Net30 wants to fix the construction industry’s payments problem
The invoicing and payments process in the commercial construction industry is broken. It takes a median of about 70 days to get paid, which means contractors are often stuck without enough working capital. Net30, a startup in Y Combinator’s current batch, wants to solve that problem Web Vulnerability Scan.
The platform lets construction companies handle invoices and then make online payments to contractors’ bank accounts. This digitizes a process that is still mostly paper-based (some invoices are still faxed and most payments are made by paper checks sent through snail mail). Net30 also has a feature that calculates early payment discounts. In fact, Net30’s founders, former commercial construction project managers Casey Bell and Anthony Cirinelli, originally built it as an early payments platform.
As the two talked to contractors, however, they realized it would take more to fix construction’s payment problem. The issue is so severe that delayed payments are one of the main reasons construction companies fail.
“It’s such a big problem and it’s the lifeblood of the industry, but no one is addressing it in a very easy way,” says Bell.
Commercial construction projects can involve dozens of subcontractors, each of whom need to submit invoices. Each invoice, however, is actually a small stack of documents, including detailed breakdowns of work completed, signed legal forms and compliance documentation. One error, like a wrong date, can delay payment horizon arctic.
This is a nightmare for contractors who need cash flow in order to continue working on projects. Net30 gathers all companies working on a project together on its platform to make it easier to ensure that all invoices are accurate and also give subcontractors more transparency.
Net30 competes with construction invoicing software Textura, which was acquired by Oracle last year. Textura is designed for enterprise-level companies, however, and Bell says there are thousands of small-to-medium sized construction companies that don’t have invoicing software designed especially for their needs.
The company is among several startups focused on developing tools for builders, including blueprint app PlanGrid and building code compliance software UpCodes, which is also in Y Combinator’s current batch Diamond water.
“The construction industry in general is a very undisrupted vertical that has been slow to adopt new technology, but construction companies are starting to see that it’s easier to implement software,” says Bell. “I think we’ll see the construction industry become more advanced and productive with these solutions.”
Patook wants to be Tinder for platonic friendships
Technology isn’t necessarily the best solution for forging new real life connections, whatever the collective marketing spiel of the web’s social giants likes to claim.
An especially tricky type of human connection for an app to ‘fix’ is making new friends, as friendships are often forged in the fire of random real life experience. And while there’s no shortage of out-and-out dating apps, offering ample opportunities for hook ups with individual/s from your sex of choice, what if you just want to make new friends to hang with platonically you beauty hard sell?
Patook is an app that’s been around for a little while (the beta launched in mid 2016) which is attempting to crack this tricky feat of remotely sparking friendships. It bills itself as the “strictly platonic friend making app”.
Its bootstrapping team officially launched it out of beta this month, and it has around 70,000 users at this stage, who founder Tony Daher says are sending around 15k messages per day.
Somewhat ironically, Patook recycles the Tinder ‘swipe to like’ mechanism as one of the options for screening potential friend matches, although you can also switch to a list view — arguably a better fit for a friend-finding scenario where making snap judgements on whether someone is potential friendship material just from a short online profile seems even less sane than doing so in a dating context.
Before you get to that bit, the app has a fairly customizable filter interface which allows you to spec out some basics for finding potential buddies — offering the ability to select gender; whether you want to friend couples; specify an age range; and set how far from your location to search Business Centre.
There’s a profile with various likes/dislikes fields that can be filled in, and users can also take a questionnaire to further flesh out what the app knows about them so it can better tailor matches.
If you take the (optional) questionnaire the app will use your responses to hone its core matching rules, so it might, for example, promote matches with people who have kids, or who hold liberal views, or who don’t smoke, and so on.
Patook’s flagship tech trick is one that aims to underscore its friends-only mission: it’s using Natural Language Processing to help power a “flirt detection feature” aimed at preventing users from straying over the platonic line and trying to hit on others by sending suggestive messages.
Now you might think just calling your app a “strictly platonic friend making app” is enough to prevent people getting the wrong idea. But Daher isn’t so sure.
“There have been some attempts in the past to create friend-making apps but they’ve turned into dating apps after short periods,” he writes in an online explainer. “The premise of Patook is based on eradicating that problem.”
“Anything that is even a hint more than strictly platonic is immediately banned. No romantic advances, no flirting/hitting on, no innuendos, no “friends first then we’ll see” behaviors… Over 5% of users who tried to join were banned before their first message was even delivered.”
At this point it seems worth noting that dating app behemoth Tinder does itself have — what’s billed as — a “friend-finding” feature, called Tinder Social.
