I'm a bit tired of seeing "product-market fit" over simplified in posts such as yours. In reality, product market fit isn't black and white. Even when you build something that people want, you might not have product market fit. Even when you've built something that nobody wants right now, you may have still product market fit. And then there are a billion shades in between.
We should talk about nuances of why startups failed. Otherwise, "lack of product market fit" is just jargon for "we failed." Of course, we already know they failed. And since they are startups, they probably didn't fail with millions in revenue.
I think though that it's a good general term that distinguishes from the failure modes of: The technology never worked, founders/personal issues, priced incorrectly, ran out of money etc...
It tells you that they might have had a great team and great technology but had no clue how to sell it. Selling being something that the technology crowd loves to hate (myself included) it really drives home that marketing really does matter.
I think though that it's a good general term that distinguishes from the failure modes of: [...] priced incorrectly, ran out of money etc...
I'm not sure it makes sense to separate a concept like product-market fit from a concept like "correct" pricing. Changing the price point significantly may dramatically affect the market you're aiming at and the expectations of that market. Your product might have mass appeal but only as a casual/impulse purchase (typical mobile app). Your product might have only niche appeal but to the right market of people who appreciate it, it could be worth a fortune (original works by famous artists sometimes sell for more money than most of us will earn in a lifetime). To make things more challenging, it can also be relatively difficult to test different pricing levels.
When you build a free product, the end user is not a customer, they are the product. I wonder how many farmers like being the product and not the customer.
Careful because the other extreme has its own problems: my company only has paid customers who prepay for the entire year. While this has helped us pay the bills and cover cost, it has been detrimental to building a great product because we aren't getting as much feedback as we would if we had 10x users. I'm finally reaching a stage where I may take up a job just so we can give away free trials and not have to rely as much on near term revenue to pay the bills.
If you know someone who is suicidal and you care about them, spend time with them. In person. Suicide is almost always committed when one is alone.
100%, although I wish we talked more about the challenge of determining that someone is suicidal.
Here's what I wrestle with the most about this. I fear that if I "misdiagnose" someone as suicidal, that I might have now given them the idea that there is such a thing as suicide and it may now become an option, completely backfiring against my goal of helping them.
I wonder if there is best practices although it seems a bit silly given we are basically trying to read someone's mind - something that even they(especially them) might not have clarity about.
I am not shy. I tell my kids when I am suicidal. They still live with me and monitor my medical issues closely, so they know when I am being really, really wonky and not just bitching, if that makes sense.
It helps that I have an especially close relationship to them. Also, they were raised by me, so are well educated in certain social paradigms.
A while ago I had a problem with anxiety and basically panic attacks. Back then I didn't know how to deal with this, so eventually when it got too much I asked for help. I went to a doctor and the first thing they asked about was suicide. I thought, well, I hadn't really considered that, but now that you mention it, it's probably something I should think about. I wasn't suicidal, so I guess it didn't matter, but it sure does make you think about it when everyone is asking you. Overall though I think it is better to ask about it, because you really do need to know. I've heard though that a lot of people that do commit suicide are good at hiding things from people, even their family may not be aware that something is wrong, so even asking that question is not sufficient. When I hear about people committing suicide, I often think why didn't anyone help them. Often the truth is that nobody was aware, that's sad in it's own way, but it does show that a lot of people can keep these things to themselves.
The next thing I felt about the suicide question was that it was a way of categorising people. If they considered suicide, then they need immediate help, otherwise it's no so important, so offer them some pills, refer them to counselling (which was offered to me with a 4 month waiting list, that was not a lot of help). The pills weren't what I needed anyway, so I didn't really get a lot out of going to see the doctor. Talking to your family about it is a really important step though.
I dealt recently with a friend who was suicidal. Since I didn't know what to do I called Suicide Action to ask how to deal correctly with the situation and get some pointers on dos and donts.
Basically you WANT to talk explicitely about suicide. From what the lady on the phone said, most of the time the suicidal person wants to talk about it.
Interesting. How did you know he was suicidal? If I am convinced he is suicidal, it is easy to have a conversation. But I feel there is so much gray area and the last thing I want is to make someone who is just feeling a bit down in life from thinking about suicide.
