Ask the entrepreneurs advice


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    It's amazing how the Chinese ticket sales always makes up for shitty movies that do awful in the US.

    I was a bit surprised to see Warcraft did so horribly in the US--Box Office Mojo says it only made $50 million. But international--hoo boy, $400M. That makes me thing something in the marketing here made people think "don't go see it unless you play WoW". I know one review said it was too complex and had too many people and subplots, but I didn't think that at all (but I did play Warcraft 2 and WoW, so I dunno.)



  • @FrostCat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    @Polygeekery said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    I certainly hope they ditched all the silly lens flares.

    Yeah, they cut way back on the second one. Don't worry, there's probably plenty of other things to annoy you!

    I went and saw it with a couple of my brothers last night. Wasn't too bad. I mean, don't go and watch it if you're looking for richly drawn, complex characterisation or anything, but it was all right. The only thing that really annoyed me was the utterly nonsensical way they finally came up with of winning. Oh, OK, earlier there was also the unanswered question of "if this guy already has an unstoppable weapon, why exactly does he need another one?" So two things, I guess.


  • Java Dev

    @FrostCat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    @blakeyrat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    It's amazing how the Chinese ticket sales always makes up for shitty movies that do awful in the US.

    I was a bit surprised to see Warcraft did so horribly in the US--Box Office Mojo says it only made $50 million. But international--hoo boy, $400M. That makes me thing something in the marketing here made people think "don't go see it unless you play WoW". I know one review said it was too complex and had too many people and subplots, but I didn't think that at all (but I did play Warcraft 2 and WoW, so I dunno.)

    They expected to do badly in US - that's why the US release was 2 weeks after international.



  • @Scarlet_Manuka said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    if this guy already has an unstoppable weapon, why exactly does he need another one?

    Was the weapon a starship, by any chance?



  • @Groaner IndieGoGo is where shitty obvious kickstarter scams go to live.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Scarlet_Manuka The first weapon probably would've worn out due to attrition. Once the Federation knew about it, there's a number of obvious countermeasures, too: cheap torpedoes. The second weapon was apparently magic (or "from another dimension"). Had to have been to have been big enough to meet the goal.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @PleegWat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    They expected to do badly in US

    OK, fine, but I'm still wondering why.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Maciejasjmj said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    Was the weapon a starship, by any chance?

    No.



  • @FrostCat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    OK, fine, but I'm still wondering why.

    Maybe because World of Warcraft is also doing bad in the US?

    Huge in China though.


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    @blakeyrat For movies like that I have to think that the US is the secondary market for the movies, and China is actually the primary market they are targeting.



  • @Polygeekery I have to imagine that's the case. Maybe not when they were originally writing it, but at some point during production it must have come up.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Every year for us, the end of the year is our busiest time and also the time when we see the vast majority of our growth. This is mostly due to people burning the money left in their budgets and from people wanting to make a change for the new year. Then we get calls where people are wanting to get money off the books to avoid having to pay taxes on it.

    "I was talking to our CPA and he wanted us to see if our vendors would allow us to pre-pay for goods and services for the coming year to reduce our taxable income. Is this something you would be open to?"

    What I think when I hear stuff like that: "Your CPA is an idiot, and a can-kicker. You would rather spend a shitload of money, than to pay taxes on it and then bring it home? In the long-run, your plan makes no sense. For every dollar you spend like this, you save yourself 35 cents in taxes. You are still down 65 cents on every dollar. You should fire your accountant."

    What I say: "Sure, it makes no difference to me. How much in advance do you want to pay?" Because I will gladly pay $.35 to bring home $.65 and then pay less in taxes next year because I will have expenses to deduct against it without the income. No problem, I will take your money.



  • @Polygeekery There are things like, one manager has a limit on spending, if they spend much less than it, the limit will be reduced next year. That's one of those situations were the incentives for an individual or deparment act against the company best interests.


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    @fbmac Exactly, which is why I think that annual budgets are bullshit.



  • @Polygeekery It makes sense to me if the money goes into capital investment of some sort. At the end of the year, you can either be holding $1m in cash, which gets taxed, or $1m worth of stuff, which doesn't. If you wait and buy the same stuff next year, you'd have to pay your gigantic tax bill first and then borrow the cash.


  • Fake News

    Or we could just burn down every tax system that institutes perverse incentives such as "spend like there's no tomorrow."


  • kills Dumbledore

    @lolwhat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    perverse incentives such as "spend like there's no tomorrow."

    Surely from the point of view of the economy, "spend like there's no tomorrow" is exactly what you want to be happening. The amount of spending is essentially what GDP is


  • Fake News

    @Jaloopa Increasing the velocity of money doesn't lead to a productive economy. Actual capital investment does.



