Thanks, that's good feedback to make sure I'm more clear about my offering.
My goal is not to be a full-time outsourced product manager. Instead I'm trying to fill the gap in early-stage startups that don't quite need a full-time product person.
Founders of early-stage companies must carry the vision, but sometimes they need some help in execution. My goal is to help them execute on a monthly basis.
I left full-time employment at a startup after facing burnout. After taking a few weeks to recalibrate, I'v decided to make a go at building a business from my home office.
I have taken my skills and experience as a startup product manager and packaged them up to help early stage startups ship incredible products.
Would love to hear HN's feedback on the value of this type of service offering.
Market research is imperative to success, but it may not always look like you'd expect. Note that I come from a B2B software product management background. Market research is a major part of my job, but I don't think I have ever called it market research.
Big companies often place a lot of value in more formalized research studies to drive corporate strategy. This is very top-down.
I prefer, and often drive, more lean research initiatives. Working in startups, there isn't budget or time for formalized research studies. Instead I have often used more scrappy methods of customer development to test ideas with prototypes.
A one hour conversation with 10 people in your target market will likely give you enough information to form a hypothesis about what problems people are willing to pay to have solved.
This is great work! There has been a recent shift in the last few years of limiting customization to "cover photos" instead of full backgrounds. In the Myspace days, this would have been a goldmine.
Twitter still allows this type of customization and I see many marketers customizing profile backgrounds as another way to push their brand imaging.
I wonder if there's value in using this for editing of cover photos for various social platforms like Twitter & Facebook.
This is something I have been pondering for a bit now. As the chair of my church's outreach ministry, I struggle with church communications. The church is a unique community of groups, sub-groups, etc. And the activities are just as varied. There are many activities that need to be communicated and only so many channels available to do so. Not to mention making sure that everyone is connected and "plugged-in."
You touch on some good points on how to monetize and build a for profit company that is theologically sound. I have this idea that I'm considering for my next venture.
The idea is to build a self-funded startup with a mix of talented developers, designers, and product people. The company would not ever take outside investment so that the focus is never on dollars and return. Instead the focus is to build awesome software that makes a difference (inside and outside the church), grow our craft, and enjoy life. Nobody will earn millions, but we'll sure have fun making a living to support our families.
First of all, you have a bright future. Don't sell yourself short or give up. Failure is the key to success.
Contrary to what many commenters have indicated, don't get a job if you can avoid it. If you can get by without a job, put every last waking moment into your passion.
1) If you want to be a programmer, build something innovative and cool and tell the world about it. If nobody cares, try something else. Build a portfolio of things you've done that compensates for not having a degree.
2) Network. Meet people, talk to people and get involved. Help others and others will help on your projects. Network locally as well as with others in areas you want to live.
If you pour everything into your passion, you'll get better at what you do and everything will fall into place.
> But with the biological piece of the disease taken care of, a big part of the battle is already won.
I completely disagree. IMO biology is responsible for a very very small part of the problem of addiction. As somebody who lost his mother to liver disease stemming from her addictions, these types of treatments lead to even more dangerous outcomes.
A week in rehab will remove the biological dependence of alcohol.
My mom's addictions started as a teenager with food. Food was her indulgence of choice. After years of trying to rid herself of the consequences of that addiction by dieting, she turned to weight loss surgery to help. Sure, she lost a lot of weight but this merely relieved the symptoms of her disease and did nothing the disease itself.
Years later she no longer possessed the biological ability to be addicted to food so she turned to alcohol instead. The weight loss surgery combined with only 4 years of alcohol abuse (with several stints of sobriety) was enough to ruin her liver to a point of no return.
I don't dispute that this drug could be effective for the newly sober individuals who need a little extra push to remain sober. A doctor that administers this vaccine without careful followup and psychological treatment is doing the patient a disservice.
Let's not kid ourselves, this "vaccine" does nothing but mask the symptoms of the disease leaving the patient troubled, alone and without help.
Addiction is a lifelong disease and it needs to be treated as such. Without proper treatment (psychological help), the disease will morph and before you know it have ahold of your life once again.
Svbtle sounds eerily familiar to the old 9rules blog network. The only difference (from what I can tell) is that Svbtle provides the bloggging platform and site design as part of membership in the "network."
If Svbtle is to ever monetize as a "publication" aren't they going to pay the writers? Or maybe they'll take the HuffingtonPost route and not pay them?
Not a hater, just voicing some legitimate concerns.
My goal is not to be a full-time outsourced product manager. Instead I'm trying to fill the gap in early-stage startups that don't quite need a full-time product person.
Founders of early-stage companies must carry the vision, but sometimes they need some help in execution. My goal is to help them execute on a monthly basis.