Author Archives: Carter
A Surprising parallel between Hacker News and the Princeton Eating Clubs
I am a little unhealthily obsessed with Hacker News (HN). It occupies ~80% of my non-Art.sy, non-girlfriend time. It is my leisure reading portal. I feel an emotional connection with HN. Like a parent or significant other, it knows exactly … Continue reading
What value do we create here?
One summer I thought I had the ultimate dream job. During the day I created software that accessed some of the world’s largest financial databases and provided traders with real-time data and analysis for trade ideas. At night I worked … Continue reading
Startup Lessons from Marine Officer Training School
My roommate from college called me earlier today to catch up. He graduated from the prestigious Woodrow Wilson school at Princeton with straight A’s. Yet for someone of his accomplishments he took a path far less traveled and enrolled in the … Continue reading
Social Media Disruption in the Commerce Space
Last week there was a great NextNY event on Disruptive Commerce Models or E-Commerce 2.0. Jordan Cooper later wrote a post claiming that the line between emerging commerce models and ad models is blurring. I couldn’t agree more, and I … Continue reading
Commando Usability Testing
Update: Thanks to some great commenters, I have been told that most people call this Guerilla testing. I will change the title of the post if anyone can find a guerilla-related image that is more badass than the one of … Continue reading
Lean Usability Testing: Current Best Practices and Resources
After my first post‘s philosophical bent, here’s something specifically targeted at startups. In preparation for a team meeting to discuss our usability testing strategy, I assembled everything I could find on the most current best practices for lean usability testing. … Continue reading
A Mathematically Proven Way to Achieve Happiness
I’ve always loved mathematics. It is such a beautiful tool for solving difficult problems. Eventually I realized that I could apply mathematics to the problem of achieving happiness. The result has changed my life and started me on an incredible … Continue reading