. Realllly interested to hear more about this. Can anybody from Flow elaborate? How well does this work? How did 4-6 hours come about? Why not 5-7 hrs? Or 3-5? How do salaries work - is everybody full time? > We believe in working smart, not hard, and having lives outside the office. Why can't you work smart an…

One of the problems with old school thinking is that working hard means working long, which is absolute rubbish. Personally I can't be productive for 8 hours a day and I'm pretty sure nobody can, all the time you're not being productive you're generally wasting time by making coffee, checking emails, attending meetings etc. So why not actually just work the time that you're productive and then go and enjoy the rest o…

I don't think it's 'old school' to work long hours. In my case, it's because I enjoy my work and I don't mind putting in 60 hour weeks.

That said, if I were on your team, I would love having the extra time away from work.

Re: Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money

#84

Post by dctoedt »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #28
Jun8 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still haven't found an ideal solution. The problem with most, including Flow, is that companies won't allow you to put data on the Internet (e.g. my office blocks Dropbox), which cuts most solutions. So you have to convince your IT to install it locally (for large corps don't try, you can't). What I'm looking for is a nice personal proj/org tool that would interface with email and calendar and would give a snapshot…

I use Workflowy and paste in Google Docs/Drive links to any file I need to reference. I love Workflowy's flexibility - it's amazing for everything from task management to taking meeting minutes to brainstorming... and then organizing it into one cohesive system.

+1 for Workflowy. I started using it a few weeks ago; I like it more with every passing day, especially 1) the simple UI, 2) easy tagging, 3) easy searching, and 4) the ability to click on an outline level to make it "the page." Yeah, this is off-topic, but I really hope the Workflowy crew prospers so they can keep improving the service.

Re: Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money

#85

Post by edbyrne »

guynamedloren wrote: post #47

> We usually clock between four and six hours a day, and most of us don’t even get to the office before noon. Realllly interested to hear more about this. Can anybody from Flow elaborate? How well does this work? How did 4-6 hours come about? Why not 5-7 hrs? Or 3-5? How do salaries work - is everybody full time? > We believe in working smart, not hard, and having lives outside the office. Why can't you work smart an…

I love all this talk about hours worked as if it's not a proxy for achievement - of course it is.

Will weak workers achieve great things in 6 hours or 16 hours? No.

Will over-achievers do brilliant things in 6 hours instead of 16 - depends on your definition.

Hours worked, working smart and all this BS doesn't matter. What matters is the size and complexity of the problem your working on, and how many problems you have to solve to move the needle on your goals.

So if you can do a great 30 hour week a move the needle - lucky you! Some people have to pour in 80-100 hour weeks just move the needle because what they are working on just cant be done 'smarter'.

I think the discussion needs to move from hours worked and quality of hours worked, back to quality of people : and hopefully the right people will work the right amount of time to productively deliver whats needed.

Re: Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money

#86

Post by marknutter »

jasonkester wrote: post #75
marknutter wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you don't actually use flow day to day. I'm also guessing that if they made an HTML version you probably wouldn't use that either; you probably have your own way of managing your projects and todos. I'm also guessing you're using this post as a sounding board for your gripes with single page javascript applications. Are any of these guesses accurate?

No. I used Flow on a daily basis for the better part of two months, to coordinate a team of six on a major product feature we were developing. The things I mention above are chronic issues I ran into every day, not superficial things I saw once before dismissing the thing. They're also 100% fixable. If you're going to do this sort of "empty container" app, it's worth modifying your approach a tiny bit and instead goi…

Boy was I wrong. Thanks for the clarification, these are great critiques.
Post reply on HN