Lead/sourcing generation tool with direct dials, cell phones, email (personal and work), for every software developer, senior developer, lead developer, architect, dir of sw development, vp of sw development, CTO, and CEO in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.
I would pay a lot of money for a tool that actually works, updates its database, and has companies other than the IBM/mega corporation.
They would hire a team of sales/researcher people to call into companies and get this information. That's what the company I currently use does but they are more focused on the IT vertical than software development.
Hire a personal trainer, spend that on the personal trainer and just do what the personal trainer tells you. Even a bad personal trainer will get results if you're spending that sort of money.
Will they, even if the person hiring that trainer is actually undisciplined and unwilling to put in the work? (Or potentially has a medical condition of some sort?)
I would say yes, if you start spending that amount of money on a trainer, you're generally going to do what they say. If they were truly unwilling they wouldn't start paying a bunch of money for the top level service of a PT.
Honestly, find someone fit, ideally someone who does some kind of competitive athletic, who uses the trainer and recommends them.
Personal trainers can be excellent, but the low end is "dangerously incompetent". The only requirement for starting a service, or getting hired at many gyms, is being buff and knowing how to look competent on some machines. As a result, there are plenty of PTs peddling junk-science nutrition, or giving out plausible-but-harmful workout routines that undervalue stretching or produce dangerous imbalances and overextensions.
Assuming you don't need someone teaching you how to be healthy, though, things get easier. Some trainers focus on education and drop unmotivated clients, but some offer "willpower pill" as a decent chunk of what you're paying for. Knowing that someone expects you at the gym at 7PM, and will pump you up to not bail early, can do a lot of good.
Honestly I think one of the easiest ways is to search https://www.precisionnutrition.com/fitness-pros-directory. You need to pass their nutrition course, which is very good on nutrition. It also costs quite a pretty penny, so if they're willing to spend that on training themselves and have passed it, there is probably a pretty good bet that they're good.
I found Retrofit [1] here on HN and with their help I went from 258lb to 224lb from March to June this year. The next 20lbs are proving to be more difficult, but I've been pleased with their approach and the results.
The most successful solution I found was Carb Nite. I dropped 30 lbs in 3 months and kept 20 off permanently.
Ferris' 4-Hour Body Slow Carb diet seems to be v2.0 of that diet.
I still want to lose another 20 and that's been tough. I just hired a nutritionist and the key seems to be a balanced diet - eating (almost) all food groups with each meal. My body has been in shock because of how different my food is from meal to meal.
I self funded a startup and worked by myself for a few years. I lost a tremendous amount of money. SOmehow the isolation enabled me to get a handle on the weight problem. I was down about 70 pounds by the end. Best $100K I ever spent :)
If I would have that kind of spare money I'd like to have a private secretary who takes care of all the small things like booking flights, booking hotels, doing taxes, sorting mail, sorting documents, administrating my software licenses and netflix/github/dropbox/... subscriptions, and all those other things.
part of me really wants to try magic. Has anyone here used them to arrange services/purchases/etc... when money was not unlimited? How good are they at figuring out what I'm willing to pay for stuff and working within those bounds?
I'm not a total cheapskate (obviously, im considering using this crazy service), but I'm also fairly concerned about getting the best deal/value I can for things.
I've only purchased through basic Magic, which applies a markup to your purchase instead of a flat rate.
They were good at matching user preferences on simple stuff (get me a pizza), and had a healthy reluctance to go outside your stated preferences ("what with?" "surprise me" "are you sure, any specifics?"). The markup was substantial on a small purchase, but that's irrelevant for the hourly service. On the other hand, "get me a plane ticket from X to Y on Z day" quickly snowballed into enough expense and difficulty that my friend abandoned it and booked himself.
magic basic? I haven't seen any mention of that on their site anywhere.
Regarding markup, their FAQ even says the following:
> There is no markup on the purchases you make through Magic. You are charged the exact cost of the items plus the credit card processing fee. We find you the best deals that we can on every purchase, and we negotiate strongly with vendors. Often you will save more money using Magic than if you had done things yourself.
When they first came through HN, there was an option for a one-off request conducted by text with a feee attached to it. It may even have been the only option, I'm not sure. I don't see it listed anymore.
I get the sense that they wanted to be a contract personal assistant and did the one-off thing to expose people to the service. Certainly it was a bit awkward since it required spending a bunch of time getting them set up with your info.
Yeah, $100 a month is really low. You could maybe get one of the "by the hour" virtual assistants for a few hours but any competent ones are going to want more than that.
That's at 40 hours per week, though. I suspect most people interested in this service could get a lot of headaches dealt with at ~10 hours, which raises the possibility of a PA taking on four clients and making median salary.
That's not going to get your grocery shopping done, but 10 hours/week seems like it would comfortably cover many people's paperwork/bureaucracy hassles.
This would be an awesome service. You have your emails auto-forwarded to them, you pay them for 10-14 hrs a week and send them any information you want them to process. Then they prepare daily emails or phone calls for you.
These people could have like 3 or 4 clients a piece.
no one is saying full time. But I could see the value of being able to hit up someone when necessary, right?
