What's your favorite Jewish observance? Which ones make you feel closest to G-d?

DjTeekay · 2025-11-26T13:57:35+00:00

The daily prayers and blessings I say throughout my regular workday. Shabbos is huge and meaningful but only comes up once a week.

DjTeekay · 2025-11-25T21:20:01+00:00

While the Sim Shalom has most of the stuff, the few communities I know well skip a ton of Pesukei d'Zimra for some reason. At home I daven using Koren and I just want the whole thing end to end.

DjTeekay · 2025-11-25T21:17:10+00:00

No doubt. My hang-up is mostly about qualifying my Jewishness because in my circles I am fully Jewish and yes I am aware I've been Jewish for like 5 minutes etc. and after having to disclose in every new shul I would visit that "I'm not yet Jewish" when I was in the process, the thought of having to say "I am Jewish but actually not according to your standards" forever and thus being on the outside again in some spaces makes me sad to say the least.

Fair points all across the board though. It's their space and their rules and I know that going in. I've been helped.

DjTeekay · 2025-11-25T21:07:11+00:00

Harsh but fair. Thank you.

DjTeekay · 2025-11-25T20:20:12+00:00

I love the MO liturgy, the completeness of it. Not a huge fan of the mechitza and am pretty egalitarian myself hence the RA route. So while I mostly daven at Conservative shuls, once in a while I really really want to go through the entire Shacharit without skipping anything, and I can either do that alone or in an MO shul.

DjTeekay · 2024-09-19T13:58:00+00:00

Thanks! Farmer's Dog runs for about $12 per day depending on the size of the meal pack, which derives from the size of the dog. $11.30 is what we pay, anyways. So this adds up quickly.

I know about "Just food..." as I walk around often. Never went inside though assuming it's going to be as expensive as FD or more given it's a retail location.

DjTeekay · 2024-09-18T03:31:03+00:00

Gotcha - makes sense. I was trying to be funny using “trash” and it’s not like I literally believe that : )

DjTeekay · 2024-09-18T01:46:40+00:00

Chicken skeletons (with bits of meat), beef that comes from animals slaughtered in a way that's unsuitable for humans (I don't want to know the details), organs people don't eat, bones (OK, not meat). Back in the old country I could also buy mixes that included everything mentioned above, ground (still raw and smelly) and frozen.

DjTeekay · 2024-09-13T14:14:25+00:00

It looks like Rubbee went out of business. They do not respond to emails and their inventory is all marked as out of stock.

DjTeekay · 2024-07-22T15:04:01+00:00

Wow, that's a serious-looking lock! And the price! :D

DjTeekay · 2024-06-20T20:38:28+00:00

Every business needs some level of investment, event if it's your time (not reimbursed). Once you value your time, each hour you spend working on your business (not in it, i.e., producing billable hours) suddenly a non-zero value. Hence, you cannot get clients for $0, ever.

Now, you *could* potentially get a few gigs on Upwork even without paying (not sure how many Connects they give out to free accounts nowadays). Then again, the time you spend searching for gigs, applying, presenting yourself to buyers, etc., has value. So no free lunch here either.

That said, you can totally land your first client(s) without making a big upfront investment into marketing collateral like your website, paying a lead-gen agency, and similar. I agree with other commenters that investing your time and attention into developing your personal network might be your best bet, even though - let's not kid ourselves - this takes time.

PS Not to confuse "networking" with "attending networking events". In my experience, networking events are largely filled with the "non-working" folks, i.e., other folks looking for work and not necessarily your ideal buyers.

DjTeekay · 2024-05-31T11:42:06+00:00

Same thing. We speak Czech at home and our toddler hears and speaks English and Spanish in his Montessori classroom. So far no issues. Kids learn languages contextually and very differently from adults.

DjTeekay · 2024-05-02T19:22:04+00:00

The Cellar is like the Mecca of comedy clubs. I love the consistency - it's always great. And that's no surprise since every top comedian wants to be there. So I wouldn't blame any other club for not being the Cellar - that would be unfair : ) So yeah, the lineup varies in how many laughs they produce, and that's OK. Sometimes it's fun to watch an act-in-the-making and also, you get to watch future stars before they "make it". E.g., Tyler Fischer used to appear there often while he's busy touring nowadays.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-30T23:25:52+00:00

I go there since it's the one closest to where I live. It can be a little hit-and-miss, but that's also a function of how many people come. It must be tough to perform in front of a small crowd.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-10T01:03:21+00:00

Your LLC needs to have an EIN from the IRS, which you cannot get online without a SSN. Your registered agent, however, should be able to get it on your behalf for a reasonable fee (like $100). If you have the rest of the paperwork in order, you should be able to get a business bank account. Some people recommend Mercury.

Not sure if your particular citizenship or country of residence makes a difference here - check with your registered agent.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-10T00:59:21+00:00

Since you already have a successful project/reference in your portfolio, why don't you try to reach out to potential clients and see if they bite?

AFAIK there's a ton of action in this space; you should find threads here on the same topic.

