Babylist is making it easier for new parents to prepare for one of the biggest events in their lives. We have an extremely engaged user-base, we’re growing quickly and making real money. Our core product is a universal baby registry, and we are developing our own e-commerce platform and content site. Our HQ is in the Old Oakland neighborhood, 3 blocks from the 12th Street BART. We're a smart and diverse team of 20. Our users care deeply about our product (read our App Store reviews for proof).
Front-end Software Engineer: Our front-end is driven by React/Redux, Sass, Bootstrap, and we recently released a new section of our iOS app powered by React Native. You would join an excellent product team of 4 software engineers and 1 designer and our CEO/product manager.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in Javascript and one modern front-end framework.
- Experience with OOCSS methodologies and an almost unhealthy obsession with keeping CSS (Sass)
clean and scalable.
- Experience with modern front-end build tools (Babel, Browserify, Webpack, Gulp, etc).
- User-obsessed. Once you get to know our users, you deeply empathize and genuinely like them. You could get on the phone with a user (or their grandmother) if they were having an issue.
- You’re opinionated and care intensely about the little details that make a great user experience.
I'd love to tell you more over the phone or in person. Contact me at august[at]babylist.com or see our jobs page for other open positions - https://babyli.st/jobs
I recently joined a company that's built on Rails. I previously was most comfortable with Python/Django. There's lots of code to crib from, and I've picked up the basics pretty quickly.
That said, I've been looking for Rails tutorials/resources that are geared toward someone with decent experience with other languages/frameworks. Would y'all recommend this book, or is this more of "learn to code with Ruby on Rails"? If not this, any other resources that fit the bill?
For someone who already knows how to program and just wants to learn Rails, the official guides[1] are top notch and a great way to learn the framework without having to read a whole book
Just a quick personal anecdote for a different perspective:
When I wanted to learn Rails as a developer getting into web dev, I read the Rails Tutorial relatively quickly and did the major exercises. I thought it was well worth the time and would have bought a print copy to reference/scribble in if it had been released in a timely manner.
After that I got the Rails 4 Way, which I still refer to from time to time. It makes a pretty good reference or topical reader once you're more familiar with rails. It is more a book on how things are put together and why, as compared to 'this is how to do X step by step.' I imagine there will be a new edition for rails 5 soon. This would probably be my first recommendation for you coming from Django.
I didn't find the official documentation to be all that helpful until after I had finished that reading and understood the rails system a little better. Now I use the documentation a lot more. The rails source I occasionally refer to, but it is rather painful to read if you're not deeply entrenched in the ruby/rails metaprogramming idioms.
I also have a copy of Agile Web Development with Rails 4, and I never open it anymore. I tried to get through it, but I find it a rather poor book. It is very light on details, or just content in general. Personally don't think it's worth the time or money.
Obviously I like reference books, I find writing in margins and physically flipping pages helps me learn. YMMV!
I would also recommend the documentation. However, if you're really looking for a good book, Agile Web Development With Rails is great. I would hold off on getting it until the new one comes out, which will include all the new features of Rails 5. You shouldn't have a difficult time with it since you do have prior experience with different technologies.
Another resource would be GoRails. Some of the videos require a membership though.
BabyList is making it easier for new parents to prepare for one of the biggest events in their lives. We have an extremely engaged user-base, we’re growing quickly and making real money. Our core product is a universal baby registry, and we are developing our own e-commerce platform and content site. Our HQ is in the Old Oakland neighborhood, 3 blocks from the 12th Street BART. We're a smart and diverse team of 15. Our users actually notice and love what we do (read our AppStore reviews for proof).
Front-end Software Engineer: Our front-end is driven by React/Redux, Sass, Bootstrap, and we recently released a new section of our iOS app powered by React Native. You would join an excellent product team of 4 software engineers and 2 designers.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in Javascript and one modern front-end framework.
- Experience with OOCSS methodologies and an almost unhealthy obsession with keeping CSS (Sass) clean and scalable.
- Experience with modern front-end build tools (Babel, Browserify, Webpack, Gulp, etc).
- User-obsessed. Once you get to know our users, you deeply empathize and genuinely like them. You could get on the phone with a user (or their grandmother) if they were having an issue.
- You’re opinionated and care intensely about the little details that make a great user experience.
Senior Fullstack Engineer: Our server-side code is powered by Ruby on Rails, MySQL and Redis.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in at least one of Ruby, Java, Python, or another modern server-side object-oriented programming language.
- Bachelors in CS, or equivalent experience.
- Experience designing and implementing scalable web services.
- Deep knowledge of testing best practices and continuous deployment.