In fact, that person probably wouldn't do everything but would help "administer" it, eg. hire a CPA to do taxes (and audit them quarterly), occasionally book a flight or find a hotel, come in once a week to spend a few hours to sort through mail, etc.
I hear a lot about "virtual assistants" but I imagine this person could fit in 4-5 clients per month which could mean $5K/month and that translates to a pretty good salary.
I don't know, with unlimited Uber rides I could start a long distance delivery company:
Want to take a taxi from Manchester to London because you hate the train or want to arrive overnight? Fantastic, that'll be £50, even cheaper than taking the train and you don't have to take a taxi from the train station.
Need to same-day-deliver 50 tons of Plywood? Fantastic, I'll order 50 ubers and we'll move it a hundred KG per taxi and have it done by the end of the day, how does £250 sound? Cheap enough?
The power of the word "unlimited" is almost magical. Of course, Uber would go out of business pretty quickly so £1,000 / month wouldn't get them very far, but to me, it doesn't sound too overpriced. I just hope there's no fine-print.
"Unlimited", like "arbitrage", is business-speak for "someone is going bankrupt". Hence the sad reality that "unlimited" anything is usually just "a lot".
I remember being pretty disappointed when I learned that deals like "unlimited candy" generally just deliver more candy than is healthy for one person to eat. I also remembering being floored by the story of American Airlines offering actually-unlimited flights for $250,000. And as you point out, that turned out to be a stunningly bad deal for the company.
GitLab doesn't have apps yet, although there are those from other companies like Trident[1]. Other than that, chat is provided by mattermost, and can be enabled in 30 seconds.
All other feature are all already available, right now.
Analytics, customer support & automated marketing are converging.
I would pay 1k/mo (scaling far higher with volume) for a solution that is implemented by a (reasonably) on-site team over the course of a few weeks that can interact with the various teams responsible to integrate (dev) and use (marketing/support/management) it.
I would sacrifice features, which seems to be the de-facto differentiator in these classes, for a product which supports an opinionated but well thought out product development strategy. One based on the current norms for iterating products based on feedback from customers and funnel data.
I just started using Resend.io, which has all 3 of these features in a simple package. The founder has been responsive and the product keeps improving. I was looking for a simple Intercom replacement, Intercom has become very complex.
There are a bunch of studies showing that you get weird market distortions at regulatory "cliffs". The classic example is that a company with 49 workers might see marginal profit from a 50th worker, but would suddenly hit the health insurance cutoff. Since insuring all 50 workers is expensive, the value of hiring one more person is massively negative.
...does this happen with B2B software pricing? Jira probably isn't expensive enough, but are there lots of companies doing elaborate limbo to keep their user count for a service just under a pricing threshold?
I'm currently paying $2k a month for a service. I pay Remote Year that sum, and they provide consistent workspaces, living spaces, and travel to a different country every month.
The jury is still out on whether it is actually worth that value; in many of the countries, a workspace membership and acceptable housing can be found for $600-900 / month. They attempt to make up the rest of the value in the community that they provide.
Do you stick with the same people each month? Seems like quite a markup to pay for not doing it yourself, and you could use the extra $1-1400 for social activities?
I'd pay $1k a month for quality higher education on topics that interest me. My interests have a wide range, but I mostly want to learn math and physics and university classes are too expensive for their quality.
I would pay that much for a small, private, furnished office within walking distance of my apartment.
I work from home and generally enjoy it. But living and working along side my wife in a small one bedroom apartment in New York City presents its challenges. There are plenty of coworking spaces but none close enough that I can walk to and I refuse to become a slave of the commute. I simply need a tiny room with a door I can close, wifi, a desk and a chair.
Foundation Training fixed mine. I have no affiliation with them. There is a set of downloadable videos for sale but this explains the basic idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-K7jtcJ0Dc
There are real back pain specialists (as in MDs), my brother is one. I herniated a disc in my spine doing deadlifts and also went through useless physical therapy. My brother gave me two injections in my spine it's about 90% better. The pain was so bad I could hardly sit still for more than a couple hours, so it was affecting my work among other things.
Google "back pain specialist" in your area, it's covered by health insurance most of the time. Strangely, back pain specialists have a big patient education problem. Nobody knows they exist even though so many people have back pain.
I feel that, I've spent thousands. What finally got it under control: strength training (coached by a physical therapist), finding/releasing the spasms (trigger point massage + trigger point acupuncture), consistent good posture (sitting, standing, sleeping). It was an education! Good luck, keep going, it's worth it.
I think a early education service for toddlers that has play, projects, STEM etc all built in. Everyone wants the best for their kids and this is one thing many people spend big on. The local Montessori wants $2k a month for full time 5 days a week, but I think there are other opportunities that could be realized with some technical input.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] threadI would pay a lot of money for a tool that actually works, updates its database, and has companies other than the IBM/mega corporation.
