ahoyhere

especially considering I’ve been running a SaaS for 12 years

You must be blocked… either for a reason, or part of a block list or I blocked you accidentally when blocking ads which has happened a few times. What’s your username?

Not yet, we're still very new! Being able to interact easily wherever you are is a high priority for us, however, so it's high on the list.

We do have a Slackbot already.

Freckle is Amy Hoy's biggest product (cite: my finances).

We used to do $240k a year in technical workshops, sold nearly $300k of ebooks, and have a million-dollar-a-year business… 3/4 of which is SaaS, not 30x500. And no, we don't have "multiple staff members." Freckle is run primarily by 1.5 people and it grows every year automatically, and grows very well every time we actually try to grow it.

And sure, we could make a lot more consulting too, especially since I have proven product chops. But who wants to deal with clients all day? All that negotiating and educating and meeting and trying to persuade them not to screw up their own projects, all their politicking, the invoicing and paperwork and phone calls and email change requests… no thank you.

I spent about 5 hours a month on Freckle, which is why it's not a multi-million-dollar business. But $700k/yr with 1 full-time employee works beautifully for me.

Try to beat that for an hourly rate with your consulting business.

That's why I said "new… for a vast majority of people."

Surely I'm not the only one who read the screenshotted exchanges and thought:

He just told the OP he's waiting for "answers" from the doctor. He can't make travel plans. He says it's long, gruesome, UGH.

Guys. In case you have the social instinct of a cockroach, this is what they call A SIGN. Not a subtle one, either. That is when you LEAP to care for your friend.

Here's what you do. You ask: Wait a minute, forget about whatever it is I wanted to talk about -- what's wrong? Are you okay? Do you want to talk? Why don't I come visit you instead of expecting you to travel?

Alas, the author just glossed forward with "Well if you decide you can make it, let me know!"

The sick (now dead) friend expressed well wishes for health to the OP, only to receive what kind of well wishes in return? None. Not even "good luck with your doctor's visit that I don't want to ask about cuz I'm not comfortable expressing feelings."

How self-centered do you have to be to not even wish a friend with obvious health problems "good luck" or "feel better"?

> "Now you’re probably thinking I’m a real shitty friend."

Yes, but not because you didn't know he died. But because you didn't care enough to notice or ask while he was alive.

I'm sorry you went through that. Of course a memorial page wouldn't help comfort you, when you know your friend was murdered, you know who the killer was, and there would never be justice, just the thought of how you failed, and how the killer was taunting you right to the end.

I know how you feel.

work ethic, n: A word used by those trying to guilt others into doing what the selfish person wants.

The notion of a job/employment is a new one for the vast majority of the world's population, Americans included. Most people were peasants/subsistence farmers, or small time commercial farmers, or tradespeople (carpenter, blacksmith, furrier, etc.) who operated more like freelancers today than anything else. More recently, pre-WWI, many people were domestic servants, which is employment of course but not the same as working for a company today. Merchants are relatively new to human history. The legal construct of a company is much much newer than merchants.

The company-employment boom is clearly ending. When you look at human history -- even limited to "civilized" history -- it's pretty clear that mass employment was the exception, not the rule, and now it's going away.