London’s Lonely Unicorn: Two Frugal Expats and Their Billion-Dollar Startup(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
London’s Lonely Unicorn: Two Frugal Expats and Their Billion-Dollar Startup
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-13/london-s-lonely-unicorn-two-frugal-expats-and-their-billion-dollar-startup
191 comments
Or, in the case of international money transfer: They see through the existing system and just openly do what most banks have been doing all the time behind the scenes, passing most of the savings to the customer.
The only problem I see with this specific business model: As soon as enough people use it, this method of transfer will be the norm and all the big banks will offer it too, thereby invalidating the justification for the existence of the new players. (Mind you, still a great win for the customer!)
The only problem I see with this specific business model: As soon as enough people use it, this method of transfer will be the norm and all the big banks will offer it too, thereby invalidating the justification for the existence of the new players. (Mind you, still a great win for the customer!)
>The only problem I see with this specific business model: As soon as enough people use it, this method of transfer will be the norm and all the big banks will offer it too, thereby invalidating the justification for the existence of the new players.
Yes exactly what I was thinking. But by that time Transferwise could be a reputable brand with lots of customers so they could pivot to offer other financial services.
Yes exactly what I was thinking. But by that time Transferwise could be a reputable brand with lots of customers so they could pivot to offer other financial services.
And almost certainly better tech.
You ever check out the OS your bank is running?
You ever check out the OS your bank is running?
Honestly, I don't care whether I am driven over by a Porsche Cayenne or a Willys MB.
And while I have not worked in the banking sector myself, lots of my friends did - and it was not cobol. They are catching up and they all know that their mainframe sw is dated and act upon it.
I don't think the "quality" of the tech is of any relevance here.
EDIT: Well, I actually know some guys who bit the bullet and learned cobol when they were just turning 20. By the time they turned 30, they did not have to work anymore.
And while I have not worked in the banking sector myself, lots of my friends did - and it was not cobol. They are catching up and they all know that their mainframe sw is dated and act upon it.
I don't think the "quality" of the tech is of any relevance here.
EDIT: Well, I actually know some guys who bit the bullet and learned cobol when they were just turning 20. By the time they turned 30, they did not have to work anymore.
> and it was not cobol
And if it was, personally, I wouldn't have a problem as a customer.
And if it was, personally, I wouldn't have a problem as a customer.
It's cobol.
> You ever check out the OS your bank is running?
Does it matter? I don't care what Fidelity, Vanguard, etc run under the hood, I have no loyalty nor switching costs.
Vanguard's interface is garbage, plain and simple, but they have the lowest cost index funds; I'd use paper and pen to correspond with them if necessary. I moved from Betterment, who has a very delightful iOS app and web interface, because the fees were lower at Vanguard.
Does it matter? I don't care what Fidelity, Vanguard, etc run under the hood, I have no loyalty nor switching costs.
Vanguard's interface is garbage, plain and simple, but they have the lowest cost index funds; I'd use paper and pen to correspond with them if necessary. I moved from Betterment, who has a very delightful iOS app and web interface, because the fees were lower at Vanguard.
Ideally this is solved by positioning. Since they are associated with this concept it should be hard to copy as long as they executed it well, even if (or especially if) it's copied by a huge traditional banking brand (e.g. a British bank).
At the very least they should be positioned well for a buyout (as that's likely the best way of going about it by a traditional bank).
I don't think it's possible without significant restructuring (for banks). They have huge costs that TransferWise is avoiding.
sometimes you say? it is always about execution
being passionate about things that nobody wants, and disrupting things nobody cares about will get you nowhere. a low margin grocery store fulfills a need and thats why they are everywhere.
being passionate about things that nobody wants, and disrupting things nobody cares about will get you nowhere. a low margin grocery store fulfills a need and thats why they are everywhere.
Ideas are utterly worthless. Execution is everything.
I freely give every single idea (some actually valuable!) I've ever had away for free. Because I know if someone is better at implementing it than I am, they are the ones who provided the world value. Not me for dreaming it up and then doing nothing about it - there are millions of me's, and ideas without execution are not interesting.
I freely give every single idea (some actually valuable!) I've ever had away for free. Because I know if someone is better at implementing it than I am, they are the ones who provided the world value. Not me for dreaming it up and then doing nothing about it - there are millions of me's, and ideas without execution are not interesting.
I give most of my ideas away, since I've ruled them out as not being optimal uses of my own time.
I've done the teeth pulling NDA and noncompetes with a lot of people, just so they would tell me their original idea that I'm contractually bound not to copy for a limited time in a limited geographic area or tell anyone about. And I realized how unoriginal all of them are. If they weren't so concerned about people copying their idea they would have gotten feedback on it a lot sooner for the simple answer of "Hey, Spotify does this already, did you check the menu options?" running completely counter to their market research and conclusion that "nobody" is doing this and its "huge".
I've done the teeth pulling NDA and noncompetes with a lot of people, just so they would tell me their original idea that I'm contractually bound not to copy for a limited time in a limited geographic area or tell anyone about. And I realized how unoriginal all of them are. If they weren't so concerned about people copying their idea they would have gotten feedback on it a lot sooner for the simple answer of "Hey, Spotify does this already, did you check the menu options?" running completely counter to their market research and conclusion that "nobody" is doing this and its "huge".
>Ideas are utterly worthless.
>I freely give every single idea (some actually valuable!)
A solid contradiction ;) But I understand your intentions.
>I freely give every single idea (some actually valuable!)
A solid contradiction ;) But I understand your intentions.
I guess value and worth can have subtlety different meanings
Ha. Good point :)
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Tell that to the Winklevoss twins
I guess if you only value ideas by the money that ends up in your pocket in the end, then sure, ideas a worthless and execution is the only thing that matters.
For an example, FedEx established the business model of paying extra to get something there sooner in a high-volume, economical way. It's always been there in a custom, luxury form despite the early doubters acting like it was a dumb idea entirely. Fred Smith and company just executed it very well vs all prior attempts. Billions in income followed.
I use this service all the time when I need to transfer cash,. It's simpler than using a bank, often faster, and almost universally cheaper. The idea is old as dirt, but execution is everything, and boy do they execute well.
Like Drucker said, there is efficiency and effectiveness. When you do both it's a good outcome.
I've been using this for the past 6 months. It works really nicely and removes a lot of friction - it's just like sending money to another local account. I've paid people in Netherlands, Australia, Germany and they recently started allowing US$ paid to Ukraine, so I've been able to pay software developers there.
That's what banks do. They compute the net flow, and each day, there's a settlement payment between the banks if there's a significant difference.
Forgive my off-topicness - do you have any advice on sourcing developers in the Ukraine specifically?
Generally LinkedIn. Just say your what are you looking for, and they will find you.
I am getting at least 2-3 of them ( meaning, companies in Ukraine ) per month.
I am getting at least 2-3 of them ( meaning, companies in Ukraine ) per month.
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How much is the salary and what's the skill level like?
I'm very interested in Eastern European developers, they seem to get shit done and rarely complain.
I'm very interested in Eastern European developers, they seem to get shit done and rarely complain.
This kind of commoditization attitude of developers really fucks me off. "Shut up and code and don't complain". Nah, you can fuck right off mate.
Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as an insensitive employer (I was an underpaid dev before so I know the frustration) but I really can't afford a full time US/UK/AUS developer who makes 2~3 times my current revenues.
I'm willing to pay top dollars if I could but right now I need to make my bootstrapped stuff stretch with every dollar. Once you take the helm of a business, it's painfully clear how expensive hiring people is.
I'm trying to build something like Patreon for open source developers where you get paid to work on open source projects the community requests.
I am actively trying to help people get paid, there's not much money that goes into my pocket, I'm doing this because I believe that 1) Open source is going to eat commercial software 2) Developers should be able to easily find side income or full time income without having to drive their wages to the floor on freelancer websites.
I've hired people from Ukraine, Romania before and they were every bit as good if not better in some aspects. The cost of living there is different and the USD goes a long way in many parts of the world.
I also think it's great to give people meaningful work all over the world, especially in places where they are rare due to structural economic issues.
I'm willing to pay top dollars if I could but right now I need to make my bootstrapped stuff stretch with every dollar. Once you take the helm of a business, it's painfully clear how expensive hiring people is.
I'm trying to build something like Patreon for open source developers where you get paid to work on open source projects the community requests.
