Top all-time · #2179
Jon Yongfook
Personal blog · yongfook.comstartupsbusiness
Jon Yongfook's personal blog at yongfook.com covers startups and business. Since 2007, 34 different Hacker News readers have linked it 56 times, most often “Design is Horseshit”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Comments link this founder's blog for startup essays, including 'Design is Horseshit', a post on SaaS profit margins, a note on MVP versus dry tests, and a post on whether Flipboard is legal.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Bannerbear founder, tech entrepreneur
Most-linked posts?
- Design is Horseshit3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-12-16
- Why I Self-Funded My Startup3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-03-18
- 21 Actionable Growth Hacking Tactics3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-04-30
- The One Thousand Hour Rule2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-17
- 3 Stages to Beating an Entrenched Competitor2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-03
- Next big buzzword: Pre-commerce2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-07-23
- Accidental Entrepreneurs Don’t Exist2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-12-28
- 1 Year as a Digital Nomad – How to Build a Business by the Beach2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-04
- MVP vs. Dry Test2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-07-10
What Hacker News says?
Updated: Some final words on this. Some people have interpreted this as me not understanding the value of good design. I assure you I do from experience, tweet at me if you want specifics. However - create value before exploring how design can enhance the experience. Solve a real customer problem. If you’re an early stage startup with no revenue, don’t even think about design! Think hard about what problem you can s…
Comment linking /post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit
on “Design is Horseshit”Submitted Design is Horseshit as a story · 283 points
HN discussiondon't fall foul to the "SaaS is pure profit!" syndrome. I wrote a little bit about this here: http://yongfook.com/saas-is-not-pure-profit In a nutshell, to get to 200 members you are not going to be operating on 100% profit margins unless you happen to be extremely fortunate. The reality is more likely that a decent chunk of that $2k per month is being spent on customer acquisition costs. You won't get 200 customers…
Comment linking /saas-is-not-pure-profit
on “Took me more than 2 years to get 200 paying customers for my Web App”Submitted Enterprise as a story · 125 points
HN discussionThis "infographic" (it's a gallery!) got me so riled up that I felt compelled to blog for the first time in months! Focus on value creation. Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. A product or service that is indispensably useful yet looks like ass is infinitely more likely to be successful than a product that solves zero problems but looks like a work of art.…
Comment linking /post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit
on “Billions worth of value created by tech startups with designer co-founders?”Submitted The One Thousand Hour Rule as a story · 116 points
HN discussionThis is not an MVP. It is a Dry Test. Lets try to clarify the jargon a little. http://yongfook.com/mvp-vs-dry-test That said - I love the idea of your app :)
Comment linking /mvp-vs-dry-test
on “How I Launched My MVP, Reputely, on HN”Submitted UX Bloat Nonsense as a story · 82 points
HN discussionLittlecosm FAQ http://yongfook.com/littlecosm-faq
Comment linking /littlecosm-faq
on “Littlecosm Twitter game alpha release”Submitted MVP vs. Dry Test as a story · 71 points
HN discussionDemo of a stream: http://www.yongfook.com/
Comment linking /
on “Sweetcron: The Automated Lifestream Blog Software”Submitted Feature or Company? as a story · 65 points
HN discussionI made some comments about this on my blog: http://yongfook.com/is-flipboard-legal I think Flipboard will get a free ride for a while. It's definitely in grey territory, but I think the excitement around it means that it represents too much opportunity to try to stamp out (if you're an old-school publisher being scraped). It will definitely begin to get a little sticky if Flipboard's eventual business model is adver…
Comment linking /is-flipboard-legal
on “Is Flipboard Legal?”Submitted Why I Self-Funded My Startup as a story · 38 points
HN discussionI'm guessing this post is a direct response to "Design is Horseshit" ( http://yongfook.com/post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit ), which was on HN earlier. It appears that the author of this post has taken the original article and simply replaced 'design' with 'engineering' the whole way through it, thus the unusual characterisation of engineers as "expressive creatures" you point out.
Comment linking /post/14295124427/design-is-horseshit
on “Engineering is horseshit”Submitted Next big buzzword: Pre-commerce as a story · 33 points
HN discussionAccompanying blog post here: http://yongfook.com/startup-confessions-i-m-in-love-with-my-... This isn't a faux-MVP, the product is live and being tested out now :) Would love any feedback about the idea and if you have an uncontrollable desire to be one of the beta testers shoot me a mail with "HN" in the subject to yongfook@beatrixapp.com! cheers
Comment linking /startup-confessions-i-m-in-love-with-my-assistant.html
on “Show HN: My company's new virtual assistant SaaS product”Submitted I Find This Type of Startup Advertising Very Distasteful as a story · 21 points
HN discussionSubmitted 12 Startups in 12 Months as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSubmitted Post-Mortem of a Tokyo-based Web Start-up as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why I Self-Funded My Startup and So Should You as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted All about Littlecosm as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted How I got $12k in book preorders in 1 month as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted Negotiation as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted Your Facebook Friend Just Joined as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted 1 Year as a Digital Nomad – How to Build a Business by the Beach as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted 21 Actionable Growth Hacking Tactics as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted 10 Dirty Little Web Development Tricks as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Google Bank as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Google Bank as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
