While I can appreciate the desire for user feedback, I would challenge the assumption that it's "valuable". The very first point of the article touched on the difference between information that you will gather from free VS paying users. One kind is valuable because it can help you develop the product to be more appealing to those willing to pay, whereas the other kind may end up taking you on a very costly goose chase that won't help you generate any revenue.
Please forgive the self promotion, but in an effort to teach myself something about code, and to help people I know in a similar situation as you described, I have been building out a Website with resources for making a little bit of extra money that I think you might find helpful.
Personally, I would suggest taking a look at both LeapForce and LionBridge, because they offer 10-20 hours a week working from home at $15/hour evaluating Google's search results and doing other online tasks. They have an application/approval process to go through, but it could be a good fit for what you are looking for.
Side note: I know the site isn't really polished yet, but I'd love some constructive feedback if you have any.
EDIT: I'm sorry, but was my request for a source considered rude? I don't understand the knock. I would really like to see some data showing the consolidation of wealth, if it actually exists.
I have college degrees in Entrepreneurship and Marketing and have been just a "non-tech" guy for too long. I got tired of not being able to build anything myself, so I'm working my way through your book right now.
Of course I have a specific application in mind that I'd like to build, and perhaps this is evidence of my naivete, but it seems like if I were to just learn how to do that, I would be limiting my creativity. The difference between learning how to program only a specific type of application and learning to program in general seems like the difference between learning how to paint a bowl a fruit and studying the art of painting. What happens when you want to paint a bowl of fruit with a landscape behind it?
Again, I may just be one fool, but it is not the allure of being able to program a specific application that I am after, it is the pain of being ignorant that I am trying to assuage.
I know it will be awhile until the hardware in the phone can be powerful enough to compete with laptop performance, but I hope it comes soon. Also, while I like ASUS' concept, I think it really needs Apple's design thinking to take it from good to great.
If you try to value gold objectively (its industrial and possibly jewelry use), its price should be significantly lower than what it is today.
I think you might be misunderstanding what gives things value. The $20 bill in my pocket has little objective value by your definition. Sure, I could use it as a building material by papering a small piece of my wall with it or I could make an origami ring out of it, but the object's value is not determined by what can be made out of it.
Value is subjective to people's desires and beliefs about what is worth trading for. Gold has value because (almost) everyone anywhere on the planet will accept it in trade.
Gold is priced in dollars and when dollars are flying off of the printing press, but very little new gold is being produced, it follows that the price of gold would increase in terms of dollars. It is inflation that is mostly responsible for driving the price of gold up, not fear.
I'm not suggesting that everyone should be 100% into gold, I merely think that people looking for real value, would find gold very attractive as a reliable way to preserve it.
Mr. Buffett, like a lot of people, mischaracterizes gold as an investment. It is not. Gold is a store of wealth, not a tool realizing future gains (although that may happen). It is disingenuous to compare gold to stocks, or even to farmland as Buffett does. When you buy land, it doesn't miraculously produce crops (wealth) for you, you must input labor and resources (money) first.
I know this is nothing new, but investing in yourself through education is far and away the best investment out there. Governments, thieves, natural disasters and who knows what else can seize or destroy your stocks, bonds, gold, and land, but they can never touch your knowledge and experience. Even if you loose all of your possessions, you can use what you know to reacquire them. If the goal is "preserve AND grow" wealth, educating yourself is the best investment.
As a lover of road trips, I really dig what you're doing.
If I may offer two observations:
1) I would appreciate some sort of filter to hide multi-location stops like Sub-way, Exxon, etc. If you are going to have such data at all, I would appreciate the ability to hide it. I can find a gas station by reading the highway signs, but it's not as easy to find the super unique and interesting stops.
2) Scaling the page to see more of the map makes the text very difficult to read.
Anyways, pretty darn good for a week. Thanks for sharing!
Is it unwise to do the research/vetting before I actually need the services?
I am hoping to launch by the end of the year, so I have some time, but I want to have some idea of what I should be thinking about so that I have one less thing to distract me from my users (assuming I can get them).
My real concern is CRM, but I am having trouble wrapping my mind around where various CRM solutions end and Email marketing/social marketing/helpdesk/feedback solutions begin. All I know is that I will need a database of my users and the ability to keep them informed via email once I launch, but I don't know what I don't know.
>"How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.
The problem with that line of thinking is that there is no universally accepted, objective standard of what defines a just and unjust law. Do we make those decisions based on Natural Law? How about on the teachings of Mohammed? Jesus? etc.
Making statements about the moral justice of a government's laws has to appeal to some higher moral standard and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of unity in that realm of the discussion. So what you consider to be a "just law" another might believe to be unjust, because their moral presuppositions are completely different.
While I love the big thinking behind the idea, as someone who tried to launch a similar, restaurant related, Web startup, there are at least two major issues:
1) High restaurant turnover - Approximately 60% of restaurants either close or change owners within the first three years of existence (http://www.whitehutchinson.com/blog/2011/02/the-truth-about-...). This can make it incredibly frustrating to try to build lasting business relationships.
2) Scalability - If the growth of the startup is limited to how fast you can build relationships with restaurants (see above for problems), it will be a long slog and likely an unappealing investment.
Having said that, I too look forward to someone making this happen. I've already got my scars from attempting it, so I hope someone better than I takes a crack at it. I just tend to think it will be an OpenTable, Yelp, or Eats.com who finally solves the problem (although biggestmenu.com looks pretty sweet).
An apparent word of caution though for A/B price tests:
”Amazon has run A/B pricing experiments, and learned the hard way that customers do find out, and are upset about it. So their new policy is: if they run a price experiment, you’ll always get the lowest price in the experiment, when you get to the checkout. (So you might click on something with 5% off - when you get to the checkout, it’ll give it to you for 10% off, because that was the other offer that you didn’t see).” -AndrewMcG
Are you saying that the electricity flowing into Volts and Leafs hitting the market doesn't really come from a polluting source or merely that it doesn't have to?
I agree. It's clean, simple, organized and I know exactly what the site is about in about 2 seconds. Great job.
I'm learning the ropes of design myself for an upcoming project and I'm curious about why you used the multicolor strip at the very top of the page. I've noticed this feature as a mini-trend in Web design and I'd love to know if there is an intentional thought behind it, besides "it looks pretty."
Is it supposed to liven up an otherwise somewhat dull page?
It seems like a lot of people advise sticking to no more than 3 or 4 colors, so I'm really intrigued by the breaking of that convention in this case.
It depends on what you mean by tax evasion. If you are referring to the legal charge that can be brought against someone, then no, it is not. If, however, you used the phrase as a general description, then sure, it may very well be, but there's nothing wrong with it.