network profile
| bio | website | dcook.org/work |
|---|---|---|
| location | Tokyo, Japan | |
| age | ||
| visits | member for | 1 year, 6 months |
| seen | May 4 at 0:30 | |
| stats | profile views | 12 |
I'm director at QQ Trends, a company that solves difficult data and software challenges for our clients. (We often have freelance projects, so get in touch if interested.) (And, of course, please do get in touch if you have interesting challenges that you would like our world-class experts to work on!)
Typical work: doing fun stuff with data (fixing, mining, etc.), web sites (front and back-ends), trading strategies. Research: trading strategies, computer go, machine translation, understanding context, AI search algorithms. Languages: C++, PHP, R, javascript, and many more.
I'm British, living and working in Tokyo for 15+ years. Human Languages: English, Japanese (fairly fluent, 1 kyu), some German, Chinese and Arabic.
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Dec 9 |
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Can I divorce a co-founder +1 for suggesting an external mediator, someone who can appreciate the beauty of good code/infrastructure that the tech team want to create, and the joy of executing a sales plan and making good money... and then explain them to each side. |
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Sep 9 |
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Already 120,000 monthly visitors but almost no revenue I like this idea: those 120K visitors must be getting value from your site, and human nature means people want to give back. Simply ask what features of a premium subscription would be worth $2/month (or whatever) to them. |
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Aug 14 |
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VC not needed? What am I missing from these costs? @Chelonian You give away not just a share of the profits to a venture capitalist (or any investor), but also a share of the control of the future direction of the company. If your visions and priorities are not the same then you have discord at the top of the company instead of harmony. (As a concrete examples, VCs are normally interested in each of their companies taking risks to grow rapidly, rather than slow, steady organic growth; they don't care if an individual company fails, as long as at least one of their companies gets super-rich.) |
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Jul 8 |
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Domain name for startup taken by a broker, should we buy it before we've built a business around our name? Was that a personal recommendation for DNBA, or only that you've heard of them? The home page has no info without signing up, and their facebook page is similarly suspicious. |
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Jun 17 |
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How to trust my developers? Greedy people are greedy however much you pay them. Honest people remain honest however little you pay them. (However I don't disagree with your point. Most people have an internal fight going on between honest and greedy, and showing appreciation (and not just financially) to your staff does help prevent some problems.) |
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Apr 15 |
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When (and why) should a small, niche company spend resources *promoting* Social Media Marketing rather than an email newsletter? Thanks for the book recommendation. Amazon reviews are good; the consensus seems to be it is about "Why", not "How". (Which is the original poster's question.) Social Media For Dummies is recommended for the "How", and I notice the second edition was just published (April 3rd, 2012) (too early for reviews, but first edition by the same author did get good reviews). |
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Jan 15 |
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what am I giving up by letting someone else become the CEO? Downside of having both a CEO and a president is it confuses people: who do I want to be dealing with? If the person in charge of running the company and in charge of sales is called CEO, and the person in charge of keeping the tech running and developing new tech products is called the CTO, everyone knows who they need to be talking to. (No-one but investors cares which one of them is chairman of the board.) |
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Dec 24 |
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New Business Idea - Who owns it? @Antonio "The understanding" or "your understanding"? Did you actually say in your verbal discussions "I will own the rights" and he nodded? |
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Dec 18 |
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Do I need a tech co founder at this point? @Adam That sounds like a fresh question ;-). Anyway, my comment (as a software developer who often works with start-ups) was going to be the same, so I just did the +1 here. |
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Dec 13 |
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Would you sign this liability clause? @Roger Good point - I think I was more answering a different question. Warranty vs. liability has been left vague in my contracts, and reading this thread I think I should be paying closer attention to it. But, as simple client handling, I've tried to "clean up my mess". E.g. if a bug has screwed up a database, I will repair the database as well as fixing the bug. (I guess I'm lucky to be working mostly with Japanese clients, where litigation is an act of last resort, not the first resort as in the U.S.) |
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Nov 27 |
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How do you get customer's company logo on your site? @Tim Your customer will buy financial software from the vendor that lists, say, JP Morgan and HSBC as customers, compared to the vendor that proudly tells them they are going to be customer #1, all else being equal. It implies a proven track record, and implies that big companies have done the due diligence so it is fine to relax and follow in their footsteps. (Regarding "waste of space" and "insulting them", you don't put the logos on every page; you put them on a page called "Our Clients" or "Testimonials".) |
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Nov 13 |
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How do I respond to client asking for retainer back? Good answer, I couldn't think of much to add. Unless there is a explicit clause in the contract I'd be surprised if you are required to refund. I also like the idea of the counter-claim for the rest of the money they owe you; it might even work. And use the phrase "non-refundable deposit" next time :-) |
