ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Do name-your-price models yield revenue?
Correct. Hence the analogy to airline seats. This is not really name your price. Kickstarters approach is mainly to segment the donors by commitments
ananddass's comments
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Do name-your-price models yield revenue?
No. We had left it open ended and that didnt work at all!
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: The “Few Months In” Checkup for Startups
Should have articulated this better in the original post
[I am not a lawyer so I'd suggest talking to yours to nail it down.]
1. 1099-k: over $20,000 in goods and services sales and completed 200 transactions.
There is an Etsy link quoted in the comments that explains Paypal's role in these transactions clearly.
2. 1099-MISC forms: Paypal used to issue 1099-MISC. They stopped issuing these since they discontinued the option to direct debit your money market account for payments.
Hope this clarifies.
[Edit]-just got off the phone with Paypal support and they confirmed that they don't issue 1099-Misc
[Edit-2]-proof why things like this are a time sink! outsource and get back to building product and talking to users.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: The “Few Months In” Checkup for Startups
Thanks for the feedback Josh. If you are having this issue a lot of others will to. We will modify this to improve readability.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Show HN: Turning a subreddit Into a store
Having Reddit do it themselves may increase the authenticity of the recommendations. Also you might want to look into subreddits like Redditgifts. As noted before, there is a lot of valuable data hidden in those conversations.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: How to sell to large customers
We intentionally chose to focus on making the integration as easy as possible. The key is to get the customer to try a proof of concept as easily as possible. We still need to do a better job of it.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: How to sell to large customers
hmmm it seems like the key is to find the balance between evangelizing your product/vision while genuinely soliciting inputs from the C level on what their priorities are. Hopefully there will be a match somewhere in that conversation
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: How to sell to large customers
Andy-what are the key skills which give you confidence that a founder has the ability to discuss on a C level?
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: How to sell to large customers
Agree. It needs a deft touch. From a social engineering standpoint you have to build sponsorship with X and have him suggest who else to meet.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: How to sell to large customers
I'll keep the response specific to sales objections that a growth stage startups face
Scalability objections: can you scale to our volumes? Respond with suggestions for a phased roll out. Take your backend expert in to the meeting and present credibility on why you can scale.
Company objections: will you be around for long? What if you get aquihired?
Reiterate vision behind why are doing your startup (hopefully the right reasons). Talk about your investors and the expectations/commitments made.
Control objections: "We are uncomfortable giving up control over this part of our tech stack"
Try to create analogies. Understand other parts of the stack that they have given up control over and why they feel comfortable with those. Feed those expectations back as contractual commitments that you are comfortable making.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Designing Javascript APIs
Good catch. Edited it. Thanks for the feedback
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Designing Javascript APIs
Thanks! There are a couple of more techniques we used. Will follow up with a separate post sometime later this month. Also would be interesting to see what approaches simonsarris uses.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Security on an untrusted client - locking down a javascript library
Thanks for the feedback folks. Did one more rev and clean it up. Thanks for the suggestion.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Security on an untrusted client - locking down a javascript library
Since our customers are developers of web and mobile applications we are obviously focused on ensuring that there are no zero-day exploits.
But yes you are right, we have to ensure that we factor in the human angle when designing the solution.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Dropbox-as-a-Database
as yefrederic pointed out you could use filepicker.io to build static js applications. We handle all the server side logic for you.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Growth hacking: Leading indicators of engaged users
Based on my experience of enterprise s/w sales for about 6-7 years, the answer depends on the ticket size of the deal and service delivery model. If it is SaaS based ($1-$10K p.a) then a lot of what applies to Dropbox applies to your b2b product too. At $15-20K or above you need to have inside sales reps who smile and dial. You start breaking even at this point. when you hit $500K deal sizes its time to bring in the rainmakers. Happy to chat more if you need specific help. buzz me at adass at filepicker.io
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Chrome extension - Attach files from the cloud to Gmail using Filepicker.io
Alex hijacking Gmail’s obfuscated Javascript logic is impressive.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: When you learn your customers aren’t just API calls
There are limited options given that the information is on the public timeline. Next time, perhaps redact everything except the url. Maybe that would make it harder to find.
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Usability Testing: the secret sauce of startups
What are some of the tools you use to synthesize the learning from the usability testing?
ananddass | 13 years ago | on: Filepicker.io JS V1 - Full filesystem API in Javascript
we don't charge on conversions of uploaded files. Let me know if you have more questions at adass at filepicker.io and I'd be happy to help.
EDIT Ah. I misunderstood. While we don't charge on conversions, we do create a new filelink for each conversion which is counted under your quota.
If you're on the free plan and think this will hurt you ability to test us out, let me know. If you're on the pro plan and it's hindering your ability to use us, also let us know. We'll work something out.