The large outlets seem to be making subscriptions work, though it does seem to be challenging for them. Ironically, the NYT is constantly running ads in The Daily podcast to subscribe to the NYT to support their journalism. It seems the smaller publishers really struggle to make subscriptions work.
Trying a new hiring strategy here. I'm trying to appeal to talented developers who also have ambitions to start their own product business. What do you think?
Thanks for the comments! Bonus stories for you wonderful HN'ers:
My dad started out as an auto mechanic and painter. He decided to setup his own shop with his first cousin and it was a disaster. They butted heads constantly. My dad sold his shares to his partner and moved on to other things. They tried it, it didn't work out, and so they moved on. Throughout my childhood our family was very close with my dad's first cousin and his family. They relationship is still strong today.
My mother and her brother had a dispute about money over fifteen years ago. They still do not speak today.
Family and friends can be tricky when it involves money, there is no question.
TL;DR - Putting up a marketing site and asking for money up front sets customers expectations for what is to be delivered. But startups change significantly in the early stages, so it's very difficult to meet customer expectations.
I'd like to hear more about what people said in the customer interviews. Here's my experience as a consumer...
After flipping through the library, I signed up immediately. The cost/value was very high.
After putting in my credit card details, I was put in a queue, which was a little frustrating as I was expecting instant access, but I got over it quickly and didn't mind waiting. I think this was fine.
The big problem came when the library disappeared from the site and the business went in a very different direction. I had pledged $30/month for something specific (the videos from high-profile entrepreneurs), so it was disappointing to see that it wasn't going to happen. It even entered my mind that it was only ever a carrot to get my credit card details and that there was never an intent to make the videos. So, some confidence lost there. Also, still having my credit card on the hook for something else that I hadn't yet learned about was a bit disconcerting.
Adii is a friend and I was still curious about what it would be, so I stuck with it. It's highly likely if I didn't know the founder, I would have cancelled immediately.
I struggle to consistently participate in communities, so I will be cancelling my membership. The video library was more my thing, consumption without engagement. And that's what I pledged my $30/month for.
I guess your question is why read a book when you can just learn as you go and as you need to. I didn't read a book, but I probably should have because it took a long time for me to pick up things that would have helped a ton earlier on. For example, I recently learned that you can turn off "greedy" when using .* by adding a ? after it. This was a huge revelation that I would have benefited from day one, ten years prior.
Thanks for clarifying. I guess my point was that if you're just matching one email address in a form submission for example, is performance significant?
A little back story on this article for those who are interested...
I noticed my coworker was going out of his way to use string manipulation, writing many lines of code instead of a simple regular expression. When I asked why, he explained that he didn't know regular expressions, but more importantly that he felt that he had read a lot of posts on Stack Overflow discouraging use of regular expressions. From what he had read, he felt that it was better practice to avoid regular expressions. Although this could be anecdotal, there may be a real danger here that inexperienced programmers are getting the wrong message, that regular expressions are somehow bad in most situations and not worth learning.
Great question. I learned them through osmosis over many years of looking at them in other people's code and tinkering myself. I don't remember ever going through a tutorial or reading a book. Probably not the best way to learn them as it definitely took a long time to have a good grip on them and I was missing important pieces for a long time. For example, it was only relatively recently that I learned that you can turn off "greedy" when using .* by adding a ? after it.
I'm the author of this post and would love to discuss refunding the difference for customers who purchased within 30 days of a promotion with the HN community. Might it increase your sales?