Edit:

16 clicks on 2 minutes. This sort of technique works on everybody, including smart hackers. Its mostly about talking about what you want. Some people want to lose weight, others control their diabetes. Apparently, lots of people want to learn of a little known advertising secrets for startups. I should make a Copy as a Service startup. (:

See how many are suckered into clicking: http://bit.ly/13wOrj2+

Want to increase your rates? Send your email to the user's facebook account. Those get read almost instantly.

1. You will always be playing catch up if your growth takes off. Not an excuse to write your system in BASIC, but enough of a reason to forgo efficiency a little bit. Shipping something that is 90% efficient is better than not shipping something that is 100% efficient. I have lost almost one year on the latter.

2. The importance in a web application project (if you are aiming to use it as a business) is your ability to adapt to what the market wants. If you cannot push out features (inefficient ones), then somebody else who can will swoop in.

3. In terms of numbers: I have built systems that handle 10K/requests per second without a sweat. Using standard boxes and Go. Note that as nice a Go is, its still a young language. A typical python/ruby/php system can be made to handle that, but requires a bit more work. Now, what I tell people is build something safe (as in no SQL injections, XSS, etc) first, then focus on growing it. Picking a good stack early on helps, but don't pick a stack you don't know. Someone who is proficient in PHP should not use Rails (example).

4. The key to web services is to find and build things that people want. How do you that? Pay attention to people on social networks.

If you have a background in C, Go and Python feel the most familiar. Some prefer Ruby, which is another fine language. Be aware of the current trend of everything being written in Javascript. Learn to use the language as you move along. You will need it.

tl;dr

Don't think about business-oriented web apps in terms of efficiency from the start. Use what you know to build something secure and stable, and then if it catches on, scale it.

Like PG said, do things that don't scale.

I'm building a lead generation system for web agencies and would like to demo it to them (for free).

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6016218

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Edit: Awesome project. (:

Edit

Found them. Check out mah page.

http://notme.neocities.org

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5903700

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

- Sometimes is very hard to measure how far off you are. Being in the game skews your whole perspective. Experienced or not (sadly).

- The could is what my argument is against. Everyone has opportunities. Measuring them by what could happen is a bit naive. You analyze the situation and chose that which conforms to your current needs. There might be other opportunities, but they were not as reasonable for those who had to make them option. It is rather simple for an outsider to argue the point. It is the team member the one who has to live with the decision. I don't think they lost at all. They were part of a YC startup, made connections, and ultimately can profit from the whole experience.

They pivoted because their business model did not make the money they wanted to make. No one could have predicted it. They took the dive, and saw what there really was. Nothing wrong with that.