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Hack a Day website is now on Kickstarter

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40hz:
BTW, thanks for helping me with my startup!
-superboyac (July 15, 2013, 12:42 PM)
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@ SB - Thanks for the kind words. But you overestimate whatever help I may have given. You did your homework extremely well and had all the pieces of your plan in place. I was just the sounding board.

The thing that impressed me most was that you actually went out and did it. That put you in that very small minority group who prefers to actually do something rather than just dream about doing it.

Starting and running a real business is a mind altering experience - as we discussed. (Oh my yes!) And now you know this to be true from your own direct experience. Pass it on!  :Thmbsup: ;)

superboyac:
BTW, thanks for helping me with my startup!
-superboyac (July 15, 2013, 12:42 PM)
--- End quote ---

@ SB - Thanks for the kind words. But you overestimate whatever help I may have given. You did your homework extremely well and had all the pieces of your plan in place. I was just the sounding board.

The thing that impressed me most was that you actually went out and did it. That put you in that very small minority group who prefers to actually do something rather than just dream about doing it.

Starting and running a real business is a mind altering experience - as we discussed. (Oh my yes!) And now you know this to be true from your own direct experience. Pass it on!  :Thmbsup: ;)
-40hz (July 15, 2013, 03:57 PM)
--- End quote ---
I still remember the quote you told me about a mirror of yourself (forgot the wording), but it was exactly true.  I learned more about myself the last 3 years than possibly any period before.  What an experience, holy cow!  Can't say I'd be able to do THAT again.  But I will do some other things, and I think they will be good (fingers crossed).  I'm trying to do something more fun this time, along the lines of music or cartoons, and this time I'd like to work with less focus on the profits and more on just doing quality work, with energetic people, skilled people.  Not that it's going to be volunteer work, it must make financial sense one way or the other.  but one of the weird (almost mysterious) lessons I've learned through this whole process is that focusing on the money doesn't work well, and focusing only on the artistic (or perfectionist, control freak, etc.) also doesn't work well.  There's a strange balance in between that is just right, and I've gotten a really good feel for that.  I just don't know how to describe it, and I understand now why other businessmen I've talked to had a hard time explaining it to me (and I always was pissed and accused them of being intentionally vague or misleading or dishonest).

By the way, let me explain...the business was a success in the sense that we captured between 10-20% of the market in less than a year.  A copycat customer of ours even started his own exact same business just 6 months later with an inferior product (no way that guy put in the same sweat I did  8)).  It was NOT a success in the sense it didn't change any of our lives much, and it completely exhausted me.  But that was because we expected to capture 80-100% of the market (stooopid).  Great lesson learned there.  I'm very proud of the books, I can guarantee anyone out there it is by far the best material out there.  i would be shocked if someone went through those problems and explanations and didn't pass the test.  Some uber-critical folk who were hammering us on discussion forums about errors (that we fixed with one day turnarounds) and telling us that the books were shit, etc....they all passed.  Some of these guys are such intense studiers that they'll pass regardless of the material.  I also had a very satisfying moment when a coworker was telling me about these really great tutorial videos he saw online that helped him pass, and I'm like "those are mine!".

TaoPhoenix:
Sure 40hz, and then if you put your "Black Hat" on, then even more things pop up.

What makes it all a pity is Hack-a-Day is fairly well respected, so that's part of the confusion. If this was a no-name we wouldn't even be caring right now.

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