This is be one of the best collections of business advice that I have ever seen.
The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial to his tastes.
…
Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now.
I posted a question on HN yesterday asking for clarification on an array of legal issues. They included questions about when to form a company, what type of lawyers to seek, and how to deal with copyright issues. The responses were generally well thought out but varied a lot.
– Form an LLC immediately (it only costs a few hundred dollars) to get some liability coverage. Most recommended talking to a lawyer before you launch, but forming an LLC is better than nothing.
– Definitely seek a lawyer when you start having employees because you’ll have to restructure the company, often to a C corp (need to research)
– For charging money you’ll have Terms and Conditions, which should be created/reviewed by a lawyer
– You produce content it is copyrighted. The little © doesn’t really mean much
– People can take your idea and modify it all they want. There’s not much you can do to stop them
– If you have a partner, make sure you have an Operating Agreement
– The type of lawyer that you look for to help with these things is a Corporate Lawyer
– Forming an LLC is easy; keeping up on the paperwork is hard. Make sure you do it properly
Matt Maroon, a poker player gone entrepreneur via YC threw in his 2c: don’t ask hackers, ask a lawyer. He followed up with an excellent blog post expanding on the idea:
This is dangerous to you, seeker of legal advice, because you’ll be fooled into thinking maybe, just maybe, you can save yourself the retainer. The guy telling you “oh don’t bother to form an LLC, you’re not making a profit yet so you can’t be sued” sounds so confident, surely he must know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t, and you really don’t want to find that out the hard way.
He goes on to explain how the law is difficult to understand and you assume a huge amount of risk by not taking the proper legal precautions. While I agree with him, I think that asking the community has merits too. For me, the question was somewhat of a starting point. None of the posts are a definitive “you should do this” and they couldn’t be, but it still gives me a foundation for future research. The ensuing discussion was filled with smart comments on his article. Some of the best points made included:
– It can be tough to know when it is appropriate to consult a lawyer
– It can cost a lot of $ to consult a lawyer. The benefits might not outweigh the costs. -$EV
– What if the lawyer wants to screw you over and take your money? People responded that most don’t do this because of reputation and they want you to come back in the future, spread the word, etc
– Keep in mind its free advice from nonprofessionals
Check out this great speech by Chris Wanstrath, a notable Rails developer. Most of the stuff I really liked was towards the end:
I don’t know how many of you read RSS, but I challenge you (that’s a keynote term) to give it up for a month. Just turn it off. Stop using Google Reader or NetNewsWire or whatever
the kids are using these days. It’s not worth your time.
If you’ve been meaning to learn a new language, start learning it. But don’t just read a book. Start writing a program.
In fact, stop worrying so much about other people. Every time I’ve worked on a project I thought other people would really love, it was a massive flop. Every time I’ve worked on a project I loved, it worked. If you’re sitting in this room, your taste is not as far off from those around you as you’d think. Build something you love and others will love it, too. (Not everyone, of course.)
My plea to you today is to start a side project. Scratch your own itch. Be creative. Share something with the world, or keep it to yourself.
One thing he mentions is to take one Sunday a month and just go go go. I think this is a really great idea for me given my current time crunch.
This article on pricing strategies was near the top of Hacker News today. It’s a really excellent read for anyone consider how to price a product. Here’s a quote:
The Nine and Zero Effect. People associate the number nine with value and zero with quality. Look at the difference between fast food and a gourmet restaurant. A burger meal can sell for about $4.99 while a gourmet entree at the best place in town may go for $30. So the psychology of pricing isn’t so much about gaining additional sales because the price appears to be lower, it’s about what the price communicates about your offering. So which do you want to communicate? Value or Quality? Now you can price accordingly.
A few months ago I wrote some poker software that I intended to sell online (more on that in another post). I changed the price seven or eight times before I released the final product. The price went from $25 to $29 to $35 to $40 to $39 to $34 to $10 to $0.
That curve pretty much reflects my optimism about the project too…
Matt Mazur 