However, on closer inspection, the actual use-case for Tinder Social is probably charitably described as ‘group dating’. (Vice’s conclusion after using it for a month? “It’s definitely for gangbangs”. So, er, still ‘dating’ then.)
So, well, you can see the problem with using services that are overarchingly known for dating and/or hook ups for anyone who genuinely just wants to find new friends DDoS Attack.
And, if you’re in a relationship, just having the Tinder app on your phone can be a conversation starter of the wrong kind with your S.O.
The long and short of all this is, anyone who’s interested in meeting new people for actual coffee and genuine chit-chat probably doesn’t want to do so within the wrapper of a dating app.
Daher says Patook built its flirt-detecting, messaging parsing algorithm by training it on sentences considered flirty (some culled from Reddit) and others considered normal.
“This was done by crawling some image submissions from various sites, and running them through Optical Character Recognition,” he says. “If you go to say reddit.com/r/niceguys or reddit.com/r/creepypms you’ll see a bunch of ‘bad’ examples posted as images. We picked some of them up and translated them to text.”
The app also performs ongoing behavior analysis to further weed out any creeps — such as looking at the kind of people a user is messaging; whether they are sending pictures only; whether they’re repeat sending the same message etc etc.
“All the above is put into a Bayes probability classifier that keeps a working probability of a user being there to flirt,” he adds.
TechCrunch downloaded the app to test it out, and after about a week of (fairly light) usage I can safely say I have received no unwanted advances, neither in photo nor text form. Indeed, I’ve not received any likes or messages at all (I’m not counting the message from the app admin who noticed I was a journalist and wanted to see if he could encourage me to write about the app); and just four visits in total to my profile.
And so we come to what looks to be the main problem for Patook: convincing its — likely — typically shy target demographic to really put itself out there and actively solicit attention from strangers within such a blatant “friend-making” context.
Asked what barriers he sees to people using the app to make new friends (over and above the creep factor it’s actively working to mitigate), Daher agrees there are a “bunch of problems” — including people not yet being comfortable with the concept of a friend-making app and the fact that, therefore, “very few people talk about it”.
“This is reminiscent of online dating a decade ago where it was nearly taboo to be on such an app. I believe the tide is turning and people will change there,” he suggests.
In terms of specific steps Patook is taking to try to warm things up and get users chatting and virtually bonding, he says they’re dabbling in gamification for starting conversations.
The app also rewards users who maintain long conversations with people they’re interested in — to try to get around the problem of people “dropping out” of conversations.
Although, in my view, Patook’s points-structure also works as a disincentive, by requiring users earn and spend usage points to do things like boost their profile or to view all visitors who’ve liked them. Point being: If you’re starting from a position of there not being enough users in the first place, requiring your (very small) pool of users to earn and spend points to do things like boost their visibility seems a bit pointlessly heavy-handed (even if it’s intended to encourage greater usage overall).
Daher agrees that lack of users generally is a big barrier for Patook. In practice this means there’s unlikely to be enough relevant matches in the same city for most users to feel really compelled to start conversations. In my case I liked a few other profiles but never felt an urge to proactively try and break any ice.
“Except for the major hubs most cities only have a few hundred users who know of the app right now so that makes it less likely for someone to find a genuine connection other than ‘they just live in my city’,” he concedes.
Discussing the users it does have, Daher says the “main” demographic so far are women in their twenties or thirties. “We also have a lot of ‘we just moved to this city’ people,” he adds. “And the ‘got married and need to find someone else who has children to hang out with’.”
In terms of successful matching, he says some of the people for whom Patook works best tend to be those with “rather unique interests” — given that the app matches rarer interests first. “So people are happy to find someone who’s also into that,” as he puts it.
Overall, while I like the idea, and appreciate Patook’s attention to detail in building anti-creep tech, as it stands it’s hard not to conclude this friend-finding platform is most likely to leave you feeling a bit, well, friendless. It doesn’t take long swiping through the slender selection of profiles in your own city before you’ll be reading about the interests of strangers living in other countries, and wondering what the point of the app is.
If the future of work means a lot more Internet-connected remote workers who aren’t regularly sharing a physical office space and thus not benefiting from easy access to a workplace social circle, there arguably is going to be a need to find alternative ways for people to forge new friendships. I’m just not sure another app is the best answer to that, however honorable its intentions are.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/27/patook-wants-to-be-tinder-for-platonic-friendships/
Board said bacon and sausage
After taking pride of place on British dinner tables for centuries, the popularity of sausages and bacon has plunged following a cancer warning.