  • @Jaloopa
    That implicitly assumes that spending $1 today reduces spending tomorrow by $1 (or less). Which can occur in cases where you're buying something productive that will grow your business and cause you to need more stuff next year to continue operating - e.g. capital investment.

    But in cases of pure consumption (e.g. hookers and blow), the best case for the economy is that you've just pulled tomorrow's party forward to today, and there was no net change other than a time shift. The more likely case is that you've killed yourself earlier than you otherwise would have, and now you're doing less overall consumption that you would have without the incentive to party hard this year.

    (Granted, businesses usually don't consume via hookers and blow, but the same sort of evaluation still applies - does spending the money make them more likely to grow, or more likely to go out of business and stop contributing economically?)


  • kills Dumbledore

    @izzion said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    Granted, businesses usually don't consume via hookers and blow

    Shit, that's what I've been doing wrong!


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    @clatter said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    @Polygeekery It makes sense to me if the money goes into capital investment of some sort. At the end of the year, you can either be holding $1m in cash, which gets taxed, or $1m worth of stuff, which doesn't. If you wait and buy the same stuff next year, you'd have to pay your gigantic tax bill first and then borrow the cash.

    Sort of. Depreciation schedules usually come in to play though.

    Also, in this case it is pure expense. We are their IT service and we do their off-site backups, etc. Pure expenses, no CapEx and it is not fueling growth directly.

    It would be like paying their electric bill a year ahead.


  • sekret PM club

    @Polygeekery said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    off-white backups

    How much extra for cyan or magenta backups?


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @e4tmyl33t goddamn autocorrect.



  • @e4tmyl33t
    #BlackBackupsMatter



  • Is it bad that I just assumed it was the latest IT fad which I'm not familiar with?


  • Fake News

    @Polygeekery said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    Depreciation schedules usually come in to play

    Those schedules are ridiculous for equipment that goes obsolete quickly, even the accelerated five(?)-year one that the U.S. allowed for a while (still allows?). At least in the past, your computer would get blown out of the water compared to more current ones well before full depreciation.


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    @lolwhat said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    Those schedules are ridiculous for equipment that goes obsolete quickly, even the accelerated five(?)-year one that the U.S. allowed for a while (still allows?). At least in the past, your computer would get blown out of the water compared to more current ones well before full depreciation.

    There is an accelerated schedule for computers still. It has improved though. Essentially, if you buy a server today and put it in service, you can depreciate 50% of it this year and spread the remaining 50% over 4 more years.

    I am not an accountant, I probably flubbed part of that, but that is how I remember it. YMMV, consult a CPA, etc., etc.



  • @Polygeekery
    And if you're a smaller business, you can lump your IT spending into Section 529 bonus depreciation and depreciate 100% of it in year 1, up to $250,000*

    *The original $100,000 limit was raised on a temporary emergency basis during the 2008 financial crisis. Like all such governmental rules, it was not a true emergency and has not proven to be temporary, as "emergency" renewals keep successfully slipping through every year.



  • This post is deleted!


  • I've got to the size where I can't take on anymore work without working myself to death. However I can't afford to take anyone else on (I would be looking for a Junior Dev). I have been running my business at a profit now since august last year at a profit while sitting at my arse at home. I am making approximately between 7000 - 12000 a month turnover. But I've had other months where I am making 500-2000.

    I am not a salesman. I normally do the strategy of picking up work with a client freelance, doing a few good jobs for cheap. Negotiating for a slighly higher rate once they trust me and then picking up irregular work. I normally do this while doing a remote contract with flexible working arrangements so I can move work around when necessary to prioritise. I value cashflow. I always undercut to get the job and just put up with working less than what I am worth.

    So far my attitude of "not taking the piss" (that is exactly how the client told told me on a phone call today that is a medium sized ad agency) and doing a good job means they would rather work around me than me having to do the opposite.

    I am also honest if I can realistically take the work on. At the moment I have turned down two jobs that were around 8k each because I didn't think I could work on them with the current commitments I have.

    I dunno what to do, I can't afford to keep on turning down work, but I can't afford to take on a Junior or FrontEnd dev full time.


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    @lucas1 it sounds like you need to stop buying work. Raise your prices and do less work at a higher margin. Once you start turning down the lower margin work and getting better paying jobs, then you can afford to bring on a junior.

    The first hire is always the toughest. The way that I have always grown is to get enough work that I had enough for one person to do and still make a profit, then hire someone and go out and get more work. Lather, rinse, repeat. On that first hire though, it is tough because you will have become accustomed to making $X (or Euros, or Pounds or tiddlywinks, whatever you Europeans buy stuff with) and to hire a person you will need to cut your pay to $1/2X (or less). When you have five people working it will be more like $.8-.9X when you make that sixth hire.