I am actively trying to help people get paid, there's not much money that goes into my pocket, I'm doing this because I believe that 1) Open source is going to eat commercial software 2) Developers should be able to easily find side income or full time income without having to drive their wages to the floor on freelancer websites.
I've hired people from Ukraine, Romania before and they were every bit as good if not better in some aspects. The cost of living there is different and the USD goes a long way in many parts of the world.
I also think it's great to give people meaningful work all over the world, especially in places where they are rare due to structural economic issues.
Is there anything wrong with looking for developers that don't complain?
Total aside: As an Eastern European emigrant, I don't really mind being characterized as hard-working and rarely-complaining. I like to think it's true.
Total aside: As an Eastern European emigrant, I don't really mind being characterized as hard-working and rarely-complaining. I like to think it's true.
Depends what you're complaining about.
If you don't complain when you see something wrong, e.g. a bad design choice - then you're basically a yes man (or yes woman), and you're only useful to companies who are either already perfect, or who don't want your help to do better. The first does not exist and the second would be a crap place to work.
If you don't complain when you see something wrong, e.g. a bad design choice - then you're basically a yes man (or yes woman), and you're only useful to companies who are either already perfect, or who don't want your help to do better. The first does not exist and the second would be a crap place to work.
Right, yeah. I definitely complain when there's something egregiously wrong. But as much as I like to hear myself speak, I try not to overdo it.
Capitalism will eat you alive if you don't stand up for your wages and standard of living. I used to be a naive young graduate grateful for a job with the delusion that I would commit everything to my employer and get treated fairly in return. If your employer is cash rich, you should be reaping the rewards as well, not just quietly taking a pay cheque to enrich the shareholders at disproportionate rate.
This is further compounded by the fact that, as developers, we are terrible at recognising our worth and speaking up. Doesn't help that you are conditioned into an inferiority complex constantly reinforced by a ridiculous interview process.
This is further compounded by the fact that, as developers, we are terrible at recognising our worth and speaking up. Doesn't help that you are conditioned into an inferiority complex constantly reinforced by a ridiculous interview process.
Don't complain about the money and don't complain about my flawed illogical mock-up. But please, do take the blame in the end though, for my useless product.
The reason for this is exeedingly simple.
Marx theorised that instead of seeing the people behind transactions, rather we focus solely on the trade itself, the commodities involved. This is a simplification of the theory of commodity fetishism, so to say that commodities are fetishised by focusing on one particular aspect of the product rather than the whole web connecting the products, buyers, sellers, labourers etc.
And actually, developers are merely capital. Their labour time is purchased, just as the computer is purchased, or the loom or silk or bale of cotton. It's simply a transaction which is factored into all the other costs, there's nothing special about labour.
From Wage Labour and Capital:
>Consequently, it appears that the capitalist buys their labour with money, and that for money they sell him their labour. But this is merely an illusion. What they actually sell to the capitalist for money is their labour-power. This labour-power the capitalist buys for a day, a week, a month, etc. And after he has bought it, he uses it up by letting the worker labour during the stipulated time. With the same amount of money with which the capitalist has bought their labour-power (for example, with two shillings) he could have bought a certain amount of sugar or of any other commodity. The two shillings with which he bought 20 pounds of sugar is the price of the 20 pounds of sugar. The two shillings with which he bought 12 hours' use of labour-power, is the price of 12 hours' labour. Labour-power, then, is a commodity, no more, no less so than is the sugar. The first is measured by the clock, the other by the scales.
Marx theorised that instead of seeing the people behind transactions, rather we focus solely on the trade itself, the commodities involved. This is a simplification of the theory of commodity fetishism, so to say that commodities are fetishised by focusing on one particular aspect of the product rather than the whole web connecting the products, buyers, sellers, labourers etc.
And actually, developers are merely capital. Their labour time is purchased, just as the computer is purchased, or the loom or silk or bale of cotton. It's simply a transaction which is factored into all the other costs, there's nothing special about labour.
From Wage Labour and Capital:
>Consequently, it appears that the capitalist buys their labour with money, and that for money they sell him their labour. But this is merely an illusion. What they actually sell to the capitalist for money is their labour-power. This labour-power the capitalist buys for a day, a week, a month, etc. And after he has bought it, he uses it up by letting the worker labour during the stipulated time. With the same amount of money with which the capitalist has bought their labour-power (for example, with two shillings) he could have bought a certain amount of sugar or of any other commodity. The two shillings with which he bought 20 pounds of sugar is the price of the 20 pounds of sugar. The two shillings with which he bought 12 hours' use of labour-power, is the price of 12 hours' labour. Labour-power, then, is a commodity, no more, no less so than is the sugar. The first is measured by the clock, the other by the scales.
Not really sorry, I've been using the same devs there for the past 9 years. They've been great
Have you used UKForex before Transferwise? How do they compare?
Transferwise is a great service, I use it myself. They even give you a volume discount if you ask for it.
But what really surprises me is that it got to where it is at all. If you look at it, their business model is not revolutionary. Their prices are not cheaper than for example UKForex (OzForex), who provide the exact same service, and were around years before.
The business is simply a click interface for exchanging money; you send in your currency, and they send in the agreed amount to the other side. The price difference between these shops is minimal.
It could not be simpler. I've traded currencies as a professional, there's not a whole lot of other steps behind the scenes.
But I doubt most people have heard of UKForex. Transferwise however are on billboards everywhere, acting as though they invented the idea of swapping one currency for another. And acting as though you are cutting out the middle man, which you are not. You still need a bank.
Well played to them though, it seems they've used some of that startup hype attitude to get themselves a nice little business.
But what really surprises me is that it got to where it is at all. If you look at it, their business model is not revolutionary. Their prices are not cheaper than for example UKForex (OzForex), who provide the exact same service, and were around years before.
The business is simply a click interface for exchanging money; you send in your currency, and they send in the agreed amount to the other side. The price difference between these shops is minimal.
It could not be simpler. I've traded currencies as a professional, there's not a whole lot of other steps behind the scenes.
But I doubt most people have heard of UKForex. Transferwise however are on billboards everywhere, acting as though they invented the idea of swapping one currency for another. And acting as though you are cutting out the middle man, which you are not. You still need a bank.
Well played to them though, it seems they've used some of that startup hype attitude to get themselves a nice little business.
The first-run experience of Transferwise blows UKForex out of the water.
If I want to convert 1000 EUR to USD, the number one thing I care about is how many USD I will get for my EUR.
The front page of Transferwise has a giant input right at the top of the page that tells me exactly how many USD I will get, and tells me that rate is guaranteed for 48 hours.
The front page of UKForex has a much smaller input, and it's "market rate" - if I want to find out how many USD I will actually get, I have to register and create an account.
This is just one example, but it speaks to my whole experience of Transferwise vs. other foreign exchange providers. The user experience is best-in-class.
If I want to convert 1000 EUR to USD, the number one thing I care about is how many USD I will get for my EUR.
The front page of Transferwise has a giant input right at the top of the page that tells me exactly how many USD I will get, and tells me that rate is guaranteed for 48 hours.
The front page of UKForex has a much smaller input, and it's "market rate" - if I want to find out how many USD I will actually get, I have to register and create an account.
This is just one example, but it speaks to my whole experience of Transferwise vs. other foreign exchange providers. The user experience is best-in-class.
The TV adverts and billboards where also particularly good, involving people spitting out their cup of tea in surprise when they realised they could save money with transfer wise.
Very English, very effective.
Very English, very effective.
> They even give you a volume discount if you ask for it.
I'm struggling moving USD -> GBP, hitting the daily ACH limits & frustrated that the creaky US banking system doesn't have a better interbank transfer system than wiring funds for tens of dollars a pop (and presenting a physical form).
Yeah just go on the chat and tell them you've sold a house.
Hello all.
I used transferwise in November to move money to Japan.
The exchange rate applied was the actual fucking exchange rate. I paid Transferwsise a couple of quid.
Worth every fucking penny. Worth swearing. Use Transferwise.
I used transferwise in November to move money to Japan.
The exchange rate applied was the actual fucking exchange rate. I paid Transferwsise a couple of quid.
Worth every fucking penny. Worth swearing. Use Transferwise.