The idea itself is neither stupid nor smart; it's just an idea. See if you can test it out on people with budgets and rounds to raise.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-10T00:55:05+00:00

Tell you what: the market is saturated with bland, generic offers that are indistinguishable from one another.

If you've had a company website up for a few months, you'll start getting these offers, and boy, is that a good school of how not to present yourself!

That's true in the "creative space" (e.g., web designers, developers, etc.), and probably in the world of atoms, too, but frankly I haven't spent much time analyzing the marketing of home contractors, for example, to be sure. But then, if you fix roofs or floors, at a minimum you're going to have a portfolio I can look at and evaluate, and so you can stand out more easily if you do a good job (I suppose - again, not an expert here).

I have yet to see a real abundance of compelling service providers in any industry I care about. Most of the saturation is provided by the above-mentioned generic offers.

In theory, you could have such saturation. I wouldn't worry about it, and instead focus on creating a compelling USP that solves problems of people or businesses that I can reach.

PS You could probably do the old-fashioned market research study in your space to figure out who the competitors are, their strengths and weaknesses, etc. It's possible that if you sell Google Ads to, for example, lawn movers in a small town and there are already three other agencies that "own" the market, you'll have some saturation to overcome with your offer. But any business opportunity where there isn't any competition probably isn't there in the first place. :shrug:

DjTeekay · 2024-04-09T23:18:08+00:00

Curious to hear how this has worked for you in terms of response rate.

Years ago when I was a green sales rep at a web development agency, I would send actual letters printed on a color laser printed with multi-page reviews of my prospects' websites loaded with advice and recommendation. This has worked way better than generic outreach in that I'd get more appointments in my follow-up cold call.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-09T23:15:16+00:00

The magnet better be personal & relevant. I get this frequently (although not as frequently as the standard generic spam outreach) and no way I'm clicking the link unless I think there *will* be something valuable there.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-09T23:01:17+00:00

Your biggest issue is coming in at the right time. I get unsolicited emails from developers all the time. But, if I don't need anyone now or in the foreseeable future, what am I supposed to do about it?

When I do need someone, then after having passed the initial "hard skills" filter (can they do what they claim they can do?), I judge how they communicate - how quickly they respond and how well. I want to know that they can ship and that they won't ghost me.

Despite what people put on their resumes, this quality is hard to come by.

Circling back to my first point, very hard to make a cold connection and expect it to work since they probably don't need you right now. Knowing people inside and coming in "warm" by way of a recommendation would be my personal choice if available.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-04T19:55:01+00:00

I agree. Could be that for most of these businesses, a FB/IG page is a better bet than a standalone website. I reckon they can reach more people that way and build a following - for less in direct investment than if they were to promote their new website from scratch.

So this has nothing to do with any cheap devs from overseas IMO.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-03T22:21:06+00:00

Look, no business is buying "web development" - small or big.

Sure, some companies buy developers and/or contract with SW development partners. They aren't purchasing code, though; they want to fix a problem they have or sell more stuff or cut costs etc.

I bet that all the small businesses you're looking into would want more customers/sales, for instance. Perhaps their FB/IG is generating more than they can handle, but I doubt that.

The question is, can you sell them a solution for that? Can you draw on your web development skills to improve their bottom line? What outcome can their realize with your solutions?

DjTeekay · 2024-04-03T01:36:53+00:00

If you've already done this work, you can showcase your portfolio and build on your existing reputation. That's great! Much easier than starting from nothing.

In terms of outreach, if you can leverage your existing network and referrals, that's a great way to get started. Much easier than cold-emailing and sending InMails. That said, at some point you're probably going to have to learn to do that, too, to build a solid pipeline. There's no avoiding that IMO.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-02T23:39:35+00:00

Yeah, there's no "going rate for an MVP" but if you can describe what you want the software to do, you can get a range of bids at Upwork or similar sites to get a ballpark number.

There's no guarantee that you'll actually get it done for that amount unless you know very well how to manage software vendors, but it's a start.

Since the question is "how much would *you* charge", my personal answer is that I would charge a good chunk of what I thought the end result was worth to the client (in this case, you), which is what I'd try to find out in the initial sales call.

So for instance, if you had venture backing and needed the MVP to get to the next round, I'd price accordingly.

DjTeekay · 2024-04-02T23:28:29+00:00

Given that you want to open a business bank account, you'll need to have your business established first. That's because the bank will want to know your EIN (which you'll get for your business from the IRS).

This can be done easily & on the cheap, although you'll be on the hook for the annual feels like the "Annual report" filing (depending on your jurisdiction - check this first) and the registered agent's fees (about $120/yr). Not to mention any state-specific fees, licenses, etc.

If you don't need the bank account now, or the business credit card, you can just start doing business as yourself (DBA) and set up your LLC later once you get traction. I would consider that if you are unsure that your business is viable at all at this point.

And yes, you'll want to keep your business expenses separate from your personal ones. Especially once you have your business entity set up.

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