She wasn't feeling her usual self and I had to ask explicitely(Do you consider suicide?). For someone who is just feeling down and not suicidal the question might be a bit of a shock, but in the end you are showing that you care and that you are present if things go really bad.
And then again, pretty much everyone knows the existence of suicide. If asking the question and trying to help drives someone to action, chances are something else would have.
As somebody who's been there (on both sides) I don't believe that anybody who might act on suicidal ideation would not have already considered suicide as an option.
I'd say that, if you're worried, starting a conversation about it (in person) is just about the best thing you could do. A "missed diagnosis" is far worse than a "misdiagnosis".
I haven't examined the statistics myself, but isn't it known that suicides go up when there are news stories about them, even in a preventive effor? This implies that suicides are, in fact, somewhat suggestible.
Reading about suicide in the news is incomparable to the kind of direct intervention I'm talking about. As john_fushi commented[1], the best thing you can do is talk about it and his suggestion of calling your local suicide helpline for advice is an excellent one.
On a personal level, I've found that talking frankly about suicide greatly reduces my desire to act on any suicidal feelings. This effect is greatest when talking face to face with somebody I know and trust.
However, worrying about whether or not somebody trusts you should NOT stop you from intervening. If somebody shows a desire to listen and help my in such a situation I'll have a much greater level of trust in them than I did before, even if they were previously a complete stranger or somebody I dislike.
100%, although I wish we talked more about the challenge of determining that someone is suicidal.
I will add that most people who are suicidal will "tell" you. They often talk about suicide, though they may then claim it is a joke. It usually is not. If someone frequently says things like "I wish I were dead", you should take that seriously, basically.
A manager is responsible for controlling, administering and maintaining the work being done by their subordinates. A big chunk of that is determining what work is yet to be done, if it's on time, what needs to be done to support the existing work, communicating with other teams, doing research, quashing harmful discourse and building morale. They organize, prioritize and double-check the tasks assigned and meet with their subordinates to ensure everything is going smoothly. They plan, develop, monitor, communicate, and assess their employees and their work. And of course they attend countless, constant meetings.
If as a manager you can do all that and then have 2.5-3.5 hours a day left to write code, bravo.
A baseball coach knows if the pitcher isn't doing so well, because he's watched the games. How does a manager know if the new API is unwieldy, or if errors in one component are causing serious grief?
I mean, you can ask employees to blame their peers, but some won't want to, and some will be a little too eager.
Do you have a citation for this? I've had some stretches in my career where I went a long time without doing any significant coding, and have always been able to ramp back up to speed quickly when needed.
Both my parents used to code (my dad on punchcards and my mom on a massive mainframe). It took significant time for either of them to pick up HTML for side projects.
Even in my own life, I was a developer from 10 to 18 (working 14 to 18, school 10-14) then I took about 7 years off to go do physical sciences. While I retained the basics like for loops and function calls, I totally lost a good portion of the rest of it.
At least in your case, you not only stopped coding but you stopped being around code or dealing with code. That is very different from not coding for 30%. Good chances that if you coded say 5-10% a week and spent the remaining time thinking about code architecture or code reviews, you'd be in a much different position.
Has google hired a lot of MBA's recently, because it look an awful lot like they are trying to cross-pollinate their main business lines, to improve vertical integration and uptake.
Do you use more or less energy than your friends in your circles? Gamification?
For a couple decades demand shedding devices have been offered for A/C and electric water heaters where you get a microscopic credit to your bill and the electric co can use a stereotypically totally rube goldberg contraption (remember, these systems have been around for decades) to remotely shed some peak load for a couple hours at a time. I could see something like $5 credit on google play or free google music streaming if you sign up for a load shedding program that uses the nest. And occasionally your thermostat drops by 5 degrees for a couple hours even when it "shouldn't".
From [1], the vast majority of the AWS cost was Storage ($9k in Oct 13), a large ECC instance from Feb-March 13 ($7k per month), and backups ($5k in Sept 13)
AWS costs seem reasonable to me and it is definitely the smart way to build a service like this. Saves a ton on time early and services like this can optimize later when they are much larger.
We should talk about nuances of why startups failed. Otherwise, "lack of product market fit" is just jargon for "we failed." Of course, we already know they failed. And since they are startups, they probably didn't fail with millions in revenue.