[chrissnell]

You’re absolutely right and to be clear, my dad also pours over data roll-ups, charts, etc., but he’s never stopped looking at receipts. It’s a habit he’s had since the 70s. Back in the day, he used these electro-mechanical cash registers that had very loud typewriter-like receipt printers. At the end of the day, the manager would run the journal and my dad—-in his office across the store—tell you what kind of a sales day it was simply by listening to the sound of the register doing the end-of-day sequence.

[cushychicken]

There's a persistent meme on HN that it's straightforward to make a business that "runs on autopilot", with no human intervention. I'll admit that such a business is possible, but I'm deeply skeptical of the durability of such a business.

I'd much rather bet on a business owner like your dad, who's deeply involved. Sounds like your dad's receipt reading was a great habit to have, and paid dividends far outside of just "making sure things were running OK on a daily basis".

[chrissnell]

LOL, it's true. The idea of the quick exit is also part of the HN culture and I think that would be very foreign to people like my dad. People who build small but profitable, businesses and run them for the long-term are underappreciated in the tech world. I don't know about you but if I was building a SaaS, I'd be looking for the tech equivalent of In-n-Out Burger: something you build and spend most of your time making sure that it does the same thing consistently for years on end, and just enjoy the profits and dependability.

[cushychicken]

I'm right there with you. I've been building and running a job board for the last few months, and I'm hoping it becomes my own little SW equivalent of an In-N-Out. It's profitable, and slowly growing, so it's moving in the right direction.

Someday it'll be my own personal Double Double Animal Style.