espitia

helo everyone!

I built an app to help people build habits by leveraging the same addictive powers of social media.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Hi everyone!

Monedas is my first web app. Although still very bare bones, the idea is to use different data points to explore crypto assets. Like I say in the about page: "I think crypto assets are a different animal. Instead of looking at projects solely by traditional standards (like we look at equities), there should be more information on the code itself. Being that the important projects are protocols vs businesses that use blockchain, I believe data points on the code base should be considered.

With that said, I don't think commits, repo age or any one data point is a good determinant for the quality of the project. I do believe that, at the very least, it can signal something interesting. For example, a $X00M project with little to no activity on the repository should raise some flags."

You can find more on how I went from nothing to now here: https://twitter.com/espitia7/status/918260378777407488

Feedback is welcome :) !

Reach out to me via twitter, would love to get feedback: @espitia7

Thank you for the kind comment! Yeah, no love from HN but I’ll be back with more :)

Hi everyone!

Monedas is my first web app. Although still very bare bones, the idea is to use different data points to explore crypto assets.

Like I say in the about page: "I think crypto assets are a different animal. Instead of looking at projects solely by traditional standards (like we look at equities), there should be more information on the code itself. Being that the important projects are protocols vs businesses that use blockchain, I believe data points on the code base should be considered.

With that said, I don't think commits, repo age or any one data point is a good determinant for the quality of the project. I do believe that, at the very least, it can signal something interesting. For example, a $X00M project with little to no activity on the repository should raise some flags."

You can find more on how I went from nothing to now here: https://twitter.com/espitia7/status/918260378777407488

Feedback is welcome :) !

Although the key lessons can be written in a few bullet points, the story helps the reader internalize the teachings.

I think we misunderstimate the impact a few fundamental lessons on finance can do to a person’s life. Especially when the person is oblivious to it.

I’ve seen it first hand multiple times now. I give away this book all the time and and have seen nothing but good come from it.

That pointing out an 'issue' that is common in gold/fiat/crytpo is not a great argument against crypto.

Ditto. Maybe you read my comment wrong but I am arguing for a store of value - not a currency. And I am asking why it should fail as a store of value because I don't see how gold has any advantage over it.

Gold mines are connected to genocide, funding wars and illegal trade.

Is my logic wrong in pointing out a 'flaw' in gold when someone else points out a 'flaw' in bitcoin?

I think criminals will use any tool in ways that they were not meant to be used. This does not make the tool/subject at hand the culprit.

What currency is not being used in the drug market?

I would love to have a rational debate and hear objective arguments agaisnt bitcoin vs gold that can be applied uniquely to bitcoin or rather that dont apply to both.

Scarcity? No intrinsic value? Speculative? Thefts? Used in illicit ways?

All these apply to both gold and bitcoin.

"Gold has been historically valuable to humans". So have many other rocks, flowers, spices, etc.

I am geniuenly interested in seeing why Bitcoin should fail as being a store of value.

A bit OT:

There's a project trying to build a protocol to trade tokens. Essentially allowing anyone to build their own exchange: https://0xproject.com/

There's also a JS library to interact with the protocol: https://github.com/0xProject/0x.js

The flip side of that coin is that no one remembers that moment. Only time can tell. I think it's a matter of placing your bets where you think it is most probable that you will win the most. I personally don't believe that the statements yoh made will be true. The owner thinks otherwise.

I understand there might be a crazy upside somewhere in the future (for example, the COVFEFE ACT). This can be done only in hindsight. The risk, imo, was way too high to do anything but cash out at the moment.

Fuuny story behind covfefe:

I tried purchasing minutes after the tweet to find out someone had already purchased it. I reached out to the guy (midnight) to buy it but he didn't want to sell it. I offered my ideas on what he could to capitalize on the opportunity and so I ended up building up a store front with shirts/, coffee mugs, sweaters and other merch. I basically didn't sleep that night. I built the site, responded to purchase emails, etc.

It took some time to get the storefront ready because of issues with the forwarding (GoDaddy) but when we got it set up, we started seeing traffic. Not before long, sales. This thing started blowing up and as memes would start trending, I would immediately create new merchandise based on the memes and within minutes that same merchandise I had just created would sell. It was surreal.