I guess for 1k a month I'd want something more than that. I know HOW to workout and eat right...I just don't. I need a willpower pill. :\",
Personal trainers can be excellent, but the low end is "dangerously incompetent". The only requirement for starting a service, or getting hired at many gyms, is being buff and knowing how to look competent on some machines. As a result, there are plenty of PTs peddling junk-science nutrition, or giving out plausible-but-harmful workout routines that undervalue stretching or produce dangerous imbalances and overextensions.
Assuming you don't need someone teaching you how to be healthy, though, things get easier. Some trainers focus on education and drop unmotivated clients, but some offer "willpower pill" as a decent chunk of what you're paying for. Knowing that someone expects you at the gym at 7PM, and will pump you up to not bail early, can do a lot of good.
12 sessions for $828
20 sessions for $1280
[0] - https://www.24hourfitness.com/training/trainer_finder/clubs/... click on Check Prices
[1] http://www.retrofitme.com
Ferris' 4-Hour Body Slow Carb diet seems to be v2.0 of that diet.
I still want to lose another 20 and that's been tough. I just hired a nutritionist and the key seems to be a balanced diet - eating (almost) all food groups with each meal. My body has been in shock because of how different my food is from meal to meal.
A part time secretary of some sort... any startups doing this?
I'm not a total cheapskate (obviously, im considering using this crazy service), but I'm also fairly concerned about getting the best deal/value I can for things.
They were good at matching user preferences on simple stuff (get me a pizza), and had a healthy reluctance to go outside your stated preferences ("what with?" "surprise me" "are you sure, any specifics?"). The markup was substantial on a small purchase, but that's irrelevant for the hourly service. On the other hand, "get me a plane ticket from X to Y on Z day" quickly snowballed into enough expense and difficulty that my friend abandoned it and booked himself.
Regarding markup, their FAQ even says the following:
> There is no markup on the purchases you make through Magic. You are charged the exact cost of the items plus the credit card processing fee. We find you the best deals that we can on every purchase, and we negotiate strongly with vendors. Often you will save more money using Magic than if you had done things yourself.
I get the sense that they wanted to be a contract personal assistant and did the one-off thing to expose people to the service. Certainly it was a bit awkward since it required spending a bunch of time getting them set up with your info.
That's not going to get your grocery shopping done, but 10 hours/week seems like it would comfortably cover many people's paperwork/bureaucracy hassles.
These people could have like 3 or 4 clients a piece.
In fact, that person probably wouldn't do everything but would help "administer" it, eg. hire a CPA to do taxes (and audit them quarterly), occasionally book a flight or find a hotel, come in once a week to spend a few hours to sort through mail, etc.
I hear a lot about "virtual assistants" but I imagine this person could fit in 4-5 clients per month which could mean $5K/month and that translates to a pretty good salary.
Want to take a taxi from Manchester to London because you hate the train or want to arrive overnight? Fantastic, that'll be £50, even cheaper than taking the train and you don't have to take a taxi from the train station.
Need to same-day-deliver 50 tons of Plywood? Fantastic, I'll order 50 ubers and we'll move it a hundred KG per taxi and have it done by the end of the day, how does £250 sound? Cheap enough?
The power of the word "unlimited" is almost magical. Of course, Uber would go out of business pretty quickly so £1,000 / month wouldn't get them very far, but to me, it doesn't sound too overpriced. I just hope there's no fine-print.
I remember being pretty disappointed when I learned that deals like "unlimited candy" generally just deliver more candy than is healthy for one person to eat. I also remembering being floored by the story of American Airlines offering actually-unlimited flights for $250,000. And as you point out, that turned out to be a stunningly bad deal for the company.
http://business.time.com/2012/05/08/the-250000-airline-pass-...
i would easily pay you 25 bucks per person.
EDIT : i would start with Phabricators codebase and go from there.
All other feature are all already available, right now.
[1] http://somerobots.com/
I would pay 1k/mo (scaling far higher with volume) for a solution that is implemented by a (reasonably) on-site team over the course of a few weeks that can interact with the various teams responsible to integrate (dev) and use (marketing/support/management) it.
I would sacrifice features, which seems to be the de-facto differentiator in these classes, for a product which supports an opinionated but well thought out product development strategy. One based on the current norms for iterating products based on feedback from customers and funnel data.
- I work in payments / e-comm
...does this happen with B2B software pricing? Jira probably isn't expensive enough, but are there lots of companies doing elaborate limbo to keep their user count for a service just under a pricing threshold?
The jury is still out on whether it is actually worth that value; in many of the countries, a workspace membership and acceptable housing can be found for $600-900 / month. They attempt to make up the rest of the value in the community that they provide.
business: certain high-end dev environments & tool suites, contract automation
I work from home and generally enjoy it. But living and working along side my wife in a small one bedroom apartment in New York City presents its challenges. There are plenty of coworking spaces but none close enough that I can walk to and I refuse to become a slave of the commute. I simply need a tiny room with a door I can close, wifi, a desk and a chair.
Google "back pain specialist" in your area, it's covered by health insurance most of the time. Strangely, back pain specialists have a big patient education problem. Nobody knows they exist even though so many people have back pain.
Still. A good food service for 1k/month could be a nice business. Lots of dependencies though.