    The first hire will be the hardest though. Before you even attempt it, go pick up a few books on managing people. If you want to effectively lead people you need to know how to incentivize hard work and how to be the type of person that people want to follow. You can use the carrot or you can use the stick. The carrot works better IMHO.



  • @Polygeekery said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    @lucas1 it sounds like you need to stop buying work. Raise your prices and do less work at a higher margin. Once you start turning down the lower margin work and getting better paying jobs, then you can afford to bring on a junior.

    At the moment I am trying to get a rep for good work so I am as you said buying rep. But I've been thinking about it most of this evening and I agree I have to start charging more.

    I think I was asking someone to confirm my own thoughts on the subject.



  • @Polygeekery said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    he first hire is always the toughest. The way that I have always grown is to get enough work that I had enough for one person to do and still make a profit, then hire someone and go out and get more work. Lather, rinse, repeat. On that first hire though, it is tough because you will have become accustomed to making $X (or Euros, or Pounds or tiddlywinks, whatever you Europeans buy stuff with) and to hire a person you will need to cut your pay to $1/2X (or less). When you have five people working it will be more like $.8-.9X when you make that sixth hire.

    I think as you said I have to raise prices.

    The first hire will be the hardest though. Before you even attempt it, go pick up a few books on managing people. If you want to effectively lead people you need to know how to incentivize hard work and how to be the type of person that people want to follow. You can use the carrot or you can use the stick. The carrot works better IMHO.

    I think I am going to have to do that. I am alright at managing a Junior in a Senior / Junior dev setting in an existing company but I think I might suck. Any books you can recommend other than some of the software engineering classics?


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    @lucas1 said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    I think I am going to have to do that. I am alright at managing a Junior in a Senior / Junior dev setting in an existing company but I think I might suck. Any books you can recommend other than some of the software engineering classics?

    Hmmmmm, not really. I am sure there are some good ones out there, but I learned what I know about managing people from my father and those I have worked with over the years.

    The best advice I can give you is to always keep the alignment of interests in mind when you are making decisions that impact your people. If you can keep their interests aligned with yours, they will work hard for you. Make sure that the harder they work, the more they get of what they want.

    I italicize that because it is not always more money that they want. They may want more flexibility. They may want more personal recognition. They may want more development opportunities. They may want something else entirely.

    Also, always be preparing them for their next job, even if that job is not with you. Grow them. Let them learn. Understand that part of learning is making mistakes. Explain to them why it was a mistake and what they should have done differently and why.

    "Why" is really the most important part of any venture. You can tell a person what to do all you want. All you will create are mindless automatons that cannot function without micromanagement. Explain to them why to do something and you will develop people who can think on their own and do not require much management at all.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Polygeekery said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    Hmmmmm, not really. I am sure there are some good ones out there, but I learned what I know about managing people from my father and those I have worked with over the years.

    Scratch that. I have two recommendations. They are more abstract than you may want, but "Who moved my cheese" and "QBQ" are both excellent books for literally everyone to read.

    https://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Amazing/dp/0399144463/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486690475&sr=1-1&keywords=who+moved+my+cheese

    Also, let me expound on one point:

    @Polygeekery said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    "Why" is really the most important part of any venture. You can tell a person what to do all you want. All you will create are mindless automatons that cannot function without micromanagement. Explain to them why to do something and you will develop people who can think of their own and do not require much management at all.

    Back in the day another department of a company I was running hired a kid. Let's call him Steve. He was pretty bright and well-intentioned, but he needed direction. When the other division did not have anything for him to do they would send him over to me and he would soak things up like a sponge. But the other division always bitched about him. The foremen did not like him, etc.

    Around the same time the owner hired a guy to work in my division as a foreman, and did so without consulting me. No big deal, it was his company. But, this guy was not the type of person I would ever hire. I quickly named him "Not my fault" because that would be the first thing he ever said if something bad happened. He never accepted responsibility for anything and he was a really shitty leader. I tried to develop him, but he was a lost cause.

    So one day the job Steve was on got shut down and they asked me if I wanted him for the rest of the week. Sure, no problem. I made the mistake of sending him out to work with "Not my fault". A little after lunch "Not my fault" calls me and tells me that Steve caused the pipe laser to get run over by the track loader.

    Pipe lasers are $5K-$10K. I was not too far away so I go out and "Not my fault" was excoriating Steve over it. I get everyone calmed down ("Not my fault" was Hispanic, and when he got worked up Spanish and English intermixed and it was impossible to understand him) and get to the bottom of it. It turns out that Steve had put the box for the pipe laser down in the mud earlier in the day and "Not my fault" jumped his shit about it and told him to never put the box in the mud...

