macguyver

I haven't seen any successful MVPs out of games. What I have seen is gaming studios developing very good products (Angry Birds, Kingdom Rush etc) and releasing them for free, and then building a fan base to monetize off of it via mobile sales, in-game sales and sponsorships. Even if you are a one-man team, there are still others in your shoes that have done this successfully in the past, such as Jay at zeebarf.com.

Bottom line is you will want people to know your work before they want to open their wallets. Think of building a series of games, with the first few installments as freebies. If your product is good enough, people will want more, and then you can recoup the costs once you get traction.

If you want to get into the unity/flash gaming business, go to sites like armorgames.com, kongregate, maxgames to see what the popular game producers are doing. Look at their blogs to see their journey.

Based on playing your game so far, I'd say it's not ready for MVP. There are too many high quality free games out there for free.

Good luck!

Feedback:

1: Consider adding a loader screen. Your unity is taking over two minutes to load which is VERY long by browser game standards. Add a progress screen, show something flashy to hold/keep people's attention.

2: It's unclear what the objective of the game is. There are no tutorials, no HUD (heads up display), no context menu.

It would be more useful if you stated your specific interest of the body language / general cues.

Eg., Is it for...

dating women? making sales / closing deals? making friends? spotting liars?

Understanding your intent will help.

Reading / communicating with body language is an art, much like learning to play a musical instrument or speaking a language. It takes study, practice and feedback to truly learn it well. While a book / written list of words cannot replace the actual body language, here are some general universal cues, just a few that came to mind:

Arms crossed: closed / defensive Hand on chin: thinking / contemplation Leaning in / touching you: signs of interest

Usually, it is a group of cues that forms a picture of what someone is really thinking. An individual cue by itself can be unreliable and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Interesting observations.

How long did you work on this before you came to the conclusion? How many companies did you approach? Who (and what titles) did you speak with?

Thanks for the feedback, particularly on the pricing.

Agreed with all of the first point. Based on firsthand experience working at 3 startups and with a handful of business owners, I hypothesize that there are a large number of founders who are indeed interested in acting on the suggestions. It's not every founder, but many that I've worked with are open to finding what works and trying along the way.

Problem #1: Some founders are not that good at understanding their customers. Working with customers is an art, just like sales, in that there's no cookie cutter solution or exact steps like assembling widgets on a factory line. Interpersonal communication is uniquely human and can't be automated. Of course persuading them to change habits can be hard, but maybe not when framed in the perspective of the bottom line.

If this is indeed a consultancy, how would you price it? Based on email/call volume or users?

I have used Amazon and Smashwords for over 2 years now. Both services have grown, expanded, and improved, in terms of my user experience (checking reports, accurate payments). I had up to 10 books available at one point, still have 7-8 in circulation.

70% of my book sales come from Amazon. Smashwords gives me more $ per sale.

If you had to go with one service first, I'd recommend Amazon Kindle Direct. Once you get comfortable with how the process works, branch out to Smashwords if you like. It took me less than a day to get set up and they have pretty good documentation.

Exactly this.

Another advice from a book, which stuck with me: "If you have the desire to do something, do it, because if you wait too long, you will find that the desire has left you long ago."

I have done everything I wanted to do in my 20s. I have a technical/developer background but left my startup career, with no job offer or backup nets, became a SAG actor, and a whole lot more. I even wrote and published a bunch of eBooks on this too.

BEST MOVE EVER.

I now have professional resumes in 3 different industries. Acting, Sales, and Startups. Great diversification. I even joined another startup years later doing something much more fun. The career gap came up, but I just told it like it is. You will find open-minded people who want to work with you.

Now I'm in my early 30s, happily getting ready to settle down. Just follow your heart. It's healthy and normal to yearn for great things. That is because YOU are pure greatness. Those who take action will distinguish themselves from those who don't.

What do I want to do in my thirties? Be a life coach to share my experience to those who find value. Be a great father/life partner. Learn to surf.

Totally agreed. I think the biggest issue with the Gen XYZ (I am part of X) is that we as a whole (a big generalization, of course there are exceptions) tend to be too self-centered. We are always concerned with our goals, our aspirations, and we don't think about, care for, or appreciate others nearly enough.

Our parents' generations (baby boomers) had responsibilities that involved caring for siblings, raising children, tending aging parents, and they often put themselves LAST. Not to say that it's better, but after talking to friends my age who have started families, I think it really sheds light into why so many young people are lost, confused, and unfocused. People are wandering around wondering what their purpose is, why they're unhappy, this and that, when they just have to open their eyes to see how blessed they are, how good they have it.

I think at the end, the purpose that Gen XYZ seek is right around them - if they will look up from their smartphone devices - human connection. We need to appreciate more what we have, the help that people give us, and start to give more to others and the world around us.

