First thought was a meth lab or grow house.

Title sounds like the start of a joke...

As someone who as exhibited at TechEd before, it's a poorly run event contracted out to the lowest bidder... just like he said.

It's the Microsoft way, their events are a reflection of how Microsoft truly is.

I worked for a company that had a contract with Microsoft and I must say our travel and accommodation was handled well and they didn't cheap out. One piece of anecdotal evidence to throw out there.

In my experience, it all depends on who's picking up the tab. I assume you were hired as a consultant for a project. In that case, their client was paying, so there wasn't a reason to be cheap.

(And, of course, Microsoft is a huge organization; even if some policies are standardized, the way they are implemented can still vary wildly.)

Not gaming the system, I'm here to answer any questions regarding the business and the switch we've made.

I don't understand why you've linked to your companys' landing page, which doesn't have any association to your title.

It's showing HN the new site, business, "Show HN".

Yes, but we have no idea how the old site was. A blog post explaining everything would have been more appropriate.

More detailed breakdown in a previous comment of mine in this thread.

@Stealx Your previous comment is dead for some reason. Re-posting it below:

"To date we've been selling IT training courses on DVD's for approximately $400 a piece. We create the curriculum, create the content, market it ourselves, everything. We've sold almost $35 million dollars of our own IT training one course at a time to about 50,000 customers in 147 countries. Being in business for a number of years we've built up expenses to over $500k monthly and we're risking it all to start from 0 subscribers with the subscription model. Completely bootstrapped, no outside money."

Are you offering previous customers who purchased at least one IT training course a subscription discount? It seems that would guarantee an immediate early seed base for subscriptions, even if they are at a discount.

Previous customers have immediate access to the new site and can access any courses they've previously purchased. We're also offering significant discounts to those who've purchased recently with free subscriptions, etc.

We offer annual pricing at $468/year, an even better deal. Let me know what you think after you've had a chance to use us.

We've sold almost $35M in IT Training on DVD's since we started. We just switched to a subscription, all you can eat model and start with 0 subscribers. A little scared!

Jason Fried would be proud.

What bands/musicians do you feel pivoted?

It should be a site all about 21st birthday stories. Everybody has a story about their 21st birthday. How drunk they got, where they went... user generated content ftw. Concentrate on content first, monetize after. If done correctly the site has potential for a decent revenue stream. Facebook integration/sharing is key.