Page 68 of 133

Seeking Alpha Testers for new jMockups Import Tool

Mazur Leave a comment

Cross post from the jMockups blog:

###

Hey everyone!

The new jMockups website import tool, which lets you instantly import any existing website into jMockups, is ready for testing.

With the ability to import your websites directly into jMockups, you can redesign and share them in a matter of minutes, drastically reducing the amount of time it takes to redesign an existing site.

Before launching publicly, I need several folks to test it out to help identify bugs, make suggestions for improvements, etc. If you’re interesting in helping, please email me: matt@jmockups.com.

Thanks!

Matt

jMockups and Preceden January Review

Mazur 2 Comments

As promised in my 2010, 2011, and a $4K/month challenge post, I’m going to do a quick recap each month of the progress I’ve made with towards achieving that end.

Here’s what happened in January.

Preceden

Total Sign Ups: 510

Upgrades to Preceden Pro: 18 (3.5%)

Revenue: $522

Progress: I spent a total of about 5 hours working on Preceden in January, which was split between reverting December’s pricing plan changes and with integrating Mixpanel last week to start getting better insights into how people are using the tool. To date I haven’t spent any time trying to optimize the conversion funnel, which gives me high hopes that I can at least double it with some calculating A/B tests.

jMockups

Total Sign Ups: 135

Upgrades to jMockups Pro: 0

Revenue: $19

Progress: I spent a lot of time working on jMockups in January, with a focus on improving the user experience, fixing bugs, and making progress towards launching the new website import tool later this month.

Most of the major changes were covered on the jMockups Blog:

In early January I began working with a talented San Fransisco-based JavaScript developer on jMockups with the intent of eventually bringing him on as a co-founder if the partnership went well. We got along extremely well and I was thrilled with how quickly he was picking up the code, but personal circumstances prevented him from continuing. So back to one.

jMockups is somewhere in the trough of sorrow right now:

And there’s even been several crashes of ineptitude thanks to some poor QA practices…. so I’m on my way :)

My primary goal in February is to launch the new website import tool, which will let you import any existing website into jMockups, allowing you to redesign and share it in seconds.

Before I launch it (and it’s 95% ready), I want to fix a few bugs, improve a few existing features, and set up some more in depth analytics to prepare for the potential influx of visitors after I launch it. There’s nothing worse than launching an amazing new feature only to have 50% of the new visitors run into a bug that sends them away with a poor taste in their mouth…. except for never launching it at all, I suppose.

According to RescueTime, I spent 120 hours working in January, or about 27 hours/week.

Life

January was kind unique month for me because of how much time I spent on the road for my day job: 11 days completely away from home and another 6 partially away. 27 hours/week is a bit high for me — average is about 20 to 25. The extra hours were only possible because I was traveling and did not have anything else to split my time with.

On New Years Day I began doing daily life tracking, which was inspired by several posts Sebastian Marshall has written on the topic. I’ve been tracking how much I eat out, how much I exercise, how much I spend, my finances, sleep schedule, etc. This deserves its own post, so I’ll save the details for later, but in a nutshell it’s given me some astounding insights into my life (positive and negative) and by making a few minor changes I’ve already had incredible gains from it. I highly encourage you to try it out if you’re looking to improve some aspects of your life (start with Sebastian’s posts).

With that, back to coding.

Burning Bridges and Getting Banned From Full Tilt Poker

Mazur 4 Comments
This is post #20 in an ongoing series of articles about my work as a poker bot developer.

In a previous post, I described how I was banned from PokerStars. Basically I think I was playing the bot too much, PokerStars security got suspicious, reviewed my account, and figured out it was a bot.

I actually built the bot to run on both PokerStars and FullTiltPoker (FTP), but due to problems interfacing with FTP’s software, I abandoned it and focused on PokerStars.

October 2, 2008 was the day the bot was banned on PokerStars. In June 2009, I started writing about it on this blog. On July 14, 2009, less than a month after I started writing about it here, I got the bright idea that I should double check with FTP that I was still able to play on their site so I emailed them. Keep in mind I was not banned from FTP at the time I sent this email…

Support,

I have a bit of an odd question.

I have an account with FullTiltPoker under the name “…” that I used for a few weeks in early 2008 to test a poker bot I was developing.

The bot played about 300 low stakes Heads Up SNG’s but mostly due to the difficulty of building a bot for the FTP software, I turned my efforts to PokerStars and continued my work there. My account at PokerStars (“kaon”) lasted until early October 2008 when it was promptly suspended for operating the bot. I have not attempted to run the bot since that time on PokerStars, FullTilt, or any other network for that matter.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have written about my work on my programming blog (see: http://www.mattmazur.com/category/poker-bot/).

I may be intersted in playing poker again at some point in the future and I’d like to do it on FullTiltPoker if possible. For what it’s worth, I have no intention of ever running the bot again–indeed, I wish I had never tried to make it in the first place. Why tell you all this? I’m afraid I might build up a significant bankroll and then somehow your security team will learn of my former bot transgressions and suspend my account.

If I never violate Full Tilt’s Terms of Service again, can I play on your service without fear of having my account suspended?

I’d be happy to answer any questions you have.

Regardless of your decision, thank you for the excellent support.

Matt Mazur

Surprise surprise, they did not take kindly to this otherwise friendly email. Three days later they responded:

Hello Matt,

Thank you for your mail and for your candor.

Unfortunately, we have taken the decision to exclude you from the site. We have taken this decision as a precautionary measure to protect the integrity of our site. Whilst we understand that this decision will be frustrating we are exercising our authority to close any account as outlined under Term 3 of our End User License Agreement:

Full Tilt Poker retains authority over the issuing, maintenance, and closing of players’ accounts at Full Tilt Poker. The decision of Full Tilt Poker management, as regards any aspect of a player’s account, use of the Software, or dispute resolution is final.

Which can be seen here:

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/end_user_license_agreement

You are not permitted to set up any more accounts with Full Tilt Poker. Should you do so, any further accounts will be closed and their balances may be forfeited.

Regards,

Martin
Security
Full Tilt Poker

I kind of smacked myself in the head after this. Why, oh why, did I email them in the first place? I had no intention of playing poker at that time and there was no indication that they were investigating me (though they could have looked up my account by my name), so what value did emailing them have?

After a bit of introspection, I realized the answer: I wanted to burn the bridge. Having an active FTP account was good because it enabled me to turn back to poker should I ever need extra money. But getting banned from FTP, the largest poker site next to PokerStars, was great because it forced me to abandon poker as a possibility. Sure, I could probably grind it away on some of the less popular sites, but PokerStars and FTP are where all the money is. With poker not a viable option, I had to focus on my startup pursuits because I had no fallback plan.

Was it a good decision? Check back in five years and I’ll let you know. :)

What’s your backup plan? Would eliminating it give you a better chance at succeeding at your current endeavor?

What are you working on? How can I help?

Mazur Leave a comment

My nights and weekends pursuits over the past five years can be divided into two overarching categories: poker and startups. In both cases, I’ve received a ton of help from individuals as well as online communities including Two Plus Two and HackerNews. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the help of many people along the way.

In an effort to pay it forward, maybe I can be of some help to you. I’m not an expert by any means, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing poker and working on a poker bot (~3 years) as well as working on various startup endeavors (~2.5 years) and I’ve learned a lot along the way.

If you’re working on a poker bot or a startup and need an outside perspective to bounce your ideas off of, review what you’ve done, or anything else drop me a note: matthew.h.mazur@gmail.com.