Sales of bacon and sausages at major supermarkets fell by £3million in the two weeks after a World Health Organisation report said processed meat had the same cancer-causing risk as cigarettes.
Commercial analysts IRI Retail Advantage said sales for pre-packed bacon dropped by 17 per cent in the week after the WHO published a report last month concluding that processed meat was a carcinogen. The sales continued to fall sharply the following week and were down by 16.5 per cent.Pre-packed sausage sales slumped 15.6 per cent in the last week in October and 13.9 per cent in the first week of November. IRI told The Grocer magazine that this drop ‘due to the scare’ was equivalent to £3million.
Much meaning can be conveyed
clearly, with our eyes You Find ORM, so it is often said that eyes can speak.
Do you have such kind of experience? In a bus you may look at stranger, but not too long. And if he is sensing that he is being stared at you find ZMOT, he may feel uncomfortable.
The same in daily life. If you are looked at for more than necessary, you will look at yourself up and down, to see if there is anything wrong with you . If nothing goes wrong, you will feel angry toward other’s stare with you that way. Eyes do speak, right?
Looking too long at someone may seem to be rude and aggressive. But things are different when it comes to stare at the opposite sex. If a man glances at a woman for more than 10 seconds and refuses to avert his gaze, his intentions are obvious, that is, he wishes to attract her attention, to make her understand that he is admiring her.
Home is in fact have been living in my heart
Every summer, the moisture in the air smell always makes me uneasy, so I always want to find a cool place to stay, so I often go home to live.
My hometown is a beautiful small mountain village, where no breath of summer, stay in the city for too long, always feel contaminated earthly dust, whenever a return to nature, back to the beginning of the heart Crystal. Only one person in the home, the family wanted to take her to the city, she always refused, she said: "she is not used to the life of the city, but also home and the shadow of her people, she could not bear." She is concerned about the natural is the grandfather, grandfather very early on the death, leaving her alone in a lonely woman. Time has not weakened her thoughts of Grandpa, although not white to the old, but life does not forget.
Home behind the house there is a river, not far away from the river and a mountain, whenever I stand in the window and saw the moon in the sky, silver moonlight in the woods, in the river. I remember the childhood of their own. At that time was a young, moonlight like a bed with sand to do the quilt, put on my body. A light breeze, stroking my eyes, I slowly opened my sleepy sleepy eyes and saw out the window like daytime general, can clearly see every root the trees on the mountain, put on shoes and walk to the window and a cool breeze oncoming, my sleepiness was also the breeze away.
Then I remembered a poem, "the window the moonlight, it seems hoary frost on the floor, look at the bright moon, looking down and think of home." Then is unable to read of the mood of the poem, but I really feel it is very beautiful, so I looked at the sky to read up the poem, in the sky without a cloud, only a solitary and myriad twinkling stars, this time in silence, lights have been extinguished that time is like is frozen, blue light flashing, like in the dream, remove the noise of the earth, like a fairyland in general. Now want to really hope the dream will never wake up, flow of the river quietly, the wind blowing gently, moonlight sprinkle slowly, everything's okay, quiet Tianshi.
Now standing at the window, the window is the same scenery, but it can not enter that mood. Thinking about the reasons, probably because the earth all his heart blindfolded, covering his eyes, originally pure such as the heart of water with the water slowly passed California Fitness, buried in the years of the corner. A turn back then not to go back, a turn to be doomed to lose, we just immersed in the forward, but forget the once beautiful oneself. Walking on the streets, we lost our way, but we didn't find the map in our hands, but we didn't find it.
Looked at the crystal clear water, let me think of the childhood playmates, once we are the ignorance of youth, summer evening, on the Bank of the river always found my figure. We catch crabs in the river, fishing, swimming naked, even if there is a girl in the side also go all lengths. Always leave until his parents came to be about to come back tomorrow and unable to part from. East du temps and leaves one after another, old playmate had not seen for years, as we each go straight towards the horizon, to a different way, living a different life, even in the future to meet, has become each other passers-by, do not know, do not look back.
Remember every summer night, there will always be a family sitting in the courtyard of the stone table, drinking a cup of tea, pastries, smelling the fragrance of flowers, cool breeze caresses, time became quiet as water, with a little bit of flavor, fixed at that time California Fitness. If I can return to the past, I decided to return to this moment, so that everything becomes eternal.
Home is in fact have been living in my heart, those familiar with the things gradually passing away, even in the home are in the memory of the old, we will not go back to the old.
