winterchil

7 ms·

1.
by winterchil 5y ago
You're not wrong but it depends on the platform and campaign. If the ads are bought click-optimized then yes... if conversion optimized then the algorithms will learn to avoid zealous clickers.
2.
by winterchil 6y ago
There's a dated but entertaining dramatization of this failure from the movie Pentagon Wars: https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA .
3.
by winterchil 11y ago
he means he shorts the stock market... although it can be difficult to get the borrow when everything is tanking.
4.
by winterchil 11y ago
Tesla is huge in Norway because of a number of large tax advantages from income tax deductions, to free registration, etc. That being said, they obviously wouldn't sell if they didn't work but I wouldn't look at the popularit
5.
by winterchil 11y ago
I understand the product-fit, but what incremental value does Etsy bring to either of those companies?
6.
by winterchil 12y ago
What hasn't been mentioned yet is that employees hold Common Stock, whereas the investors generally hold preferred stock. The preferred stock is worth more than the common stock because of special protections/provisions/votin
7.
by winterchil 12y ago
>top class negotiating skills exhibited by the sellers Certainly a nice premium but not clear if this is a result of negotiating prowess or necessity given the large fractured institutional holdings. 30% is a pretty typical change of con
8.
by winterchil 12y ago
Sounds like you got in at just the right time, congratulations!
9.
by winterchil 12y ago
This totally explains why everyone is moving to Oakland but, as you say, not a fair comparison. Out of curiosity, how much would you estimate it costs to buy the house? Some quick math will let us figure out the rent vs. buy for your neighb
10.
by winterchil 12y ago
You're welcome to call bullshit but it's not and here's why. First $6k/month will not get you a $1.5MM home unless you had a down payment of $500k and even then it would not cover your taxes and other expenses. A general
11.
by winterchil 12y ago
If you're buying something comparable it's not $3k/month, it's $5k/month + $900/month in property taxes + all maintenance and expenses + the lost opportunity cost of investing all that money in diversified asse
12.
by winterchil 12y ago
It's disgusting that this is necessary but it's a fight we have to win.
13.
by winterchil 13y ago
Very sorry to see them go and it was a beautiful product. However, this is no surprise at all. More surprising is that they were able to raise money for a business model that is fundamentally unsustainable (negative gross margins).
14.
by winterchil 13y ago
I think there's a glitch with their pie charts. They have no founders for any region making a salary in the 125k-175k bucket. Possible, but unlikely.
15.
by winterchil 13y ago
The number that return <1x is significant too. Out of 10 investments typically you'll have 1 big hit, 2-3 decent returns (2-5x on investment) and a bunch of "failures" which would be anything less than 1x. Depending on th
16.
by winterchil 13y ago
Seems more likely that Yahoo is preparing to take a write-down on a collection of assets and is trying to mitigate the total amount by auctioning off the leftovers.
17.
by winterchil 13y ago
Yes, we got 7 views spread over 5 days that were probably all from YC reviewers (embedded player). They watched an average of just over 1 minute of the video which was just under 2 minutes long. We were not invited to the interview. There
18.
by winterchil 13y ago
>> The safe thing to do when biking on sidewalks is to dismount as you arrive at an intersection I think this is also the legally required thing to do in most jurisdictions.
19.
by winterchil 13y ago
Not if the price ceiling were selectively enforced against only one type of radio station. In your analogy this would be the e-commerce company has to buy twinkies from their supplier at 8x the price everyone else pays by government mandat
20.
by winterchil 13y ago
They make more from Pandora than they ever did from radio... and their music accesses a larger audience.
21.
by winterchil 13y ago
This would absolutely not make the IRS happy.
22.
by winterchil 14y ago
Not exactly sure how to take your comment but Pandora is a public company, the IPO was an "exit" in the valley's sense. Maybe that's what you meant? LastFM was probably the other great example.
23.
by winterchil 14y ago
It depends on your criteria. Many people on here like to discuss sustainable businesses. Being acquired prior to reaching profitability is obviously a huge hit for the entrepreneurs, but it's irrelevant to the other conversation.
24.
by winterchil 14y ago
Absolutely. And the distinction between "growth equity" and "private equity" gets ever more blurry over time.
25.
by winterchil 14y ago
This is a brutal generalization so take it with some salt. I also don't subscribe to the "all PE guys are evil and unnecessary" philosophy but with just this teaser description it would be easy to think I support it. Anyway, on to your ans
26.
by winterchil 14y ago
The founders think the company is valuable, they're usually on the board and have both a fiduciary and, hopefully, personal sense of duty to their company.
27.
by winterchil 14y ago
This is a tired sentiment in the valley. There seems to be a power/control needle that swings back and forth between the business people and the technical people. The truth is you desperately need both. While we're all familiar with the "
28.
by winterchil 15y ago
There's actually a good reason that you get credit for a long time and that is successes are so rare and valuable that you deserve credit for a long time. The vast majority of these silicon-valley companies are built with investors' money (
29.
by winterchil 15y ago
For what it's worth "sign-up and see" is an awful response to a potential user being confused about what your service does. I think you should consider changing your landing page to make it explicit how you can help local businesses. That
30.
by winterchil 15y ago
Sounds like the transition to the corp is the root of the problem. Realistically there are very few restrictions on how to do this and it's SOP for non-contributing minority owners to get seriously diluted. Harsh but fair: this is as it sh

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