lmao imagine being threatened by some dude's hobby project that he's not monetizing - how weak is your business and especially ego if that is the case.
So let me get this straight. This guy is fronting the money on his credit cards, can't do any of the work, and gets people to do things for him by "Being very fucking cool with" them?
Yeah. Keep your money. Fuck your business cards. You sound like sales guys scum trying to leverage the real makers in this project.
You're like me...and a lot of guys here. We fucking hate it when idiots in stupid yellow visors pretend they can judge our character. When they take time and appreciate the things we create, and admit they don't have the wherewithal to judge us from where they're sitting -- whether or not they send investment our way -- that's at least acknowledging that our 10,000 hours registered somewhere and they don't think they're smarter or better than us just because they control the purse-strings of some VCist.
For a lot of us, and I can't speak for you, recognition of our effort is much more important than money. What totally aggravates me about this guy is that he thinks he's qualified to attack people who have done much more than he ever has, based solely on what he perceives as their ability to drive a business. And he has this luxury because he sucked someone's dick or was born to a rich old doctor somewhere, or both. And people who've worked hard to make things are supposed to listen to this bullshit. That's what pisses me off.
If a brief description on HN or a perusal of his website allows someone to steal his idea and take business away from him then he has more than a sales problem.
Yea, tbh this is 100% my read on this situation. Wouldn't go near the dude or his work after this. Spent way too long at Facebook where no one ever has to sell a product and now doesn't understand at all how money works.
TLDR: I am upset that my customers are so stupid that they pay for something which was never meant to be a real product, while almost entirely ignoring the real product, which just happens to be a true labor of love. Therefore, I shall discontinue the thing that's bringing in more money, while also publicly talking about how little I think of my customers. I am smarter than them, and I like to rub this fact in their foolish faces.
I understand that there might be deep, philosophical implications here, with regard to the psychology of social gaming and whatnot, but throughout history, way before Facebook and the Internet, artists would frequently create "popular" art, even though they despised it, so that they could have the money to privately create the "real" art that they loved. It is not only rude, but a sign of poor character, for the artist to also despise the people who gladly pay him for what they perceive to have value. I don't know anything more about this guy than what I read in the above article, but HNers, given their tendency towards startups, should stand with his disappointed customers, and not with his lofty attitude. If someone paid me for the privilege of being able to click on the image of a cow more often than those who do not pay, I would try to figure out how to improve the experience for them, and/or how to charge them even more, all the while pocketing the money for some project that was important to me on an idealistic level. Making fun of your customers' intelligence, especially because they've simply made the choice to pay for your product, is never a good thing.
I don't understand why it's a 'shitty move on his part'. You started a fight and called the guy out by name. Why wouldn't you expect him to react?
How would you feel if instead of offering to partner, I borrowed the concept of your business (after you had spent a few years proving the model) and started a competitor while only crediting you for the inspiration?
Anybody that puts a lot of effort into something only to have everyone else drop a big steaming deuce on it is going to be affected by it. His post was just about how he deals with that particular aspect of business.
I see no reason to begin an armchair psychoanalysis of the guy or his life.
//I generated about £20,000 in roast revenue, and another £50,000 of freelance marketing work from clients //
This guy made this much money with a simple idea. And he hasn't killed anyone. So even though I would never buy such service or think it is worth something to buy , I don't want roast this guy for earning money. All the best.
And who are you to slander a named person and publicly question his reputation, for selling his own business that he created to somebody else? Your behaviour is not proportional to what has happened. It is an icon utility.
At some point you have to decide if the business deserves your effort, and if it were me I would've decided no and walked away long before this guy did.
to put it more succinctly: There are a lot of business I can help be successful, fuck spending my time doing it for this sort of culture.
You seem to be upset that they're charging money for something, and then you separately seem to be upset that they're trying to do the actual work needed to fulfill the promises made via the sales. Is Luke Iseman supposed to just sit down and stop having a job, or does he merely need your signoff before he starts a new project? What, in the end, is your point?
I'm not sure I'm ready to join you in outrage that someone started a business for the purpose of earning money.
At its best, money is a terrific measure of satisfaction you’ve provided to other people. This man builds products people like and shares the story of his success for free to build an audience. These are all good things. You respond with bitter vitriol, that is not a good thing. If this is how you approach life you will not deserve his success or money.
- I understand how it hurts to be unjustifiably attacked for doing what you love. But I believe you'll only benefit from this, because your work will be exposed to more people as a result of his attack. No one here seems to believe that you are duping people.
- I don't have any way of knowing this for certain, but from the way how Alex writes, I get the impression that he doesn't really know what it means to be broke as hell. If he did, he'd probably consider lifestyle businesses as the saving grace for many people out there, rather than a manifestation of small ambition.
- Lifestyle businesses can become empires with time. It's just a different approach to reach the same end goal of creating stuff you love, and doing something that matters.
It's a marketing failure to not capitalize on such an opportunity.
Geez, we're supposed to think less of the guy for not milking his controversial history with Zuckerburg for cash? If there's ever a right time to refrain from marketing yourself, it's when you're accusing someone else of being an opportunistic sociopath.
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