What's the foremost authority for realtime ForEx rates?
there isn't one, because that's not how the market works
it's like asking what's the world price for a tuna sandwich, there's a few million places you could buy one, and they all have a different price
it's like asking what's the world price for a tuna sandwich, there's a few million places you could buy one, and they all have a different price
Don't know about foremost, but I always use xe.com
Yeah, I was investigating transferwise because supposedly it was cheaper than xe.com but it seems like they are pretty competitive with each other. I've already been using xe.com and see no reason to switch.
I transfer my entire salary from USD to EUR every year so I definitely want to get the best rate.
I transfer my entire salary from USD to EUR every year so I definitely want to get the best rate.
I only use xe.com as my go to website for looking up current exchange spot rates. I didn't even really know they had a transfer service.
I am a very happy Transferwise user. I used to always check the exchange rate on xe.com, then switch to Transferwise to compare before transferring. Now I don't bother, because Transferwise has always been very close to the spot rate.
I am a very happy Transferwise user. I used to always check the exchange rate on xe.com, then switch to Transferwise to compare before transferring. Now I don't bother, because Transferwise has always been very close to the spot rate.
There is no foremost authority in foreign exchange, it's mostly an unregulated market.
This is great, as someone who frequently transfers money from the US to Canada I wish I had known about this sooner. Hopefully they can actually make some money.
I use them every two weeks to move Canadian dollars to British pounds.
Nobody else comes close in terms of exchange rates and level of service.
Nobody else comes close in terms of exchange rates and level of service.
WorldFirst does. There are plenty of competitors in the space that do a great job at this.
I tried WorldFirst after Oanda stopped participating in this business and referred their customers to WF.
The two turned out to be nothing alike. Oanda used to let little people convert currency on the same platform as proper FX traders (speculators). This meant you could pay a tiny fee and get some of the most competitive rates in the world because you were trading directly in their two-sided market.
WorldFirst is different. They make you declare the amount you want to exchange and then they synthesize a rate that expires soon after. There is no way to put in an order at a specific price and they do not show you a two-sided quote which would make it plain how much they're taking.
From what I saw, WorldFirst aims to take about 1.5% of each side of each trade at the when they are large, and even more on small trades.
If you're exchanging $500 you may as well use a bank. If you're exchanging $50000 you may as well use a true trading platform.
When exchanging currency at any online or physical marketplace, look at their two-sided quote to see the spread they charge. If they try to show you only one side (buy or sell but not both), go elsewhere.
The two turned out to be nothing alike. Oanda used to let little people convert currency on the same platform as proper FX traders (speculators). This meant you could pay a tiny fee and get some of the most competitive rates in the world because you were trading directly in their two-sided market.
WorldFirst is different. They make you declare the amount you want to exchange and then they synthesize a rate that expires soon after. There is no way to put in an order at a specific price and they do not show you a two-sided quote which would make it plain how much they're taking.
From what I saw, WorldFirst aims to take about 1.5% of each side of each trade at the when they are large, and even more on small trades.
If you're exchanging $500 you may as well use a bank. If you're exchanging $50000 you may as well use a true trading platform.
When exchanging currency at any online or physical marketplace, look at their two-sided quote to see the spread they charge. If they try to show you only one side (buy or sell but not both), go elsewhere.
Only for large amounts of money. I'm sending roughly $2000 in each transaction.
This is an important point - there is a point where TransferWise becomes more expensive than WorldFirst or a bank, but it is for much higher volumes than most people will be sending on a regular basis.
On average I send between 500-1000 GBP to USD per month on Transferwise and pay 2.50 - 5 GBP in fees. Compared to a wire at a bank that charges 30 GBP fixed + a % on a sliding scale depending on the amount, it's not really competitive until you get over 10k per transaction. But then at that point you can contact TransferWise customer service to negotiate a better rate.
On average I send between 500-1000 GBP to USD per month on Transferwise and pay 2.50 - 5 GBP in fees. Compared to a wire at a bank that charges 30 GBP fixed + a % on a sliding scale depending on the amount, it's not really competitive until you get over 10k per transaction. But then at that point you can contact TransferWise customer service to negotiate a better rate.
Can you elaborate on the other competitors?
Thanks
Thanks
Direct competitors would be the likes of Azimo and WorldRemit.
For larger transfers (ie above £5k/$6k) you have a slew of them; Global Reach Partners, Moneycorp, World First, and Rational FX to name a few.
Disclaimer: I am a co-founder of CurrencyTransfer.com, an aggregator of some of the above larger transfer companies.
For larger transfers (ie above £5k/$6k) you have a slew of them; Global Reach Partners, Moneycorp, World First, and Rational FX to name a few.
Disclaimer: I am a co-founder of CurrencyTransfer.com, an aggregator of some of the above larger transfer companies.
I've been using xe.com to transfer my entire salary from USD to EUR and it's great. I investigated Transferwise but didn't switch because it didn't seem like it was any cheaper.
Just google it. There are several of them (I guess it's not a really high barrier to entry). Hifx, currenciesdirect, torfx... I've not tried any of them.
I have used UKForex a few times, and have been happy with the service. I've only used them for US <-> UK transfers though.
>> I wish I had known about this sooner.
A common occurence these days, with the rapid rate of innovation. It's like we're missing some efficient product discovery tool.
A common occurence these days, with the rapid rate of innovation. It's like we're missing some efficient product discovery tool.
If there was only a news aggregation site based upon the startup culture where these sorts of things can be promoted.
You mean like some sort of place where you could hunt new products?
I see what you did there.
Types 'https://www.producthunt.com' into a browser.
However, you could have just answered the question. Unless there's a /s i didn't see somewhere on the parent posts...
Types 'https://www.producthunt.com' into a browser.
However, you could have just answered the question. Unless there's a /s i didn't see somewhere on the parent posts...
Also:
Q Television Channel - Informercials 24/7
Q Television Channel - Informercials 24/7
I don't think product hunt solved this.
I'm not really that impressed with their results. It's more like popularity based marketing channel(what's with all those videos ? ), because of the lack of good search and deep metadata. Heck many products don't even have a rich, textual description. It's almost like aggregating product reviews from relatively unbiased sources(unlike the cesspool that Amazon has become), and filtering by depth and building a decent search around them and a good community would work better. Than after all this, a video would be very useful.
Ah, and one more thing - try to filter out the bullshit apps, the ones without much value on product hunt. "A dating app where you can only date 1 guy"? and other stuff like that. Sorry but i have much better ways of wasting time.
But let's think about an ideal service. Such a service would have 2 forms:
1. It gathers in some form, all the "jobs" i need to do, and how well they are done today, and how much i pay for them - and than from time to time offers me concrete recommendations how to improve my life: "you could save $X each month , if you'll use this new money transfer startup". Or "you could use this recipe book, to save a lot of time and get similar level of food you're making now". etc.
Amazon does that to some extent, but it has still has some ways to go.
2. Another successful mechanism is create a RICH and DEEP tagging system for each product and search/browse through those tags - jinni.com once did it for movies - and it was a phenomenal movie discovery tool. Far better than anything we have today.
Of course, ideally such tool should also include a price comparison mechanism, and maybe "performance levels" per each relevant performance dimension, kinda like the one you get in digikey, the electronic component store, where you can select chips by speed, power,etc.
The question is, how to get there, and how close it's possible to get?
I'm not really that impressed with their results. It's more like popularity based marketing channel(what's with all those videos ? ), because of the lack of good search and deep metadata. Heck many products don't even have a rich, textual description. It's almost like aggregating product reviews from relatively unbiased sources(unlike the cesspool that Amazon has become), and filtering by depth and building a decent search around them and a good community would work better. Than after all this, a video would be very useful.
Ah, and one more thing - try to filter out the bullshit apps, the ones without much value on product hunt. "A dating app where you can only date 1 guy"? and other stuff like that. Sorry but i have much better ways of wasting time.
But let's think about an ideal service. Such a service would have 2 forms:
1. It gathers in some form, all the "jobs" i need to do, and how well they are done today, and how much i pay for them - and than from time to time offers me concrete recommendations how to improve my life: "you could save $X each month , if you'll use this new money transfer startup". Or "you could use this recipe book, to save a lot of time and get similar level of food you're making now". etc.
Amazon does that to some extent, but it has still has some ways to go.
2. Another successful mechanism is create a RICH and DEEP tagging system for each product and search/browse through those tags - jinni.com once did it for movies - and it was a phenomenal movie discovery tool. Far better than anything we have today.