I'd love to tell you more over the phone or in person. Contact me at august[at]babyli.st or see our jobs page for other open positions - https://babyli.st/jobs
BabyList - Oakland, CA | Full Time | ONSITE
BabyList is making it easier for new parents to prepare for one of the biggest events in their lives. We have an extremely engaged user-base, we’re growing quickly and making real money. Our core product is a universal baby registry, and we are developing our own e-commerce platform and content site. Our HQ is in the Old Oakland neighborhood, 3 blocks from the 12th Street BART. We're a smart and diverse team of 15. Our users actually notice and love what we do (read our AppStore reviews for proof).
Front-end Software Engineer:
Our front-end is driven by React/Redux, Sass, Bootstrap, and we recently released a new section of our iOS app powered by React Native. You would join an excellent product team of 4 software engineers and 2 designers.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in Javascript and one modern front-end framework.
- Experience with OOCSS methodologies and an almost unhealthy obsession with keeping CSS (Sass) clean and scalable.
- Experience with modern front-end build tools (Babel, Browserify, Webpack, Gulp, etc).
- User-obsessed. Once you get to know our users, you deeply empathize and genuinely like them. You could get on the phone with a user (or their grandmother) if they were having an issue.
- You’re opinionated and care intensely about the little details that make a great user experience.
Senior Fullstack Engineer:
Our server-side code is powered by Ruby on Rails, MySQL and Redis.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in at least one of Ruby, Java, Python, or another modern server-side object-oriented programming language.
- Bachelors in CS, or equivalent experience.
- Experience designing and implementing scalable web services.
- Deep knowledge of testing best practices and continuous deployment.
I'd love to tell you more over the phone or in person. Contact me at august[at]babyli.st or see our jobs page for other open positions - https://babyli.st/jobs
BabyList is making it easier for new parents to prepare for one of the biggest events in their lives. We have an extremely engaged user-base, we’re growing quickly and making real money. Our core product is a universal baby registry, and we are developing our own e-commerce platform and content site. Our HQ is in the Old Oakland neighborhood, 3 blocks from the 12th Street BART. We're a smart and diverse team of 15. Our users actually notice and love what we do (read our AppStore reviews for proof).
Front-end Software Engineer:
Our front-end is driven by React/Redux, Sass, Bootstrap, and we recently released a new section of our iOS app powered by React Native. You would join an excellent product team of 4 software engineers and 2 designers.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in Javascript and one modern front-end framework.
- Experience with OOCSS methodologies and an almost unhealthy obsession with keeping CSS (Sass) clean and scalable.
- Experience with modern front-end build tools (Babel, Browserify, Webpack, Gulp, etc).
- User-obsessed. Once you get to know our users, you deeply empathize and genuinely like them. You could get on the phone with a user (or their grandmother) if they were having an issue.
- You’re opinionated and care intensely about the little details that make a great user experience.
Senior Fullstack Engineer:
Our server-side code is powered by Ruby on Rails, MySQL and Redis.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in at least one of Ruby, Java, Python, or another modern server-side object-oriented programming language.
- Bachelors in CS, or equivalent experience.
- Experience designing and implementing scalable web services.
- Deep knowledge of testing best practices and continuous deployment.
I'd love to tell you more over the phone or in person. Contact me at august[at]babyli.st or see our jobs page for other open positions - https://babyli.st/jobs
One small suggestion, when someone clicks the 'Try It' button and it scrolls to the address input have it focus the input for the user.
I've actually been needing the exact opposite of this tool lately. I have a bunch of lat lon pairs that I need turned into addresses. Any plans to add reverse geocoding any time soon?
The input focus would be a good usability upgrade - thanks. It does actually do reverse geocoding as well, but there is not "try-it" feature for that part of the API yet. The docs for that functionality are here - https://latlon.io/documentation#reverse-geocode. What specific type of info are you looking to get when turning those lat/lon pairs into addresses?
Our first paying customer came on July 9th, 2014. As of today we're at about 80 paying customers. As of last month, we have started taking monthly revenue distributions of $1000 each.
I would echo gargaplex's comment that, when building a small Saas product, your focus should be about building a business not necessarily just building passive income.
However, it's easy to become completely engrossed in something you're working on (especially if it's showing a little traction). So, unless you can see a very clear path to your project becoming a replacement for your full-time revenue source, it's important to be conscious of your time investment, and whether you are at the point where additional work will yield diminishing returns.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot with my project lately. I'm not sure if we're there, but, unlike a year ago, when spending 10 hours of time to improve a mediocre product was clearly adding value it's less cut and dry these days.
When I look at what has made Cronitor successful (this is a relative term) this past year there are a couple of things that stand out.
1. We launched with a really basic version of our product. It had limited functionality, was far from robust, and didn't even include help docs. But, you could sign up and pay money for it.
2. We hounded our users for feedback. If you signed up you got at least one email from us asking for feedback. Most of the features that exist today on paid plans are because users asked for them. We'd say "sure, we can do that it will be part of plan X. would you be willing to sign up for that?" Not all of them said yes, but getting that validation before investing in features was key.
