Top all-time · #14687
FollowSteph
Personal blog · followsteph.com · on HN as FollowSteph3businessstartups
FollowSteph is a personal blog at followsteph.com about business and startups. Since 2008, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 26 times, most often “Why Have a Start Button to Shutdown Windows?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-16, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked only as a bare URL in a thread about why Windows Vista's Start menu dropped the word "Start". The post explains why the Start button is labelled without text.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Follow Steph through his entrepreneur and real estate journeys
Most-linked posts?
- Why Have a Start Button to Shutdown Windows?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-08-18
What Hacker News says?
Interestingly enough I've found through my own company that it's not so much whether or not you're solo but rather the price of your software that determines if you can economically offer phone support or not. I wrote about it here: http://www.followsteph.com/2006/10/10/is-technical-phone-sup... I then followed it up with an article discussing whether or not companies should charge for support based on my findings i…
Comment linking /2010/10/19/should-software-companies-charge-for-technical-support/
on “As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support”Submitted Why Have a Start Button to Shutdown Windows? as a story · 16 points
HN discussionWhat happens if the cloud service closes? Cloud services have some risks too: http://www.followsteph.com/2012/04/19/what-are-the-risks-of-... This is especially true for a government entity.
Comment linking /2012/04/19/what-are-the-risks-of-cloud-services/
on “How Munich switched 15,000 PCs from Windows to Linux”Submitted It's only the flu as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI concur, it takes much more than 6 months. That's barely enough time to build the product/service, nevermind trying to build a customer base. I recently posted my companies revenue chart over the last 8 years, and if you'll notice in the first 3 years even if there was growth (year 3 was almost double year 1), it still took a while to really get some good growth: http://www.followsteph.com/2011/08/23/landlordmax-20…
Comment linking /2011/08/23/landlordmax-2010-best-fiscal-year-yet/
on “It takes three years to build a business”Submitted What are the risks of cloud services? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI wouldn't say barely did one ;) http://www.followsteph.com/2013/08/07/landlordmax-2012-2013-...
Comment linking /2013/08/07/landlordmax-2012-2013-fiscal-year-10-year-anniversary-and-a-10th-record-year/
on “Lifestyle programming”Submitted Revenues from Desktop ISV - desktop software is alive and doing well as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAnd what happens if one glacier decides to close? Do you think you'll get any notice ahead of time? I wrote about these types of risks at http://www.followsteph.com/2012/04/19/what-are-the-risks-of-...
Comment linking /2012/04/19/what-are-the-risks-of-cloud-services/
on “Storage for Photographers”Submitted Facebook is STILL overpriced as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI wrote a blog post explaining exactly this in detail based on my previous experience doing government contracts. I called it why a hammer costs $5000: http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost...
Comment linking /2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost-5000/
on “List of failed and over-budget custom software projects”Submitted Why The Government Pays $5000 For a Hammer as a story · 2 points
HN discussionFirstly I'm the founder and owner of LandlordMax Software ( http://www.LandlordMax.com ), a property management software company. The company has been in business for over 10 years now and has been growing quite well over the years: http://www.followsteph.com/2013/08/07/landlordmax-2012-2013-... The real reason you don't see many new flashy new trendy apps is that creating real estate related generally a hard proble…
Comment linking /2009/02/09/sometimes-simple-things-arent-so-simple/
on “Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders”Submitted Can Google Trends Predict Winners? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI wrote an article about this having lived through it for a shilled called Why a hammer costs $5000? And it really all comes down to motivations being very badly lined up trying versus just doing the same. The link is: http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost...
Comment linking /2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost-5000/
on “Sinkhole of bureaucracy”Submitted Google Reader Alternatives – Not Everything Should Be Hosted as a story · 1 points
HN discussionUnfortunately we're just as much to blame for the red tape. It didn't get created out of a vacuum, it was created to protect people. I wrote a whole blog post called Why Does a Hammer Costs $5000 at http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost...
Comment linking /2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost-5000/
on “How a few screws cost $2000 and a 240GB multinodes cluster cost $50”Submitted Printing is Broken on Mac OS X with Java 7 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIt's not just straight up costs, there are a number of other risks associated: http://www.followsteph.com/2012/04/19/what-are-the-risks-of-... Some include: what if the business of the SaaS collapses? Will they be acquired, change business models, and so on. Does the price stay the same? Is the quality going to be consistent? And so on...
Comment linking /2012/04/19/what-are-the-risks-of-cloud-services/
on “Our Recurring Payment Pricing Was Rejected”Submitted LandlordMax ISV Revenue graph update as a story · 1 points
HN discussionBecause nothing happened people thing it was over hyped. But in fact it's because people reacted that nothing happened. The following articles I wrote explains a lot more of the details of what influenza is and why people wrongly think it was over hyped http://www.followsteph.com/2009/10/29/its-only-the-flu/
Comment linking /2009/10/29/its-only-the-flu/
on “The Next Pandemic: Not if, but When”Submitted How Do You Have Time To Do All That? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAnd this my friends is why a hammer costs the government $5000 http://www.followsteph.com/2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost... Add to that that people will complain when they're not selected and you have to prove why. Good luck getting any kind of affordable solution!!
Comment linking /2011/11/22/why-does-a-hammer-cost-5000/
on “Report: NASA open source project slowed by commercial vendor”http://www.followsteph.com/2008/08/03/why-have-a-start-butto...
Comment linking /2008/08/03/why-have-a-start-button-to-shutdown-windows/
on “Why did the word "Start" disappear from Start Menu in Windows Vista”