30% might work in software, but it's is a very deep discount for most physical retailers.
If the product has a 50% margin (sells for $100, costs $50 to source) then your retailer makes $100 for 5 orders instead of $50 for 1 order.
Except they're probably keeping their own inventory, so they now have to keep $250 of inventory for that $100 in profit, rather than $100. This is problematic because a lot of online retailers are limited by their working capital.
This is a drastically simplified example, but the bottom line is that physical retailers think very differently than software sellers.
Great idea for an app either way. I wish you the best of luck with it as you learn the territory. For something similar in the Amazon space (a platform that lends itself much less to split testing) check out splitly.com
Get yourself into a mastermind group with 2-5 others in a similar situation - solo founders, bootstrappers, etc. You can start with just 1 other person then add more.
Have a regular 1 hour video call every week or two. Everyone gives updates, support, and keeps each other accountable on goals.
Keep a Slack/Skype channel open in between to say hi, help each other, share wins, etc. Bonus points for meeting locally, but online is fine.
Why? Masterminds are the biggest thing I did going from wantreprenur to actually shipping & earning from products. They're also one of the best things you can do to beat entrepreneurial loneliness. Every week you meet other people who share your struggles and are invested in your success.
If you find at least 1 other person willing to do this (a few candidates on this thread already, or make a FB / LinkedIn post) I'll happily join the first one to facilitate & show how. Email in profile.
P.S. A coworking space + online communities like founder cafe, product people, complice, wip.chat (h/t other posters) can also be super helpful.
Also - read the "War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. Excellent book about resistance to hitting our goals. Indecision is simply resistance against what you know you should be doing - flipping is easier than persevering. Get a routine, make a habit of it (eg: commit to study at least 20 mins at the start of each day and continue if you get in a flow), etc.
Create a study group or get yourself an accountability buddy or coach who you check in with on a weekly basis. Could even be a friend who's not involved but whom you commit to emailing every week with an update and a goal for next week (maybe give him $100 that he'll only return if you follow through emailing every week). You can also do this via a public study log - blog, forum, etc that you update weekly or daily. Nothing is as useful as a little external social pressure and support. This seems particularly relevant in your case since you say you've tried doing this on your own before. Then, I'd combine that with actually having your schedule for those 4 months worked out, know what has to be done by when. Best of luck.
Or are they maybe close but not close enough to call out considering the size of their legal department?
To be honest, not being much of a designer, I've seen this scrolling with background switching 'style' become popular on a few sites recently.
I have no reason to doubt that OP developed it from scratch and clearly some of the linked sites blatantly ripped off the entire design, but the question of where inspiration ends and what constitutes 'independently developed' gets murky really quickly.
For all the posts saying Linus is wrong, which he may well be technically, consider this from a layman's perspective.
Ortiz recently:
"At no time did this office ever seek ... maximum penalties under the law."
Justice.gov previously:
"SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison..."
At a minimum it's a bad PR screw-up on their part and they're backpedaling because their "make us look tough" press releases have backfired.
Most people vaguely familiar with the case would think there is a threat of a 35 year sentence, as many recent posts on HN indicate. Would Aaron & his legal team think so too? Probably not.
I live in London and I have my location set to Recife, Brazil. That way I get 'sunset' around 9pm in the winter - late enough to let me continue working on a bright screen, but early enough to not blast blue light before going to bed.
The point for me is not so much matching the environment but not staring at a blue screen right before bed.
As with most departments, legal works on a continuum.
Some coders push buggy code and some coders polish their bits endlessly. The good ones write code that meet the requirements in a reasonable amount of time and move on to the next task.
Some lawyers are strict letter-of-the-law types and some will approve anything to make the profit centers happy. The good ones balance the legal risks with the commercial reality.
Under the circumstances I'd be curious to know what the cost-benefit analysis of this change might look like. Given how seldom employment contracts are negotiated and how rarely these IP clauses are enforced, my guess is the biggest cost might be something even more intangible, such as stifled employee creativity.
I saw a talk about node.js by Mike Amundsen the other day - he did all his work using http://c9.io/ etc
The IDE seemed a bit flaky, but quite powerful - the concept certainly seems promising.
http://www.amundsen.com
Having said that, for me personally I still prefer a very responsive UI, lots of keyboard shortcuts, and the kind of workspace / UI customization you can only get from desktops nowadays.
If the product has a 50% margin (sells for $100, costs $50 to source) then your retailer makes $100 for 5 orders instead of $50 for 1 order.
Except they're probably keeping their own inventory, so they now have to keep $250 of inventory for that $100 in profit, rather than $100. This is problematic because a lot of online retailers are limited by their working capital.
This is a drastically simplified example, but the bottom line is that physical retailers think very differently than software sellers.
Great idea for an app either way. I wish you the best of luck with it as you learn the territory. For something similar in the Amazon space (a platform that lends itself much less to split testing) check out splitly.com