Lose It! is a popular iPhone / Android / Website application that changes people's lives by helping them manage their weight.
8M+ iPhone Downloads (currently top 10 in Health category)
500k+ Android Downloads (very new, currently top 15 in Health category)
2M Website enabled users (connecting to our website is optional)
2M Uniques per month across all platforms
9M+ pounds of weight have been lost by website enabled users (Estimated ~18M pounds lost across all users)
8k messages betweens users that opted into social features per day
450M+ foods logged by website enabled users
Current Team - 1 CEO (technical), 1 Developer (me), 1 Business Dev, 1 Community Manager
Current Stack - GWT, MySQL, Java (server side and Android), AWS, Objective C (iPhone), Membase
Current Tools - Intellij, Git, Navicat, New Relic, CloudBees, Asana
= Who we are looking for =
Lose It! is looking for new members (we have more then one spot open) for our product team to help us build our next generation of products. We believe that small teams of well rounded people can do great things, so we're looking for someone that can contribute to all phases of building a great product. We believe that iterating on our products with customers is the best way to build something great, so we'd like someone who enjoys talking to customers and making them happy (and maybe even helping to change their lives).
As a software engineer at Lose It!, you'll be an early member of the team that is building the core product, the most complete and effective weight loss software spanning mobile devices and the web. You should have a passion for and a proven track record of building products that delight users.
= Who to contact =
{first name} at loseit.com - If you think you would be a good fit send me an email with anything (resume, cover letter, github account, maybe just a simple 'hello'. I'll read anything and everything you send).
You are grossly underestimating the amount people would care if Facebook went offline. The world would freak out. People have memories of their lives tied up in the service with the combination of photos, friends, and messages. The pent up data generated over the years is truly meaningful.
I think it is funny that the author suggests programmers should use their hobby time to work on something actually meaningful. I feel like he discounted billing systems and ecommerce in the process.
I have no problem with programmers working on other meaningful things during their spare time if they choose. But what I struggle with is why programmers don't work on meaningful projects during their time they dedicate to their actual employment. I feel like I work on something very meaningful because I have helped literately millions of people lose literally millions of pounds of weight. More over, I think Square (a billing system) has helped thousands (millions?) of merchants gain access to a new form payments for their goods that they didn't have before. And Amazon (an ecommerce store) has brought convenience to millions of consumers seeking fair prices for products they want; not mention a new distribution channel for authors and merchants. Those seem meaningful to me.
Lose It! is a popular iPhone / Android / Website application that changes people's lives by helping them manage their weight.
8M+ iPhone Downloads (currently top 10 in Health category)
500k+ Android Downloads (very new, currently top 15 in Health category)
2M Website enabled users (connecting to our website is optional)
2M Uniques per month across all platforms
8.5M+ pounds of weight have been lost by website enabled users (Estimated ~20M pounds lost across all users)
8k messages betweens users that opted into social features per day
450M+ foods logged by website enabled users
Current Team - 1 CEO (technical), 1 Developer (me), 1 Business Dev, 1 Community Manager
Current Stack - GWT, MySQL, Java (server side and Android), AWS, Objective C (iPhone), Membase
Current Tools - Intellij, Git, Navicat, New Relic, CloudBees, Asana
= Who we are looking for =
Lose It! is looking for new members (we have more then one spot open) for our product team to help us build our next generation of products. We believe that small teams of well rounded people can do great things, so we're looking for someone that can contribute to all phases of building a great product. We believe that iterating on our products with customers is the best way to build something great, so we'd like someone who enjoys talking to customers and making them happy (and maybe even helping to change their lives).
As a software engineer at Lose It!, you'll be an early member of the team that is building the core product, the most complete and effective weight loss software spanning mobile devices and the web. You should have a passion for and a proven track record of building products that delight users.
= Who to contact =
{first name} at loseit.com - If you think you would be a good fit send me an email with anything (resume, cover letter, github account, maybe just a simple 'hello'. I'll read anything and everything you send).
1) The screenshots you show on apple.com / itunes / app store are showung apps I have never heard of / don't visually look that good. First thing I would do is improve the quality of the the app screenshots in your app screenshots.
2) When you click an app, it should show the name and a few of the recent reviews, not take you out of the app to the app store, it is to much of a context switch from a user standpoint when you do that.
3) However you are picking to show the applications needs to be improved. All the apps I saw are boring low quality apps.