Of course, ideally such tool should also include a price comparison mechanism, and maybe "performance levels" per each relevant performance dimension, kinda like the one you get in digikey, the electronic component store, where you can select chips by speed, power,etc.
The question is, how to get there, and how close it's possible to get?
The main impediment to your goal, tbh, seems the quality of the data.
For #1, this pretty much requires human curation/submission to accurately gather the vendors for each process you might outsource.
For #2, Rich, quality tags that provide a near complete representation of feature sets requires human intervention or a substantial crawl with NLP+ranking algos on par with Google.
The closest that really exists is:
http://alternativeto.net/software/server-density/
http://alternativeto.net/software/sentry/
> Of course, ideally such tool should also include a price comparison mechanism, and maybe "performance levels" per each relevant performance dimension, kinda like the one you get in digikey, the electronic component store, where you can select chips by speed, power,etc.
> The question is, how to get there, and how close it's possible to get?
An AlternativeTo clone with a focus on tagging features/performance dimensions, having people rate those individual dimensions, and submit prices would likely work. The only problem is the incentive for people to:
A) Switch
B) Be that detailed.
C) Avoid it becoming a popularity contest like ProductHunt & AlternativeTo are at present.
For #1, this pretty much requires human curation/submission to accurately gather the vendors for each process you might outsource.
For #2, Rich, quality tags that provide a near complete representation of feature sets requires human intervention or a substantial crawl with NLP+ranking algos on par with Google.
The closest that really exists is:
http://alternativeto.net/software/server-density/
http://alternativeto.net/software/sentry/
> Of course, ideally such tool should also include a price comparison mechanism, and maybe "performance levels" per each relevant performance dimension, kinda like the one you get in digikey, the electronic component store, where you can select chips by speed, power,etc.
> The question is, how to get there, and how close it's possible to get?
An AlternativeTo clone with a focus on tagging features/performance dimensions, having people rate those individual dimensions, and submit prices would likely work. The only problem is the incentive for people to:
A) Switch
B) Be that detailed.
C) Avoid it becoming a popularity contest like ProductHunt & AlternativeTo are at present.
Hacker News 3-4 years ago you mean?
Shhh we have important articles on basic income and SF House Prices to argue about for the 400th time.
off-topic
I remember a post made not long ago by the HN admins themselves where they said they'll try to reduce the political posts.
So far, it's not working out.
I remember a post made not long ago by the HN admins themselves where they said they'll try to reduce the political posts.
So far, it's not working out.
They gave up when it was concluded that everything is in some way political.
I don't think that's a fair representation of what the mods concluded.
'dang summarized the results of the detox week and has made some recent comments on it as well. Here are some, with some identifiable snippets only so it's not a list of links. I encourage you to read the comments themselves. They don't all directly address this, but I think they all shed some light on the topic.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969
There's no satisfying anybody about this: not the readers who want more politics, not the readers who want less, and certainly not the partisans on an issue.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433
There's a lot more politics on HN right now than there usually is, which is appropriate since it reflects what's going on right now.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969
When there's a deluge of political stories, as in the last couple days, users heavily flag most of them. But there have still been plenty of major threads spending plenty of time on the front page. That's the status quo for HN: most politics are off topic, but not all. It's a delicate balance and an important one. Letting politics overrun this site would kill it.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480
On downsides of the Political Detox Week experiment: there are two comments in the thread.
'dang summarized the results of the detox week and has made some recent comments on it as well. Here are some, with some identifiable snippets only so it's not a list of links. I encourage you to read the comments themselves. They don't all directly address this, but I think they all shed some light on the topic.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969
There's no satisfying anybody about this: not the readers who want more politics, not the readers who want less, and certainly not the partisans on an issue.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433
There's a lot more politics on HN right now than there usually is, which is appropriate since it reflects what's going on right now.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969
When there's a deluge of political stories, as in the last couple days, users heavily flag most of them. But there have still been plenty of major threads spending plenty of time on the front page. That's the status quo for HN: most politics are off topic, but not all. It's a delicate balance and an important one. Letting politics overrun this site would kill it.
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463480
On downsides of the Political Detox Week experiment: there are two comments in the thread.
Thanks a lot. I'll definitely do my best to read most (or all) of these. I am seriously interested in HN's official position on political posts.
I am not in an extreme position -- namely to deny that political posts don't have any relevance. That's not true. But I feel those discussions have either rarely been productive, or have way too many comments for somebody to extract a useful gist, or both.
I am not in an extreme position -- namely to deny that political posts don't have any relevance. That's not true. But I feel those discussions have either rarely been productive, or have way too many comments for somebody to extract a useful gist, or both.
If you have a need to transfer large amounts of USD-to-CAD or vice versa, have a look into Norbert's Gambit. It'll effectively let you perform the transfer for 0.2%. Probably not worthwhile for small amounts, but if you're converting ~$10k, might be worth the effort.
This site seems to break it down: https://norbertsgambit.com/
This site seems to break it down: https://norbertsgambit.com/
That's all kinds of sketchy, least of all because of the taxes, but also because you're playings games with public stock that they or anyone else could manipulate.
I've used TransferWise for over $8K and think the service is fantastic. I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole and my git is screaming "scam!"
I've used TransferWise for over $8K and think the service is fantastic. I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole and my git is screaming "scam!"
Not sure why there was such a knee-jerk reaction, but it's actually fairly straight forward and not scammy at all. You're performing two trades, using a money market ETF that trades at the currency exchange rate, and paying standard brokerage fees + spread instead of currency conversion fees.
If you pay $20 in fees + spread for 2 trades, that'll be the cost of the conversion. For a $10k conversion, that's 0.2%. Unless you're suggesting that a money market ETF is prone to manipulation, your brokerage is going to scam you, or you don't like to deal with taxes on your stock purchases/sales, there isn't much drawback other than time. The larger the amount though, the more it'll potentially be worthwhile.
More info about this: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/norberts-smart... http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/12/03/norberts-gambit-th... http://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert's_gambit
If you pay $20 in fees + spread for 2 trades, that'll be the cost of the conversion. For a $10k conversion, that's 0.2%. Unless you're suggesting that a money market ETF is prone to manipulation, your brokerage is going to scam you, or you don't like to deal with taxes on your stock purchases/sales, there isn't much drawback other than time. The larger the amount though, the more it'll potentially be worthwhile.
More info about this: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/norberts-smart... http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/12/03/norberts-gambit-th... http://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert's_gambit
The only downside I can see is that it takes a fair amount of time (about 7-14 days) from the moment you move money in to the moment you get your exchanged money out. It'll take your brokerage several working days to "journal" your shares over to the other denomination, and the shares can go up/down in the mean time, generating capital gains/losses. Otherwise there's no catch.
Paying transferwise ~$100 to move some bits around like you did is what's scammy, not Norbert's gambit.
They are bleeding a ton of money.
For there idea to work they need to get money transferred into all directions...
They had Nigeria as a supported country. But they removed it (sadly)
But money was probably transferred only one direction. So they lost money.
For there idea to work they need to get money transferred into all directions...
They had Nigeria as a supported country. But they removed it (sadly)
But money was probably transferred only one direction. So they lost money.
> They had Nigeria as a supported country. But they removed it ...
I am a Nigerian and I consider this an unpardonable failure of basic market research. If they had spent a quality hour of their time investigating the Nigerian market, they would have found out that inflow overwhelmingly dwarfs outflow.
Makes you wonder what their decision making methodology is
I am a Nigerian and I consider this an unpardonable failure of basic market research. If they had spent a quality hour of their time investigating the Nigerian market, they would have found out that inflow overwhelmingly dwarfs outflow.
Makes you wonder what their decision making methodology is
When there's a consistent imbalance, I wonder if instead of trading it themselves, they could queue up requests. People who really wanted the cheap rate would wait days or weeks or whatever it took to reach the head of the queue, while others would drop out so it keeps moving.
> I wonder if instead of trading it themselves, they could queue up requests....
That's a very good idea.
That's a very good idea.
Great idea. Maybe they could go one step further, and automatically lower prices until someone does buy them out. They could call it something cool... something that reminds you of places where you can buy and sell things... :p
I guess I won't be able to send large amounts of cash to a Nigerian prince who promised me a share of his inheritance anymore.
I'm not even sure if he's a prince.
