danielrhammond's comments

danielrhammond | 17 years ago | on: Hardware is Expensive, Programmers are Cheap

Sometimes Hardware is Expensive, and so is time though.

I think often times in a startup, especially one thats bootstrapped, its easy to get caught up in trying to optimize everything too early on to scale for a million users before you have your first thousand. Sometimes you have to optimize for your development time first and product development goals, and leave the optimization till you get a bit of runway.

danielrhammond | 18 years ago | on: Ask YC: Can you learn an industry without working in it?

I think one of the best ways to break the barriers software developers/entrepreneurs face in understanding industries outside of the normal niches is to sit down with people in the industry and have a therapy session of sorts. Don't sell anything, but instead listen and learn carefully to what their concerns and problems are.

People in industrial fishing may not think that they have a need for new software, but there are undoubtedly needs and issues within the fishing industry that are completely opaque to those outside of it. And where there are pain points there are opportunities to innovate.

danielrhammond | 18 years ago | on: Ask YC: How long to stay secret?

I feel there is a lot of value in a controlled launch, it takes a lot of effort and coordination (in most cases) to pull one off successfully. However, I think there is no good reason to keep your work completely in stealth, you want to be building up reputation and networking in your respective industry and you can't do that effectively with a tin foil hat on.
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