I don't know. I mean, "never argue" is not a good maxim, imo.
But sure, ultimately your role is to provide your opinion as an expert, but you should step aside if your manager decides otherwise after hearing you. I think it's also correct: you are responsible for the decisions you make (which is true for you and your manager too).
So I think the author should have softened the discussion rather than going for a full confrontation. The boss surely didn't react rationally, or didn't surface their reasoning properly.
But being able to argue with your superiors (and peers) "the right way" is one of the most important skills to have in the workplace imo.
Great article! One question: you talk about market size, but you don’t address the existing competition in the space. In my opinion, two equally sized markets can have very different levels of competitive pressure.
Is that something you factor into your playbook? Or do you simply not find it relevant to judge whether to enter a certain space?
so does Photoshop and thousand other visual editing tools. Hardly a reason to claim it to be a copy.
Also "slopfork" seems harsh considering it seems limited, but well designed imo.
I recently started looking into hydroponics gardening. You can start very easily with a Kratky system and some herbs, and then take it a step at the time.
I’m quite at the beginning myself, but I like it so far! It’s a nice mix of science and craft.
yeah good point. I think this is to be seen though. Right now AI tokens, especially via OpenAI/Anthropic subscriptions, are heavily subsidized. If token cost between the API and subscriptions should even out though, then I think Cursor might well be back in the race.
The premise of Zed is quite appealing, but I'm not sure I'm ready to switch due to the missing extension ecosystem of VSC. For example, at the moment I'm using the Playwright and Vite ones to quickly run and debug tests.
Unfortunately, I think Cursor is making progressively more difficult to use other AI provider via extension, mostly due to the fact that they are reserving the secondary sidebar for their own chat interface. This makes it super unpractical to use the Codex and Claude extension, as now they all need to share the primary sidebar. (Before it was not optimal, but it was at least possible.)
As many have pointed out, the cost of token via Cursor is prohibitive compared to having a CC or Codex subscription, so I think the new update brings little to current users, but reduces Cursor's usability.
I think Cursor should go in the direction of embracing other provider's extensions and go for a more integrated and customizable IDE, rather than a one-solution-fits-all kind of an approach. Today I opened VSC again after a log time.
Can you share what approach you’re taking for this?
I’ve tried engaging in a similar way but struggled to strike a balance between helping for the sake of helping (no return for me), and asking research-focused questions, with people not caring too much about to answer
Lot of people sell similar components (or give them for free), but what I would really be interested in is a course how to make them (properly, e.g. with a11y and performance considerations).
Especially in your case, since you are basically selling somebody else's work (the original design), which is a shitty thing to do. You could monetise this in a much more ethical way.
I am a Design Engineer looking to join a cool team/product. I am passionate about building apps, websites, and other software that merge form and function with elegance and simplicity.
Prior to engineering, I worked as a Product Designer for 7 years, designing delightful consumer apps (N26), news and media websites (Edenspiekermann), complex B2B platforms (HiPeople), and more.
This is ridiculous (for Firebase). There have been countless episodes like this one happening, as well as the amount of people asking for a hard-block when the spending reaches a certain limit (currently there's only a notification that is triggered, which is anyway lagged behind the actual execution).
Making a mistake can happen to anyone (especially for a platform that targets itself to new devs) and makes me seriously consider leaving the platform.
To Firebase: either you must automatically condone such mistakes or implement the requested feature.
To anybody else: Does Supabase or other platforms offer this?
I like and believe too the notion that writing IS thinking and that cultivating this skill helps you form clearer thoughts.
One question about this: I'm trying to engage more and more in writing for this reason, but I seem often not to know what to write about. For example, as PG has a lot of experience when it comes to startups, I feel I don't have as much knowledge to share, or if I have some opinion, I don't feel as confident in sharing it. Any tips on how to cultivate writing as an exercise in thinking in this situation?
I've experimented with this approach and here are my two cents. I've built an app meant to be "an advanced prompt editor" for working with LLMs (https://www.quartzite.ai in case anybody is curious).
I've seen that a lot of bootstrapped recommended starting with LTDs and I decided to try this approach. Sure, in the beginning, I got a bit of money, and surely it's easier to convince somebody to pay $50 once (i.e. LTD) compared to $5/month. So right in the first months, I've gotten approximately $1k/month with very little promotion, which is nice.
However, as the user count grew I also started to feel an increase of pressure. The cost of running my app is very low, so cost wasn't the issue, but I felt a bit like a fraud. What would happen if I decided to discontinue the product? Refunding 100 customers would have been painful, but still doable. However, as I kept increasing the user base, so were my concerns about how to handle a worst-case scenario.