I'm not even sure if he's a prince.
Interesting that they use the word expat instead of immigrant. I don't think if these two were from Asia/Africa they would have been called expats.
It's pretty well known that (relatively affluent) white immigrants are called expats instead of immigrants.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jnylander/2015/04/03/in-china-wh...
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jnylander/2015/04/03/in-china-wh...
Eh - no. I was a 'brown' person living in the middle east and called an expat.
Expat implies an intent to return or a temporary worker and is a frequently used term in the middle east/asia. E.g https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-25/expat-fee...
Not everything has to be viewed from an SJW angle
Expat implies an intent to return or a temporary worker and is a frequently used term in the middle east/asia. E.g https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-25/expat-fee...
Not everything has to be viewed from an SJW angle
I never said brown people can't be called expats. Your defensiveness regarding that is more SJW than my original post, which just cited a few articles.
To be honest expat does not necessarily imply a permanent move
>I don't think if these two were from Asia/Africa they would have been called expats.
And you base that on....? Why do people search for injustice?
And you base that on....? Why do people search for injustice?
Actually most western European countries have 'expat programs' for eastern European countries with job offerings mostly as babysitters/valets/waiters.
They're intended for young people & the stay is between 6 months & 2 years.
In that context 'expats' is used for temporal residence in foreign countries with no intentions to be made permanent. It's mostly intended for young people to travel around, not much for the financial benefit.
So in my understanding it's the intentions which define, not skin color / continents.
PS. The written above is a definition from my personal point of view :)
They're intended for young people & the stay is between 6 months & 2 years.
In that context 'expats' is used for temporal residence in foreign countries with no intentions to be made permanent. It's mostly intended for young people to travel around, not much for the financial benefit.
So in my understanding it's the intentions which define, not skin color / continents.
PS. The written above is a definition from my personal point of view :)
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.[0]
-MLK
[0]: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
-MLK
[0]: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
[deleted]
[deleted]
The left has been teaching people to believe they are victims for more than a decade now. That's why they search for injustice.
If you think the victim mentality is limited to the left, you've obviously not being paying attention to the alt right or Christian conservatives.
The true alt-right is tiny. Well, since alt-right has been defined to include white supremacy, anyway.
The left is huge.
The left is huge.
If they were working in a coffee shop, they would also be called immigrants.
While I haven't used TranferWise yet, I think it's a brilliant idea (and yes, their exchange rates look phenomenal)!
There's also a service called PeerTransfer for foreign tuition payments that essentially aggregates outgoing payments, and buys forex in bulk.
Another cool development in the area is Visa (The Card issuer) opening up their APIs to allow direct Card-Card transfers like with Square Cash when they just started out. Barring regulatory hurdles, this method (Card-Card transaction using the Visa/MasterCard/Amex network) is probably the most efficient way of sending money across currencies.
There's also a service called PeerTransfer for foreign tuition payments that essentially aggregates outgoing payments, and buys forex in bulk.
Another cool development in the area is Visa (The Card issuer) opening up their APIs to allow direct Card-Card transfers like with Square Cash when they just started out. Barring regulatory hurdles, this method (Card-Card transaction using the Visa/MasterCard/Amex network) is probably the most efficient way of sending money across currencies.
It would be nice if this could be applied to places where I don't have a bank account and just need say, $500USD converted into another country's currency. My bank here allows me to withdraw twice from foreign bank ATMs but I have a feeling they are messing with exchange rates and I'm still stuck with a bad deal. I won't even bother with real exchanges in the States or in the other country. Everything just feels like highway robbery.
Is this basically electronic Hawala?
Yes, though without the negative connotations the term "hawala" carries in the West because all transactions are still fully documented and the broker gets a much lower share (for pure monetary international transfers in the hawala system, fees can go as high as 60% with 25% already being considered a "good deal"). And one does not have to pass high/drunk armed guards and is not paid from a huge pile of cash that just sits on the floor in a corner of the room.
PS: Sorry, no source for the numbers but my own experience in Northwestern Africa.
PS: Sorry, no source for the numbers but my own experience in Northwestern Africa.
At 60% fees and drunk/armed guards, Hawala sounds like money laundering except... even worse rates.
There is no laundry or laundering there. It's like washing your clothes in a puddle of mud. It's not black exactly but it ain't white money either.
Read about some challenges they are facing as many other money transfer startups. It's actually a very hot niche at the moment.
http://uladzislau.com/online-money-transfer-startups/
http://uladzislau.com/online-money-transfer-startups/
Transferwise is by far the best international money transfer service I have ever used.
I regularly move money between Euros and Pounds Sterling, sometimes into Australian dollars too. These are typically not large monetary amounts, maybe up to a few thousand Euros, but often just a couple of hundred.
I haven't specifically counted, but I gueas I've made around 25 transfers with Transferwise. Compared to using banks directly, and even other "traditional" Forex services over the last 16 years, Transferwise is fast and very low friction.
I did have to verify my identity once my transfered totals had exceeded £15k, but that has been the only delay. They just do a very, very good job.
I regularly move money between Euros and Pounds Sterling, sometimes into Australian dollars too. These are typically not large monetary amounts, maybe up to a few thousand Euros, but often just a couple of hundred.
I haven't specifically counted, but I gueas I've made around 25 transfers with Transferwise. Compared to using banks directly, and even other "traditional" Forex services over the last 16 years, Transferwise is fast and very low friction.
I did have to verify my identity once my transfered totals had exceeded £15k, but that has been the only delay. They just do a very, very good job.
Transferwise was great, at first. I was an early adopter of Transferwise. Some years ago, my brother (and I, sort of) started filming documentaries and I handled a lot of the money and payments to some of the people involved in his documentaries overseas. At one point without warning, Transferwise left my brother stranded in Europe without a way to get money. Transferwise held onto a few thousand dollars for a few weeks without any contact or update or anything. Every time I would email or call, I would get some customer support who would ignore my replies or transfer me around with increasing wait times between transfers until they hung up, sort of typical phone hell. When we finally got a hold of someone at Transferwise, it turns out they decided that what we were doing was a cover for illicit activities (which is pretty bizarre, if you knew the people involved, and despite his published documentaries, footage, and even the receipts we kept for tax purposes).
Having family stranded overseas by this billion-dollar unicorn left a really bad taste in my mouth. The worst part was being left with absolutely zero recourse for the thousands of dollars that they were just holding on to for weeks without any contact with us. If you don't want to serve us because of some bizarre, hallucinatory conspiracy, fine, but don't hold onto the money for weeks in the interim without an explanation.
Having family stranded overseas by this billion-dollar unicorn left a really bad taste in my mouth. The worst part was being left with absolutely zero recourse for the thousands of dollars that they were just holding on to for weeks without any contact with us. If you don't want to serve us because of some bizarre, hallucinatory conspiracy, fine, but don't hold onto the money for weeks in the interim without an explanation.
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I applied for a position as a software dev there a few years ago through a friend. I hated every single moment of it.
It was like they exported the very worse from Silicon Valley's bullshit start-ups attitude. They just couldn't shut the fuck up about how they were really changing the world (yeah right), how awesome it was to work 60 hours a week for such a great Vision, how sick their (mandatory) team-holidays were, how everything and everyone was so siiiick here, mate.
I did all the rounds up to the one with the VP of Engineering who asked me to code FizzBuzz on a whiteboard (no kidding) and then spent the rest of the hour bragging about how last week he had turned down an "amazing engineer" (his words) because he wasn't "cool enough" to be one of them. You know, he was a bit of a loser, mate.
It really felt like a cult of ego-obsessed people with some narcissistic disorder; even worse, it felt like everyone was lying.
That said I'm sure there are a lot of nice people who work there, this is just my experience so take it with a grain of salt. The product is also good, I used it a few times myself.
I applied for a position as a software dev there a few years ago through a friend. I hated every single moment of it.
It was like they exported the very worse from Silicon Valley's bullshit start-ups attitude. They just couldn't shut the fuck up about how they were really changing the world (yeah right), how awesome it was to work 60 hours a week for such a great Vision, how sick their (mandatory) team-holidays were, how everything and everyone was so siiiick here, mate.
I did all the rounds up to the one with the VP of Engineering who asked me to code FizzBuzz on a whiteboard (no kidding) and then spent the rest of the hour bragging about how last week he had turned down an "amazing engineer" (his words) because he wasn't "cool enough" to be one of them. You know, he was a bit of a loser, mate.
