BrandonWatson

For those of you who have jumped off the corporate train (or never got on) - what would you consider the key "achievement" points in your journey? I started thinking through what I would put on such a list but then thought it would make for good discussion here. The achievements obviously vary in difficulty and time required for attainment. Here's my starter list:

* Decided to build a product/service with the intent of releasing it * Learned a new tech stack that I plan to use for the purpose of building my thing * Executed sufficient customer calls to have clarity around potential product/market fit * Public availability / First public customer usage * First dollar generated (ads, subscription, one-time payment, whatever) * Irrationally angry customer feedback via email or twitter * Raman profitability attainment * First paid employee hired * First business development partnership inked * First lawsuit * Sale of company/assets

For the past 2 years I have been running free and paid mock interviews with hundreds of candidates who are primarily targeting tech companies - free content on YT under InterviewAt if interested. The follow-up meetings after the mocks with candidates have been amazing pseudo customer discovery sessions.

I've spent the last handful of months thinking deeply about how companies are running their processes and how candidates are preparing for their interviews, and I have come to the conclusion that there has to be a better way for everyone involved.

I've begun building software to address a part of the problem I think I can impact immediately, but would love to hear from people here on HN for the following prompt:

What do you hate / wish was better about the process of *preparing for* or *being in* a job interview.

I think there are 3 relevant personas, and user story format is totally fine: - As a job candidate, I hate... - As an interviewer, I hate... - As a hiring manager, I hate...

Registration for Build 2017 just opened:

https://register.build.microsoft.com/register

This will be my first time attending a MSFT developer event as a bona fide customer, and not working for them or as a partner company.

What's the attendence level from this community? Happy to meet up with anyone who pings me.

You can only pick one, and you can pick whether you gave or received, but would love to hear what people are geeked about this year for the holidays.

There's a project I want to undertake. I want to do it out in the open. I've been inspired by a few Maker projects as of late. I keep hearing "you should file a patent right now" when I have shared this idea with close friends. Which is why I want to do the opposite.

I don't know enough about the specific domain for the crux move of the solution. I think the solution lies in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering, but I am not certain that the problem is solvable in a cost effective way. My gut tells me that it is.

The first step is for me to be able to ask some very specific questions about phase change temperatures and latent heat of fusion of different chemical compounds. Any takers? The background info is too much for an Ask HN post, but I ABSOLUTELY promise that as soon as this enters the realm of "yeah, that's probably solvable" I will start posting the whole project and living it the Maker way.