philk
Joined 17 years ago
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Recent submissions
Comment · 14 years ago
Comment · 14 years ago
Because I'm functioning on little sleep and managed to miss that.
If one of the mods could change the URL to point to the original I'd be grateful.
Comment · 14 years ago
I agree, being a good salesman is fantastic. Good products don't go anywhere without good sales. Hell, bad products can go places with good sales. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Balance)
However, HN is fairly engineer heavy and sales carries a pejorative connotation, so when I read your posts they seemed (to me) negative, as in "Aha! You can't fool me! I'm wise to your game to sell stuff on HN!". I was responding to that.
I suspect we're basically in agreement, if you look somewhere on the page I'm effusive about Patrick's sales letter and I agree that by turning up, answering questions honestly and not trying to sell to people he hits the HN demographic dead on. My point was he may not even be trying to make sales here, just trying to interact with a community he's part of and the two look indistinguishable.
Comment · 14 years ago
It seems to me he's doomed either way.
If he comes on here and says I built this and you all need to buy it right now, well then he's obviously just a salesman.
If he comes on here and says I built this, don't buy it if you don't meet these criteria, I'm not even going to try to sell it because I don't want to turn HN into a sales venue, well then, he's a obviously just a particularly crafty salesman.
So while I see what you're saying I'm not sure how you expect patio11 to discuss this on HN without appearing like a salesman to at least a few people.
Comment · 14 years ago
I prefer reading too but most people will pay more for a video than they will for an ebook regardless of the value contained within because they've been trained repeatedly that books are cheap.
Comment · 14 years ago
That is a really nice sales letter and I've bookmarked it to read through repeatedly when I need to write one. It nails the long form sales format and manages to do so without sounding sleazy[1].
I particularly like the Do not buy this course section which qualifies potential customers.
[1] To be fair depending upon the target demographic the sleaziness can be increased without causing problems. If you were building a product for hard core sales guys Your Customers Can Still Afford Branded Groceries: Learn How To Capture This Wasted Revenue Today! might do brilliantly.
Comment · 14 years ago
If their security is as good as their blogging it's time to consider travelling by bus.
Also their "20 layers of security" chart[1] is an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece. Note the arrow they've drawn circumventing every layer of security apart from passengers. So really, we can't say they didn't warn us.
Comment · 14 years ago
This is why so many men find "getting laid" very important in their lives.
I hate to be That Guy, but speaking as someone who's actually had sex I can attest that there are actually other reasons.[1]
Enough so that in the middle east women who reject a man's marriage proposal might find themselves doused with acid or gasoline and set on fire.
Equating harassment on the internet with middle eastern acid attacks is baffling and offensive.
Finally, and I know this'll be unpopular, but there's some great stuff on Reddit. The comments are never as good as HN, but some of the AMAs are phenomenal. It's a bit tiring seeing it get bashed without respite over here.
[1] Like (and I can't believe I'm typing this) it's fun and makes you feel closer to the person you're doing it with.
Comment · 14 years ago
This would be fascinating. It would be great if you did this.
I suppose they're doing it largely for the style but surely Jonathan Ive and co can make a beautiful iMac that's a couple of centimetres thicker.