It really felt like a cult of ego-obsessed people with some narcissistic disorder; even worse, it felt like everyone was lying.
That said I'm sure there are a lot of nice people who work there, this is just my experience so take it with a grain of salt. The product is also good, I used it a few times myself.
> VP of Engineering who asked me to code FizzBuzz on a whiteboard (no kidding)
I agree that a VP in a late stage interview should not be asking this of the candidate, but I will say that I recently had to hire a new team member, and FizzBuzz helped me to immediately weed out the candidates during the initial interview. I'm talking like 50% of the candidates, and one guy even asked if he could take it home and send me the code. Another acted like I was asking him to produce something for the company for free, before even reading the three lines of requirements, and then tried to back peddle when he did read them - of course, I was already holding the interview room door open for him by that time. All told, a FizzBuzz test in the initial round saved hours of my (and their) time.
I agree that a VP in a late stage interview should not be asking this of the candidate, but I will say that I recently had to hire a new team member, and FizzBuzz helped me to immediately weed out the candidates during the initial interview. I'm talking like 50% of the candidates, and one guy even asked if he could take it home and send me the code. Another acted like I was asking him to produce something for the company for free, before even reading the three lines of requirements, and then tried to back peddle when he did read them - of course, I was already holding the interview room door open for him by that time. All told, a FizzBuzz test in the initial round saved hours of my (and their) time.
> I'm talking like 50% of the candidates, and one guy even asked if he could take it home and send me the code.
I'm still trying to reconcile this with my own experience at work. I work for a university department, and hire student employees. Zero people have ever failed our fizzbuzz question on the interview, while it was on there.
You would think that post graduation there would be a _lower_ number of degree holders who can't code.
I'm still trying to reconcile this with my own experience at work. I work for a university department, and hire student employees. Zero people have ever failed our fizzbuzz question on the interview, while it was on there.
You would think that post graduation there would be a _lower_ number of degree holders who can't code.
> You would think that post graduation there would be a _lower_ number of degree holders who can't code.
I think that there are a good number of people who manage to float through life, never really producing anything, just claiming to be idea men, or appearing busy but never quite delivering, or …
Even if they did once know how to program, it's conceivable that they've forgotten.
I think that there are a good number of people who manage to float through life, never really producing anything, just claiming to be idea men, or appearing busy but never quite delivering, or …
Even if they did once know how to program, it's conceivable that they've forgotten.
There are a lot of "HTML programmer" types out there who piece together snippets without ever having to think about how best to solve a problem, deal with the fundamentals of computer arithmetic, or data structures. These people can't do fizzbuzz or something simple like construct a linked list (good one for the managed code generation used to containers).
Hmm I wonder only the better students apply for these kinds of job?
Or perhaps your university is just good? :)
Or perhaps your university is just good? :)
Out of curiosity, what sort of (non-personality) mistakes did you see?
I've seen:
1) Incorrect ordering of output "Buzz Fizz"
2) Printing only Fizz or Buzz for 15.
3) Starting at a number different to 1 (say 0)
4) Off by one error at the end (going to 99, instead of 100)
5) Forgetting to print out the number when neither Fizz nor Buzz is output (first output is Fizz for 3)
6) Always printing out the number. (3 Fizz)
and that's the people who can code at all.
Then you get people who can't code, and can't even produce a for loop.
Oh and extra points for arguing about the solution being correct, particularly after prompting that there is a bug "Is it correctly dealing with 15?" is a pretty huge hint that there's a bug.
1) Incorrect ordering of output "Buzz Fizz"
2) Printing only Fizz or Buzz for 15.
3) Starting at a number different to 1 (say 0)
4) Off by one error at the end (going to 99, instead of 100)
5) Forgetting to print out the number when neither Fizz nor Buzz is output (first output is Fizz for 3)
6) Always printing out the number. (3 Fizz)
and that's the people who can code at all.
Then you get people who can't code, and can't even produce a for loop.
Oh and extra points for arguing about the solution being correct, particularly after prompting that there is a bug "Is it correctly dealing with 15?" is a pretty huge hint that there's a bug.
Fantastic list of mistakes!
It made realize that I've made all of these mistakes on tasks similar in complexity of Fizzbuzz. I write a lot of scripts in different languages some of them quite domain specific.
Why do I make mistakes? Most of time the mistakes stem from the fact that I do not have to get it right the first time and I may have misread the specifications. As Hemingway said: "The first draft of anything is always shit"
So take 1000 applicants who can code but are in a stressful situation and I would not be shocked that there would be 50 mistakes on something so seemingly trivial.
It made realize that I've made all of these mistakes on tasks similar in complexity of Fizzbuzz. I write a lot of scripts in different languages some of them quite domain specific.
Why do I make mistakes? Most of time the mistakes stem from the fact that I do not have to get it right the first time and I may have misread the specifications. As Hemingway said: "The first draft of anything is always shit"
So take 1000 applicants who can code but are in a stressful situation and I would not be shocked that there would be 50 mistakes on something so seemingly trivial.
I don't think mistakes or a lack of them in FizzBuzz are that relevant at all. You are not supposed find a clever solution as a candidate, or as the interviewer to spend more than a minute reviewing or discussing it.
The FizzBuzz test exists to quickly filter out candidates who really cannot code at all, despite what they say in their CV, what jobs they have done in the past, or what courses they have passed.
If you can show that yes, you understand what for loops and if statements are, and can write 10 lines of code roughly correctly, the test is passed and the interview can continue with more interesting questions.
If no, then it saves everyone time to just cancel the interview.
The FizzBuzz test exists to quickly filter out candidates who really cannot code at all, despite what they say in their CV, what jobs they have done in the past, or what courses they have passed.
If you can show that yes, you understand what for loops and if statements are, and can write 10 lines of code roughly correctly, the test is passed and the interview can continue with more interesting questions.
If no, then it saves everyone time to just cancel the interview.
Wow! Thanks, that's illustrative.
While I didn't quite see all of the possible mistakes pointed out by jpollock in a parallel comment, all of the mistakes I did see were nicely covered there.
Another interesting data point was that only 2 of the 10 candidates had ever heard of FizzBuzz. That surprised me more than anything else.
Another interesting data point was that only 2 of the 10 candidates had ever heard of FizzBuzz. That surprised me more than anything else.
Another interesting data point was that only 2 of the 10 candidates had ever heard of FizzBuzz.
Well, if you had known about it, I suppose it would be an advantage, but any professional programmer should be able to write fizzbuzz. I really don't like whiteboard situations and I think it is really important to give someone a real computer and also give them time to settle down / warm up because people can panic, even with a small problem like this. However fizzbuzz is a bit like asking typists to take a typing test and to manage at least 20 WPM. If you can't do it, even in a disadvantageous situation, then you aren't a typist.
Having said that, we tend to pair program for our interviews. Our current interview system is to do a quick telephone interview and then follow up with a 4 pomodoro pair programming session. Usually we ping pong and offer to drive first so that the candidate has a chance to settle in. Generally we TDD a fun kata.
I've been surprised at how effective this is. For the people we've hired recently, the programming session really shows what the person is like to work with (to be fair, we actually pair program on most work so it is easy to judge the effectiveness of the hiring system). Apart from that initial telephone screening, we've dispensed completely with formal interview questions because more than anything it was biasing us away from hiring people with qualities that we cared about (being able to program, being able to pair, being able to TDD).
I've had the experience of cutting interviews short before, when it was obvious that the candidate was well out of their depth. We've stopped doing that. We go through all 4 pomodoros with each candidate. Even if we are sure it's a poor fit, it's important to give something back to the candidate who has taken time out of their day to come and visit. It sometimes turns into a 2 hour coaching session, but that's fine. Hopefully it helps the candidate sometime in the future.
It's kind of expensive, but trying to have an interview system that leaves a positive feeling should eventually lead to a good reputation in the industry. That, in turn, should make recruiting easier/cheaper. If you leave the impression, "those people are awesome -- I really want to work there", then it's worth the added expense, I think.
Having said that, we tend to pair program for our interviews. Our current interview system is to do a quick telephone interview and then follow up with a 4 pomodoro pair programming session. Usually we ping pong and offer to drive first so that the candidate has a chance to settle in. Generally we TDD a fun kata.
