iamabraham's comments

There is a place in hell for people that recline in coach. The 2" of reclining doesn't help anyone's comfort that much. It's the difference between being "mostly miserable" and "pretty miserable", like the difference between lowering the air temperature in a hotel room from 79 to 78 on a summer night.

I never recline (6'1) if I have to fly coach. It's disruptive to the person behind me, either their legs or if they are trying to work on a computer. Saying "it's their right!" is just a proxy for doing the reasonable and personable thing.

Same. Replaced my MacBook with a Surface Book. Why? Tns of reasons, not the last of which being that the M processor I have is so underpowered that it's an embarrassment that the company offered it in a laptop. I can use two of Chrome, Excel, Outlok and Spotify. Open one more and I get the beach ball.

I also find that Microsoft is at least trying to make quality products even if they will never be mainstream (like the Surface Book). Very happy y have made the switch.

Uh, AWS is absolutely known for being cheap. I'm in the hosting business as well and our AWS offerings are a fraction of the cost of other solutions, especially when you consider what you get.

They haven't been a startup in really long time.

The VAST majority of startups never make $37,000 in a year. I wouldn't be so quick to look down my nose at someone who has indeed been successful at taking "nothing" and making it into "something" and getting someone else to give them money for it.

Agree completely. I'm primarily in sales and have owned businesses in the past. The number of web developers and designers I work with who have amazing talent and skill and absolutely no business acumen is staggering.

I think putting your hopes and dreams on something like this - your own fortitude, determination, creativity, and aptitude - is EXACTLY what you should do.

I think you're overstating the enormity of building a SaaS. "Support, billing, failed charges, churn, and thousands of other things" are easily managed when there is 1 customer. 2 customers is a little more difficult. 3 even moreso. But most SaaS founders I know of would agree that in the early stages, the "I am not sure if this is actually going to work" stages, managing things that become a headache at scale is actually quite manageable.

You don't start with 1,000 clients thankfully. You start with 0. And then 1. And so on and so forth.

because not everyone has the ability to build a SaaS, I would encourage everyone to try and build something using the skills they do have and then fill in the rest later.

I started WP Extra Care (www.wpextracare.com) because I love WordPress but my skill as a developer and designer was mediocre. So I thought "I know a lot more about security for WordPress than most people, I'll offer that up." Now I've been able to add in extra skills that have been fun and also allow more of the business to run on auto-pilot. "Can you help us setup backups to AWS instead of them running on our production server?" "Yeah, I can help with that on Monday" :spends weekend learning:

TL;DR - build and launch what you can. Listen to customers and learn how to do what they will pay for. Then try learn that. You'll come out on the other side having gained both money and knowledge.

The value goes up - sometimes way up - if you have even one paying customer. It isn't a "minimum viable product at all." It's a non revenue generating website with no users which makes it a hobby, not a product.

Of course it is a profound problem in a massive market with tons of financial and world-changing potential. So are things like commercial fire systems, utility-line inspection, and senior care. My snarky barb about the unsexiness of it comes from what feels like excess coverage of gaming, "shared" economy services, and on-demand services. These things are certainly important in their own right, but offering a different way to deliver me a Jimmy John's sandwich is far less meaningful on most every level than, say, reducing the radiation and waste created everytime more concrete is poured.

I hope Flexport is super successful. My jab was not at them at all.

I think it's curious that there are four comments in two hours because this industry - like many ready for big change - are unsexy.

"Anyone that says violence doesn't solve anything has never had their ass kicked"

- My HS best friend's Dad teaching us about dealing with bullies circa 1991

Regardless of how successful the app is, I applaud her (at any age) for making something that seeks to solve a real problem. It's refreshing to see this kind of thing come into existence - regardless of success.

Sensational.

It's the news-blog equivilant of "pivot."

You're more like the rest of us then most will admit. Be strong. Take care of your family. Good luck.

This is an excellent basic article but ignores some significant advantages available. For starters, "brokers" don't really exist in the way described. Many franchise and most independent distributors broker parts from each other. Arrow and Future in particular. Secondly, brokered parts can be an excellent source of cost savings; many will buy a 5k reel to sell 1k pieces and are left with extra inventory that can be had for pennies on the dollar. There is risk admittedly , but finding a reputable independent distributor like America 2 or Signature Electronics can be a benefit to purchasers. Aside from cost savings, these companies can offer forecast information to help you avoid some of the problems listed.

As for finding a good contract manufacturer, there are services like EMSforce that can take a project and present multiple bids to you in a way that offers competitive pricing without sacrificing service.

The problem was not that people like discounts more than low prices. It was that the company never got rid of discounts. They advertised new low prices and no discounts and then still had discount racks all over the store, leading customers to recalibrate the goods in their minds as being less expensive (and possibly "cheaper") then before while still allowing them to wait for discounts.

The company also introduced a lot of product lines that were supposed to be specialty brands which led to entire stores looking like disjointed flea markets. There was no way to tell what was unique or special because everything was branded as unique and special.