Furthermore, offering an LTD for a product that still needs to grow means partially that you are making a promise about the product you want to build. What if you decided in the future you wanted to pivot? Sure, you can disregard your users who bought the LTD thinking they would get a certain product, while you decided to build a different one, but personally I didn't like that idea, and once again this increased my stress level.
So, all in all, I didn't like it too much and decided to switch to a subscription (although fairly low). Nowadays I feel much better with the overall revenue model. A user doesn't like the product? They are free to leave after one month, and nobody has different expectations about that. At the same time, I came to discover some additional benefits compared to an LTD:
- users are more engaged with your product. In a way, with a subscription, they are deciding every month whether your product makes sense for them, and they will be more vocal about what they need and don't, which is very useful feedback as a founder. Plus, churn data can tell you more accurately if you are improving your product or not.
- to my surprise, my conversion rate didn't change (it might even be slightly higher than with LTDs). My guess here is that buying a LTD still involves a bit of trust in the founder/company which, if you don't have a large following on social media, it might be difficult to get upfront. Overall this has been a painful lesson, as I realized that if I started with a subscription right from the beginning, I would have a much greater MRR by now.
- best of all, I see my product growing sustainably now. Every week/month is a little better, and I don't have to worry every month about how to reach a certain target revenue (of course, with LTDs you start from zero every month). Overall, I feel I'm building a product for the long run now and towards being a profitable business (still getting there).
So all in all, I don't know if I would recommend the same approach as the author describes. Sure, I've seen people executing it well and effectively bootstrapping their app in a short time, but my guess is that happens if you have a good base of followers and you can kickstart your marketing channels too. Also, if your product is sustainable as a one-time purchase (e.g. a desktop app, a content piece, etc.) then LTDs are definitely more attractive, but I don't see the point of trying to build a SaaS without having a feedback if your users are really willing to buy a subscription form you.
Well yeah, the addictive component is VERY relevant in this conversation. But if:
1) I saw that science states clearly that heroine's addition, harm for my body and for others, are lower than the ones of alcohol's, and...
2) that I believe in the validity of the studies, and also in the way they are been conducted so that they are relevant for my personal goal (trying heroine for an individual, rather than to be more relevant on a global/societal perspective), and...
3) I had somebody/someone who highly recommend the experience and explained clearly why (I don't have this desire atm, therefore I never looked into points 1 & 2),
...then yes, I'd probably try heroine if I was interested in such experience.
However, I doubt that you would have all the three points I mentioned to check out - reason why is common sense not to try heroine.
However, I would extend the argument to other drugs quite easily: weed, LSD, ecstasy. All of these are great experience in their own and if not done too regularly, very low harm (surely less than many other bad behaviour considered normal in our society), and close to zero addiction. (NB. all of what said imply that you are doing well mentally and not prone to abuse - in which case stay away from any drug, alcohol included.)
But yeah, drugs are not all the same. I clearly stay away from some although I've tried a few - reading and learning about the different compounds helps removing wrong preconceptions given us from society (e.g. ecstasy is an hard drug and drinking alcohol is instead ok).
Totally a personal decision, but there are a lot of shades of gray while avoiding the black/white opinions. Personally I would recommend anybody to try drinking alcohol and be tipsy/mildly drunk at least once in their life (as with many other experiences that are overwhelmingly positive if done with moderation, but can become negative if this limit is overly exceed).
I like the article but I don't agree that somehow not drinking gives you a more real/unfiltered view of reality (and maybe sufferance as the author describes).
Personally I don't love the narrative of the "pure" or "natural" way of living. Sure, alcohol is not a natural experience for which your body was designed, but so is caffeine to enhance your brain alertness, the amount and types of calories we eat every day, the use of internet and all the various devices, and many more behaviors.
The point is, our lives are so irreparably artificial (and note: I'm not against the notion) that I would urge anybody to drop the "realness" argument as a reason to do anything.
Your perception of reality is given by chemicals in your brain. If you decide that alcohol is bad for your existence, then great for you, but I find it a bit condescending (and pointless) to say that those who use alcohol are "less honest" about their reality.
mmm not sure if it's fully true tbh. I'm from Italy and currently live in Germany (so maybe together with France would be the stereotypical drinking countries) and was always a bit horrified by the stories of people drinking in the US...
But sure, ultimately your role is to provide your opinion as an expert, but you should step aside if your manager decides otherwise after hearing you. I think it's also correct: you are responsible for the decisions you make (which is true for you and your manager too).
So I think the author should have softened the discussion rather than going for a full confrontation. The boss surely didn't react rationally, or didn't surface their reasoning properly.
But being able to argue with your superiors (and peers) "the right way" is one of the most important skills to have in the workplace imo.