We are going through the same approach with our current beta customers (and will be making our demos available to a wide audience in the future too) and I can attest to the validity of this approach. We make it very clear to our customers that this is a demo and their changes will go away if they refresh the page. We don't have pop-ups integrated since we collect emails on another page. I think event tracking should be sufficient but we'll have to see what the data says in a little while.
We actually also use these semi-live demos instead of mock-ups (since we'll be implementing the same pages afterward anyway) since only one of us is proficient with Photoshop but everyone is comfortable with Bootstrap. It serves as a testing ground for various approaches for JS code too.
Dad tried to teach me how pointers worked when I was 6. When that didn't really stick, he tried flow diagrams. That seemed more fun than Barbies but I didn't come back to computers until 7 years later when we finally got one at home. I loved playing around with pictures and Word Art in MS Word so dad got me a "for dummies" book of sorts. It went downhill from there. :P
So sad. I distinctly remember how my sis and I (female) got a pair of generic brand transformers as a present back when I was 8. Dad was inspired after we watched Voltron every Saturday! Of course, my sister (being slightly girlier than me at that age) promptly used nail polish to paint its ugly-grey "shoes" because we needed to distinguish "ours" but still, what fun! It turned into a fighter plane and back and we'd spend hours playing with it.
... I mean, no, girls don't buy toys. Maybe if they didn't explicitly make it boring and discouraging for girls then they would?
When you have 3 kids to take care of and have no background in finance/accounting/etc. do you really want to start getting into THOSE details too? Why would you doubt your husband, the man who's supposed to take care of you until the death do you part?
Netflix makes it pretty obvious that you're signing up for a monthly subscription. It is also a pretty well-known fact about their business model so it's much harder to be "duped" into it.
I'm always confused why people assume that you need VC's money to grow FAST, especially if your company a B2B (similar to what people assumed about OP's business). Growing fast means getting a lot of new PAYING customers fast and if you priced your product right, that should cover the extra expenses of infrastructure, support and allow you to expand your staff to build more features to bring more customers in. VC's money is good when you don't have a proper monetization strategy (which may or may not be a problem to begin with) and need money to get by for the first while, which doesn't seem to be OP's case.
That is mostly because the "degree of relevancy" is highly subjective in travel and is never constant as places adapt new tourism strategies, new things get built and open. Plus, if you think about it, most world's destinations have pretty much EVERYTHING in each category of travel, if you look hard enough. Sure, some things may receive greater focus but in the end you can find something to your fancy pretty much anywhere you go.
To contrast this with music, where a song will always stay the same and the 3 minutes of it are, arguably, easy to deconstruct into components, classify by genre/rhythm/artist/etc., and then index.
Disclaimer: we too are building a "trip planning tool" but I think we've found a good angle to approach the problem with to avoid the situation most "inspiration"/"social"/"planning" travel startups find themselves in.
This always happens when people without any knowledge and understanding have the power to approve and impact so many lives.
Re: names of government bills, it's all a "marketing gimmick" to make sure the bills get approved. If you call it "Spy and monitor everyone (just in case)", no politician will have the balls to vote in favour and the press will have a field day. The moment you call it Protect America Act, everyone is screaming "yea"!
Personally I couldn't be more in love with MSFT tools (granted they're expensive and I'm using whatever free version they give us). I've worked with Java way back but can't help switching back (WPF, Silverlight for a short while, MVC). When people ask me why on Earth I prefer this, I always give them the same explanation: "MSFT development products for a straight-up developer are what Apple products to an average consumer. Things integrate together instantly and just... work!"
Not too familiar with ADD/ADHD but from some reading I've done it seems that this is prone to misdiagnosis VERY often so you should be cautious with just jumping on prescriptions...
Whether you actually have it or not, I think it's great that you are noticing these traits of yours. Now you can start looking for solutions! Find ways to motivate yourself (HN community is great), get organized, and if still needed then find the right medicine that fits with the rest of your life.
This sounds great on the surface but I'm always wondering about specific implementation of this method. How do you charge people for a promise? Do you set a certain timeline so people have something to look forward to?
Hey there! First off, really sorry this happened to you but it looks like you're definitely on the path to recovery - you're not just wallowing in depression and actively looking for solutions! Stay strong and keep it up, soon this will all look like a bizarre dream. :)
Where are you based? You mentioned you're in US, if you're in the NYC area give me a shout! I'm a gal coder too, would definitely meet up for some "coding sessions". I'm currently also learning some web stuff like JavaScript so we'd be in the same boat and help each other. I can also do Skype/chat sessions if we can't meet face-to-face so let me know!
Stay strong and try to look on the positive side. Things will definitely just go up from here! If not, there's always lolcats to lift the mood :)
I totally agree. Had everyone been allowed to fail, we would've been well on the way to recovery already. It's frustrating to watch the government keep this pathetic lifeline going which will fail in the end anyway.