Disqus - Latest Comments for erangalp

Re: 13 Marketing & Advertising Tips to Get More Martial Arts & Karate Students

Eran Galperin — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 18:05:16 -0000

Thanks for letting me know, Jason, should work now.

Re: Generating graphs from MySQL table data

Eran Galperin — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:58:59 -0000

Hi Abdullah,

Yes, the query does not return non-existing data. I typically use a scripting language as mentioned at the end of the article to format the data and add empty data points for charting libraries. If you want to do it in a query anyway, you can use a trick by creating a table of dates and join against it.

Christoph Tilly posted a similar solution below, you should take a look at it.

Re: Why We Use Stripe For Payments

Eran Galperin — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:35:00 -0000

You make solid points overall. In the context discussed in the article though (gyms using online software), it's not as relevant :)

Hosted payment pages are not relevant for gyms using online software to manage their business - that's not how the payment flow works (which is why I focused on API) - hosted payment pages are a better fit for selling online products. The amount of transactions is generally low as well - typically once per month per customer on a regular basis, with some odd one-off charges here and there. And there's the entire range of the services mentioned in the article that are absorbed in the price, while still being competitive.

Anyway, thanks for opening up the discussion here and contributing!

Re: Why We Use Stripe For Payments

Eran Galperin — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:04:52 -0000

Their pricing is definitely competitive, even if it's not the absolute cheapest, as I pointed out in the article. And they provide customized pricing if you ever get to the volume that requires it (from first-hand experience).

When I say "custom solution" I'm talking about the need to build custom software to work with those APIs. As the vast majority of online services use the payment processors I mention in the article, going with a lesser known company (in the online space) in order to shave a few percentile points of your fee is not worth it for small businesses who don't have the in house capability to adapt their software for using it.

Obviously, if you're a large company with in-house dev team and custom software, you'll definitely should be looking to get the lowest possible rates you can.

Re: Why We Use Stripe For Payments

Eran Galperin — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 10:50:48 -0000

I know your account is mainly meant to promote CardFellow, but that argument is not very relevant here, since we're talking about online payment processors here (not POS processing). Different challenges and different solutions.

Yes, you could shave off a few cents off each transaction with a custom solution, but unless you're planning on directly interfacing with all credit-card companies, it's just not worth it for a small business who wants to use off-the-shelf tools to manage their business.

Re: 13 Marketing & Advertising Tips to Get More Martial Arts & Karate Students

Eran Galperin — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 12:52:15 -0000

Thanks! I really like what you guys are doing with FitnessTexter as well :)

Re: 13 Marketing & Advertising Tips to Get More Martial Arts & Karate Students

Eran Galperin — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 16:26:42 -0000

My gym recently started a very comprehensive referral program - they give free months of membership, gear and even privates with the head instructor for the person who brings in the most referrals in a month.

I think the online search part (SEO) deserves more attention. I've recently written extensively on the topic - https://www.maonrails.com/b... (Warning: 4000+ words article). I think school owners who are serious about bringing in more members should put most of their efforts in that direction.

Re: Binpress Postmortem

Eran Galperin — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 00:37:32 -0000

Hi Julio,

Glad you liked the post! What you suggest though is a completely different business, and we weren't interested in going in that direction.

Re: Binpress Postmortem

Eran Galperin — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 16:18:35 -0000

Turns out the actual saying is "selling ice to Eskimos" :)

Yes, the developer tools market is hard, we just didn't realize how much before the fast.

Re: Generating graphs from MySQL table data

Eran Galperin — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 12:49:33 -0000

Hi Chris,

I would usually take care of empty dates in a programming language that parses the results. Doing it in SQL would be a bit convoluted.

If you feel like you must, what you need to do is select from the calendar_table and then join it to the actual data table (time_entries in your case). The SQL you have right now will not find any rows for the empty date rows because it selects from the time_entries, where those dates don't exist. You might need to make additional modifications to the query to make it work.

Hope that makes sense!

Re: After reviewing 300 startup applications, this is what I learned

Eran Galperin — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 18:34:55 -0000

It's definitely open for disruption - our company is in fact trying to do just that :)

What I was trying to say is that traditional services companies typically scale linearly (i.e, for double the growth, you need double the money), and thus not a good fit for venture capital which expects exponential growth.

Re: Why Israel Is A Startup Nation

Eran Galperin — Thu, 22 May 2014 15:30:52 -0000

I think we hashed our respective viewpoints, and I thank you for the friendly debate :) I think it boils down to whether you believe that environment or genetics / history (nurture vs nature) is more responsible for shaping people's personality. I subscribe to the first viewpoint, while you to the second.

