Thoughts and discoveries

Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.

Really liked this quote from an article I just came across titled "What Lucky People Do Different".

I’ve learned that the ones closest in my life will doubt my aspirations and dreams. It’s not that they don’t think that I can live out my dreams or accomplish my desires, it’s that they are afraid of me failing and getting hurt.

Just came across this quote in an article by @jprichardson and I've experienced the same thing. It's important to understand this and keep going despite the fact.

"To be honest, I am amazed by my batch mates. We have a core creator of Django, a maintainer of the python client of a popular oss software, a contributor to the OAuth spec, drummers of a band, a 18 year old that had already sold his first company, someone that leads and sings in a choir, and a pair that owns a chain of Beard Papa's, amongst others. In the previous batch, if I recall correctly, they had two Rhode scholars. By comparison, I can only cut a deck of cards with one hand."

This is an excerpt from a longer article about someone's advice in applying to YCombinator after applying 6 times and finally getting onto the programme. Definitely worth a read.

"We could have spent 3 months chasing money, or 3 months earning it. We chose the latter and have a much better product because of it. As an added bonus if we ever did take money, we now have powerful leverage.. called profit."

This is so in line with my own thinking that I had to post it here. The full post is fantastic, too.

This chart from an article on ConceivablyTech certain indicates it. Firefox have quite a task ahead of them.

Just came across "Things real people don't say about your app", and it is hilarious! Also, on a more serious note, I think it is a good reminder to always question our assumptions.

I just came across this very interesting article speculating that the Kindle will be free this November based on current trends. It's something I hadn't thought about, but it seems to actually make a lot of sense. Amazon are a truly inspirational company, they've been around a long time now but they are still innovating so much with Kindle and Amazon Web Services.

In their recent blog post Mac App Store more than doubles new users Evernote show that being open and honest about numbers is something you can do and something that works well. Be sure to look at the comments too.

This is something I'm inspired by and plan to do more of myself.

This is a visualisation from a fascinating article you should go and read right now.

This is hugely important for anyone working on a freemium product. This visualisation is for one specific cohort of users over time as they use Evernote, not a visualisation for the conversion rate to premium over the years as a whole. The amazing thing about this is that if you work with the free users and keep improving the experience for them, over time they may well jump onto the premium package.

Great timing as I've just launched Buffer and whilst I don't have paying customers yet I believe that many people are finding a lot of value in the product and that makes me happy and confident that if I keep working with them and building the relationships then I will gain some paying customers.

What are your experiences or thoughts on freemium? Let's discuss in the comments :)