Definitely not the top list. I opened the Health category which I follow very closely since my application is in that category. I study the top 100 app positions of many apps in the category to see how they are changing each day. I scrolled through about 15 apps in the discovery app and didn't recognize a single one. If it is hand curated, I would say it is poorly done.
Lose It! is a popular iPhone / Android / Website application that changes people's lives by helping them manage their weight.
8M+ iPhone Downloads (currently top 10 in Health category)
500k+ Android Downloads (very new, currently top 15 in Health category)
2M Website enabled users (connecting to our website is optional)
2M Uniques per month across all platforms
7M+ pounds of weight have been lost by website enabled users (Estimated ~18M pounds lost across all users)
8k messages betweens users that opted into social features per day
450M+ foods logged by website enabled users
Current Team - 1 CEO (technical), 1 Developer (me), 1 Business Dev, 1 Community Manager
Current Stack - GWT, MySQL, Java (server side and Android), AWS, Objective C (iPhone), Membase
Current Tools - Intellij, Git, Navicat, New Relic, CloudBees, Asana
= Who we are looking for =
Lose It! is looking for new members (we have more then one spot open) for our product team to help us build our next generation of products. We believe that small teams of well rounded people can do great things, so we're looking for someone that can contribute to all phases of building a great product. We believe that iterating on our products with customers is the best way to build something great, so we'd like someone who enjoys talking to customers and making them happy (and maybe even helping to change their lives).
As a software engineer at Lose It!, you'll be an early member of the team that is building the core product, the most complete and effective weight loss software spanning mobile devices and the web. You should have a passion for and a proven track record of building products that delight users.
= Who to contact =
{first name} at loseit.com - If you think you would be a good fit send me an email with anything (resume, cover letter, github account, maybe just a simple 'hello'. I'll read anything and everything you send).
These numbers are tricky though because the longer someone uses Lose It! the greater chance they hit their goal weight and no longer are trying to lose weight. Also, a lot of the really dedicated loggers that have been around a year or more are often high performance athletes that never intended to lose weight in the first place. They are just using the service out of discipline to their trade.
The average weight loss of all users that have achieved their goal and maintained it for at least 2 weeks is 21 pounds. This kind of backs up the idea that weight loss will slow over 52 weeks (on my service) because most people that achieved their goal only had 21 pounds to lose in the first place.
I suppose I am one of those people you are referring to that spread these lies and am causing a lot of damage. I make a calorie counter / weight loss app and website that is based solely on calories in versus calories out. I think you are massively underestimating the success rate of people that use a calorie deficit rate. Literally millions of pounds have been lost for millions of people using just my application alone. All evidence of actually using the application points to the fact people will lose weight. Sure, once people stop using it they might gain weight again if they don't control their calories. Thats why it is lifestyle change and shouldn't be considered a diet. But I don't think that discredits the millions of pounds lost. From our records, and as posted on our homepage:
"96% of users who use Lose It! for 4 weeks lose weight" and "The average Lose It! user loses 12.3 lbs"
Its hard for me to believe that a caloric deficit doesn't work when I see a lot of data right in front of me that suggests otherwise.
The law mostly. Otherwise ownership of companies would be mostly pointless, similar to that of gambling (in that your fate would be mostly random, more so then it currently is).
You really shouldn't be puzzled at this. It is actually pretty easy to explain if you have ever worked on a large scale website before. The problem is you begin to accrue large amounts of data and metadata (data about your data). And just "getting rid" of that data is actually hard at scale for a few reasons:
1) Lets say I post on your wall and then I delete my account. Does that mean the message should be removed from your wall? What if you really liked the conversation in the comments that took place after I posted the comment, you are just out of luck? This gets trickier and tricker to handle these types of problems as things like groups, forums, and tagging get added to the social network feature set. All of a sudden is very confusing and unclear what exactly should happen with this type of data. Let's say you do keep that message, when how much of the deleted account is required to keep alive to maintain your database relations (this assumes you are using a normalized relational database to manage your site).
2) The site I work on gets a lot of data from users. It isn't uncommon to have ~5MB from a single user in our database. The actual delete operation on that tables is really rough. If 4 users all tried to delete their account at the same time doing a straight DELETE on the tables would be horrible. Not to mention it leaves holes in your tables in some cases.
3) Is it actually legal to delete the data? Can Apple just delete an account where charges can be placed? I would think they need to keep a history of who used what credit card and so on. I am guessing that medical records and emails for large companies have some kind of restrictions about data retention.
4) The backup issue. If a user deletes their account, does the user expect that the company also goes through all their backups and delete their information from there as well.