Re: Why Israel Is A Startup Nation

Eran Galperin — Thu, 22 May 2014 09:29:48 -0000

I apologize if I assumed incorrectly - from your name, I didn't think you were an Israeli. On a side note - have you founded a startup yourself? are you familiar
(first hand) with the hardships of startup life and the mentality needed
to do it successfully? Aside from recounting my own experience from the last 10 years of running multiple ventures in Israel, I ran this post through several Israeli founders before publishing, and they all agreed with all of the points I made. Why do you think you see it differently?

I completely agree that Israel is a concentration of startup people. However, the current personalities and culture you'll find in Israel are distinctly Israeli, and something that evolved over the last few decades. If you did live in Israel, you'll know that Israelis are distinctly different from American Jewish people, for example as far as temperament and culture. People mostly assimilate to the culture of the country they're in, in order to fit in. And Israeli culture in general is very well suited to startups compared to the rest of the world (Jewish or not), for the reasons I bring up in the post.

Re: Why Israel Is A Startup Nation

Eran Galperin — Thu, 22 May 2014 08:59:47 -0000

Hi G.T,

Thanks for reading. I cover the history of modern Israeli culture, since that is what's driving todays Israeli startup scene. Most Israelis are very aware that there are a lot of successful non-Israeli Jewish people, and I do mention it briefly - but that is not the focus of the post. The question was - why is Israel specifically a startup nation - and being a nation of Jewish people might have some bearing (which is why I mentioned it), but the other factors I mention - including military service - certainly affect it to a large extent. While I appreciate your interest in our heritage, I think you are a bit misguided in your conclusion regarding that, and it's something you can't feel just from research - you have to live the culture and understand its nuances.

Re: Employee Equity: Too Little?

Eran Galperin — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 11:38:44 -0000

Yep. The motivation for working on either is different. Startup equity will not be worth much in 99.9% of the time, so it shouldn't be your main motivation for working there. If you want to earn - go work at a big corp., if you want to learn and make a difference, work at a startup.

I just wrote about this topic yesterday - http://www.techfounder.net/...

Re: Should you be working at a startup?

Eran Galperin — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 02:17:39 -0000

No at all. We don't question people's financial situation or obligations and think they should decide how to invest in their future. Since we don't think equity should be a primary motivation anyway, that is perfectly fine.

Re: When Does Establishing a Good Startup Culture Outweigh Being Cheap?

Eran Galperin — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 02:51:38 -0000

Spot on. To give the entrepreneur perspective, unless you just got lucky and landed significant funding right off the bat - you were probably strapped for cash for a while, and it's hard to immediately change gears and start spending like you always had it. Since you never know when and if more funding will be available, you want your current runway to last as long as possible.

This is not an excuse, just rationalization of why a lot of companies behave like you described above. It's been almost 8 months since we raised our seed, and it's still hard sometimes to spend even when we know we should - because we used to find ways to do everything on the cheap.

Re: Getting Shit Done

Eran Galperin — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 01:32:52 -0000

Well, this is where you and I differ, my friend. In my opinion and from my experience, those have to come internally or it will never be sustainable. If the "manager" or founder has to bring the urgency to the employee, something is not working.

Re: Getting Shit Done

Eran Galperin — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:00:27 -0000

If you read the article here, I mention that it's a collection of things that lead to shit getting done. Most importantly, urgency and follow-through, but also cultural fit. The first two are personal traits that you either have or not, and the latter is typically not something that you can fix if it isn't there.

Re: Getting Shit Done

Eran Galperin — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 16:44:52 -0000

That's the whole point of this article here, David, is that it's not a cheer or something that you say (and I've never seen it used that way). It's a mentality, and an important one at that, one that startup founders should look for in potential hires.

Re: Getting Shit Done

Eran Galperin — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:30:20 -0000

I'm talking about the core team, salaried employees who have responsibilities and are under contract to do actual work. People who support you out of their own volition are always welcome, regardless of their actual contribution (as long as they don't become a time sink).

Re: Getting Shit Done

Eran Galperin — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 06:47:45 -0000

Thanks as usual, Dave :) you're probably my most loyal reader!

Re: Nobody cares what “Growth Hacking” means to marketers

Eran Galperin — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 09:36:17 -0000

Yes, I completely agree about the need for analytics as part of the process, it's just that it's more for fine-tuning and rarely for coming up with the actual growth method - unless your product already had significant growth that you can look back on and infer the method from that. That's what I meant.

Re: Nobody cares what “Growth Hacking” means to marketers

Eran Galperin — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 22:20:39 -0000

Thanks for the link, William.

Your definition and mine are somewhat different - I don't think you can find how to grow your company just by looking at analytics, unless your company has already experienced significant growth. For most early stage startup the answer is external, not internal, and a growth hacker's job is to find those sources or approaches that will make the needle move in the right direction.

Re: Nobody cares what “Growth Hacking” means to marketers

Eran Galperin — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 09:31:48 -0000

Yep, I'd definitely be wary of software engineers who have a different vocabulary than you. You should definitely use that as a filtering question in your interview process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...