Startup in 13 sentences

Tom — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:39:08 +0000

This is a great list of startup commandments by Paul Graham

1. Pick good cofounders
2. Launch fast
3. Let your idea evolve
4. Understand your users
5. Better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent
6. Offer surprisingly good customer service
7. You make what you measure
8. Spend little
9. Get ramen profitable
10. Avoid distractions
11. Don’t get demoralized
12. Don’t give up
13. Deals fall through

Paul elaborates on his points on his blog

Number 9 is my favourite!

“Ramen profitable” means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders’ living expenses. It’s not rapid prototyping for business models (though it can be), but more a way of hacking the investment process. Once you cross over into ramen profitable, it completely changes your relationship with investors. It’s also great for morale.

Thank you Apple!

Tom — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 12:05:15 +0000

Apple’s AppStore flaws are well documented – long review times, inconsistency and lack of transparency leading the pack. But I can’t help thinking that the hysteria that developed around hating developing for Apple is somewhat unfounded. Like influential developer Joe Hewitt “quitting” Apple over its tyranny. The whole tech blogosphere was appalled and disgusted! Let’s just gloss over the fact that it must be really easy to quit Apple when someone else is paying your bills (Facebook). The AppStore is the best platform to make money from at the moment and if that’s what you care about (or have to because you have to, you know, eat and pay bills yourself) there isn’t anywhere else to go. Android is growing but developing for it and making money there is still pain. Sure the AppStore and its review process have flaws and especially long review times are inexcusable for company of Apple’s stature but calls for opening the store to everyone are frankly ridiculous – Apple’s close control of its products is single most important factor in great user experience they deliver.

Why do I say all this? I quite recently decided to ignore the critics and develop my first app. Review process took 7 working days which is long and needless to say I was very anxious as to whether it’ll get approved or not. But once it was I was sorted. I have marketing plan but I didn’t need to use it yet (saving it for version 2 that should be approved soon). Within two weeks it was in TOP 10 paid apps in Reference category and doing well. Now show me a platform where I could launch a product, not tell anyone about it and still be making thousands of dollars every month.

So I thank you Apple. Thank you for amazing phone and platform that is fun to develop for and profitable too!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Pursuit of Happiness » Development

Startup in 13 sentences

Thank you Apple!