    The whole jobsite is mud. It was early winter. So, after lunch they take the laser down and Steve puts it away in the box (which, BTW, "Not my fault" should have done...), he looks around and the only spot within 1000 yards that is not muddy is on the tracks of the 963. Remembering what he had gotten in trouble for earlier in the day he put the laser there until "Not my fault" got back so he could put it away in the truck.

    The loader operator gets up in the machine from the side opposite where the laser is, cranks it up and before Steve could say anything he takes off and runs a 40,000 lb loader over top of a $10K laser.

    Steve tried to do what was right. He looked at the situation, remembered what he was told earlier that day and made a decision based on that. He made the wrong decision, but did so based on what he was told. So, both people were at fault. IMHO, "Not my fault" was more to blame though. Had he come back and the laser case had been sitting in the mud, he would have jumped his shit yet again.

    I know this has all been long-winded and due to the extreme difference in domain between that work and the people on these forums it may not make much sense. But I think back to that when I think about telling people why to do things. Do not create automatons, and never blame people when you give them the wrong guidelines.



  • @Polygeekery My first serious job had us read "Who Moved My Cheese". They also mailed "7 Habits" book before my start.

    True story, I used to personal train Blanchard at the Cornell Club when Ihe traveled to NYC.



  • ...



  • @fbmac said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    You could outsource it to some 3rd world loser like me

    I would be afraid you would delete the work after doing it 😜



  • This post is deleted!

  • FoxDev

    @fbmac said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    This post is deleted!

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!~

    0_1486757158084_Laughing (2).gif

    CLASSIC FBMAC! I AM LITERALLY LAUGHING MY ASS OFF! SO FUNNY!



  • @accalia I was really disappointed that I couldn't like his deleted post


  • FoxDev

    @TimeBandit said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    @accalia I was really disappointed that I couldn't like his deleted post

    i know, it's the only downside to his brand of humor



  • ...


  • FoxDev

    @fbmac said in Ask the entrepreneurs advice:

    @accalia I didn't delete it in a lame attempt at humor, but it was a lame attempt at humor before I deleted, so it even out.

    Lame?

    Attempt?

    DUDE! YOU KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK!</notevensarcastic>



  • @Polygeekery said:

    @tar said:

    I'd need to strike a balance between charging enough that I can afford to support the project, but not so much that I scare away potential customers. (This is probably a universal concern though...)

    Yes it is. You don't want to leave money on the table, but you can also price yourself out of the market.

    When I started my business, I saw what other people in my space were charging and thought that I would price myself significantly lower to make sales. I made money, but at one point I had hit a wall on sales. I was talking to another entrepreneur about it and he told me to raise my prices. It seemed entirely counter-current to what I had been thinking. But, paradoxically, it worked. There were businesses that would not use my IT services because I was too cheap. I raised my prices, and started making sales again. Markets can be mystifying.

    Just to add a related example: when my grandfather started a seasonal outdoors-retreat-activity-type business, he figured out what his costs would be and then added what he reckoned would be a decent profit margin. The first few years, he always filled his available slots, but his customers were terrible. They complained about everything. They didn't clean up after themselves. They would try to circumvent the few simple rules he had (like no alcoholic beverages at the camp). They expected everything to be done for them.

    After putting up with this for a while (and I don't remember if he asked someone's advice or what), he looked at other places that offered similar experiences to his and what they charged. He was a little surprised to see that they charged 3x-4x what he did, often for even less service than he offered. So he raised his prices to be just under theirs, and was a little surprised that he could still fill all his slots. But the customers that came were so much better than those that he had been getting, and some of them were even surprised at how much they enjoyed being there (even without alcohol). The business itself was the same in both cases. So basically, he priced himself up out of the dregs and into a posh market (and was able to take home/reinvest a whole lot more money because of that).


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @djls45 that has been my experience both on my own and working on business development with others. When you price yourself cheap, you attract cheapskates. You don't want them.

    In your grandfather's case he attracted those who did not respect his property and his rules. In my case I attracted those who paid slowly and always bitched about cost.

    When you price yourself so that people's first consideration will be price you also attract those who will leave you in an instant when someone cheaper comes along. That is not conducive to building a long-lasting business.



  • @Polygeekery For me I got into the trap of wanting to get work in. I've want to get all my debts paid off first personally it not far off but until it is I don't think I can take any steps to grow. I also want a salesman partner because tbh I look like a "farmer", sound like a farmer ...


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Hey entrepreneurs, critique this guy: https://imgur.com/a/MZS8P#bCva4fT

    (there are multiple images there, you have to see them all for best effect)



  • @boomzilla The first one was bad enough.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @boomzilla I am thinking that their business is already under.


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