jimmynopension

Hello,

1) I have 5 business ideas and I want to build a web app for customer applications. I don't know where to start as I'm not a dev (yet).

It will be a couple of forms for customer data, a hosted card capture page (probably stripe or worldpay or something), some blog pages for SEO, some way to spin up lots of landing pages for split tests, some way to aggregate and compare traffic conversion so I can optimise over time.

These requirements seem pretty generic: open a bank account, insurance policy, window cleaning subscription, etc. all the same sort of journey and requirements. If I can build a generic journey then I can wrap any product over it. If the business works then I can worry about building a robust, sustainable site later when I'm making money.

Simplest build is probably Wordpress + Elementor? Although I don't know PHP and WYSIWYG editors are heavy. At the other end of the scale I could write from scratch an MVC web app and host it on AWS.

I don't know how to evaluate the options, and I'm thinking that I must be missing some options, surely there is some Off The Shelf generic drag and drop, cheap web journey builder that will give a decent simple MVP launch? I'm limited by lack of ability but freed by my lack of ability :) What should I do?

2) I need a CRM to manage the applications and navigate the ones I want to work. I can create pipelines based on what data is missing on each application and I can create retargeting messaging campaigns in CustomerIO etc.

My friend is doing something similar in strapi but he's frustrated with it and I can't understand it anyway.

The CRM also needs linking to the analytics so I can flag cases as fraud etc that feedback into my dataset and traffic sources. I can design a SQL schema that stores the states of everything I need pretty easily and then run a report on it? But I can't build an API atm :)

A friend is in a weird situation and I didn't know how to advise so I thought I'd throw it out here given I have no experience of this:

-He managed the build out of some internal software used for running the businesses operations

-It has increased the efficiency of business units that migrated on to it but Azure bill has scaled up too

-CEO of group has sunk the build cost into it and wants it to yield

-It was designed with a lot of input from CEO of the group who wanted it do very specific things

-CEO of group has been reading a lot about early Bezos

So the opportunity is:

(A) Take the tech put it in a company call yourself CEO and sell it to externals and create a start up. No equity or extra pay at this stage as there is no proof of PMF

(B) Leave and the group CEO will find someone else to give it a go

Has anyone on HN done this and failed / succeeded?

My only advice is if he thinks he has a chance then do it because getting the opportunity to play for free in something few people have exposure to is pretty cool, but get a contract agreed up front about targets and future compensation, and assume it will be the most painful thing ever.

Any thing else?

I can't find any good advice for managing what is a reasonably common situation, "how to successfully fire fight"

On-prem, cobbled together system, multiple parts that are completely unknown, everyone is afraid of making a change, if it goes down it might not come back up.

Two devs were building a little project on top of a system and adding bits to it as they got new ideas (both quite junior quick and dirty types). Much of the codebase they have never touched, it's just there running with the stuff they have on top.

Deployed it to an OVH remote managed rack (yeah I know!) and offered it to a client. Client loved it, hockey stick growth, huge demand, totally not production ready but it's throwing off cash (lots and lots and lots).

Devs are burnt out and one is taking an offline holiday, they aren't mature about the situation, they are also a self contained business unit away from the rest of the company.

Emergency consultant and senior devs from parent company started to take a look over the evenings this week. Emergency plan is to get a copy deployed and running in azure so there are 2 instances and if the OVH one goes down again we can swap traffic (pending P&L sign off)

Potential for a great product to die and cause reputational damage. Potential to beat it into shape and turn it into a production product and multi million revenue.

Thoughts?

Assuming Central Bank monetary policy of the past 10 years is the new normal, is there any evidence that defined contribution pension schemes provide sufficient retirement income for an ordinary person in a global economy averaging zero-low annual growth?

Looking for some simple models using basic maths but considering a number of factors. Was about to mock this up in a spreadsheet but is there anything online that already works?

Simplified Variables: -% portfolio fixed income / % cash / % equities -average returns in past 10 years on those above -> expected average future returns -average inflation over past 10 years -> expected average future inflation -average age of retirement / average number of years working -average income year on year -year on year defined contribution + extra contribution from state / tax ....

Ignoring all politics, I don't dream of retiring but the economy I participate in is driven in part by retirement consumption (or held back by unfunded pension liabilities depending on your perspective).

When I've done this in the past on the back of an envelope I came to the conclusion that roughly top 5% of earners could expect to retire on average income at 65 years old.

Comfortable retirement might have been a blip in human history.