All of these things add up to a pretty big burden pretty quick and I think it is logical to see why companies might choose to not allow people to delete their own data. I can also understand why people disagree with that decision, but it really shouldn't be puzzling.
If it is "just 1s and 0s", does this mean making desktop software is also 'not real work'? And thus, copying desktop software is also not problem just as copying music is not a problem. And programmers should go find a new way to make money that is not developing and selling desktop software?
This is a crowded space as you mentioned. I don't know why this is any different then Flipboard from reading the description, only thing maybe is that you remove advertisements and make it easier to read. However, the big difference between you and Flipboard is that Flipboard has a brand that I know of, its free, and I know there is a large team behind it making it better all the time (or at least trying to).
Edit: One thing I forgot to say, is that the app actually looks pretty nice. Sadly, I don't think that is enough to break into the market.
= About Lose It! =
Lose It! is a popular iPhone / Android / Website application that changes people's lives by helping them manage their weight.
8M+ iPhone Downloads (currently top 10 in Health category)
200k+ Android Downloads (very new, currently top 15 in Health category)
1.5M+ Website enabled users (connecting to our website is optional)
1.5M Uniques per month across all platforms
7M+ pounds of weight have been lost by website enabled users (Estimated ~18M pounds lost across all users)
8k messages betweens users that opted into social features per day
450M+ foods logged by website enabled users
Current Team - 1 CEO (technical), 1 Developer (me), 1 Business Dev, 1 Community Manager
Current Stack - GWT, MySQL, Java (server side and Android), AWS, Objective C (iPhone), Membase
Current Tools - Intellij, Git, Navicat, New Relic, CloudBees, Asana
= Who we are looking for =
Lose It! is looking for new members (we have more then one spot open) for our product team to help us build our next generation of products. We believe that small teams of well rounded people can do great things, so we're looking for someone that can contribute to all phases of building a great product. We believe that iterating on our products with customers is the best way to build something great, so we'd like someone who enjoys talking to customers and making them happy (and maybe even helping to change their lives).
As a software engineer at Lose It!, you'll be an early member of the team that is building the core product, the most complete and effective weight loss software spanning mobile devices and the web. You should have a passion for and a proven track record of building products that delight users.
= Who to contact =
brandon attttttttttttttt loseit.com - If you think you would be a good fit send me an email with anything (resume, cover letter, github account, maybe just a simple 'hello'. I'll read anything and everything you send).
I think people generally just have a really hard time understanding the value of a non physical good.
The product I work on has this very problem. We have saved thousands of people's lives with the application we made. Seriously, we get an email every single day where someone explains how they lost 50 or more pounds using the product we make and it took them from being pre-diabetic with high blood pressure to normal insulin levels with normal blood pressure. They have full energy again and are living a wonderful life now. This does feel pretty good when we hear these types of things, however we are a startup and we have investors that want to see a return. If the user does mention money, they always say how happy they are that they would easily pay 99 cents, maybe even all the way to 5 dollars for the app now that they know how good it is. Thats not a good sign for us. We made something that saved their life (maybe forever, maybe they will gain the weight back over months time period) and they value it at the same price as value meal at McDonalds that has a short term (maybe 20 minutes of enjoyment) and has the reverse effect on their life. I don't think the users measure the value the same way because our application is not a physical good. It is assumed by people that apps, software, or websites are little worthless toys that should be free (I don't know how computers came along and all of sudden people didn't want to pay for anything, though I did fall in this trap until I got my degree and worked in the field). I know my mother has this problem as well, the only apps she has ever bought for her iPad is when I bought her a iTunes gift card for her birthday. She loves the apps she paid for more then free ones. Especially, Words with Friends for example, but she has a hard time rationalizing how it is worth ~4 dollars yet has entertained her at least 20 minutes everyday day for the last year, and she hated the advertisements in the free one!
This is not quite true. There is still reason to take funding when a startup is profitable, and it happens all the time. Off the top of my head:
1) Not making enough money to scale according to future demand
2) Want to move into country which is usually costly
3) Strategic investor that the money is nice, but really the deal is done to get the connection
4) Want to enter a new industry or release a new product
5) Want to acquire some some technology (could be a company, product, patents, etc...)
6) Fear of a larger company moving in and attempting to take out the startup
7) Profits are simply not enough to to sustain growth that would allow you to make multiples of current profits
8) Legal troubles in the near future that are believed by the investors and CEO to survivable
One thing to remember to think about while job seeking is that you likely will make less money off an exit if you join a company that is breaking even or making a profit. The people most rewarded are those that took it from non-profitable to profitable.
