waytogo

> we closed a $1.7M seed round led by Kleiner Perkins [...] in a little over 8 weeks

This is fast and it's hard to believe that it was a terrible experience. How would have been your post if you needed 8 months or didn't raise at all after one year?

OT: What eBay is really good at:

If you want to buy a notebook with a US keyboard (which some devs prefer) and when it's hard to get them in your home country.

eBay.com offers a Global Shipping Program where the US seller just send their stuff to this shipping program and eBay takes care of everything else. Even customs will be paid by eBay and the buyer just pays once and benefits from fast processing. It's a buttersmooth way of international shipping.

I got my last notebook within just one week and it was still cheaper than the local version in my home country. I know that some notebooks offer US keyboards in any country (ThinkPads and Macbooks) but then you usually wait also min 1-2 weeks because they are custom builds or they come directly from China.

Don't know of any other entity than eBay offering this.

Had also one key which was registered as two key strokes every fifth to tenth time. Super annoying and the solution was strange: after vacuum cleaning and blowing the keyboard many times the only thing that helped was resetting the NVRAM with Command + Option + P + R.

Thought that all new Android One devices should get upcoming updates like the Pixel devices but they don't get Android P Beta (except the Nokia one).

The problem you face is pretty simple, your opportunity costs are just too high:

The probability that you create a company as a first-time founder that generates $500k/yr or $42k/month is...

- in 12 months ultra low

- in 24 months super low

- in 36 months low

And being a founder lacking success over a period of many months or years might be much worse than what you experience now. You would learn a lot though. But I doubt that your mental health would be better.

Stopped using AMP.

Created a site in pure AMP. All competitors didn't use AMP then (1 yr ago). My site was the fastest, didn't have any ads, was the lightest, the most beautiful, had the best UX flow.

SEO-wise my site still doesn't list on the keywords which are in H1 and the page title but all the crappy, non-AMP, megabytes big slow-loading, ads-heavy competitor sites are still in the top ten SERP.

Guess that even Google stopped giving AMP sites any special rank power except they are news sites (then you will see them probably in the carousel but only if they are accepted with Google News).

Interesting piece but perspective matters.

> don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short.

It depends on your situation. If you cashed out and don't have to worry about paying rent and feeding your family (like Paul) then it's easy to spend more time with your family.

If not: You are constantly torn between spending time with your family and getting your startup/career/job right to be able to finance the next vacation/school/flat. It's actually even worse. Every minute you spend with your family you face opportunity costs losing money you could invest into your family. If you work only your kids won't remember you.

Try to cash out before you hit 25, not later than 30.

Three years ago I forced myself to reduce my FB usage.

- At the beginning I remember it was super hard not to check FB

- So I just stopped posting first

- Then I realized that it significantly helped to avoid FB in the morning

- Later, I installed the Chrome Extension Eradicator which lets the FB feed disappear; I never used a FB mobile app

- More and more I could stay away from FB the entire day just checking it in the evening

- Still for 1 or 2 years it was kind of tempting to check FB even if it was in the evening

Now, I rarely use FB anymore, maybe once a week or even less and if I see all the same people posting non-stop self-adulations and all the likers liking every little thing because xy posted it, I command-w FB faster than I opened it. I pity those posting people, too lonely, too little attention, on a desperate hunt for some friends on a addictive Skinner Box network.

TBH it was a bit like quitting smoking: initially super, super hard and when looking back FB's feed feels just useless.

Why do we need an alternative or FB at all?

Before we dive into a long discussion about depression, who has made actual experiences with Ketamine and likes to talk about it?

12 °F / -11 °C.

On my bike.

Listening to Gorillaz on my Powerbeats 3.

They shut down after 5 minutes every time.

Maybe most of the tech fields covered by HN are also of my domain expertise.

OT: From my perspective, HN is the reference regarding tech content. The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussions are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech.

Surprisingly this is not true with Blockchain topics. Upvoted Blockchain stories feel ok but not that relevant or often random. Comments, discussions are sometimes constuctive (like this one) but often anti-blockchain or of low quality.

While most of us happily discuss what Candy Japan's CEO did right and wrong with his Youtube ads, they miss one little thing:

Candy Japan, the master of upvoted stories on HN, burned $14K on Youtube to have another story for HN which brings attention, traffic and new subs. Still: The thread is full of super important infos, so all good.

Wrong question, wrong perspective. Even the very best jobs where everything seems to be perfect still have significant setbacks because of the nature of a job:

- Employees suffer from one single dependency which can make their live miserable—their manager; just compare: Entrepreneurs should be independent and build as many options as possible (e.g. not just one client but many)

- A job locks you in, means all side activities are forbidden or made complicated (because of IP, time, etc.) which again harms you because you are not able to build options outside the company

- The urge to stay employable + get high compensations, means: seamless job transitions with no gaps, min 2 years at one job, steady growth re titles, headcount, responsibilities—all to show that you are a good hire and it doesn't matter if your current employer is a pile of s* and you just have 7 months and need stay some more months

Getting jobs and being an employee has opportunities, it's easy for many in our industry to get 200K+ salaries but the price is high: reducing your options until you hit a depression.

Super nice thread with inspiring thoughts.

My shot: Once I had a family with wonderful little kids I understood what 'quality time' really is. As much I enjoyed being with my friends or even ex-girl-friends: If I think back of what we did together (getting wasted, so-so vacations, mediocre dinner parties, boring talks at coffee shops) it's so much better now.

It's funny: I am very often invited to dinner parties (private and business ones). Every single time, I just don't want to go. Not because I am anti-social, not at all, it's just that I enjoy time with my family so much more—they are my friends.