We were up to ~$2k in profits with who knows how much revenue. Many emails started arriving and the owner would just forward them to me as (I think) he was not as savvy with business/negotiation/etc or just plain intimidated. It got so crazy that at one point Bloomberg and Inc.com reached out via phone to him and he told them about what we had done.

I kept pushing for him to put up the domain for sale on flippa.com and even got the director of the domains department to contact him directly. I also reached out to local newspaper outlets who were more than ready to write the story but since we weren't "partners", it wasn't "as" interesting. He promised to give me a stake in everything but I guess things and people got to his head.

As time went on, he starting drifting from the idea of selling because he thought he had hit something enormous. Which he did, just not the way he thought. He pitched me the idea to build an ecommerce store where he would basically sell anything (Amazon). I told him the only exit here is selling but if he wanted to go that route, he could (try) to build a brand (???). I insisted that the risk of continuing with anything other than selling the domain at peak hype was too great. That is, anything past hype days (1-4 days after the tweet) would drive the "value" to zero.

The days past and the opportunity quickly came to a close. He was offered (past hype time) $15k which he said he wouldn't take as anything below $X00k was dumb. Regardless, I kept pushing for him to sell the damn thing just so I could tell the story at the very least. He then told me he had partnered up with his brother (a lawyer), another marketing guy and he wanted me to take part in the team. He had me speak to his lawyer about equity for a whole 30 minutes which, again, I thought was ridiculous as I told him that this would soon die, if it hadn't already. We spoke over Facetime but soon enough, he kicked me off the storefront admin, stopped answering and now he still has the same domain forwarding to his merch store.

I think if he had acted quicker, he could have sold for at least $20k-$50k at the peak of the hype. Even if he sold at the solid $15k offer, he could have earned himself a great story.

covfefe.com

Sort of related:

I launched an app a few years ago and sold it for $8.5k. I wish more people knew that exits don't always mean $1m. There's a big market for small project.

link to the project: http://www.germanespitia.com/habit-streaks

Thank you, I appreciate that!

The 'killer app' for the time being are indeed ICOs. Unregulated, messy ICOs.

I do think it is too early to judge the cryptocurrency world or blockhain in general for not having 'killer apps'. Analogies to the early internet are no good either since there is no reason as to why this would behave like that. Time will tell. Can't deny it is an interesting space!

1124 days ago I submitted my first app - Habit Streaks.

Over time I got 60k+ downloads and sold it for $8.5k :)!

Original link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7950866 Story: http://www.germanespitia.com/habit-streaks

The medical cannabis industry! - Science: as we pass the obstacles of regulation, more studies will be able to confirm (hopefully) what we suspect so far. - Zeitgeist of our times is "going green". - Damaged image of big pharma.

Reminds of a time when a friend Of mine was rollerblading to my home from hers (~5 miles). She called me mid way because she found 2 kids (maybe 12 years old) carrying a ton of stuff down an empty 3 mile road. She asked me to drive my car to them to help them out carrying all the stuff. When I got there, one of them hopped on right away but the other held back, almost with a scared face. My friend insisted that they let us help but I told her to leave them alone. We left.

It felt weird to feel like I did something wrong.

Yes! I think I left the best for last! Loving the book and it's practicality. I look forward to writing about it in the coming year.

1. Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham 2. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker

3. Tribes by Seth Godin

4. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

5. The Industries of the Future by Alex Ross

6. Bigger, Leaner, Stronger by Michael Matthews

7. The Science of Getting Rich: Financial Success Through Creative Thought by WALLACE D. WATTLES (The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reads)

8. Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins

9. Principles by Ray Dalio

10. Como Ganar Amigas e Influir Sobre las Personas by Dale Carnegie

11. Without Their Permission by Alexis Ohanian

12. Tribe by Sebastian Junger

13. Sapiens A Brief History of Humanity by Yuval Noah Harari

14. This is Water by David Foster Wallace

15. How Not to Be Wrong. The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg

16. Walt Disney By Neal Gabler

17. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley

18. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

19. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

20. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine

Out of all these, I would recommend only a few:

- Sapiens

- The Rational Optimist

- Walt Disney By Neal Gabler

- How Not to Be Wrong. The Power of Mathematical Thinking.

- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy