February 2013
3 posts
What the Words "I'm Out" on Shark Tank Have Taught...
Shark Tank is a popular ABC TV program where an entrepreneur pitches a group of millionaire/billionaire investors seeking investment for a new product or service. Aside from being extremely entertaining the show teaches a lot about building a solid business. One of the lessons taught is found in the reoccurring reasons why a Shark says, “I’m Out.” after listening to a pitch;...
Time Spent Shopping Is In Perpetual Decline
According to data from the Time Use Survey put on by the Bureau of Labor Statistics; time spent shopping has been in steady decline since 2003, the first year of the survey was introduced.
In 2003, Americans spent on an average of 48.6 minutes/day shopping; compared to 43.2 minutes/day in 2011 (11% decrease). However, in that same time frame theres only been a 7% decrease in the number of...
Using Resultly to Fulfill Every Guilty Pleasure...
The Mission:
Indulge in reading the occasional guilty pleasure book series; from Twilight to Fifty Shades of Grey. And call me old fashioned but I like books more than ebooks, so I’ll be needing to get real books. Theres just something about actually holding that paper and physically turning that page that intensifies the experience.
Obstacles:
While I’m willing to indulge a...
January 2013
8 posts
Ways to Use Resultly: Media (Video and Music)
Currently, a “Media” interest on Resultly is for following any music or video that is posted on sites like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, iTunes and more. A media interest on Resultly can be a great tool to stay up to date with new episodes of your favorite shows or tracks from your favorite musical groups without having to continually check yourself.
Lets walk through a couple of examples:
...
Ways to Use Resultly: Advanced Tricks for Product...
A product interest is an interest in anything tangible that is bought and sold. Could be a smart phone, laptop, coffee table, or even a wedding dress. Resultly helps you get notified the minute one is listed for sale that matches the price, make, model, color or size of what you were thinking for. And just like using google search or any other website on the internet for discovery, there are...
Ways to Use Resultly: Socially
Currently, a “Social” interest on Resultly is any information that is posted by friends on facebook or twitter users that you follow. A social interest on Resultly can be a great tool to stay up to date with important social news without having to continually check yourself and reading and sorting through all the unimportant posts about weather or politics and focusing on the good...
Using Resultly to Track Down a Crazy Daily Deal
The Mission:
Its a new year and I have a huge bucket list of stuff that I want to do in 2013. Sky diving, scuba diving, cliff diving, any type of diving really. I’m the type of guy that loves to be able to say that, “I’ve been there, done that.” I really want to get out there and be as outgoing as possible and meet new people.
Obstacles:
Unfortunately, while my bucket...
Using Resultly to Track Down My Dream Job
The Mission:
I’m the stereotypical early 20 year old that couldn’t find a good job after graduating college. I ended up taking a job that is a total labyrinth of lameness. I need to find a better job. One that is more related to finance; which is what I went to school for and am interested in and what I excel at.
Obstacles:
My school wasn’t very good at providing good...
Using Resultly to Track Down an Amazing Apartment
The Mission:
I hate the neighborhood I currently live in. I moved to Chicago a year ago for a job and was unfamiliar with the city and ended up picking a bad spot to live. Now that I know the area better I want to find a new apartment in a way cooler neighborhood called Lakeview at the end of my current lease.
Obstacles:
Because Lakeview is one of the coolest neighborhoods in Chicago,...
Using Resultly to Track Down News Articles so That...
The Mission:
I just started working at a new office. I’ve been trying to socialize and make friends but people don’t seem to talk about normal stuff like sports or movies here, they talk about the fiscal cliff; which I know nothing about. I need to educate myself on the topic and keep in the know of new developments so that I can contribute to conversations around the office.
...
Using Resultly to Track Down Cheap Airfare to the...
The Mission:
Find two cheap roundtrip flights to Salt Lake City to go to Sundance Film Festival for me and my wife as an anniversary gift. Me and my wife are the biggest fans of Apple and Steve Jobs, and so seeing the movie Jobs premier at the festival would be an amazing experience.
Obstacles:
I have a strict budget, need to leave money for the hotel, rental car and food; so I can’t...
December 2012
1 post
Using Resultly to Track Down a Wii U this...
The mission:
Get my kid a Nintendo Wii U for Christmas without breaking the bank.
Obstacles:
The Wii U is one of the hottest toys this Christmas. Most retailers are sold out. Supplies are low and what inventory is out there is sometimes being sold at a premium on eBay and Craigslist.
