I've been a reviewer on PR for a couple of months now and it's been amazing. I've gotten to help dozens, maybe hundreds of developers improved their code, fix security, readability, testing and lots of other issues. Sometimes the PR is short and the review is short but sometimes it's much more involved and I've had the opportunity to really explain things and educate people in a way that no lint checker could. I'm able to apply the wealth of my experience and knowledge with specific guidance based on things I've learned from building software for 22 years. I can't think of another way that a company could gain access to that kind of guidance for only $699 a month.
I can go into detail explaining how to safely and reliably structure something and the feedback I get from the developers is positive and appreciative. I also collaborate with other reviewers about things we're seeing and I've learned a ton in the process because the other reviewers they've all got such a depth of experience and knowledge in different areas.
I don't do reviews full time, I have a day job, but I've been earning about $1000 a week doing it just some nights and weekends and that has been really great too.
Overall, I think PullRequest is an enormously positive thing for its customers and the reviewers. We're not trying to replace people's existing review processes if they have them. Our goal is just to add to our customers' capabilities and I think we're going very well at that.
I built this after a discussion with a friend about the friction involved in getting rid of stuff with Craigslist, Freecycle etc. This is intended largely as an experiment to gauge demand. There's nothing automated about it yet because I didn't want to spend any time on it if there's no demand for the service.
Pusher has a great realtime console, Stripe has stellar documentation and Foursquare has great developer features like testing recent push notifications.
I've pitched at StartupRiot twice now and it gets better every year. Sanjay and his team put on an AMAZING event with great speakers. People like David Hauser, Andrew Warner, Robert Scoble etc have been there in the past.
It's a huge opportunity to meet people that can help you start or grow your company. DO IT.
Very good writeup, Chad. I too have, apparently, flunked Silicon Valley up to this point. It's really great that you've been relentlessly pursuing it, though.
I had the same reaction about Chirp. I started to get the feeling from Twitter around the time of Chirp.
I was always wary of building apps that are completely dependent on someone else's platform to live and, indeed, my own startup was dealt a serious setback by the release of OpenVBX. So my fears were valid, after all.
My own Twitter usage has changed quite a bit lately, as well. I've given up on keeping up with what's going on. I check it less and less each day it seems. I had an idea this weekend about using small GroupMe groups to share ideas instead of Twitter because I could segment people better that way...
Anyway, It will be interesting to see what Twitter looks like in a few years...
I you need to clarify your positioning, first. Then work on your GoToMarket Approach.
I think you make a more powerful Value Proposition to developers, instead of individuals. One or two home runs with wildly popular apps that choose to deliver their notification with Notifo will do a lot to drive up the number of devices with your app installed...
That was exactly my intent. I started looking at ways to control my original VBX platform from the mobile device and FourSquare checkins was an easy target.
I can go into detail explaining how to safely and reliably structure something and the feedback I get from the developers is positive and appreciative. I also collaborate with other reviewers about things we're seeing and I've learned a ton in the process because the other reviewers they've all got such a depth of experience and knowledge in different areas.
I don't do reviews full time, I have a day job, but I've been earning about $1000 a week doing it just some nights and weekends and that has been really great too.
Overall, I think PullRequest is an enormously positive thing for its customers and the reviewers. We're not trying to replace people's existing review processes if they have them. Our goal is just to add to our customers' capabilities and I think we're going very well at that.