Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by robfitz 4485 days ago
Any of the host companies willing to share details of the projects that were worked on? Quite curious!

Edit: Also wondering about the general experience of getting good work done with someone new to the team/project in just a couple days.

3 comments

Karl from Conversion Rate Experts here.

We had Jacques, "The Jim Rogers of Tech," (http://www.amazon.com/Adventure-Capitalist-Ultimate-Road-Tri...) for a highly enjoyable two days.

We found him to be intense (on the first day we talked constantly till 9:00 p.m.), wise (he has worked on loads of fascinating projects), trustworthy (he works with many companies at a very high level) and fascinated about everything (he spent five minutes trying to work out how our staircase was made).

We showed Jacques a list of all our challenges and problems, and then for two days we worked through it, asking him for his ideas, resources he knows, etc.. We came away with several pages of useful notes. Since then, he has contacted us several times with further insights he has had.

If you ever get a chance to work with him, I'd highly recommend it.

I wrote up my side of Jacques / The Flying Dutchmans visit here, http://ryanoneill.com/jacques-mattheij/

He was brilliant and very engaging.

if you've ever met Jacques you'll know that he's one of those people who can jump into just about anything and be productive straight away
Any sense of what makes him that way? Is it something you've seen in other people as well? Is it a skill thing or a communication thing?
I think it's a combination of having a broad range of skills, experience and not being at all afraid to call bullshit bullshit. He's polite but focusses on getting stuff done and not the minutiae. If you have the opportunity to work with him, take it!
I certainly agree! Some of his publicised projects, including this one, have been major motivators for me.