I've been surprised at how effective this is. For the people we've hired recently, the programming session really shows what the person is like to work with (to be fair, we actually pair program on most work so it is easy to judge the effectiveness of the hiring system). Apart from that initial telephone screening, we've dispensed completely with formal interview questions because more than anything it was biasing us away from hiring people with qualities that we cared about (being able to program, being able to pair, being able to TDD).
I've had the experience of cutting interviews short before, when it was obvious that the candidate was well out of their depth. We've stopped doing that. We go through all 4 pomodoros with each candidate. Even if we are sure it's a poor fit, it's important to give something back to the candidate who has taken time out of their day to come and visit. It sometimes turns into a 2 hour coaching session, but that's fine. Hopefully it helps the candidate sometime in the future.
It's kind of expensive, but trying to have an interview system that leaves a positive feeling should eventually lead to a good reputation in the industry. That, in turn, should make recruiting easier/cheaper. If you leave the impression, "those people are awesome -- I really want to work there", then it's worth the added expense, I think.
That's why my code test question is not FizzBuzz, but something almost like it: people who know FizzBuzz spot the similarity and proceed, people who've never heard of it just solve my weird variation of a prime sieve.
I worked in the same coworking space as them when it was ~2-5 people, and chatted with the founders a bunch at lunch. They were honestly nice people who seemed to genuinely care about doing something well.
Not trying to down-play your experience, thank you for sharing, just providing my own experience.
Not trying to down-play your experience, thank you for sharing, just providing my own experience.
It is funny how I will instinctively trust more an anonymous post on HN over an article published on a "reputable" site like Bloomberg...
To be fair the original article is good though, it presents different sides of the story and reports criticisms too. There's even an interesting history fact on how old the tradition of swapping currency actually is!
My intention wasn't to discredit their product or the article, but to offer a (hopefully interesting) "insider view" on a certain kind of culture.
My intention wasn't to discredit their product or the article, but to offer a (hopefully interesting) "insider view" on a certain kind of culture.
In theory I think this is the appropriate give and take between established Journalism (eg: Bloomberg) and what Social Media (eg: Hacker News) can enhance a story and context.
It was really clear with the Ferrari in an apartment story I linked where a family member actually could vouch for the published article.
I see such instances as examples of what good can come of a balance.
It was really clear with the Ferrari in an apartment story I linked where a family member actually could vouch for the published article.
I see such instances as examples of what good can come of a balance.
Among others this is probably confirmation bias at work. I'm feeling exactly the same right now.
Ah that definitely explains the vibe I got from their "naked march" where they got what looks like a sea of frat boys and sorority girls (I assumed largely their employees/ friends, in reality) to strip down to their underwear and scream and shout and walk around for a "viral" stunt. I know I'm just piling on here, but the vibe certainly had some doucheyness and it made me think their founders were the party bro types trying to get rich.
[http://www.techworld.com/news/startups/transferwise-leads-na...
[http://www.techworld.com/news/startups/transferwise-leads-na...
> I assumed largely their employees
Nah, they just paid a bunch of random guys to pretend to be hysterically excited about low-fees bank transfers. [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZufqOLl6ajE
Nah, they just paid a bunch of random guys to pretend to be hysterically excited about low-fees bank transfers. [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZufqOLl6ajE
I remember Nerve.com doing the same thing back in the mid-90s. (Correction: 2000 Maybe you see some more similarities: https://vimeo.com/2413616 )
Were you impressed by anything at TranferWise? Their security and stability? Maybe their confidence comes from top-notch engineering skills?
Were you impressed by anything at TranferWise? Their security and stability? Maybe their confidence comes from top-notch engineering skills?
Their marketing material in NYC was incredibly douchey, like "stick it to the big banks".
I was using Xoom (https://www.xoom.com) at the time, which had a brand image of a trustworthy and cut-the-bullshit kind of financial company.
TransferWise's subway ads focused on a people's revolution: http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Rjm3dY.BU5FmdQmId3yj1w--/Y... or http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03525/TransferWi... are two examples.
Another thing that threw me off is how needlessly technologically-heavy their website was at the time: Javascript front-end app with big animations and the unavoidable browser-incompatibility bugs it created back then (you refresh the page and it redirects to the root page for instance).
Anyway, I tried it once and had slightly better rates than Xoom, enough to convince me to go through their bullshit to save some money on large transfers, but I almost kept using Xoom because of how much I didn't like Transferwise's image.
All that to say: I'm not surprised by your interview experience, it perfectly matches what I assumed from their team.
I was using Xoom (https://www.xoom.com) at the time, which had a brand image of a trustworthy and cut-the-bullshit kind of financial company.
TransferWise's subway ads focused on a people's revolution: http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Rjm3dY.BU5FmdQmId3yj1w--/Y... or http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03525/TransferWi... are two examples.
Another thing that threw me off is how needlessly technologically-heavy their website was at the time: Javascript front-end app with big animations and the unavoidable browser-incompatibility bugs it created back then (you refresh the page and it redirects to the root page for instance).
Anyway, I tried it once and had slightly better rates than Xoom, enough to convince me to go through their bullshit to save some money on large transfers, but I almost kept using Xoom because of how much I didn't like Transferwise's image.
All that to say: I'm not surprised by your interview experience, it perfectly matches what I assumed from their team.
Is it really their fault, or is i just how marketing works in this day an age ?
Heck, they even got you, and you hated their marketing!
Heck, they even got you, and you hated their marketing!
I'm the least 'get excited about the company vision' person there is and if I was starting a service that competed against banks I'd be very tempted to play that up in marketing, both to prospective clients and employees.
There are an awful lot of people that really loath banks.
There are an awful lot of people that really loath banks.
Their marketing got my attention, and their rates were so much better than the competition that it outweighed the terrible brand image.
They could have gone straight to the point: "Better international transfer rates than your bank" and I'd have been very happy with it. The service is good!
They could have gone straight to the point: "Better international transfer rates than your bank" and I'd have been very happy with it. The service is good!
But would that message be shared on social networks ? Be written to about in papers ? Recieve that much attention ?
It sounds like a culture that's not objectively bad, just different from what you respect. People use slang words and bragging everywhere. They're just different words and different ways of expressing their brags.
But to be honest, they do have a very noble goal and they have reason to be proud of it. Poor people all over the world are constantly pouring money into Western Union and banks for this seemingly trivial service.
But to be honest, they do have a very noble goal and they have reason to be proud of it. Poor people all over the world are constantly pouring money into Western Union and banks for this seemingly trivial service.
> they do have a very noble goal
LOL
they ain't no charity, their goal is to make $$$, period. Incidentally they do so in a way that is also good for their customers, but that's nothing more than a nice coincidence.
We're all grown ups, I don't need to be sugar coated with all the "we're making the world a better place" nonsense. But no, these people want you to believe in their damn dream, as if working 5 days a week to make them rich wasn't enough already. That's true for many companies out there, not just TransferWise.
Also, mocking former candidates because they aren't cool enough is objectively a shit culture in my book, eh.
LOL
they ain't no charity, their goal is to make $$$, period. Incidentally they do so in a way that is also good for their customers, but that's nothing more than a nice coincidence.
We're all grown ups, I don't need to be sugar coated with all the "we're making the world a better place" nonsense. But no, these people want you to believe in their damn dream, as if working 5 days a week to make them rich wasn't enough already. That's true for many companies out there, not just TransferWise.
Also, mocking former candidates because they aren't cool enough is objectively a shit culture in my book, eh.
well I am as a rule also cynical regarding the motives of businesses, but one thing I have observed is that some people seem to create and pursue businesses that are good for their customers as the central purpose of that business, and some do so as a nice coincidence if it happens. These guys can be the second, but might also be the first.
Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
(Tone: Genuine question I'm curious about because I don't know fintech.) How does this model end up interacting with wire transfer laws?
From (way down in) the article:
"In April, after New Hampshire’s banking department cited TransferWise for operating in the state for a year without meeting money-transmitter regulations, the company agreed to pay a penalty equivalent to the fees it had earned during that time. (The startup has since begun offering its services in the U.S. through a partnership with a fully licensed bank, New York-based Community Federal Savings Bank, and has obtained its own money-transmitter licenses in many states.)"
