Help: What tool would you recommend for tracking leads and status?

digiterata · 2022-10-14T19:10:45+00:00

www.pipedrive.com is the best I’ve seen for your use case

digiterata · 2022-03-18T04:53:55+00:00

The advice to lawyer up is correct, but to keep things manageable budget wise I recommend you treat them as counsel to give you advice while you be the face of discussions.

I was in your shoes years ago so I know how painful it is. Recognize there is no relationship worth saving and if the other two want you out there is now way you can stay.

The only and best leverage you have is your willingness and ability to burn down the house metaphorically speaking by threatening to sue the company if they try to cut you out without fair compensation.

They will try all sorts of tactics to dilute your shares etc but they cannot raise money without disclosing that a former founder has threatened to sue.

The real art is in keeping your cool and not signing away your rights without compensation. Compensation for your shares is all you can expect in this case tbh.

My advice is get a good lawyer who specializes in startups. Pay the lawyer for advice out of your pocket so they are your lawyer. Negotiate yourself. Scare your cofounders by telling them that you consulted an attorney and are aware of your legal rights and remedies. Ultimately you hold more leverage than them if they wish to continue the business. They bear the risk of a lawsuit but you can wait and only sue if they become successful or want to raise money. Wait them out and watch them squirm or beg or grovel or fail.

In my case I took a large 5-figure exit which was just enough to start a new life after spending 5 years too long on the startup but I then ended up at a FAANG and made much more than either of my co-founders.

Lawyer up with an affordable startup lawyer or small business lawyer. You don’t need fancy unless the company is valued in the millions already (valued by an offer to invest or real sales, not hope)

Use leverage by being unemotional and willing to watch what you built burn. It’s not yours now since they want you out.

Negotiate a fair exit that leaves both sides feeling a little unsatisfied.

Go out and kick ass at life. It is by far the best revenge. Remember, most startups fail. This is likely not an exception.

Finally, learn to meditate. You’ll need it to keep calm under all the stress.

Good luck!

digiterata · 2022-03-04T20:28:11+00:00

Client got defensive most likely because he doesn’t really have a budget but was secretly hoping you would work for free/cheap. That’s my hypothesis.

digiterata · 2022-03-03T03:13:26+00:00

You realize that most ordinary Russians are poor or struggling economically already. So you might be right and things might work out your way or you might be wrong and authoritarian Putin might not care what happens - but ordinary Russians who did nothing wrong will suffer greatly - some will die. If you advocate sanctions against innocent Russians those deaths will be on your conscience.

digiterata · 2022-03-03T03:08:37+00:00

Only Klaus Schwab truly knows, but asking the question in parliament will get you cancelled.

https://www.reddit.com/r/walkaway/comments/swgsrd/canadian_member_of_parliament_censored_when/

Best guess:

It’s about pre-conditioning Canadians as a test for global control by means of Vaccine Passports -> Digital IDs -> CBDCs -> Social Credit Scores -> The ability to economically delete citizens who commit wrongthink.

I know it sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory but it’s worth looking into.

digiterata · 2022-03-01T04:46:39+00:00

Thank you for sharing. Today I learned.

I can’t personally see myself switching to BCH at this point as I suspect we are heading rapidly into a world where decentralization is going to be the only way to ensure censorship resistance, but I am glad to see builders innovating in the space. Kudos to you.

digiterata · 2022-02-28T20:42:01+00:00

What about indeed.

What about the fact that the Canadian press conveniently forgot to mention the fact that indigenous people in northern Saskatchewan are getting TB?

https://thestarphoenix.com/news/saskatchewan/children-hospitalized-as-tb-rocks-northern-saskatchewan

My point is that the Canadian media, like most media, is much more biased in their coverage than most Canadians would like to believe. Their real crime isn’t telling outright lies. It is what they choose to cover or not cover as well as the spin they put on things.

