Patrick Chukwura
Mountain View, Ca
- 8 comments
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A car loving, food loving, outdoorsy, iOS engineer
Great post! I often feel buyer's remorse when it comes to larger purchases usually because most materialistic things aren't worth it, but this is also good advice during my startup adventure.
@efemurl and I'm sure people in the locomotive industry were saying the same thing when cars started taking off. In an ever-changing world, either adapt or go hungry.
@PatrickSF I see what you're saying as far as some unemployed may not have the right skills and luckily as a software engineer in Mountain View my skills are in demand. But I also think there are smart people out there who are not in our industry(tech) to be able to benefit from our great economy in a great region (Silicon Valley).
Someone has to design and architect those cool startup offices. Someone has to cater the food. Someone has to design the logo and make the tshirt that us engineers wear. I just think there are casualties of a down economy and ultimately we'll all be healthier if a majority of folks thrive. (More customers for startups :) )
I think from an employee standpoint that it doesn't matter if you're a freelancer or not for a company unless you have equity. Being a full time employee does not necessarily mean I'm not going to quit the next day if I come up with a brilliant new idea of my own or if I'm swayed by another sexy job offer, and I don't think employers should have that false sense of security either, especially in a job seekers market like today for engineers.
I think the answer is that companies and employees/freelancers need to follow the path that makes the most sense for their situation. If a company really wants to hold on to top talent and attract people who are willing to work 10+ hours a day then equity is the only way you can somewhat guarantee that will happen.
I would agree that this is a tough space. Square is doing very well but Intuit has started pushing hard on their version of a "Square Killer" and I think they may have a slight advantage actuall. Intuit is really playing on being the makers of QuickBooks, and with an overwhelming majority of small businesses using QuickBooks combined with the lack of desire for companies to want to switch out their payment processing system, I'd say it's a great marketing angle.
I've probably been part of the silent crowd for the past 3 years or so. The only real reason I still have an account is for the services that have Facebook login as their credentials management.
Great post!
As a small fry developer on the App Store, it is definitely an extremely tough decision to buck the system and charge a reasonable price for your game, especially since you may not have the chance to redeem yourself with the likely barrage of pricing complaints and bad reviews because of that. I think slowly but surely perhaps $5 should be the new $0.99 and trickle up to a fair yet competitive point. As the devices become more powerful, and the bar of quality and depth of the game rises from the consumer, it simply will be impossible to create a great game and sustain your business for future title releases.
Now putting on my consumer hat...I've actually grown tired of the many free games that are a pain or impossible to go through if you don't shell out bucks for virtual currency and I've found myself actually paying attention more to games at the $1.99 level and up. I have a feeling that perhaps once the shininess of social games wears off a bit and virtual currency doesn't fit into the gameplay, developers will adjust their pricing models.
At least we hope so.
So glad you guys use Vimeo as I can watch it on the Vimeo channel on my Roku box!