"In April, after New Hampshire’s banking department cited TransferWise for operating in the state for a year without meeting money-transmitter regulations, the company agreed to pay a penalty equivalent to the fees it had earned during that time. (The startup has since begun offering its services in the U.S. through a partnership with a fully licensed bank, New York-based Community Federal Savings Bank, and has obtained its own money-transmitter licenses in many states.)"
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USD to INR rate is less competitive than an Indian bank. Probably because not many adopters in India.
Surprised to not see any mention here of legal and regulatory risk. One of the reasons moving money between countries is hard and expensive is that it is often done by people either trying to avoid tax liabilities, and/or by people involved in illegal activities and as a result governments are understandably keen to tie transfer agents up in rules regulations and liabilities. Ask HSBC...
They're compliant with British regulations.
I was given extra checks to make before my first transfer, since I was paying into an unusual type of account.
I was given extra checks to make before my first transfer, since I was paying into an unusual type of account.
Once my total transfers had exceeded £15k, I was required to undergo further identity verification checks. Pretty standard KYC procedures I thought.
I wonder how much of their valuation the Brexit vote cost them. It might eradicate a good chunk of their customer base. How would one go about modeling this, how are VCs modeling this?
Imagine a company built around some service for expatriates in Britain closed their series A and their series B was happening sometime around/after Brexit. I guess that would be down round territory?
Imagine a company built around some service for expatriates in Britain closed their series A and their series B was happening sometime around/after Brexit. I guess that would be down round territory?
I will say, their product is excellent and I've used it to transfer quite a bit of cash over the last few years. I tried a competitor of theirs (currencyfair) and the UI wasn't as nice a few years ago, which was about the only differentiator. Hope they can turn a profit soon.
I am just a very satisfied customer. They managed to be cheaper than using even a dedicated FX company for international transfers (I do Canada-Austria, Austria-Canada, Canada-Hungary) and the process is pretty seamless and it doesn't take longer than a SWIFT transfer usually.
Hmmm I heard these guys make less than $10million a year in revenue.
Possibly the lowest revenue to valuation ever?
Possibly the lowest revenue to valuation ever?
Their revenue in the year ending March 2016 was 28 million pounds, transaction volume 800 million pounds per month. Last September they already did 5 million pounds a month, growing ~2x / year.
In case anybody else is wondering - these details are public. Any time you see a story about a UK company, and this one is no exception, you can get some information about it from the company registry at Companies House: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/
1. type in company name or part thereof
2. select it from the list
3. click the "people" tab and see if you recognise any names from the article or whatever (this can be helpful if there were several likely-looking results)
4. click "filing history" and download the accounts and annual return (with list of shareholders)
Most of the time this isn't actually very interesting, but if you're being nosey, there's no reason not to. (The reduced accounts you have for small companies (turnover < £15m, something like that...) are usually particularly unilluminating, though some of the figures can be suggestive and the shareholders list may be interesting.)
1. type in company name or part thereof
2. select it from the list
3. click the "people" tab and see if you recognise any names from the article or whatever (this can be helpful if there were several likely-looking results)
4. click "filing history" and download the accounts and annual return (with list of shareholders)
Most of the time this isn't actually very interesting, but if you're being nosey, there's no reason not to. (The reduced accounts you have for small companies (turnover < £15m, something like that...) are usually particularly unilluminating, though some of the figures can be suggestive and the shareholders list may be interesting.)
I just tried your link & it's a very interesting option to be honest :)
In my country (Macedonia) these reports on private held companies can be given after 2 fiscal years & you have to pay for them per company searched.
I'm very curious to see what's the case in other countries on this topic :)
In my country (Macedonia) these reports on private held companies can be given after 2 fiscal years & you have to pay for them per company searched.
I'm very curious to see what's the case in other countries on this topic :)
"The company says it is always improving the software that automates the matching process, including complicated solutions that cover, say, a pound-to-dollar transaction with multiple dollar-to-euro and euro-to-pound swaps. If TransferWise can’t find a match, it becomes a market maker, using its own money to complete the deal in the hope that another customer who wants to send at least as much money the opposite way comes along later. In doing so, it is essentially acting just like a traditional foreign exchange broker."
And this is how it spectacularly imploded 5 years from now.
And this is how it spectacularly imploded 5 years from now.
Yeah this caught my eye as well... seems like an extraordinary increase in risk for a relatively small gain, not to mention the other costs of changing your business model from a glorified escrow service to an investment bank.
I hope for their sake they have someone who knows what they're doing running that department and hedging appropriately...
I hope for their sake they have someone who knows what they're doing running that department and hedging appropriately...
Heh, that reminds me of Yaron Minsky's talk about Caml, in which he stresses the need for absolute correctness of software when you are a market maker or arbitrageur, at risk of your high-throughput trading engine going off the rails...
I think https://www.instarem.com/ does something similar.
How does this compare to xe.com, which I have used in the past? They're a canadian company, been doing this for a long time, low cost.
Value creation > 'innovation'
If you're poor, you're an immigrant.
If you're rich, you're an expat.
If you're rich, you're an expat.
Reminds me of the Einstein quote:
> If I am proved correct,” he said, “the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.
> If I am proved correct,” he said, “the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.
While this sounds true and everyone likes to harp on it, there's another consideration. An immigrant is somebody who intends to stay forever, an expat is someone who plans to go back home eventually.
There are also legal considerations. My US visa for example specifically says it's a non-immigrant visitor's work visa. Legally speaking, I'm an expat.
Culturally ... I like to call myself a dirty immigrant. Riles people up a bit :P
edit for background: I come from the border between Central and Eastern Europe. Some say Slovenia is one, some say another. In the UK I would most definitely be an evil evil immigrant. In the US nobody really cares as long as I'm not brown.
There are also legal considerations. My US visa for example specifically says it's a non-immigrant visitor's work visa. Legally speaking, I'm an expat.
Culturally ... I like to call myself a dirty immigrant. Riles people up a bit :P
edit for background: I come from the border between Central and Eastern Europe. Some say Slovenia is one, some say another. In the UK I would most definitely be an evil evil immigrant. In the US nobody really cares as long as I'm not brown.
I've seen an awful lot of references to Eastern Europeans in short to medium-term stints in the UK as "migrant workers" and nearly as many characterisations of British retirees buying property in Spain as "expats"...
Same here, technically I'd be an expat in the country I currently live and work. But technically, an "illegal immigrant" from Mexico in the US is also an expat.
So I'm an immigrant, and my grandparents were immigrants and refugees.
So I'm an immigrant, and my grandparents were immigrants and refugees.
" I come from the border between Central and Eastern Europe. Some say Slovenia is one, some say another."
Compulsory link, shirley? https://youtu.be/bwDrHqNZ9lo
Compulsory link, shirley? https://youtu.be/bwDrHqNZ9lo
My house is actually about 50 meters to the right of that river. So I guess I'm from the Balkans.
As far as I remember, you're in SF right now?
Mind sharing what kind of Visa you're on?
Croatian here, so wondering what kind of Visa I could get to work in US except a H-1B.
Reminds me of the recent The Grand Tour episode, when they mention how if you're famous for something positive you're called British, otherwise you're Scottish/Welsh.
Do they give any reason to believe that what they're mentioning is true?
I've looked informally for this phenomenon and I haven't been able to find it.
The only concrete piece of research I know on a specific case came up negative: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-349098...
I've looked informally for this phenomenon and I haven't been able to find it.
The only concrete piece of research I know on a specific case came up negative: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-349098...
Andy Murray is a highly-visible recent example [0].
[0]: https://stv.tv/news/stirling-central/1360095-andy-murray-mor...
[0]: https://stv.tv/news/stirling-central/1360095-andy-murray-mor...
There have been dozens of articles written about rich "immigrant founders" the past few weeks.
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/02/01/study-immigrant-st...
http://fortune.com/2017/01/30/tech-immigrant-founders/
https://hardavenue.com/immigrant-founders-trump-muslim-ban/
etc
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/02/01/study-immigrant-st...
http://fortune.com/2017/01/30/tech-immigrant-founders/
https://hardavenue.com/immigrant-founders-trump-muslim-ban/
etc
Search Google Images for "expat" and "immigrant", and see what the difference is in the people you see in the photos. Skin color.
^rich^white
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That said, the world is full of wildly successful companies that just executed well on not very revolutionary ideas, and they provide real value that was largely absent before they grew to prominence. Sometimes it's not about doing something new, it's about doing it well, or doing it in a way that allows more people access.