Building Customer Driven SaaS Products | Jason Evanish

I moved to San Francisco 9 months ago from the East Coast bastion of Boston. Despite having experience living in a major US city, I found quite a few surprises coming here.  Some have been great, while others not so much.

If you’re planning the move here, I hope this will help you know better what to expect. And if you already live in SF, this should give you a laugh or two and hopefully inspire you to leave a comment with anything I missed. Consider this the guide I wish someone had given me when I moved here.

It gets cold at 4pm.

On the east coast I got used to it staying warm on a nice day til 10pm. If it was 70 degrees in the morning, you could rest assured that the temperature would be about 70 when you left work that night.  That is not the…

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2013

It is already mid-Jan. Have you settled into 2013, or are you still living in 2012? If you are still living in 2012, why? Because 2012 left such a great impact on you that you’re unable to move forward? Leave the past, in the past. There’s no point harping on last year. It’s a fresh start. Let go, let go of whatever that seems like your anchor to happiness. What’s done, is done. The damage cannot be undone. Try again this year. Learn from 2012, don’t make those mistakes again. You have a choice, my dear. You always do.

If you’re still living in 2012 because 2013 isn’t as wonderful as last year, be patient. It’s only the beginning. You have 11 and a half more months to decide whether 2013 is better or worse than 2012, and while you still have 11 and a half months, make it a point to make this year a better one, because more often than not, people only start to realise how badly their year has been at the end of the year. You don’t always have to look back and think ‘I should have done better’, ‘why did I do that, why did I do this’ or have any other regrets. Set out your resolution from the beginning. What is it that you want to change about yourself? What are you trying to achieve by the end of the year?

Always know what you’re doing and where you are going. If you don’t, I guess it’s time to start deciding. Baby steps, better than none.

Everyone wants this year to be better than the last, but how many can make that happen?

And how many more years have you got to say that, and to have regrets?

Live, laugh and love. While you can.

Treasure and cherish. While the people you love are still alive.

Have a fruitful 2013 everyone.

Is the world really ending?

It has been reportedly said that the world is coming to an end this Friday, 21 December 2012. If that is really true, then it seems like we only have 2 days to live, or to be specific, 1 day, 11 hours and 14 minutes (as of now).

To be honest, I don’t know how the world is going to end. I don’t know because I haven’t been bothered to find out. As much as I have been hearing stories about the Mayan culture or solstice or whatever other EOTW lingo, I have never been interested enough to read up on them. Why? Because I simply don’t believe that the world is coming to an end.

Ostensible truth we have there. These news have not shot me with anxiety or fear. I still bother coming to work and sit my ass down, stare at this godknowshowmanyinch-screen and, freeze.

It’s a sad truth actually, not living my desired life. It’s not because the world is coming to an end that I feel a tinge of regret.

This surge of despondency comes from the fact that I am not, at all, living.

I had a choice, to walk away. To walk away and live the life I want, live the life that will set me free. But I didn’t. Instead, I chose to be desk-bound, rule-bound.

Why? Like many of you, I’m afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid to live.

Afraid to step out of my comfort zone to seek my desired life, afraid to go against all odds and be a rebel, afraid to go head on with my oh-so-grounded principles of reality.

I am a realist.

As much as I know how I am supposed to live my life, I’m not doing it. In fact, I’m doing the very opposite of it.

But one day, I will do whatever-the-fuck I want, and set myself free from these stupid realistic, principled anchors that are basically just pinning me to the river bed.

One day, after I get my frozen ass out of this icecube of nauseating tech-paralysing alcove.

You should too.

Ah, never should your reason to live be the ending of the world. Never.

When you do so, live. Not exist, or worst, survive – As many of us are doing right now, at this very moment.

Easier said than done? Of course.

Try.

One step at a time.

For those who really do believe the world is ending, you have 1 day, 10 hours and 13 minutes.

A Solitary Disposition

Solitude to me, is like dancing in the meadow.

Solidarity on the contrary, is like being confined in a prison cell.

Strange? I know.

It happens, from time to time.

& for the record, I hate it when people don’t give me my alone time/personal space. I don’t live for you, neither do I owe you a living. Give me a break and scram.

Be independent with me.

Musings of an Aspie

In honor of the annual airing of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer this coming Tuesday.

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When I was in elementary school, I was fascinated by the Island of Misfit Toys.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s an outtake from Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. Rudolph and his friends have just found themselves on the Island of Misfit Toys and the toys are describing their problems:

The Island of Misfit Toys is like aspie heaven–a place where no one measures up to conventional expectations and you’re not even allowed to stay if you might be the least bit “normal.” A place where it’s okay to be a bird that swims or a cowboy who rides an ostrich.

Because that’s the real issue with living in a neurotypical world, isn’t it? Conventional expectations. If 99% of people had aspie brains instead of neurotypical brains, then aspies would be…

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froodian pseudoanalysis

By ‘absolutely must’ I mean ‘might like to’, of course.

The long winter draws in, brittle and dry as a glamour model’s hair extensions.  A chill wind fumbles with forlorn Christmas decorations that punctuate the street like misplaced apostrophe’s.  The book sits on my shelf staring at me, reproach in its spine, reminding me that I promised to lend it out and yet have consistently failed to do so.  The book is a Victorian orphan peering sadly through the toyshop window, abandoned and alone.

I’m sorry, book.  Would you forgive me, book?

The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of His Window And Disappeared is the debut novel by Jonas Jonasson.

Allan Karlsson is 100 years old.  But rather than celebrate his centenary in the warm, fuzzy confines of his nursing home he clambers out the window and begins a journey across his native Sweden the book’s blurb describes…

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Samir Chopra

Late into the night of my 28th birthday, I was doing a passable impression of a dancing fool. It was almost four in the morning, I had consumed enough alcohol to administer local anesthetic to a small platoon of foot soldiers, and I was blithely unaware of impending danger. But there it was, in the shape of a hurtling body that belonged to a friend of mine, and which mysteriously, after traversing the length and breadth of the living room in whose corner I was safely dancing, placed itself in a load-bearing position on my right ankle.  When bodies had been moved, I found a rather large protuberance where my ankle used to be. Ice, an emergency room visit, crutches, in that order. And the end of my running career.

Before my right ankle suffered that disastrous third-degree sprain, I used to run. Respectably long distances in Central Park, with an eye on completing…

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Robin Coyle

An article in today’s paper gave me pause. Cursive handwriting has one foot in the grave.

A debate wages as 45 states adopt school curriculum guidelines for 2014 that exclude cursive handwriting, but do require keyboard proficiency by the time students exit elementary school.

You can read the full article here, but some highlights are:

“ . . . it has teachers and students divided over the value of learning flowing script and looping signatures in the age of touchpads and mobile devices. Some see it as a waste of time, an anachronism in a digitized society where even signatures are electronic, but others see it as necessary so kids can hone fine motor skills, reinforce literacy, and develop their own unique stamp of identity.”

“When a kid can text 60 words a minute, that means we’re headed in a different direction. Cursive is becoming less important.”

“School assignments…

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Quaint or Saint?

You can either conform to social norms or, you can be yourself. By yourself, I mean, in all originality before society changed you. In other words, uniquely you, however you define that. So, what are you?