Only a small team of three but I can’t say it ever felt like a bad thing. If anything, proud that we didn’t need to train a model to get a decent result and could concentrate on the rest of the product experience instead.
If customers weren’t happy or the results they were getting were wildly out (they weren’t) then might’ve been different.
In our minds the customers are buying a product to produce a result. If that’s from an ai model or a bunch of ifs it shouldn’t matter.
Paramotors are deregulated in the U.K. (and US I believe). It’s one of the very few forms of flight where a license isn’t required. You have to adhere to air law (like flying close to certain objects) but there are no licenses required to fly.
You’d be stupid to do it but you could buy a machine on eBay and start flying (or try to at least)
I wouldn't say they're "deregulated" in the US. There are still a number of rules that pilots have to comply with (for instance, no commercial use, limited fuel capacity, limited areas where flight is allowed, etc). Sure, a license is not required, but the US will find a way to complicate things with red tape even if a license isn't required.
"Limited areas where flight is allowed" is actually very permissive; in class G airspace you could go anywhere. If you take a VHF radio and ADS-B out transponder with you and have done the radio exam from the PPL, in theory you could call up the Tower at a class B/C/D Airport and ask to land. At deltas they might actually let you.
Watching some videos of people flying these things on YouTube, it's almost like they want the aviation agencies to crack down on them.
I've seen; low level acrobatics, low flight over people, guys taking off with no training and no instruction.
Reckless airmanship leads to deaths, but the paramotorists often blame it on the equipment, because without any agency investigating, there is only speculation.
There is an electric paramotor, with four drone like blades. That thing looks awesome; instead of the sounds and vibration of a 2-stroke engine strapped to your back, it's silent when you let off the throttle to glide. And no worries about will that lawnmower start up again.
For some people there are more important things than a small risk of death. I suspect these risk-takers make up a disproportionate number of paramotorists
Well air law could be argued to prohibit doing that, as it just states that you shouldn't do anything dangerous (at least EU), Id argue flying without the proper knowledge definitely falls under that. However air law can be argued onto anything, i.e. in Germany you aren't legally allowed to throw a paper airplane without special insurance, which is generally not covered by most insurances.
I saw this guy flying one of these beyond the trash fence out at black rock. Just skimming along the ground then heading back up into the air. Looked like a lot of fun.
Paddle take care of licensing, trials, payments and associated VAT/tax obligations through to analytics either through the web or a number of SDKs for Mac and Windows.
I'm currently writing something to be published on leanpub. How do you take care of marketing/promotion? Do you just leave it to sell or do something more proactive?
To market, I make comments on HackerNews mentioning it as an aside ;) Seriously, marketing is the hardest part for me. I feel like I have something worthwhile that has helped 1500+ people learn Trello, but marketing and self-promotion is not something that comes natural to me. I will say, my first sale happened by accident via the platform. I accidentally hit publish, and was surprised when I got my first sale before I even knew I was selling anything ;)
Since then, I've put on Google Analytics so I can see my traffic sources. The top referral sources are:
- Direct and Organic Search. I wish I could figure out how to understand those a bit more...
- A card on the official Trello Resources Board. I got up the nerve to "just ask" and they put me there.
- Some comments/articles on Lifehacker. I commented and link to the site, and they've referenced a few of my template boards (which link to the site).
- Reddit/HackerNews. I don't want to be spammy, but if it's relevant I will link to the site like what I did here.
- My own blog and trellodojo.info. I've had a longtime personal nerd-blog and am trying out trellodojo.info as a dedicated "niche site". I plan to do some other products out of there.
So, yes, their promotion does help, but I do see spikes when I actively market.
I'm working on a split testing service and SDK for desktop (OS X) and mobile apps. Mainly for myself so I can understand the math behind A/B testing better.
The local police are quite reasonable with fines of only about €15 if caught.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4q5Ei2sgdx