spxdcz's comments

spxdcz | 4 years ago | on: Our stock research platform is now 100% free

We've been building the freemium website for a few years. We launched paid plans in Feb ($19/m for additional features and higher limits), which grew slowly over the last 6 months, but not to a point where they were covering costs, or likely to any time soon.

The site is popular though - we get about half a million pageviews a month, and have about 7k subscribers to a daily newsletter, and growing every month. We just weren't getting Pro signups - the value prop wasn't there.

We could have put more of the free features behind the paywall, but the industry is getting ultra-competitive, with all our competitors reducing their subscription prices. So with the trajectory of "the value of the data is going to zero" together with "the best way to help everyday investors is to give everyone access to the same information", we decided to change business model and switch to ads/sponsorship (to be implemented soon), which estimates seem to suggest will allow us to much more easily cover our monthly costs.

Any feedback/comments/etc, please let me know!

spxdcz | 9 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2016)

Bipsync | Customer Success Manager | New York, NY | ONSITE

https://www.bipsync.com

We're looking for a Customer Success Manager (Account Manager) to join our growing team in central Manhattan.

We're a growing, VC-funded fintech SaaS company building a modern platform for investment professionals (mostly billion-dollar-plus hedge funds) to manage their research and make better investment decisions.

As a Customer Success Manager (CSM), you will be entrusted with the relationships, strategy and well-being of Bipsync’s fund customers.

You need commercial experience with account management / customer relationship management, and an understanding of the internet technology and finance industries.

We offer a competitive salary and significant benefits (stock options, bonus, flexible working, travel) in an exciting and friendly environment. We are an equal-opportunities company that values diversity, and welcome all qualified applicants.

Email me at [email protected] or read the full job spec at: https://www.bipsync.com/customer-success-manager-new-york-vc...

spxdcz | 9 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2016)

Bipsync | New York, NY | Senior Software Engineer | Onsite | Full-time | To $115,000 plus equity package, healthcare, dental, vision and flexible working

Bipsync is a fast growing, venture-funded SaaS startup with a product obsessively designed to help financial organizations manage their research. Most of our customers are multi-billion dollar hedge funds based in New York. As a Senior Software Engineer you’ll use your full-stack skills to develop the product on a range of platforms, including web, desktop and mobile.

Interviews will usually be a quick telephone call followed by an in-person meeting. We don't do crazy problem-solving whiteboard stunts.

* Email: [email protected] with questions, etc.

* https://www.bipsync.com to find out about the product

* https://www.bipsync.com/senior-software-engineer-new-york-in... for the job spec

spxdcz | 10 years ago | on: “The evidence suggests I was completely wrong about UK tuition fees”

I'm not convinced the "evidence" is suggesting anything without further data, and this article is glossing over "correlation != causation". Without a baseline (a situation where, over the same years, tuition fees weren't introduced/raised), how do we know what the equivalent situation would be? Perhaps there would have been even more people from poorer backgrounds applying.

spxdcz | 12 years ago | on: Elon Musk Tells The Oatmeal He’s “Happy To Help” Fund Tesla Museum

Tesla: "prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization"

Who decides who is "unfit"? In the not too distant past, and possibly even today, that might include the non-white, non-straight, non-wealthy, etc. I find it incredibly scary that you could so easily agree that others should decide who gets to enact their human instincts. Let's face it, it would almost certainly be old, white, wealthy men that would make those decisions.

spxdcz | 12 years ago | on: A Practical Guide to Web App Success (2011) – now free and CC licensed

Surprisingly, at least to me, I think the chapters on marketing are some of the more interesting ones for the HN audience, and have aged pretty well.

It's quite a high level book, so doesn't go into anything in TOO much detail, but instead is supposed to give an entrepreneur - even non-technical - a good understanding of most aspects of building a web app (or at least, what that consisted of a few years ago).

The dev chapters probably won't hold much interest to HN visitors (as they'll know much of the advice), but the marketing ones, maybe some of the design ones, might have some new insights if you've been focusing mostly on tech in your day to day work.

spxdcz | 12 years ago | on: A Practical Guide to Web App Success (2011) – now free and CC licensed

Yeah, that might actually be a good idea, thanks!

I'm 100% on http://bipsync.com (as I have been for the last year or two), a startup initially targeted at Hedge Fund analysts and other professional investors. We were lucky enough to raise a seven figure seed round, so have had the time to go through quite a lengthy customer development phase with some reference customers to really nail the product-market fit. We'll have a public beta out later this year.

spxdcz | 12 years ago | on: A Practical Guide to Web App Success (2011) – now free and CC licensed

Sure! Though I don't actually have much in the way of commercial performance details - it's all split between many quarters of receipts over the last few years, that I'm too lazy to aggregate...

I'd guess that I didn't profit more than a couple of thousand (British) pounds (of both paper and digital sales), after all the publishing costs had been paid for. I think there's still quite a bit of paper stock; I'm still waiting to find out how much is left (though I'm unlikely to try to sell it - I'll probably give them away at conferences, etc).

The parent company that owned the publishing company was acquired by Monotype, and they made the difficult decision to close down the publishing arm as part of the acquisition. The contracts with all the authors were nullified, and all rights returned. As the book was a few years old, and some of it out of date, I figured the best thing to do with it - especially as I'm 100% focused on my startup, and it was never going to make me rich - was to "give it away" to see if it could have any extra life.

It's about 80,000 words and I wrote it over the course of a full year (of traveling; I was also doing some consultancy, so it wasn't full time). So I'd rather that effort was 'available' for other people to possibly use.

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