Show HN: we like to work from coffee shops, so we made this
75 points by _yb 12 years ago | 81 comments- elmuchoprez 12 years agoI'd be very curious about the viability of clients who approach you in a coffee shop. Seems like you'd get an awful lot of, "So hey, I have this idea that's like Facebook and Youtube combined and I think it could be the next big thing".
That's not to say you won't ever find a good client in a coffee shop, but I suspect it has a lower viability rate than a Craigslist ad, and at least on Craigslist I don't have to spend any real time talking to the people who are clearly not serious clients.
- kgtm 12 years agoBut it's not always about professional connections IMHO. This sticker has the potential to signal 'geek/programmer', and I would very much welcome a fellow hacker coming up to me and having a chat because of it. I agree that it seems like a so-so way of getting quality clients.
@spqr Your comment is informative, but your account has been hellbanned for quite a while it seems. Only users with showdead can read your replies. Maybe you'd like to look into that.
- elmuchoprez 12 years agoIf you want qualified developers to talk to you, I recommend a sticker that says "PHP Developer" or "I Write Objective C" or whatever as opposed to a generic "I make websites" type slogan. Not only will this weed out the people who just assume you "do computers", but frankly there is a lot of division within the dev community and just because you're sitting over there writing javascript doesn't mean you want to talk to me about EAV databases.
- elmuchoprez 12 years ago
- JVIDEL 12 years agoYou forgot the part about the idea being worth one hundred billion dollars!
- spqr 12 years agoTwo years ago almost to the day, I was sitting in a gym waiting area while my 6 year old son was attending a baseball clinic. I had a 1400+ page Wrox programming book that I was going through when a guy walked up to me and said, "Hey - are you in IT?" His son was attending the same baseball clinic.
Long story short, I am still working full time at the investment bank I've worked at for the last 7 years but I have also been working 15-20 hours per week for him from home on nights and weekends on side programming projects. This has gone on for 2 years now and is exceedingly lucrative.
Don't discount the happenstance meetings in public like this. Some of the people you meet will be crackpots with an idea and nothing else, but experience will help you filter them out.
- kgtm 12 years ago
- joshcrews 12 years agoI've been running the sticker, "Hi, I build software. Come talk to me!" at a high end coffee shop in my town (Nashville) for 2 weeks and it's generated 3 good conversations. I would say I'm very satisfied with how it's gone so far.
- coreymaass 12 years agoI'm moving to Nashville in two weeks! and I want to know what are the best coffee shops to work from! What coffee shop do you work from? I'll come find you :-)
- coreymaass 12 years ago
- tommoor 12 years agoHow about something a little... bolder:
https://twitter.com/iWaffles/status/256984030552129537/photo...
- BuddhaSource 12 years agoThis will not work! You missed the Apple logo.
- BuddhaSource 12 years ago
- dkrich 12 years agoI'm truly amazed that this made the top of Hacker News. A $5 decal that advertises services. We've officially come full circle. I hear that people have even tried approaching potential clients and talking to them and once one crazy person actually spent money on soliciting business in a printed periodical with somewhat widespread distribution.
- duiker101 12 years agoget something we already have, apply a use case nobody should care, make a nice website with a video and promote it like a great idea, overprice it = success.
- larrys 12 years ago"overprice it"
Why do you feel it's overpriced exactly? If someone thinks it's a good idea to try $5 isn't exactly a big risk to take to have a turnkey product.
- duiker101 12 years agoit's not overpriced in the meaning that it will make you go bankrupt but I think you can buy adhesive paper for much less that fits in any printer.
- duiker101 12 years ago
- larrys 12 years ago
- duiker101 12 years ago
- jiggy2011 12 years agoThis just looks like another generic meaningless sticker that people stick all over their laptops.
If you really want people in coffeeshops to approach you try something more personal and direct. "I'm xxxx. I build websites/applications, feel free to say hi,let's chat!" or whatever.
- neilk 12 years agoYeah. For a long time I had a crude X in black duct tape on my laptop, and no other stickers. Almost everybody asks what it means because... it looks like it means something.
It doesn't mean anything; I bought this laptop & went directly to a conference, and just wanted it to look slightly distinctive, and the duct tape was all I had. It does cover the Apple logo so it looks like I hate Apple or something (I do hate excessive and ostentatious branding).
I kept it because I kept having conversations about it. Even baristas remember me as the guy with the X.
It's odd but I don't think a logo has any meaning any more, because real life turned into Nascar.
- mindcrime 12 years agoYeah. For a long time I had a crude X in black duct tape on my laptop, and no other stickers. Almost everybody asks what it means because... it looks like it means something.
If I saw that, I would probably have assumed you were just a huge X-Files fan or something.
Actually, thinking about it now, I think the next laptop I buy, I'm going to put an X like that on there, along with a small sticker that just says "I Want To Believe".
- neilk 12 years agoFYI: it didn't hurt my laptop, but, over time, the glue from the duct tape melts and fills the depression in the Apple logo. Removing it is not fun.
- neilk 12 years ago
- mindcrime 12 years ago
- cgrusden 12 years agoAgreed. Or what Github did with their t-shirts, where it said, "github.com/________" and you filled it in with a sharpie.
- setrofim_ 12 years agoThat's a lot to put on a sticker -- people aren't going to read that. Maybe something a bit snappier, e.g. "Freelance coder: available for gigs" or something.
I would question, however, whether putting a sticker of any kind is gonna help you score gigs. I mean, if you were looking for a coder, would you really approach some random guy/gal in a coffee shop based solely on a sticker on their laptop and knowing nothing else about them?
Maybe having a sticker with a link to your github, as suggested by others, would be more useful (if your user id is memorable).
- jiggy2011 12 years agoDepends what you are going for, unless you are looking for people who are already reasonably tech savvy your potential customers might not know that github is a thing.
I full sentence briefly explaining what you do, and more importantly giving people permission to interrupt you would stand out more than just some random sticker.
- pizza 12 years agoIt's more than usual, but most people don't stop reading small bits of text mid-sentence. Plus, serendipity is a wonderful thing.
- jiggy2011 12 years ago
- kurtfunai 12 years agoI've got a Github sticker on my laptop. It's sort of a "Hey, I'm a developer" flag, maybe it'll lead to some good conversation one day.
- bede 12 years agoMe too! I've had a few 'why's there a weird cat sticker on your laptop' comments but it's also generated a handful of double takes / knowing smiles at University, and has sparked several interesting conversations on trains between Manchester and London, in one of which I was offered a job.
- cstuder 12 years agoConversations with other developers, yes.
- bede 12 years ago
- neilk 12 years ago
- maresca 12 years agoIf you are working, do you necessarily want to be bothered?
- josefresco 12 years agoIf you don't want to be bothered, why would you be working on a coffee shop? Libraries (or pretty much anywhere else) offer more privacy for real work.
- rocky1138 12 years agoI find I work better in places with hustle and bustle. It doesn't mean I want to talk to other people or be interrupted.
- rocky1138 12 years ago
- ishener 12 years agowith more offers?
yes!
- maresca 12 years agoI'm curious of what the conversion funnel would be from people inquiring to becoming new clients. Someone should test this.
- maresca 12 years ago
- racl101 12 years agoI think people who go to work to coffee shops are there to be noticed. There's plenty of places you can work at without the bother. Let's be real about this.
- NegativeK 12 years agoI go to coffee shops because it's close and a break from working from my otherwise empty apartment.
- NegativeK 12 years ago
- james9283 12 years agothe definition of "bothered" can vary. If it's my next project, I wouldn't consider it a bother. I would consider to buy one if I worked from coffee shops.
- josefresco 12 years ago
- kmfrk 12 years agoI like the idea, but the execution not so much. A round sticker would be better in my view.
- mbesto 12 years agoWhat has been your conversion rate so far using it? Since this is a marketing/sales practice, I'd love to know what the funnel looks like for this.
- josefresco 12 years agoDo coffee shops really want this? We all use them from time to time to meet clients, or sneak in some work but I highly doubt most shops would want you building your business (by advertising your availability) around them.
- escaped_hn 12 years agoThey probably won't care unless you are making an online version of starbucks.
- escaped_hn 12 years ago
- denzil_correa 12 years agoI liked the video especially the bit at 0:32 seconds.
- hkarthik 12 years agoRight below this sticker you should probably list your hourly rate, otherwise you're making yourself a magnet for the wrong kinds of clients.