Consequences of failing:
My kid will cry. Probably end up hating me. Possibly join a gang later in life. And...
November 2012
5 posts
To the Readers of Reader Apps, Read On.
The greatest thing the creation of the internet accomplished was the spread of information. News articles and blog posts could roam free and thats a powerful thing. In the beginning however, all the new information was read on desktop computers; and thus, all the articles, posts and entries were formatted for such. But now, a growing number of people are reading these same articles on smart...
3, 2, 1, Lift Off
The Doors are Open!
Today we officially went from private beta to public beta. No longer will a person need an invite to join the site. It is completely open and launched now.
It’s always exciting, but sometimes nerve racking, to open up the doors for the world to use your product. It’s probably worse if you design roller coasters and a mistake in the construction could result in the...
Quit Playing Games with My Start...(up) -...
No doubt the work of building an internet product can be very straining. It’s possible to spend literally hours upon hours fixing a bug that turns out to be a little file out of place or a slightly incorrect line of code (among the 1000s of lines). When the work gets frustrating, its always important to take the brief break here and there; to unwind, relax and ease the tension.
When that...
In the Final Stretch, Push It!
There is a great workout DVD program called P90X (which is the workout of choice among us at Resulty). It’s intense and people that stick to the routine get amazing results. One of the many workouts included in the program is Yoga (actually one of the more intense of all the workouts in the program). During one of the final muscle stretches of the Yoga workout, the instructor Tony Horton...
Use Only As Directed
Early on when people would ask, “What does Resultly do?”
I’d usually say something like, “It’s a website and mobile app for streaming results. It allows you to follow any interest across the entire internet in real time.”
The person tended to respond back, “Cool. What do people use it for?”
I’d share a simple use case at that point,...
October 2012
2 posts
Where Do Chicago River North Startups Eat?
One of the perks of having an office located in the River North area of Chicago is the food and restaurants nearby. When we first moved in, one of our goals was to eat lunch at a different place every time we ate out. Heres a list of the best places that we and other startups in the building have come across and enjoy the most. And also a few of the not so good places. For the purposes of making...
Caring Enough About the Product to Not Cut Corners
Theres a great story about Steve Jobs in the early days of Apple; where Steve went above and beyond (almost anal) to ensure that the esthetic of the internal mother board of the Apple II looked a certain way. It had to look very organized and generally beautiful (at least to computer nerds). This would have been a very easy corner to cut, with tons of reason and logic to do so. The majority of...
September 2012
3 posts
Mural Mural On The Wall
When we moved into our new offices in July, the color scheme from the previous occupiers of the space was Red and Gray. We repainted everything to Blue and Orange to match our brands scheme and it looks great. But we wanted to go a little beyond that. So we looked into a few options to give the office some extra flavor. What we decided on, was a mural for the conference room.
A little bit ago,...
The World Has Moved On
The world has moved on
Stephen King, The Dark Tower Series
Have you ever tried to purchase something online just to learn from your friend that he bought exactly the same thing cheaper? You know how frustrating it may be. How many times did you start your day by visiting...
10 tags
The Division of Labour
“The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgement with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.” -Adam Smith
In the book Wealth of Nations written by Adam Smith in 1776 an example for the Division of Labour principle is given. Smith talks about a business...
August 2012
1 post
Resultly Finance
The most interesting phenomena in the Universe always occur when there is a difference of certain characteristics among interacting objects. The gradients of temperatures cause wild storms in the atmospheres of distant gas giants. The difference in characters of two people involved in a romantic bond cause the most vivid dynamic of human relationships. The slightest fluctuations in stock and...
July 2012
2 posts
5 tags
Scouting and Hiring Talent For a Startup
This week we brought on board another full time iOS developer. He has his masters in computer science. He has also developed a few iPhone apps of his own. One of them has gotten over two hundred thousand downloads and has reached the top of the iTunes App Store charts in several countries. The question a lot of people have asked: “How was this hidden gem found?”
At a startup, building...
The New Chapter In Resultly History
“The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in our choices of the data management system”
William Shakespeare
We know that the key to our success is in thoroughly written lines of code rather than in a specific orientation of celestial bodies....
June 2012
1 post
Resultly @ Tech Cocktail Startup Showcase & Mixer
Shortly after the summer solstice Resultly was presented with another great opportunity to announce to the world we are about to conquer it. We had an amazing time mingling with start-ups alike at Tech Cocktail Startup Showcase & Mixer sponsored by Motorola Mobility. Tech Cocktail is a media company that offers a platform for tech-minded entrepreneurs and start-ups to facilitate an exchange...
