I think it's important to note this was from last October (2014). And here is somewhat of a response blog post from Suster (investor) around that time:
As a quick 'part answer' to your question, a lot of the reasoning behind so many rounds for many companies is actively choosing to stay unprofitable by pouring would-be profits (and new investment dollars) into gaining more customers. The idea being that as long as you "know" you can get your customer to be worth more than you paid to acquire her, eventually your company will be profitable once you slow down (or hit a 'max') with user acquisition.
I'm visiting India currently from the States and the biggest hurdle to launching delivery sort of services here must have been effecively locating homes.
Addresses that most "western" countries consider expected (ex. 1 Apple Loop, City, State Zip) don't exist here. Companies literally print on ads "On ____ Road, near ____ Terminal behind ______ City, State".
If Amazon somehow figured this out for India delivery - they'll do great.
Lastly, a 30 day return policy (or any return policy) is unheard of here. Electronics, clothes, anything I bought here strictly said no returns no matter what (even if defective).
Agreed. Also part of the issue: staying up all night DOES impress (just not to professors aka no impact on your grade). Students stay up late with friends; complain about 90% of the time; plan fun stuff to do 'after they study'.
And so, in a weird way, pretending to be super-busy has its rewards. And this is part of why the problem even exists.
I'd agree with you that not much can be done because it's not like education is advocating this take on studying per se, it's just a relic that gets passed down through the various waves of freshmen every year.
To this end, for those so inclined, Cal Newport is the author of a great book (How to be a Straight A student) that had good ways to force yourself into a schedule that limits your studying time (good thing!) while still giving you the results you want. Lots of willpower required but was well worth the effort for me (took a bunch of failures until I got it right).
As a University student in the States, I can say that, other than academics themselves, this is mostly propagated by a "I slept fewer hours than you so clearly I work harder look at me and feel bad I'm so stressed kbye" mindset. I have seen many times people waiting to tweet or Facebook something right before bed to prove to the world (and elicit responses) that they were up till an ungodly hour.
It's similar to what happens in adulthood when everyone compares how "busy" they are 24/7 and display it as if it's a badge of pride.
The pro side to easier access to larger and larger audiences is the ability to find a niche audience (or have a niche audience find you via Twitter). This turns your 'boring' pursuit of mastery into something of interest, and maybe even guidance, to a large group of people.
Not quite a direct answer, more of a thought sapling.
For those that have been down the startup road before - should this focus also be reflected in the same proportions in your budget? Ex. Should 50%+ of a startup's budget be spent on user acquisition/trying new things to gain users + increase conversion rates?
I'd argue that people generally have an underlying expectation that they'll be able to do far more on the internet with web apps than with physical mediums. If that is true, then having elements from the real world into web apps does promote a sense of familiarity and an intuitive understanding of, at the very least, how to get started.
Facebook has all the tools in place for sharing things perfectly and privately just as I would want and I know I can even customize them per piece of media I put out there. The problem I have is working through 500+ people and figuring out who to share what with. I think the reason people are looking for an alternative for some aspects of sharing is that it's too much trouble to curate that giant list (and sometimes, as you mentioned, useful to just keep that giant list of friends). Instead of going through and curating all those people, it's far easier to go with a new service, proactively add just a few people you care to share with for any given event and then put your photos/content there.
dotmatrix22, I'd like to chat with you about how you're handling things - I'm working on a startup that is leveraging this in a similar way and I'd like to see if you can help us out as a consultant. Shoot me an email (under my profile).
At some point, I had Reeder, Read it Later, Instapaper, Flipboard, Quora and Snackr that I was using to consume media on my iPhone. Needless to say - didn't work for long.
After a ton of experimenting, I found a system that works well for me. Short preface: I use my system to keep up with about 5 blogs where I want to read every post and then for all the articles I come upon via twitter and HN.
I use Read it Later to keep tabs on articles that I find on twitter + here on HN. Tweetbot lets you send to RIL directly from tweets and for HN, I use the Chrome extension, Aside.
For the blogs I follow, I use Reeder. If you find yourself with too much in here, do what I did: eliminate blogs that you don't read EVERY post for. You'll bring back the ones you miss.
In practice, it also helped me to just pick a trigger for reading through everything, my 'trigger' being after my run. This way, I set aside a certain amount of time to read through everything for that day.
Improvements? I wish Reeder pulled from Read it Later. That way, I could have one app that has all my articles.
Reading articles online will fill the time you allow it - so just decide how valuable what you are reading really is to you and go from there.
I worked with a few venture firms last summer and got to meet a lot of the entrepreneurs they've funded. Most of them were working out of a angel or seed round and all were being paid.
The understanding is that you as the entrepreneur will put in 100% (more like 150%) of your effort & time into the company so, naturally, that eliminates other direct work for a source of income. The venture firm was providing them a salary but it was always explained as just enough to cover living expenses (rent, food, car, etc). In terms of numbers, this will obviously vary greatly depending on cost of living in your area but consider what would be just enough for a modest life.
Taking as little money as possible from the round for a salary is actually in the best interests of the entrepreneur as well. The money raised early on is very "expensive" in terms of equity given up for it. If you truly believe in your company and idea, you'll realize that the 40K or 60K salary you want now actually costs you $400K if/when you exit or IPO. Of course, this is just an sample, optimistic scenario but hopefully you see my point.
As a student, I can say you're spot on with the first one. A huge challenge, to be sure because applications are scattered across the internet as PDF's, docs and outdated online forms. Still - if you could get even 50% of the legitimate scholarships out there and categorize them in useful ways (undergrad, grad, high school, by interest, etc) - I know I would pay for access to a curated list for me.
I've had this exact same issue - or at least used to. This is my way of dealing with it:
Articles: Get Read it Later and install the FFX extension if that's your browser of choice. One click and it's accessible on your iPad or phone for reading later. Close those tabs.
Forms: If it's for funding, if it's for some organization, whatever - you just don't want to fill it out now. Grab the URL and mail to [email protected] to get a reminder via email in a week. Close these tabs too.
Cool Web Apps you want to try out: Sign up then and there, then bookmark it. If it has a high enough value prop to you, you'll remember and come back to it. What now? Yep, close these tabs.
I found that the majority of tabs I had open fell under these categories. Using a mix of Read it later, followupthen and simply taking an action, I bet you could plow through those open tabs instead of going through more Cmd + T pain.
On a slightly unrelated note: I love reading something linked from HN and then far later receiving a NY Times email alert about the same story. HN FTW.
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We are a lean team of two + a designer + you the developer. Ton of hard work but also a ton of fun. Competitive pay + an environment with a lot of freedom to do things the best way you can implement it.
You could use the same method to track many other things if you got creative.
https://medium.com/@edwardbenson/how-i-hacked-amazon-s-5-wif...