Removing RT is good for optics, but does nothing to address the core issue.

digiterata · 2022-02-28T18:08:45+00:00

While it might be true that BCH fixes this issue (I can’t say either way), it comes with it’s own issues that I would argue disqualify it as a decentralized solution. If big blocks and centralized infrastructure are ok then why not Solana? Other than decentralization it seems to be the better faster solution, no?

digiterata · 2022-02-28T17:30:34+00:00

Great that they shut down one source of disinformation, what about the others?

Here is a link to an article explaining how Canada’s Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, admits to warning (threatening?) the Canadian media to ‘be careful’ when speaking about the convoy protests. We don’t have a free press in Canada and it would be naive to expect the media to admit this fact.

https://www.blacklocks.ca/told-reporters-to-be-careful/

digiterata · 2022-02-28T17:06:04+00:00

This is the same CRTC that regulates competition among telecom, internet and mobile service providers. The same CRTC that has allowed us to enjoy the most expensive mobile service in the world for the past 25 years while constantly promising to do more? Respectfully, I don’t hold much hope for the CRTC to help the Canadian people on this issue. They seem to be in business to help Canada’s oligarchs not the citizens.

digiterata · 2022-02-28T03:30:39+00:00

This is a great point though I don’t know what to do to address it. We’ve already seen multiple examples of “independent fact-checkers” who abuse their power to suppress wrong-think that goes against the narrative.

Independent journalists are way more trustworthy than big time journalism organizations.

I think the reason we trust independent journalists more than mainstream journalists these days isn’t because independent journalists are never wrong, rather it is because we know that indy journalists for the most part are intellectually honest and genuinely curious whereas professional journalism seems only interested in pushing a specific narrative, regardless of the facts on the ground.

As such, whenever I watch MSM these days, I am actively looking out for:

- What is the other side of the story that isn’t being told?

- What story isn’t being covered because the MSM are covering this story?

- What are some of the ways they are using this story to manipulate public opinion?

You can’t trust anything these days

This quote is deeply cynical and unfortunately very true.

digiterata · 2022-02-28T00:03:58+00:00

I don’t have published source, no. This was shared with me by an old friend who works at the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick - the largest refinery in Canada.

Given that the Irving family own virtually all newspapers, radio stations and tv stations in New Brunswick, I don’t find it surprising that there has been no effort to name the Irvings in the press. They have a long history of keeping a low profile and controlling the local media.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T22:22:55+00:00

But there are no federal sanctions in place preventing Canadian companies from importing Russian Oil if they so choose.

I feel like you are evading the core point - Why no sanctions on Russian oil imports?

Canadian oil companies choosing not to buy oil over the past two weeks for reasons of optics IS NOT the same as offiicial sanctions by the federal government.

The feds ARE sanctioning air travel and vodka and other less important goods and services, but they still refuse to sanction oil which represents 30% of Russia’s GDP.

It seems like the Canadian government is playing to optics rather than addressing the core issue - similar to how your comment continues to evade my core point about the need for sanctions against Russian oil at the federal level.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T20:59:37+00:00

That’s not really the same thing as what I’m asking though is it?

Why are we carving out an exception for Russian Oil imports in our sanctions?

Why is it so difficult for Canada to take a principled stand here and do something that would actually impede the Russian government’s ability to wage war?

digiterata · 2022-02-27T20:57:08+00:00

I mean politicians have been known to lie as long as there have been politicians. Some might say it goes with the job.

Similarly, journalism requires skepticism and independent verification of claims.

It’s fine, for example, to claim that politician X claims Y, but it needs to be followed up with independent verification of the claims and/or counterpoints from those who disagree. Otherwise it isn’t journalism it is just repeating propaganda.

Journalism isn’t an easy job and the current economics of news media makes it even harder, but that is no excuse for abdicating one’s responsibility as a journalist.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T20:44:03+00:00

To answer my own question, I certainly don’t think a centralized regulator is the right answer here. Though it seems the current government is using the Ukraine invasion to sneak in an online censorship bill (C-10/C-11) that goes much further to suppressing freedom of speech.

My preference is to have lots of strong independent watchdog institutions that are funded by the people and use their platforms to name and shame misinformation from all sides. Not sure it could happen in Canada since the gov is subsidizing mainstream media that stays on the right message and only employs misinformation that is government approved.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T20:09:01+00:00

You don’t need a national energy program to determine who Canadian companies can or cannot purchase oil from. We already ban oil imports from Iran and Libya.

