I'm fairly new to the Bitcoin world, but it seems to me that ultimately (in 10 years or so) one of two things will happen:

1) Bitcoin will gain large-scale adoption. As a result, the value of Bitcoins will greatly increase from what it is today.

2) Bitcoin will fail due to government regulations, better alternatives, or other unforeseen reasons. As a result, Bitcoins will become effectively worthless.

Am I oversimplifying so far? If I'm not, then it seems like investing substantially in Bitcoins (purchasing coins) now will either make me very rich in 10 years, or I'll lose my initial investment.

By the same logic, if I earn coins by mining now and hold them, I will either be rich in 10 years, or I'll lose my mining investments.

I'm not interested in diving into mining to earn a quick 10-20k while the market fluctuates, so as a long term strategy it sounds like investing is the more sensible and less time consuming option. Thoughts?

A lot of people agree with this thinking.

It's not the only possibility— e.g. Bitcoin could putter around for a long time basically where it is now, maybe acting as a very mild threat the keep the alternatives on their toes enough that Bitcoin never gets widespread adoption.

Right now it's possible to make a decent amount _today_ with mining as a small / hobby business, supplying coins to people who don't want to get into the mining stuff, without engaging in major speculation yourself.

I see this "puttering" as the most likely possibility, since if they do hit some level of adoption that starts to threaten sovereign currencies, the GP's option (2) will come into effect.

Maybe some non-democratic governments will become hostile to Bitcoin, but democratic ones will most likely not try to stop it because they eventually do what the people want.

Case in point: even the US Treasury Department's FinCEN bureau recognized enthusiastically that Bitcoin offers "potential" and "holds great promise" to US economy: http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/speech/pdf//20130613.pdf

Puttering would still be inflation-corrected.

Maybe. Puttering could still have a small positive or negative slope.

That sounds pretty much correct. I compare investing in Bitcoin to investing in an early stage startup.

Regarding mining, each time Bitcoin mining technology improves there's a mini gold rush. If you can get your hands on the technology before everyone else you can make quite a bit of money for a few months. But there's also the chance your preordered miner won't be profitable by the time you get it. This may be why hardware manufacturers prefer to sell hardware (i.e. pickaxes) rather than mine themselves.

Long term, once Bitcoin ASICs catch up to the state of the art Bitcoin mining will be very a very low margin business. Only the most efficient hardware located in places with cheap electricity will be profitable.

I'm as upset as most people on here about the NSA's actions, but this is just foolish.

To Congress members, this is going to feel like an attack and a threat. People are going to want repercussions for those responsible, and now there is fresh fuel for any proponents of PRISM-like monitoring.

You could drive for Sidecar or Lyft. From what I've heard, it works pretty well for networking too.

That thought has crossed my mind, but then I realized that my car is in Florida. Also, I'm 20, so I don't think I would be able to anyways.

This is very helpful feedback to hear - thank you.

Yes - the original post was titled, "Stop building apps no one wants": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4876680

And how many users you guys got after this post?

roughly 2000 were in the beta

It's good amount of users.

quite nice !

My team uses IFTTT for daily standup emails, and it's really been a huge help for us. Here's the recipe if anyone else wants to use it: https://ifttt.com/recipes/86294

Here's my situation: I have a product that I know 6% of 2000 users who have given me their email address will take for "free," though it requires 15-20 minutes of work for them to participate (so they must see some value here).

I originally priced it at $99, but I haven't been able to get anyone to pay that amount or $19. Do I just keep dropping prices until I can get someone to pay? Is it a fair test to email out varying "discounts" to groups of users to determine a price?

Are you generating $99 dollars worth of value? What makes you say that? And, are you sure it isn't higher?

If your starting point on pricing is too low, you're going to be measuring below your noise floor. Running what is effectively a reverse auction on your price won't help you, because your prices are already arbitrary.

If that's the case, consider solving the problem with some mechanism other than pricing.

Honestly, I'd question whether you've hit product market fit yet. That might sound bad, but just consider it an opportunity. Lots of products start here and go on to make (b|m)illions

The best thing you can do here is talk with some customers that you don't personally know and aren't connected with. Tell them you're going to give them 3 months free in exchange for a frank conversation about how they use your product and what they actually value.

That will guide you.

I'd work on your marketing. Do you have a series of case studies explaining the benefits? Is their ROI calculated for them?

If you're providing them with that much value, maybe you just need to bring their attention to that value.

That goes double if this is a b2b.

Thanks for the tip. I don't have case studies or even testimonials yet, so that may be hurting me. This is what my sales page looks like: http://cl.ly/image/1a21191A2U16

My gut feeling is that you should not reduce the price at all, and instead work on proving the value you provide, just as you have identified too.

If I am working on a project that I need feedback on, and I am convinced that your solution will provide me that feedback, I'll happily pay $100. At $40, I'll be happy to take risk too. At $20, it sounds like the price is so low because the results would not be worth anything.

If the question is how to bootstrap, the best I can think of is to work closely with those 6% people and refine your product to the needed extent, proving value and getting testimonials.

I agree that $19 is too low. That page is trying to convince me that I will get ~20 comments from smart & knowledgeable people at a cost per comment of <$1.

I simply don't believe that pitch. Anyone who is willing to do that for <$1 doesn't value their time, so why would I value their opinion?

I'd increase the price, add some case study/ROI, and provide more detail about how it works (not necessarily on the landing page, but clearly linked)

Worth pointing out what's in it for the advisors – namely, a chance to hear about early products.

Run your copy through a spell checker! Misspellings can easily make a professional looking site not look professional.

Thanks and good eye (before 'e' except after 'c') - that was a slightly outdated version :)

Think about monkeyspaw's answer, but also think about changing your users or the product.

But first think about monkeyspaw's answer, not mine.

When I clicked through (excitedly) to see more details about who was visiting us from the International Space Station, I noticed that the top traffic source was a search for "April Fools." Google, you got me on this one.

I like the idea and the design. This has some overlap with Launchsky (including a similar UI): http://launchsky.com

The main difference is that we're a platform for sharing ideas, and you're sharing projects that already exist. In any case, good luck with this!

It says launching in early 2013. so when is it? BTW interesting concept, I'm one of those "would be" users and shared it too :P

We are launching the beta next week. Really glad to hear you have been spreading the word!

I would try it out. I'm also going to take this opportunity to make a shameless plug: answering the question, "Should I build this?" is precisely the goal of LaunchSky.com.

Nice one. Just signed up. When are you launching? Looking forward to seeing how the platform will work.

Thanks! We plan to go live with our beta in 3-4 weeks, and we're already accepting pitches from our beta list. Email me at info@launchsky.com and I'll send you a beta invite.