May 2012
1 post
Resultly at Technori and Swarm Computing
The past few weeks were really hot at Resultly headquarters. So hot, in fact, that we did not notice the sudden onset of the delayed mid-western summer with its lush greenness and weekend beachgoers. Pulling all-nighters, going through tens of thousands of lines of code, examining static declarations and debugging parallel loops became a substantial part our lives for the past few weeks. Viva...
April 2012
2 posts
The Dynamic World of Pricing
The theory of economics teaches that in a free market, a price is the result of interaction between supply and demand. Supply and demand represent a theoretical model for price formation. In reality, however, the situation is less simplistic. A plethora of other important market factors affect prices. They include subjective values, marginal utilities, taxes, etc. Modern achievements in the field...
Resultly Team
As for many startups, there was a unique idea first that eventually grew into something tangible. One of many characteristics that make Resultly stand out among its countless peers is the team behind it. We keep growing and new members keep adding to our ranks.
Alex H (Mobile Architect) - Alex is originally from Baku, Azerbaijan, and then moved to United States in 1991. Upon graduation from...
March 2012
6 posts
The Social Component and Challenges of Social Data...
With the introduction of Web 2.0, technology the world entered a new era of Information. Web 2.0 did what the television and radio could not accomplish for more than 100 years since the first anthropogenic radio signal was transmitted. A drastic shift in the computing paradigm is steadily submerging the world into the Cloud. The “Sharing made easy” concept is constantly testing the boundaries of...
Our Place in the Modern World of Information
Among oil, precious metals, land, freedom, and many other commodities, information is gaining a more dominant role in human society as it is steadily moving into the 21st century. Resultly is an information technology company, and it is important to us to understand our place and role in the evolution of information from the historical perspective.
As our civilization rose from its cradle, we,...
Each enterprise tries to stay afloat by reducing operating costs and increasing profits, Resultly is no different. As an Internet based company, it is crucial to us to remain in operation all around the clock. One of possible solutions to increase availability of our services is to establish a high level of redundancy. Let us take a look at a simple computation that makes the power of redundancy...
Protecting Resultly's Ideas
A legal system that protects Intellectual Property is a great achievement of the modern civilization. Having such a legal framework in place entices innovation, investment into research and development, which in turn, stimulates the economy.
After a long history of legal battles and several cornerstone court rulings from the early 90s, United States Patent and Trademark Office eventually yielded...
Resultly and Trello
Needless to say, Resultly is a product of a team effort and having an easy yet capable project management software handy is a must. Among several contenders, (InterstateApp, TeamPulse by Telerik, and others) Trello definitely stood out for us. Trello is a free project management tool created and supported by Fog Creek. There are several important characteristics that allowed Trello to make the...
Monitoring and Analytics at Resultly
At Resulty, we realized early of the importance of monitoring our business’s vital signs. We employ multiple third party analytical and monitoring tools to better understand usage, vitality and availability of our services. While being within the initial phase of Resultly’s life cycle, it is critical for us to know as much as possible about our users and their experiences.
Resultly is...
February 2012
2 posts
Scaleability Day 1 - NoSQL - Learning From Others
With rapidly growing performance and availability requirements, contemporary web enterprises are facing difficulties accommodating a huge user base with all entailing consequences. One possible solution to address issues related to RDBMS is to reject the relational data model in favor of the emerging non-relational paradigm generally referred by the industry as the NoSQL model. NoSQL is the...
How Do They Do It?
Last time, we revealed how Resultly was conceived and born. Today, we are going to take a sneak peek behind the scene of our robot that breathe a new meaning into the term “Search”. Resultly is an automated machine, and it takes an entire team of software engineers to make sure its gears are well oiled and running at full steam.
Most of the hardware used in Resultly is Apple...
September 2011
2 posts
Resultly Identity Creation - Designers Perspective
I was asked by the good people at Result.ly to design a character and logo. The direction I was given was useful and direct: create a robot character and utilize the character in the logo. When tasked with designing a new logo, there is always a moment of fear: I am responsible for the look of this company.
It’s important to grasp the importance of what you are doing because this will push...
What's in a name?
One of the hardest things any founding team often deals with is picking a name for their creation. We struggled with this initially, as well as, raced to come up with ideas for an appropriate name that wasn’t already taken.
It seemed as if every great idea for a name was one we already had seen. Thoughts like: “Why didn’t we come up with ‘Google’ or...
