I think people tend to generalize things. I, for example, have the mentality that if I understand\learn something with little effort, then others can do the same. The truth is, the others usually don't bother to put forth that little effort, which makes me the exception to the rule. For example, I recently made a decent chunk of money by creating a simple WordPress site that was valuable enough for my client...I would've paid a fraction of what my client paid if I was him. So I definitely concur with this post.
The part about pivoting is interesting. For a musician, changing the genre of the band has to be quite difficult, because an style is likely developed and the soul to the art will have to be changed. I wonder if it's the same for entrepreneurs, who likely have an affinity to a particular field due to passion or expertise. Pivoting, by definition, shouldn't be a complete redo, but I'd imagine it's as hard of a choice for a startup to pivot drastically as it is for a band to change genre.
Bands change genres all the time in order to make it big. Most of the time to a more mainstream and marketable genre and style to get more listeners and make more money.
That fits pretty well to me. The problem everyone seems to be having, author of the piece included, is to spin this analogy so that commercial music sellouts == bad, commercial hacker sellouts == good.
Accept the fact that an investor funded startup trying to get a big exit by getting a huge number of users and pivoting as necessary isn't were people with "passion" or who would object to having to change the "soul of the[ir] art" would end up and it's a great analogy. As they are both hit based businesses where the market is heavily influenced by hype from big market makers and there's a lot of money to be made it's not surprising that similar patterns emerge.
There's an old Chinese idiom that says "事到万难须放胆，宜于两可莫粗心" which roughly translates to "A difficult decision for an important matter requires bold action, but it's worth it to consider carefully and deliberately when the two options are equally viable."
So for a difficult situation like that I think it's always right to be steadfast and follow the heart.
As a Windows Phone user and developer, I've noticed frequent updates help promote app usage tremendously, which is confirmed by the analysis. With so many apps installed on my phone, I tend to forget about 70% of them until there's an update notification and then I'd want to check out what's new. So this is a perfect model as long as there's no shortage of content ideas. This is reminiscent of one of the most successful PC games today, League of Legends, which has had new content released every two weeks since launch couple years ago.
Devs, have you considered microtransaction for Taptitude? You did mention "coins to purchase game updates." Maybe some users prefer to pay for those updates instead? Congratulations on the success!
You are only a couch and some beer away from being the next Diggnation :P Seriously though, have you thought about instead of having a few guests talking about stories, make it open mic so everyone listening to the show could also participate, open mic style? That could be fun.
I'm also writing a tool that helps podcasters organize sound clips and coordinate broadcasting with multiple guests: https://github.com/jiakeliu/Cobra
Please excuse the svn to git transfer mess, but maybe this tool would come in handy one day.
By associating speakers with HN accounts, you could filter out below a certain karma. Not to make it a clique, but more to just stop junk callers to some extent. Not too sure what I think of the open concept, but thought I should point it out.
I think the word 'work' is loaded and negative. I think of work as trading your time in exchange for money. I like to use 'produce'. Or 'creating'. That's what you want to dedicate your life to.
Inspiring. I wonder how helpful YC was to them for being largely a hardware company. Mass production and distribution must be some of the biggest challenges... maybe they can be the next Apple :)
With Google's Project Glass, we are even more inspired to finish Gauntlet. One problem I see with Project Glass is complex input such as typing when voice is not an option. That's when a wearable keyboard interface could come in handy (no pun intended).
The Peregrine actually only has an USB interface, so you are essentially tethered to your computer and cannot use it with your phone\tablet or anything else. It is marketed as a gaming device, which limits the amount of possible inputs. I don't think you can replicate the entire keyboard with the Peregrine, which GAUNTLET could easily do. My hope is to have the comercial version (if pursued) of GAUNTLET to look as aesthetic as, if not better than, the Peregrine.
