Added an up-vote for previous comments about quality and fit. Both points are absolutely critical. To expand on those points:
1. Dress for who you want to be (and what you stand for) - I've found it helps to approach fashion the way you do your career. It's all about investing in where you're headed next. Your clothes are the first layer of who you are and if you think about it, it's awesome that you get to invent that every day. Pick a few things that feel like they reflect your identity (both current and aspiring) and go all out. Even if you don't dress like anyone else, you'll dress like you and more likely than not, that level of comfort will evoke a sexy kind of confidence.
2. Gather top-notch basics first - Grab yourself a nice pair of jeans and a white t-shirt that fits just right. Do a good job on this and already, you'll look better than most people.
3. Those basics will take you a long way - Stepping up your style game isn't about volume, it's about quality. Unless you're going for a dandy look or something to that effect, your approach to fashion should be aligned with the owner of a minimalist Tiny House. Everything you buy, from basics to accessories, should be beautiful, functional, comfortable and long-lasting (e.g. quality).
4. A versatile blazer or good looking jacket will take you everywhere - Find one or two that look sharp and feel comfortable. You want something that's as easy to turn to as your favorite hoodie. Speaking of hoodies, grab a nice sweater or two.
5. Eliminate barriers - Everything you buy should be as easy as possible. For example, buy non-iron dress shirts. That way you don't have the "I don't have time to iron" excuse for not dressing up.
6. Shoes maketh the man - Someone once told me every good man needs two things. An excellent bed and an excellent pair of shoes. If you're not in one you're in the other. Get some good comfortable oxfords and a pair of nice leather low-top sneakers (think Common Projects) for the weekends. Keep them clean, unless you're specifically going for a worn look.
7. Nice workout clothes make a difference - Odds are, you'll go somewhere before or after the gym. Invest in nice workout clothes. I spent years wearing my college athletic gear to the gym and thought it made me an "authentic athlete." Really it just made me messy, and the second I started investing in good-looking athletic clothes I realized it makes a difference. My new gear made me realize I should invest thoughtfully and opt for quality in everything I do.
If you're interested in learning more and want to talk menswear, message me. I'm obsessed with men's fashion and have done some makeovers for friends. Not selling anything here, just happy to help a fellow person who wants to be better.
Mag+ - Business Systems Product Manager - NYC - Full-Time
Mag+ is a mobile app building software SaaS company funded by Bonnier (They own Popular Science and a bunch of other magazines).
Responsibilities:
- Manage business systems and third party integrations with various technology systems used by sales, product, support and marketing teams (Salesforce, Marketo, online commerce, etc)
- Draft technical requirements, architecture diagram, specifications and documentation for integration projects to guide the development teams during the implementation phase
- Share best practices for business systems integrations as well as specific results based on proof of concept in testing environment
- Coordinate with product and development teams to complete projects that require prioritization and development implementation
- Plan and execute on strategic reporting across systems drawing and elucidating analytics and business intelligence to assist sales, marketing, and support operations
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the position, company culture, etc.
Nice. The taxes are always the hardest to get over with. Way to tackle it and make serious project on moonlighter. Looks interesting. I just signed up for the beta.
- Things That Have Caught My Attention by Dan Hon - http://tinyletter.com/danhon (He's the content director for Code for America and writes beautiful, thoughtful and personal commentary. Very smart.)
- Taylor Davidson's Newsletter - http://taylordavidson.com/letters (Writings at the intersection of tech and photography. Similar to Benedict Evans' format.)
- Deb Chachra's Metafoundry - http://tinyletter.com/metafoundry (An engineering professor who writes a combination of personal notes and smart commentary about tech/science.)
- Weekly Gold by David Sherry - http://davidjsherry.com/ (A nice reminder to step away from your computer and take the world in + a cool startup recommendation every week.)
The startups aren't exact matches of what you want to offer, but they haven't been mentioned yet and they might offer some inspiration.
Excursionist (http://excursionist.com) - Create and book unique, one-of-a-kind travel experiences. Definitely targeted at a higher end consumer. Worth watching for the way they editorialize places.
SideTour (http://sidetour.com) - Hosts create unique experiences. Users then buy those experiences. Looks like hosts write the copy for each experience, which (if that is in fact the truth) saves a lot of time on copywriting. Once you have the infrastructure you could theoretically scale across the world.
Overall I like the idea, but as a consumer I have a few thoughts.
1. I think it's going to be really important to separate yourself from the existing competition. Otherwise I probably won't sign up for yet another newsletter when I really only take a one or two trips a year.
2. The vetting/quality control process will be extremely important. If I'm going to climb Everest with someone, I really want to make sure the experience in their profile is in fact true.
3. Finesse re: selling me at the right time will go a long way. I don't know if this means you hit me when I'm actually booking a trip or what, but unless the way you present this experiences is incredibly entertaining/awe inspiring, this context factor could very easily make the difference between pestering the consumer and offering a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I don't think UrbanDaddy Jetset or Gilt's Jetsetter has this quite figured out. Though I'm sure they still make money, figuring out a way to present yourself more effectively could go a long way.
Whatever the case, I still think there's room for innovation in the space.
This is great, thanks for sharing. I've tried using daytum and askmeevery.com to achieve similar QS tracking, but for some reason neither really resonated.
