prokes's comments

“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.” ― Ray Bradbury

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch."

― Benjamin Franklin

The new function behaves very similar to =SUMIF(), with two additional optional parameters for how to search and match.

Easier to understand and solves some issues with =VLOOKUP().

Nice! Couple of ideas:

1) install basic advertising via AdSense. 4.5mm visitors will monetize

2) affiliate link to a useful, paid product that your users could also use. If they click through the link and buy, you are paid a commission.

3) limit the # of API requests. Charge $X/mo for more than Y requests. Offer an unlimited plan for a higher price.

Reading this I was considering point #6 and shutting down the system. If the proper alerts had shown a system improperly taking on massive positions, and the related risk in dollar terms, wouldn't shutting down be a better route than bankruptcy? In retrospect, would (could?) they have chosen that?

Of course, violating those SLA's could cause bankruptcy through client dissatisfaction but that seems less certain than bleeding out money.

Nice! Can you explain how your company makes money? Also, how did you fund the company's growth (did the partners invest capital or did you use the profit from operations, etc.?)

One thing to consider about consulting companies is they charge your time to the client by the hour, hence they want you working as many billable hours as possible. This is measured through utilization and in my experience I had to account for every 15 minute block of my day. This became a burden and eventually quite stress inducing ("Why are you only at 70% utilization?"). On the other hand, full time work is more relaxed. It is goal oriented but not down to the minute.

On the plus side, you will generally be exposed to more and different types of work in consulting, so you may learn and grow faster. You can also expand your network through clients you meet who can help you down the road.

What's more: he concludes with "P.S. I am out again looking for new opportunities". So besides being excellent at putting his work in front of his target audience, he may go 2 for 2 on the job front.

I got bit by a few ticks and we would always light a match, blow it out, and apply the still hot match to the visible back end of the tick. Scares the little bugger and they pop right out.

I consult on Oracle ERP software who are attempting to transition customers from their legacy, on premise (EBS) system to their hosted / managed SaaS (Cloud) offering. Main issues are:

1) Lack of customization options - in Oracle's case, their Cloud offering is hardly customizable (no database access) compared to the on prem version. Thus, key functionality is lost which makes running a business difficult.

2) Cost - you basically need to re-implement your business, which is a $1MM+ affair and tons of time and risk and consultants and work for your team. Plus the Cloud solution isn't that much cheaper in the end.

3) Bugs - the Cloud software is new and still has many problems. Let someone else fight those.

I question the equities and real estate being independent from inflation bit: if interest rates are at 20%, imagine the interest cost of a mortgage! Prices have to come down to compensate.

"Chefs tested over ten types of crusts, fifteen types of sauces, and dozens of cheese. They mixed and matched different combinations to understand what flavors worked best together. In the end, they ended up with a completely new crust, sauce, and cheese recipes. The entire pizza was new."

Not to undermine the turnaround but they had terrible pizza for 40 years. I guess I'm just surprised they survived this long when the above could have been done in a long weekend. Perhaps the hard part was just deciding to do it and rolling it out, as the product was so well known.

Your label product is the best answer on this thread and ironically there are no comments. Knowing an industry, finding a need and building it is the ultimate passive income business. Don't know much about your market but I think you could increase prices to $0 / $20 / $75 per month.

I run a site about Health Savings Accounts[0]. Each year that you have contributions or distributions in your HSA, you have to file tax form 8889 to report these to the IRS. The form is overly complicated with pages of instructions so I wrote a blog post on how to complete it. A reader wrote me requesting help and, importantly, offered to pay me to fill it out for her. I thought it over and considered opening a tax service to fill these out for people. I didn't want to spend my days filing people's taxes one by one so declined, and instead programmed it and launched EasyForm8889[1]. It is an online service that asks simple questions and completes the tax form for you.

[0] http://www.hsaedge.com [1] https://www.easyform8889.com

The point of the LLC or Corp is that if someone sues your business, they can't come after your personal assets. In the parent's case, this is their vested shares of startupcorp. A separate entity limits your risk.

One suggestion is to throw them hourly work until you demonstrate a good fit. For example, agree to X hours at $Y over a certain time frame. Start off slow before committing. You don't want to deal with the overhead of hiring and firing someone until you are confident it will work out.

And yes, you should definitely take a cut of their time. If you are managing the delivery to client (quality) you can continue billing the client at your rate, while paying junior at a lesser rate. You have found all the work, managed the billing, done the hard stuff and handed it to junior on a plate. Depending on their level, I would say you taking 20-50% per hour is reasonable. Otherwise, why bother?

I am an Oracle consultant specializing in inventory/manufacturing and give you this perspective.

Oracle offers two main products - their legacy, on premise E-Business Suite application, and their new Oracle Cloud offering. The functionality, maturity, customizability, and usability of these products is very different. With EBS, it is super customizable and there is a whole host of open API's you can use to create transactions. You can access the database directly and change data there if you want. Very simple to create custom programs on top of the ERP system and report against it to do what you want. I see companies truly make this their own and succeed with it.

Not so much yet with Oracle Cloud. The inventory / warehouse management systems are nascent and the API's are very limited. They may have some of what you want but there will be something for which an API does not exist and it will be a show stopper. You cannot access the database and building on top is difficult.

Of course, each of these is a $500k+ investment to setup and manage per year. Oracle will try their darndest to push to you to Cloud, but if you truly want customizability you want EBS. If you have further questions or need help feel free to email in profile.

One book that examines this scenario is "One Second After" by William Forstchen [0]. It involves a coordinated EMP attack over America and the effects on a small town in North Carolina. In the same vein as The Road but more detailed in how society devolves i.e. how people behave and what is valuable / scarce as the event progresses. It is not pretty but a fascinating read that will make you consider such a scenario and how you can better prepare.

[0] http://a.co/2DWrTJ5

Nice... perhaps you could make this an option for the advertiser, i.e. run your ad in Specific or Related subreddits. Best of both worlds and more control for customer.

Just to add a little nuance - the difference is in flow vs stock of customers. Very few existing EBS customers are reimplementing in Cloud because of the time, cost, and loss of customizations. It doesn't make sense.

New customers are being forced into Cloud by the Oracle sales team. The sales reps literally receive no compensation for on-prem (EBS) deals, and they must go through a lengthy approval process just to offer a prospect the on-prem solution. Thus everyone is being guided to Cloud, whether or not it is the right solution for the customer.