At Flint we use strategic, innovative thinking to design and build digital and physical brands, products and services that help our clients engage, delight and interact more profitably with their customers. We are a small, rapidly growing professional team committed to developing meaningful, on brand creative solutions that exceed our clients' expectations. We are located in the SOHO neighborhood of NYC. Our clients include both start-up and fortune 500 companies. We work in healthcare, education, retail, finance, among other industries.
I don't understand the need to encourage students drop out. There are plenty of go-getters out there who don't need to drop out (I am thinking folks who have finished college .. many solo flying hackers, etc.). and can equally contribute at the same level of competitiveness and hustle and would appreciate the opportunity even more.
Hang in there - you never know. Plus, I could not find a link to your app on your blog post. To say it in your own words: you aren't yelling loud enough. Keep hustling!
With Gmail's "new" interface, I am finding it more and more cumbersome to navigate around. I practically run my business through Gmail - so it's great to see another stab at this interface to make things more meaningful and practical. Goodluck with Fluent.
It might be a bit more helpful if you can explain what kind of people you are trying to connect with. A majority of HN has some sort of web startup experience.
I think this is where proper mentorship is extremely valuable. If the student was consistently coached from the get-go he might have pulled it off.
On that note, is there a community online where one can seek out mentorship. It doesn;t have to be a community of who's who - just some decent nice people with common sense and desire to succeed should suffice. I am at a stage where I could use some advice as well.
Do you have any suggestions? Currently the business model works like this:
1)A user from your target demographics signs up at your website (or install your app on her device)
2)Responds to a series of questions asked by you - and provides some actionable feedback
3)Gets paid $5/website or $10/app (we are charging $9 or $15 respectively).
If there is a way to create a better model, I would be happy to consider it. My goal is to cater to new startups and give them a number of users from their target audience so that they can get their initial testing done and get soem feedback at a comparatively lower cost.
We created BetaUsersNow.com with the goal of allowing startups get immediate access to a pool of Targeted users and immediate feedback during their beta phase. During past 7 months of our own beta phase, we have been signing up users from all walks of life and have collected their detailed demographic information - including city, state, country, Gender,Birth Year, Yearly Household Income, marital Status, Web/Computer Expertise, Web Usage on a Typical Day, Areas of Interest and device ownership (iPhone, iPad) etc. This will allow a recently launched startup to directly go to a pool of its target demographics and test products out. In a nutshell, BetaUsersNow will provide you a pool of targeted users, that fall within your target demographics, who will signnup at your website, follow your instructions to use your website, app and give you actionable feedback.
Cogratulations to the LaunchRock team. Great product - like the look, feel and ease of use. It will be interesting to see how they fare once monetization begins.
Founded of StartUpLift[http://startuplift.com] at the beginning of this year. Has been growing slowly but steadily. Revenue around $2k/mo. Recently introduced "Recurring Buzz/Feedback" subscription model that lets companies get featured, introduce their service/product to others and get feedback on a monthly basis. Also planning on adding "Startup/Small Business Deals" so that startups can offer deals to each other.
I think that's a great thought/concept. People could even have little badges displayed on their Ebay stores etc. which says "We are hanging out at Hangouts, come by..".
Thanks for your feedback. This is something we have been going back and forth with for a while. Is 'private' feedback that critical? Many have suggested we implement it, but there are equally others who are against the idea. Some have even suggested that "publicly" soliciting feedback shows that you care to your customers. However, you are likely to have completely different goals for public solicitation vs. private.
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At Flint we use strategic, innovative thinking to design and build digital and physical brands, products and services that help our clients engage, delight and interact more profitably with their customers. We are a small, rapidly growing professional team committed to developing meaningful, on brand creative solutions that exceed our clients' expectations. We are located in the SOHO neighborhood of NYC. Our clients include both start-up and fortune 500 companies. We work in healthcare, education, retail, finance, among other industries.