- jraby3 12 years agoThis is a great (and virtually free) way to pick up business. I don't see a downside.
- Killah911 12 years agoDownside: you're meeting with a potential investor or client for your start-up and you've got to pull your laptop out.
Other possible downsides include, people coming up to you and bothering you with non-relevant "work" or "free work for equity" which you're not interested in.
There is also the exclusivity thing, where a potential client might perceive you as "too eager" for work, and you end up loosing a gig you might have gotten otherwise. (Granted, I'm reaching on this one).
I think it's a neat idea, but you have to be judicious when putting on any overt "label" on yourself or on the tools of your trade. I only bring this up due to my own experiences with stickers on my laptop. Getting them off is no easy task either (glue residue and such).
- jiggy2011 12 years agoIt also has a bit of a "will code for food" vibe to it. And yep, you're gonna get "oh, you work in IT? Maybe you can tell me why my laptop won't connect to the wireless here..."
- maresca 12 years agoVelcro would work.
- Killah911 12 years agoNow that's a neat Idea, you could be a billboard when the time is right and take it down at other times... You might even get more creative and hook up your smartphone or tablet as a display on the other side with whatever wording you want.
Maybe a scrolling marquee app. Heck, you could advertise whatever you want on your display at that point.
If it then becomes a trend, one could pay people small amounts of money for becoming mobile billboards on location enabled devices.
- astrodust 12 years agoThere's also those window stickers that adhere to a lot of things but peel off easily.
- Killah911 12 years ago
- jiggy2011 12 years ago
- Killah911 12 years ago
- hnriot 12 years agoI thought it was a new band :)
Wouldn't coffee shop owners use this to kick you out?
- astrodust 12 years ago"Oh, it's that guy again."
The stuff some coffee shops put up with is truly bewildering.
- astrodust 12 years ago
- neona 12 years agoThey only come in black, so you wouldn't be able to see it on my laptop.
- justinph 12 years ago"My laptop is full of valuable code. Please come steal it."
- fchollet 12 years agoExcuse me. Stealing a laptop for the valuable code it contains?
- spqr 12 years agoRick: What ya got there? Laptop Thief: A Macbook Air Rick: How much ya want for that thing? Laptop Thief: $900 Rick: Wow. It's a tough economy, best I can do is $90. Laptop Thief: Wait, there's Ruby code on it! Rick: In that case I don't even want to do it, but I can go as high as $91 if it helps you.
- spqr 12 years ago
- kmfrk 12 years agoYou might actually reduce the chance of theft, if you put the sticker over the Apple logo :P
- buraksarica 12 years agoLaptop thefts never(may be 0.05% of them..) look at your code. So do not let your laptop unattended even you use this sticker or not..
- fchollet 12 years ago
- Aardwolf 12 years agoWould this sticker be visible on a black thinkpad?
- _yb 12 years agoYes, get the white one: http://instagram.com/p/XzdnxHut8u/
- 12 years ago
- _yb 12 years ago
- skormos 12 years agoI'd buy that for a dollar; but five? Not so much.
- omegote 12 years ago$5 for a sticker... Someone said profit margins?
- bonf 12 years agowell, intergalactic shipping costs more than you'd think...
- DoubleCluster 12 years agoSomeone should order some for the guys in the ISS.
- bonf 12 years agothey got one already: http://imgur.com/RYfYZDp
- bonf 12 years ago
- DoubleCluster 12 years ago
- bonf 12 years ago
- BuddhaSource 12 years agoI would rather go for "We are hiring"
- larrys 12 years agoTo the OP:
Good idea but you need some contact info on your site and please remove the "whois privacy" from your whois record for the domain.
In all but a limited amount of cases you don't need that. Use a separate gmail account that forwards to your real email to filter if you are worried about spam. Put another address into the whois and google voice number if you are worried about phone calls. To begin you won't get that many with one domain and you also are preventing anyone who wants to get in touch with you from contacting you.
Also, why should someone give you money if you don't even have any info as to who you are that they can trace on your website? (which to repeat I like the idea).
Registrars (I run an ICANN registrar) typically push privacy because it's good for them. I've seen privacy on records with businesses that want the exact opposite.