Hard to tell what you think 'cool' is. Unlikely, though for me it was cool, is ReactOS.
Its a full, from the ground up operating system that is meant to be binary compatible Windows XP.
I worked on it for 3 years, and I can tell you that even though the group of active developers is small, the people are great and there is a large of amount of people watching you (future users?). I thought it was cool because it is huge (code and complexity wise), there is a wide range of things to do, and it can teach you so much. I think I learned more working on this project for 3 years then I did from getting my degree at top university. Just remember, it will never bring you fame or fortune, what I learned took me to a job at Microsoft and now at a startup with a lot of traction.
I used to work at Microsoft, and there was a few of these type of people you described. My personal feeling is that their up sides usually even out to their downsides. However, there is a chance it really is a good idea, you really can execute on the product vision, and he really can sell it.
The way I think you find out if he is valuable is not is simple (ha, I say this, but I have no experience actually trying this so I could be horribly wrong):
Tell him you will dedicate to X amount of hours to development over Y amounts of weekends to make a prototype. If he can take that prototype do something with it (investment, sell it as is or with little more work required, etc...) then you will join him as a real cofounder. I would suggest something in the range of 30 hours over 4 weekends but it may depend a lot on the idea.
All starts have very small chances no matter what.
Moreover, I think a cofounder would serve you very well based on some of the things you said. (Granted, with few details of your actual product, I could be completely wrong.)
"I would just need a large server" - Another technical cofounder could probably help you with the real scaling problems you will have if you get traction. And sadly, in most technical products, simply having a large server is not enough.
"I would need ... some graphic design company to design the logo and images. I also would need a ad company to create a name" - A creative / design focused cofounder would be of really great use. This is going to cost you a lot of money you probably don't need to spend.
"I.m looking for I think is around 100k." - A business knowledgable cofounder could really ground you here. A VC would not do a deal this small. That is not interesting to them at all. A seed investor, angel, super angel, whatever they are called might be interested but it would really help decide to invest in you if you have someone that has a real grasp on business projection and how much money you will really need.
First and foremost, suicide is not the answer. The number for the suicide hotline is 1-800-273-8255 and you should either talk with them or someone you know that is truly looking out for your best interest (this might be exclude a friend a family member sadly).
Second, this is just my advice that has brought me a lot of happiness. And I have no idea if this works for other people. But as time has gone on, I have learned to do things that make me happy. Which is often goes against conventional wisdom. A good example, I bought tickets to a movie one night with a friend. We went out to dinner with other friends before hand. We were having such a good time, we just skipped the movie even though we had both already paid 10 dollars for tickets. I scaled this idea to high profile decisions in my life. Like leaving a job everyone thought I was foolish to leave because of the money, etc.. Its your life, you have limited time to live it. You have to make decisions right now to make you happy. If you don't like getting your degree, just stop doing it and do something else.
= About Lose It! =
Lose It! is a popular iPhone / Android / Website application that changes people's lives by helping them manage their weight.
8M+ iPhone Downloads (currently top 10 in Health category)
500k+ Android Downloads (very new, currently top 15 in Health category)
2M Website enabled users (connecting to our website is optional)
2M Uniques per month across all platforms
9M+ pounds of weight have been lost by website enabled users (Estimated ~18M pounds lost across all users)
8k messages betweens users that opted into social features per day
450M+ foods logged by website enabled users
Current Team - 1 CEO (technical), 1 Developer (me), 1 Business Dev, 1 Community Manager
Current Stack - GWT, MySQL, Java (server side and Android), AWS, Objective C (iPhone), Membase
Current Tools - Intellij, Git, Navicat, New Relic, CloudBees, Asana
= Who we are looking for =
Lose It! is looking for new members (we have more then one spot open) for our product team to help us build our next generation of products. We believe that small teams of well rounded people can do great things, so we're looking for someone that can contribute to all phases of building a great product. We believe that iterating on our products with customers is the best way to build something great, so we'd like someone who enjoys talking to customers and making them happy (and maybe even helping to change their lives). As a software engineer at Lose It!, you'll be an early member of the team that is building the core product, the most complete and effective weight loss software spanning mobile devices and the web. You should have a passion for and a proven track record of building products that delight users.
= Who to contact =
{first name} at loseit.com - If you think you would be a good fit send me an email with anything (resume, cover letter, github account, maybe just a simple 'hello'. I'll read anything and everything you send).