I think you've really hit on something with the push notifications. AskMeEvery uses scheduling along with SMS and email to achieve something similar, but ultimately their tracking wasn't as robust as I would have liked.
I agree with dchuk in that the real power here has to do with your ability to turn raw data into true insights on trends and what affects a person's mood.
I saw you plan to make the data available to users over time. When you do so, it might be cool to also add some kind of data analysis forum or outlet where users can share the tools they've created to analyze their moods over time.
I'd also love to create custom categories or fields that I can check off so that when the app pings me, I answer something like Overall Mood: ____ Food:_____ Idea: ____ or something to that effect. This could also work with the tagging feature someone mentioned.
Thanks again for the share. I'm looking forward to getting my first ping and putting this app to work.
I love the idea and not just for blogs. Think about this button's application in learning environments like Coursera lecture notes or a Now You Lost Me! button that allow users to append their thoughts to specific parts of a lecture or video. Or what about a button you can press in a physical classroom? It's really quite wonderful.
I agree with some of the comments though, my first reaction was, "Don't leave it at where they got lost, let them tell you why." Maybe when users click the button a text box can fly out (gethopper.com does this really well) that allows users to append notes. In some cases admins will read all the feedback, but if you want to get really fancy you could parse the responses for common themes, keywords, etc to identify the most common points of confusion.
Looking forward to seeing this develop, this is great.
Lauren Proctor, NYC (but open to anywhere), laurenproctor32@gmail.
Not a professional coder (yet), but I do digital marketing for startups.
Have done work for l2thinktank.com, 20x200.com, halogenmediagroup.com and many more. If you want help marketing your project or startup I'd love to talk. Specialties include branded content (blog, white papers, ebooks, etc) digital strategy, email marketing, social media, etc.
Lauren Proctor, NYC (but open to anywhere), laurenproctor32@gmail.
Not a professional coder (yet), but I do digital marketing for startups.
Have done work for l2thinktank.com, 20x200.com, halogenmediagroup.com and many more. If you want help marketing your project or startup I'd love to talk. Specialties include branded content (blog, white papers, ebooks, etc) digital strategy, email marketing, social media, etc.
I agree with kipsfi completely, if the connecting part of the equation was built into the experience we would see a lot of added value.
I would love to see some kind of skills exchange enter the equation so everyone feels like they can contribute. Hackerbuddy.com tries to do this virtually, but I could see the physical world giving this idea plenty more oomph.
It has also become practical for me to employ a freelancer to pick up some of my freelance tasks. So far, it seems like one of the best ways to scale my work while focusing only on the tasks I enjoy most.
I second the recommendations for Wordpress, but only if you're committed to maintaining your own domain. If you don't mind spending a little bit of money on hosting, the platform is simple, flexible, and pretty powerful. Plus, you'll have total control.
If you want to farm out to someone else, tumblr is good because it's inherently social (people will follow you, share your posts, etc), but it's largely visual and a bit spammy at times.
Posterous is another good platform because it's simple, has some social features, and tends toward the more content driven format.
Wordpress is still my vote though, because it can grow with your blog/site and vary from the fairly simple to as advanced as you want.
I second the daily deals vote and add some of the latest fashion apps like Snapette and the others that keep an inventory of the fashion items people own.
1. Dress for who you want to be (and what you stand for) - I've found it helps to approach fashion the way you do your career. It's all about investing in where you're headed next. Your clothes are the first layer of who you are and if you think about it, it's awesome that you get to invent that every day. Pick a few things that feel like they reflect your identity (both current and aspiring) and go all out. Even if you don't dress like anyone else, you'll dress like you and more likely than not, that level of comfort will evoke a sexy kind of confidence.
2. Gather top-notch basics first - Grab yourself a nice pair of jeans and a white t-shirt that fits just right. Do a good job on this and already, you'll look better than most people.
3. Those basics will take you a long way - Stepping up your style game isn't about volume, it's about quality. Unless you're going for a dandy look or something to that effect, your approach to fashion should be aligned with the owner of a minimalist Tiny House. Everything you buy, from basics to accessories, should be beautiful, functional, comfortable and long-lasting (e.g. quality).
4. A versatile blazer or good looking jacket will take you everywhere - Find one or two that look sharp and feel comfortable. You want something that's as easy to turn to as your favorite hoodie. Speaking of hoodies, grab a nice sweater or two.
5. Eliminate barriers - Everything you buy should be as easy as possible. For example, buy non-iron dress shirts. That way you don't have the "I don't have time to iron" excuse for not dressing up.
6. Shoes maketh the man - Someone once told me every good man needs two things. An excellent bed and an excellent pair of shoes. If you're not in one you're in the other. Get some good comfortable oxfords and a pair of nice leather low-top sneakers (think Common Projects) for the weekends. Keep them clean, unless you're specifically going for a worn look.
7. Nice workout clothes make a difference - Odds are, you'll go somewhere before or after the gym. Invest in nice workout clothes. I spent years wearing my college athletic gear to the gym and thought it made me an "authentic athlete." Really it just made me messy, and the second I started investing in good-looking athletic clothes I realized it makes a difference. My new gear made me realize I should invest thoughtfully and opt for quality in everything I do.
If you're interested in learning more and want to talk menswear, message me. I'm obsessed with men's fashion and have done some makeovers for friends. Not selling anything here, just happy to help a fellow person who wants to be better.