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Justin and Jason discuss the progress being made on AnyFu and related business decisions, concepts from the book Running Lean, Paul Paetz of Innovative Disruption, why no one is going to steal an unproven idea, why you want to buy when everyone else is selling and sell when everyone else is buying, how Mark Pincus is attempting to steal equity from his employees, selling equity in private companies on Second Market, whether Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) is real or a fraud, how a new cancer drug is being used for weight loss, how energy efficiency of computing is doubling every 18 months, how the FBI is using GPS trackers without warrants and how Twitter had to turn over user information to the Feds without a warrant, the book The Shadow Factory (about the NSA), what elite achievers do differently and how the founder of Color is off his rocker.
Just out of curiosity you mentioned you are collecting SS numbers for payment processing. I was thinking you may need to verify them as well as otherwise there is the potential to use the site for money laundering.
Congrats on Anyfu. Can’t wait until it launches.
FYI, if you all haven’t gotten your SSL certificates yet, take a look at http://www.startssl.com. It’s a free service. All you have to do is prove that you own the domain. I’ve used it on two of my own sites: https://provpro.org and http://bespokerow.com (certificate has since expired). For the most part it was very smooth experience. The only issue I ran into was getting the certs to work with nginx. Luckily, I ran across this blog post and it pretty much solved my problem: http://blog.dembowski.net/2010/02/25/startssl-and-nginx/
@Ben Boyter – That’s an interesting point and will require some investigation on our part. Thanks for bringing it up.
@Xavi – StartSSL looks like a great service. We’ll definitely look into it. Thanks so much for the suggestion.
Hey guys, really like your show , I wait for it every week hehe.
Inspiring projects (specially Anyfu) and good insights on development.
I hope my comment is not too cheesy, cool !
@Drekko – Not at all. Like probably most everyone we very much appreciate getting positive feedback.
Thanks so much!
Storing SSNs is not trivial. You want to be certain they’re protected. You mentioned you’re launching the site on shared hosting. Do not store SSNs on a shared server. I can’t emphasize that enough. Shared hosting is very insecure. You run high risk of having them compromised if you use shared hosting. Do a search for storing social security numbers and you’ll get an idea of what needs to be done.
There’s a related problem you haven’t discussed on the show. Freelancers open themselves up to identity theft if they’re not careful who they contract with. Someone could basically buy their SSN for $600 (and get their service too).
To protect myself, along with other benefits, I do all my contract work through my LLC. That way I don’t have to give out my personal SSN. This could be an upsell option you offer in the future as an additional revenue stream. Inform experts of the risk and offer them an LLC through an affiliate program.
The ingredient that used to be in Sudafed D was ephedrine. I’m not sure if it’s in it anymore. Bronkaid and Vasopro still have ephedrine. I’d assume you know a bit about it Jason since it has been used in sports for a long time.
To follow up on Dan’s post here’s some info about storing social security numbers:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/113526/potential-legal-issues-with-storing-social-security-insurance-numbers-ssns-sins
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/254935/storing-social-security-numbers
Hi there,
AnyFu has the potential to quickly become a freelancer/consultant’s best friend.
I definitely understand Jason’s dilemma about declaring yourself an “expert” in any one particular craft. After 11+ years in the industry it’s hard for me to pin point exactly what kind of an expert I am. Over the years I have been able to cover many aspects of print design, branding, web design, and web development.
An expert programmer is someone who can quickly adapt to changes in technology and move from one programming language to the next with ease. One with a solid programming foundation and the willingness to learn and work with multiple languages to achieve the tasks at hand.
And yes, unless you’re on a core team (like jQuery core, Ruby core, etc) you definitely don’t need to know everything inside and out. That’s what documentation is for. You do need a good understanding of the language’s best practices and how to use it quickly and efficiently.
Funniest line(from Justin) in a long while: “And you’re not allowed to bring the dark side anymore, it’s a family show!”. I could have missed the sharp curve on I70 west by the Evergreen,CO exit due to the timing and laughter ensuing.
Thanks guys for making our days!
As a designer with lots of ideas and minimal coding background, AnyFu, sounds like a interesting resource but choosing the expert could be a daunting task, especially if you build up a large network of experts with overlapping expertise.
Perhaps I have missed a recent podcast explaining the platform in more detail but I heard a lot of talk about experts and not much talk about the seeker of the expert. Success (from the perspective of the customer seeking an expert) would hinge on the genius filtering process based on my job/session request that leads to one clear choice for an expert. If I end of with a list of 5 or more relevant candidates (all with positive feedback) I don’t want to base my decision on their photo.
So, a bad suggestion here, but categorically defining all your areas of expertise and attributing those skills to each expert and comparing that to my (free-text?) query would be a key interaction point of the user experience. Worst case scenario, as the expert seeker, I would have to scroll though a list of skills and select them based on the problem I have, but this list (or best solution) could easily be beyond my vocabulary/lingo. Perhaps, a simple exchange with each expert, like sending an RFP (request for proposal), where they can respond with a quick description of their approach and interest level could be helpful.
I wish I could be more constructive here, but you may need an expert to choose the expert… or is that in the podcast I missed?
Keep on truckin’!
PS – AnyFu … Any Fool? Mr. T?
…by the way Jason, I am looking forward to reading your blog post, “No one is going to steal your startup idea”.