3. We took breaks from working on it. For myself especially this has been key. I'll have a feature I want to build, or some part of the infrastructure I want to improve. Tackling this feels just like a regular programming sprint, but when it's done I usually take at least a month before moving onto the next "big" thing. This has helped me avoid burnout, and gets me excited to come back and work on it every few weeks.
Hope that helps, if you'd like to chat further about getting a Saas project off the ground you can email me august[at]cronitor.io.
HackerNews posts have yet to produce a single paying customer :)
OP, I'm hesitant to share that strategy out in the open. Customer acquisition has certainly been our biggest challenge. Feel free to DM me if you'd like to chat privately about it.
NerdWallet - San Francisco, CA - relocation and H1B ok (sorry, no remote)
NerdWallet is a fast growing startup dedicated to bringing transparency to the world of personal finance. Our mission is to empower millions of people by providing them with the research and data driven tools they need to make informed money decisions, both big and small throughout their lives.
Our engineering team is small (~20 engineers) and is growing fast. We're hiring across the board - full stack, data, and platform engineers. Our core web platform is a traditional LAMP stack. Our data and various service APIs are written in Python/Flask, and we're pushing more and more code into this service layer everyday. We're also starting to use Node.js to serve different parts of our website.
I joined the company recently after spending a lot of time getting to know different members of the engineering team. This is a very smart team that is poised for massive growth. There are a ton of challenges to be solved, and this is a team that is up to the task. The company as a whole has this same attitude and culture. Everyone is very friendly and collaborative.
We offer:
- Competitive compensation package
- 100% paid premiums for medical, dental and vision for employee and their dependents
- 401(k) with company match
- Generous, flexible vacation
- Catered lunches daily, free dinner, and a kitchen stocked full of snacks
I think this is a great answer that covers the common pitfalls with launching any side-project. I would add another often repeated, but important, point to the list - try to build something that solves a problem you're having. Earlier this year I launched a side-project[1] that has become profitable and is continuing to grow.
The impetus for building it was that I was trying to find a good solution to my own problem and wasn't happy with existing solutions. I knew that it was a niche product, but I figured at the very least if I built this I would use it. Before building it I also talked to a couple of friends who said "Oh, yeah, I'd pay you for that." That was enough validation for me to spend a weekend building a basic version with a friend of mine. After that I started using it immediately and had those two friends sign up (and pay). Their feedback, and my own usage, gave me the motivation to keep improving the product.
The other thing I would mention is expectations setting. The "build it and they will come" mentality is really hard to overcome when you're excited about your side-project. You figure you will turn it on and people will immediately start signing up. In my case it was several weeks (maybe even closer to two months) before I had a paying customer other than those first two friends. It's easy to be discouraged during that time and completely abandon your project. Have a basic marketing plan, stick with it, and don't set your expectations too high. It will take time.
Because it's so easy to misunderstand a problem. If it's a problem you're having yourself, you'll likely notice pretty quickly when you're solving it in the wrong way (or not all, merely thinking you are solving it).
It's a simple monitoring service for cron and other scheduled jobs (also works well for heartbeat monitoring).
It was launched on HN a couple months ago. We've been slowly improving our keyword rankings on a few key terms, and are finally to the point where we are consistently signing up new users everyday.
We've also been surprised to see the users who upgrade to paid accounts are split pretty evenly between the $6.99 plan and the $19.99. Our pre-launch guess was that it would be a 90/10 split on those plans.
I think the service is a cool idea, but you have people running cURL requests in a crontab? Heaven forbid something is wonky with the DNS, or your service gets compromised, or any number of things and that machine is basically 100% owned! Convenience or not, I don't think I could ever bring myself to commit that crime.
Babylist is making it easier for new parents to prepare for one of the biggest events in their lives. We have an extremely engaged user-base, we’re growing quickly and making real money. Our core product is a universal baby registry, and we are developing our own e-commerce platform and content site. Our HQ is in the Old Oakland neighborhood, 3 blocks from the 12th Street BART. We're a smart and diverse team of 20. Our users care deeply about our product (read our App Store reviews for proof).
Front-end Software Engineer: Our front-end is driven by React/Redux, Sass, Bootstrap, and we recently released a new section of our iOS app powered by React Native. You would join an excellent product team of 4 software engineers and 1 designer and our CEO/product manager.
Requirements:
- You've coded a lot, you're hands on, and passionate about building world class applications.
- Expert-level fluency in Javascript and one modern front-end framework.
- Experience with OOCSS methodologies and an almost unhealthy obsession with keeping CSS (Sass) clean and scalable.
- Experience with modern front-end build tools (Babel, Browserify, Webpack, Gulp, etc).
- User-obsessed. Once you get to know our users, you deeply empathize and genuinely like them. You could get on the phone with a user (or their grandmother) if they were having an issue.
- You’re opinionated and care intensely about the little details that make a great user experience.
I'd love to tell you more over the phone or in person. Contact me at august[at]babylist.com or see our jobs page for other open positions - https://babyli.st/jobs