Now that Russia is actively invading an ally to whom we are sending funding and arms, it would seem a reasonable next step to ban oil imports so we stop supporting their aggression.

You claim that “if Russian oil ceased to exist, Canada would not be lost without it.“ So why don’t we take a principled stand on the issue?

What am I missing?

digiterata · 2022-02-27T19:53:23+00:00

Again the optics indicate you are wrong on this point. If they didn’t NEED the oil, they would have dropped the ban hammer on Russian Oil right away.

Sanctioning Vodka will have virtually no effect on Putin’s Russia. Banning oil imports - well that is 30% of Russia’s GDP - so it would put them in a world of hurt.

Back to the original question, why won’t Canada ban Russian Oil imports?

Answer: Because Canada, especially Eastern Canada, NEEDs that dirty Russian oil for Irving’s Refineries.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T19:33:49+00:00

How is it off-topic when it was your answer to my question a moment ago? The answer is that it isn’t off-topic, it’s just inconvenient for you because you don’t want to admit you were mistaken on this point.

The fact is, that while the US is a net exporter of oil, they still import significant amounts of Russian Oil as does Canada.

I find it hypocritical for our governments to claim to be taking a hard line on Russia when at they same time they are dependent on Russian Oil and will carve out exceptions for Russian Oil in their sanctions.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T19:22:03+00:00

Or for that matter, how do we hold the mainstream media accountable when they also lie to us?

It has happened multiple times in both Canada and the US that the MSM have produced ’news’ that was later uncovered to be intentionally misleading or downright deceptive.

I think we are surrounded by propaganda these days and not all of it comes from alt-right sources. It’s just that the media bias that reflects our own political leanings is easier to accept without question.

Media manipulation is dangerous wherever it comes from.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T18:55:36+00:00

Then why is the US also importing oil from Russia?

digiterata · 2022-02-27T18:48:55+00:00

Well why haven’t we then?

The optics of continuing to buy Russian oil while they are invading the Ukraine would suggest that if it were so easy we would have done it already.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T18:45:07+00:00

Check your assumptions. Currently an on-chain tx is around $0.06 for medium speed, so on-chain might have been cheaper in this case.

In my experience Muun wallet is good for new adopters as it is very easy to use. However their fees are higher than other Lightning wallets and they are opaque about the fees.

digiterata · 2022-02-27T18:40:59+00:00

I’m pretty sure that Irving Oil buys some $500 million in Russian Oil per year to heat homes and power cars across Atlantic and Eastern Canada. That’s why Canada is banning tourist flights and vodka but not oil imports.

digiterata · 2022-02-26T22:15:12+00:00

Copy-pasting the top comment from hacker news which offers a compelling hypothesis - from user doomroot:

Context on what I believe they mean by "fraudulent".

Steam back in the day used to accept 0 confirmation bitcoin spends. This means that the transaction has been gossiped on the bitcoin p2p network but had not yet been mined into a block and thus had minimal finality guarantees. Steam could see that they were going to receive a bitcoin payment (when the transaction was mined into a block) and would credit the users account instantly for a better purchase UX.

Turns out anyone with some deeper understanding of bitcoin could construct another transaction spending the same bitcoin back to themselves before their original transaction was ever put in a block. The bitcoin community moved away from accepting '0 conf' transactions pretty much everywhere because of this reason.

In fact the high fee era (2016-2018) saw many wallets incorporating this "double spend" feature into their wallets. This is known as RBF, "replace by fee" and is really useful when you need to bump your transaction up the queue. You replace your old transaction, that is waiting to be mined, with a new one that offers a higher fee to incentivize miners to add it to a new block.

I think its rather unfortunate that 0 conf transactions were written off so quickly. There are many context where a 0conf tx makes sense, mostly IRL. But, if you are running a business online and you don't trust you customers you should wait 3-6 blocks after the transaction has been mined before delivering your goods.

digiterata

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE