Disqus - Latest Comments for scottsemple

Re: How Tealeaf Academy increased student engagement 3x

scottsemple — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 16:56:17 -0000

As a TeaLeaf student, I can say that the current method works fine. Although there isn't an opt-out for notifications, it's easy enough to create a filter in your email client to group all TeaLeaf responses together under their own label (in Gmail) and then archive them out of Inbox.

So far an unsubscribe hasn't seemed necessary.

Re: I Did It My Way

scottsemple — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:36:58 -0000

Note: In the latest version of Sinatra, "use_in_file_templates!" will create an undefined method error when running "ruby main.rb".

To fix, change the use_in_ line to "enable :inline_templates".

Cheers,Scott

Re: New Feature: Add Fees to PayPal Payments

scottsemple — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:26:36 -0000

Not only is it in violation of Paypal's terms of service, it's just plain bad business and amatuerish.

Passing on transaction fees (of any type) to customers is penalizing them for doing business with you. It leaves a bad taste in customer's mouths and minimizes the chances of recurring business if they have another option.

A better alternative is to frame it better psychologically. Adjust all of your pricing to account for fees, but give a discount for payment types that don't cost you (like cheques or cash). This gives a bonus to folks paying with paper and doesn't annoy those that don't.

If you only accept Paypal, then it's even more important not to add these fees, because it's a bad sting in the tail, leaving the customer with no choice.

It's just bad business. You can't charge them for keeping the lights on in your office (directly), and transactions are a similar expense: overhead. Accept it.

Re: The scam behind flow-through shares

scottsemple — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:06:40 -0000

Thanks, Spina. I totally agree. It's a gamble, with the odds stacked
in the house's favor. In my opinion, that makes it unsuitable as a
serious investment.

Re: Don’t compromise the process

scottsemple — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:56:48 -0000

Thanks, Isaak. You may be right.

My understanding of Chouinard's comment was that compromising the
process sabotages the possibility for spiritual gain. And compromising
the process includes having someone else do the work for us.

But I imagine that the CEOs and plastic surgeons that Chouinard refers
to aren't there for anything spiritual in the first place. I imagine
that the cocktail party stories of "climbing" Everest are really what
they're after anyway.

Re: Enterprise Value and Market Value

scottsemple — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:07:25 -0000

Isn't enterprise value defined as equity plus debt? (Not market value plus debt?)

OPEN's 2009 report states shareholder equity at $73,405,000. Add the $11.6MM in debt to that and the total enterprise value is $85MM.

Market value has very little to do with actual equity, no?

Re: Opportunity Costs

scottsemple — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:15:58 -0000

There's one form of opportunity cost that more people should pay attention to more often: spending versus investing. An easy way to calculate the cost is to use a conservative growth rate and then calculate the future cost of present consumption.

If a portfolio could average 7% per year over a lifetime, then capital will double every ten years. That being the case, if we assume financial independence is desirable in our 60s, then every dollar we spend up to our 60s gives us an opportunity cost of 2x per decade.

So someone in there 20s, when thinking of spending versus investing should use a multiple of 16. (Starting in our 20s, four decades of doubling creates a factor of 16.) Likewise, someone in their 30s should use a factor of 8, someone in their 40s, 4; 50s, 2.

So a the future cost of a $2 coffee costs a 20-year-old $32 future dollars; a 30-year-old, $16 future dollars; 40yo, $8; 50yo, $4.

That being the case, how does that color the opportunity cost of our current consumption? How much do the fancy shoes and shiny, new car really cost us?

Here's a great cartoon to illustrate the point:
http://www.geekculture.com/...

Re: Diversification

scottsemple — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:38:01 -0000

The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it. In stating this opinion, we define risk, using dictionary terms, as "the possibility of loss or injury."

[A] situation requiring wide diversification occurs when an investor who does not understand the economics of specific businesses nevertheless believes it in his interest to be a long-term owner of American industry. That investor should both own a large number of equities and space out his purchases. By periodically investing in an index fund, for example, the know-nothing investor can actually out-perform most investment professionals. Paradoxically, when "dumb" money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb.

-- Warren Buffett, 1993 Chairman's Letter (http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1993.html)

And comments from a speech to MBA students in the following video between 1min and 3min: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-PobeU4Ox0

Re: The Market Plunge

scottsemple — Sat, 08 May 2010 02:21:37 -0000

"If you take hard work, sweat equity, and a few million bucks of startup capital and turn that into a business producing $5mm a year of cash flow, then that is value creation of the old fashioned kind and it will work in any market environment."

And some of those companies are large enough to be publicly traded on the major exchanges. The trick is finding them and filtering out the hype.

Re: We Are Hiring

scottsemple — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:03:49 -0000

Hi Albert. Did you get the cover letter update I sent to the USV info@ address on April 15th? If not, please let me know. Thanks!

Re: We Are Hiring

scottsemple — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:02:27 -0000

Is there a way to update a cover letter?

Re: We Are Hiring

scottsemple — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:11:08 -0000

Thanks. Just sent it all through. Cheers.

Re: We Are Hiring

scottsemple — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:54:09 -0000

Is LinkedIn mandatory? I didn't find it a particularly useful service, so I canceled my account. Is there another method that would be acceptable?

Re: Profit and Cashflow

scottsemple — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:11:51 -0000

So where in the app is the cash flow statement? I see the links to P&L and balance sheet, but nothing for cash flow. Please let me know. Thanks!

Re: Web Design Bootcamp - Web 101, Drupal 101 & Basecamp 101

scottsemple — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:44:25 -0000

Any plans to re-sell this seminar as video files after it takes place? I live in Canada, but I'm keen on the material. If it were possible to purchase the video after the fact, I would be interested.

Re: The talent myth

scottsemple — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:28:06 -0000

@Norvin: Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated. Big thanks also for the link back to the site. Cheers!

Re: To Spec or Not to Spec

scottsemple — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:20:55 -0000

@digideth My guess is that you are neither a typographer nor a grammaticist.

;)

Re: To Spec or Not to Spec

scottsemple — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:09:34 -0000

Spec work could also be viewed as open source design. Plenty of development shops advocate evaluating programmers based on their open source (free) contributions before hiring them.

Why is there no outrage against open source for the same reasons as there is against spec work?

I suspect it's because programmers do it happily, and they realize the benefit in both practice and publicity.