Hacker News: aproductguy

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)"

aproductguy — Mon, 26 May 2025 18:36:34 +0000

I've been working on a platform for car collectors to manage their car collections. https://capsured.com

New comment by aproductguy in "I wish I didn't miss the '90s-00s internet"

aproductguy — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 13:03:19 +0000

Reminds me of this article from Salon published back in 2002: https://www.salon.com/2002/05/31/back_in_the_day/

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?"

aproductguy — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 13:36:32 +0000

Just soft launched my app for landlords to manage their rental properties. It is targeted to Canadians with a focus on Ontario to start.

https://boredlandlord.com

New comment by aproductguy in "Losing my son"

aproductguy — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 14:27:52 +0000

We love you too.

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: Are blog comments a thing of the past?"

aproductguy — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 22:34:46 +0000

I run a pretty large NBA blog, that gets crazy traffic. We decided to spend energy and time moderating comments. Basically we go by "don't be an asshole", and while it's onerous, the community that has sprung up around it is incredible. We have people who've been commenting since 2007, and it was worth it if you have the time to spare. My $0.02

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?"

aproductguy — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 01:21:18 +0000

Solid points. And I agree. I played hours of video games when I was like 10/11.

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?"

aproductguy — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 16:19:08 +0000

I truly hate it. The only saving grace to all of this is that both my boys read at least an hour a day. hopefully it all balances out, but we will have a strict no social media rule until they get to the teenagers that we can't manage anymore.

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: Tech-savvy parents, what are the gadget rules for your kids?"

aproductguy — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 16:14:36 +0000

Two boys, 9 and almost 7.

They get 40 minutes a day (mon-thur) of tv that they watch together.

On Friday and Sunday, we have family movie night. Age appropriate, which is getting harder.

2 hours a week of games (mostly switch, but they sometimes play minecraft or approved games on mobile devices). This happens over Sat/Sun, and we let them manage how they want to allocate time over the two days.

One observation is that after they play video games, they get agitated and angry afterwards, and it ruins the next hour or two of activities as they act like little assholes.

They do have access to Spotify to listen to music (content controls are turned on), but if we notice that they are watching the videos and not "listening" the phones turn off.

The one area where it gets dicey is my 9 year old is learning how to code, so managing that screen time is weird (is it like watching tv/playing games?). I dunno, but I generally don't say anything as this is his best use of devices during the week.

Shit is hard to keep up with tbh.

New comment by aproductguy in "From Æthelflæd to Ælfthryth: The Idea of Queenship in Tenth-Century England"

aproductguy — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 16:53:31 +0000

The books are so much better; big fan of Cornwell.

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: Looking for a CTO"

aproductguy — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 22:34:02 +0000

Awesome, have them email me sam [at] aproductguy [dot] ca

Ask HN: Looking for a CTO

aproductguy — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 21:34:57 +0000

We're a FinTech startup (deposits, pre-paid card, mortgages, investments), based out of Toronto, and looking for a CTO. Would prefer local, but open to remote (prefer EST time zone and someone in Canada but open to everyone).

The company is 4 years in, and are on the verge of some really big things over the next few months. Currently we are 5 people with an outsourced development team that we need to replace. This would be the first hire in that process with the goal of growing the product development team to maybe 6 over the next year.

We just closed our SAFE round, and have enough runway for the next 18-months (assuming no revenue, but we make revenue that's growing YOY) - we are pretty lean. Have a VC lined up for a Series A later this year.

Our stack is Python/Django/React/AWS.

email me sam [at] aproductguy [dot] ca, and I'll send you a note with the complete job listing as soon as possible.

Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28012648

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

Tips on Hiring a CTO

aproductguy — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 01:11:18 +0000

So we are an early stage startup. Lost our original dev team (1 bacnded + 1 front end) during the lockdowns (they are alive, we just had to let them go) but have recovered, and looking to hire a CTO. Problem is, none of us (founders and execs) know how to hire one. Any tips on how we can find and qualify prospects?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27816793

Points: 2

# Comments: 3

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: Employees who exersised stock options: how did it go?"

aproductguy — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 17:03:47 +0000

Worked for a startup in 2000 which Sun Microsystems bought. My options get switched to Sun options, and had a strike price higher than the value of the shares. Right before the options were set to expire, I got a call from someone at Solomon Smith Barney (remember that) who was like "I know the answer is no, but do you want to exercise these?" lol

That job, and especially my time at Sun, super kickstarted my career (I really valued my time at Sun), so I wasn't bitter at all.

New comment by aproductguy in "Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)"

aproductguy — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 18:37:59 +0000

I legit miss Sun. Worked there for two years in 2002/03, and the level of talent there was astounding.

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: How would you invest $500K?"

aproductguy — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 21:26:26 +0000

How you invest depends on what your goals are. You need to define the "why" before you can move on to the "how".

New comment by aproductguy in "Ask HN: Bloggers, what are your tips?"

aproductguy — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:00:52 +0000

Lots of people start blogs, publish a ton of articles, don't get the traction off the bat that they are expecting, and it slowly/quickly dies. Start small. Consistently publish (whatever you can handle in terms of pace, but 1-2 articles a week published at 9am is a good start). Specializing in a niche is huge; it keeps your blog focused, and if you do a good job, people will look to you as an influencer in that space.

Getting out there on Twitter/Reddit and building a following go without saying.

This is from my experience (I run a successful sports blog, and currently launching two other ones with the same model).

Good luck!

Edit: added 'Good luck!'

New comment by aproductguy in "JustFab: The Billion Dollar Startup with a Dark Past"

aproductguy — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 18:39:22 +0000

It's definitely feature, not flaw; think of all the lost revenue from merchants/acquirers/issuers/associations/etc when a card needs to be legitimately replaced (e.g. updating your Netflix subscription is the last thing on your mind if you lost your wallet). Full disclosure: currently working on a product that does this very thing.

Ask HN: Help me validate an idea

aproductguy — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 20:49:02 +0000

Trying to validate a Twitter audience tool that identifies influencers/potential customers/customers/people of interest for a specific topic.

The goal is to figure out if my algo delivers quality results, and what a good model for selling is (price per lead seems reasonable to me ATM).

Fill out the Google doc and I'll turn around a list of names/Twitter handles within 24 hours for free; I just ask that you let me know how good/bad the results are for you.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sBPAZdlGOmP_AFbfyVnTez5_YD7xEBrtmDZhp-9-L44/viewform?usp=send_form