Location: Washington, DC (relocating to San Diego OR San Francisco fall 2014)

Remote: YES, 90% of the time

Willing to relocate: No (see above)

Technologies: Mainly front end, but fast learner/not restricted by technology RoR, Redis, JS, ActionScript,HTML, Git, Linux

Resume: Ask

Email: See my handle (yuzshan AT google's popular email)

Elevator pitch: MS Carnegie Mellon, BS CS/Economics University of Maryland, A++ Startup player, Super fast learner, Master pattern-recognizer/troubleshooter.

Strong background in web development, support engineering and customer success. Early hire for 3 startups since CMU: first was acquired, second is the #1 leader of the social web, and third became profitable this year.

Interested in Mid-Senior opportunities in Product Management, Technical Solutions and/or Sales Engineering at a startup with a strong leadership team, excellent product and good fit.

Our refrigerator. It is big and things easily go bad if we don't periodically go through and do an "inventory" of what's there, what needs to be eaten.

A fridge should, ideally: Track counts of objects, Have date of entry of objects, Have a freshness meter for all objects, and give me a map of the location of each object.

I have in mind how to visually display this info and have R&D insights to other ways to make this practical. Lots of innovation :)

@OP, it seems that @logicalmind has the exact opposite problem as you. You know, I could start a startup that is like "TradingPlaces", where you get to swap professions by getting first hand training from a master at his craft, maybe gaining access to each other's network and clients over time.

Except, to start a company I would need to be very business oriented, and I'm not (I'm product/sales/service oriented), and I'd need a business co-founder.

Thoughts?

Collabfinder is another service to find collaborators.

I tried Cofounderslab.com, Collabfinder and did not find the quality people I was looking for.

Perhaps not surprisingly, HN yielded a much higher level of potential collaborators/co-founders. I spoke with a few folks on here and am impressed. Most prefer working with someone in person.

Many Universities nowadays have plenty of resources to the prospective Entrepreneur. Check out the local business schools to see if they host open innovation days.

If you are looking for contractors to help, ODesk and Elance surprised me with some pretty high quality people, but you have to sift through a lot of applications.

Chobani is a hugely profitable, capital-intensive billion-dollar company that was 100% bootstrapped.

http://hbr.org/2013/10/chobanis-founder-on-growing-a-start-u...

I think this is a great idea and thought of doing this previously in other areas besides fitness. But the obvious challenge to overcome is that you need to find people who are into personal growth, are open-minded about stretching outside of their comfort zone. This can be tough because people will tend to take these types of issues personally. If you can present your message in a way that people can accept, I think it's totally worth doing. Good luck!

Edit: approximate commute end points Morning departure times: 8am, 10am Evening departure times: 2pm, 6pm, 8pm From Braemar Rd, Oakland, CA 94602, USA To North Point St San Francisco, CA 94109

My urban driving experience locations are: In/out of Washington DC 395N from Northern VA 459N Beltway Richmond/VA Beach I-64 Baltimore Pittsburgh

Exactly this. It's terribly demoralizing to go through the bs associated with a job search after a failed startup. I would be happy to start something up with one or more cofounders.

What we need is a job placement service for (temporarily) failed entrepreneurs, a support network, and possible more.

Entrepreneurship is like parenthood. It takes doing it to know what it's like, and it's very harsh when there's little to no support.

People who have the guts to start something and have something (scars included) to show have initiative, drive, ambition. They should have no problem finding jobs, support and whatever resource they need.

Thanks for the info!

The perfect job doesn't exist, so I'd recommend finding an outlet for creative self-expression first in your after hours, and quit your job only if you are having health issues related to work.

Life is short. Be happy.

From first hand experience helping startups:

If your app has the remote possibility that it can be abused by fraudsters, scammers, con people, ask for credit card at the start of the trial. This will save you a lot of hassle later down the road.

Otherwise, you can ask at the end.

Keep in mind that a qualified user will sign up for your service even if you ask for the CC up front. As a business owner, your job is to get users, yes, but also to get paid for your efforts. Hopefully this will help you decide what to do. Remember, it's much easier if you just treat it like a learning experience.

Kudos, what I've learned:

- When we don't get what we want, we get something even better than what we originally wanted

- Events that lead to the best outcomes often are disguised as failures

- We always get what we need

Best wishes to you. If only there were a startup that made it easy for founders to find jobs/gigs after their startups.

This is a very interesting idea.

The day-to-day realities of managing and growing a startup are very challenging, especially if you are the sole founder. I've been there in the early days for numerous startups and for myself, and found that most difficult parts are not necessarily related to the business, product, or customers themselves, but rather they are usually emotional in nature, and center around how to stay motivated, continue to get things done and move forward when there's no end in sight. The hardest part is feeling like you're alone, there's no one else who gets it to talk to.

I'm not an investor or startup advisor, but I'd be happy to help you out if you want to work together. My contact is in my handle.

This is a great idea and similar to this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7692769. I think there's a chance of building this into a platform. Email me if you're interested.

I couldn't find your email. Do you want to send me an email? See my handle.

Agreed. Too many founders these days are thinking way too small, doing trivial things instead of solving real problems. A startup should change the world. Piggybacking off some other startup's concept is a waste of human potential.

Where are you located?