Anyone who disagrees please post your thoughts and I will address them individually based on my years in this business. (I'd actually like to hear new reasons why people do this that I haven't heard before).
- dkrich 12 years agoThe timing of this is interesting to me because I recently registered a new domain, opted to leave my contact info public, and have since received an unending barrage of spam emails that I have to attribute to the WHOIS record due to the timing.
I agree about publicly displaying contact info, but would like to know some good suggestions for filtering out the crap that comes with it.
- mindcrime 12 years agoI have my contact info publicly available on all of my domains, and I don't see any specific signs that any of the spam I get is directly attributable to that. But I did get an email from a guy in Canada a couple of weeks ago, asking about buying one of my domains, which I sold to him. Personally I think the benefits of having valid whois info outweigh the negatives, but that's just me...
- bonf 12 years agoWhois privacy email addresses will forward incoming mails to you as well.
A buying offer can be a smart way to probe the owner behind that privacy wall, who I guess most of the time is just a normal guy/gal...
- larrys 12 years ago"Personally I think the benefits of having valid whois info outweigh the negatives"
Agree with that. As both a domain owner, registrar as well as someone who buys domains. There are definitely cases where privacy is warranted but not for the majority of people.
- bonf 12 years ago
- larrys 12 years ago"I agree about publicly displaying contact info, but would like to know some good suggestions for filtering out the crap that comes with it."
Gmail account which is setup to forward to your regular email account. Or simply change to a new gmail if you get to much spam. I register domains all the time and have a single email account that represents a large quantity of domains. I don't find the spam to be a big problem at all.
- dkrich 12 years agoThanks for the advice- I'll give that a try. I'm kind of pissed that I didn't think to do that in the first place.
- dkrich 12 years ago
- mindcrime 12 years ago
- bluefinity 12 years ago> Put another address into the whois
If you run an ICANN registrar, you should be aware that ICANN requires whois information to be accurate. Providing incorrect data is grounds for cancellation of your domain name. I guess long as you can still be reached from the address it would be fine though?
Personally, I use whois privacy because I don't want my physical address (and identity) to be publicly available. I had one domain that didn't have privacy years ago, and I kept getting snail-mail spam every year asking me to "renew" it, from some registrar I'd never heard of.
- larrys 12 years ago"Providing incorrect data is grounds for cancellation of your domain name."
Not speaking for other registrars of course but what's the chance that we will cancel your domain because there is "inaccurate" info?
In order to do that someone would have to file a complaint with ICANN then ICANN contacts us and we send you an email telling you to fix the info. And we would bend over backwards before cancelling the domain because who wants to deal with how pissed you'd be if we did that? What do we have to gain vs. what do we have to lose.
Do a test. Register a name with, say namecheap or godaddy. Purposely put in bad info (not bogus looking but just wrong). The file an complaint with ICANN. See what happens. (And that's after someone files a complaint how or why would someone care to do that?)
- larrys 12 years ago
- bonf 12 years agoFeel free to contact us at info@freelancersticker.com - obviously we missed it when we got the site up.
I think we got the WHOIS privacy by default on NameCheap. We're not hiding from anyone - our names and profiles are linked on the bottom of the page. I would, however, advise domain owners to be wary of information registered, as they may find their home address and phone number propagated all across the web, mirrored by tons of whois/rtld sites, never to be removed again.
- larrys 12 years ago"I think we got the WHOIS privacy by default on NameCheap."
Funny how that happens now isn't it? You have to ask yourself why are they so eager to give you that?
"our names and profiles are linked on the bottom of the page"
I was only able to bring up one profile. The rest you have to be connected or logged into linkedin. You have to link in to the linked in public profile. But even then the amount of info is limited unless you pay for the enhanced extra linkedin paid service. Makes much more sense to simply have some info on your site. And certainly not way at the bottom "below" the fold.
"as they may find their home address and phone number propagated all across the web"
That's definitely a valid concern.
My suggestion is simply to use a school address, po box or other contact address. For phone number as mentioned get a google voice number (or another service if you already have google voice.)
While it isn't advised and there are reasons not to do the following I can tell you that if you simply made up an address somewhere that would be fine as well. Nobody is policing that. In theory you could lose your domain but in practice that will never happen.
- larrys 12 years ago
- dkrich 12 years ago