Want the wind sleeve, broad-minded
Don't write something for a long time You beauty, is not to write more that you can't write, more I do not want to write, is to think of anything to say. Is really a strange phenomenon ah, some things more save more without the often beck and call, but vigor coruscate, once the support, will feel tasteless, also too lazy to think more too lazy hands. In the past the astringent sour, a nondescript thoughts will be filled with heart, let a person for a long time to flick You beauty.
Go downhill, walk to fall; good drums knock, indulge themselves on the ring called. The path is very difficult, for a person, as if only a right, but a lot of heresy, and crooked ways. A little caution will fall into a wrong path, inextricably bogged down in. To forsake heresy and return to the truth out of chaos is not easy, such as smoking, addiction, playing mahjong for many. "Cautious in the beginning", from time to time to behave themselves, once the signs, seriously, early adjustment, otherwise keep slips into greater than, product small evil into wickedness You beauty, proportional increase geometrically, later will hopelessly, sliding into the abyss, that is, the gods come to also no economic ah!
Persistence is a kind of quality, is the most valuable element in life. Whether small or big success is to adhere to the fruit, not a momentary impulse and occasional brain fever. Smart people do not adhere to, at least out of ideas, by their no benefit; and he is a fool who has been trying to, can not be said to be earth shattering, but must be able to accomplish something. These words are a little big, but it is a fact that everything is the way. Such as physical exercise, three months a small into three years, is a kind of accumulation, a subtle, a kind of success in the process of.
In the world we live in, it is the most beautiful and the most beautiful word. "Learn your perseverance", a word of "perseverance", always let me regret wild past, time pass in vain repentance; let me from give up something and stick to it. Although intermittent, advancing and retreating......
Along the way, the cream covered with shoulder, full of fatigue. Clearly the road, walk but the disadvantages of flexion and timid; and crooked crooked fork of the road, but slides into, lead a befuddled life. Although they had struggled, confidence and motivation to sail not drum full, once at a loss, and once lonely, put it plainly is debauchery after empty and boring. Man alive needs a full, a complete satisfaction of A. In addition to the outside any pleasure even carnival is short of anesthesia, when the dead of night, face their own naked soul, only depressed guilty...
What I admire most is the full of life. Or is engaged in the research, explores the invention, tireless, or by interest to stem a Dwyane, fame does not stick, bored, or even work, tired after sleep sleep, the heart does not have a department, simple and happy... Starry eyed was not his feet on the ground, on the "boring" do not go, to "stand" is not; want to hike, but don't want to take one step at a time... A "David's deer", all such people have nothing to do, muddle along, how much ah......
Want the wind sleeve, broad-minded, we must learn to open-minded, want to have no fixed place of abode, a lofty scholar, you have to learn to put down; to fine landscape, surf the world, learn to see through; want the old has become, no empty cocoon, lifelong insist......
Let the rain wash the human vanity
Earth again beautiful flowers will die, in the time of the misty rain in the seasonal cycle gradually turned into a strong or weak. Let the wind take away the world's resentment, Dream beauty pro hard sell let the rain wash the vanity of human, the heart sorrow discarded outside the cloud nine, banish pain in the long river, ancient I want to be in their beautiful west window to hang wind chimes,... Cool looking back, unable to regain the scattered the vicissitudes of life. Autumn, not beautiful! It doesn't have a green "qinghai" is bright beautiful colour, not like the taste of children, it is only the yellow leaves that fall, in the wind, only the cool wind on chilly. Many want to put aside all the multifarious disturbance, to camels of the vastness of the snow feel a pure walk quietly. Even if lonely, helpless, I also want to put aside the secular out of love, alone in his own way enjoy a carefree.
Tagore's famous dictum: "the sky without any trace, but I am glad I have had my flight" echoed in my ear, I finally realized that the success or failure is turned empty, castle peak is still in, just a few degrees sunset "meaning. I am not a sage, can carry so many earth multifarious disturbance. I think, in the snow of camels singing a song, and dance to solo. Even though, no one knows my beauty, I would like to put aside the secular eyes, alone in his own way in a free and easy. But I just love this kind of colour alone, just like the plain autumn! I don't have a masterstroke, unable to describe the beautiful life and happiness. I like to walk quietly in the text, the two sides in the world of readers, let heart bath tang Song Yu, butterflies fluttering, with his dream to find a '" tori, picking the carefree, Thanksgiving have met and will meet the beauty. Maybe life is not like in the hope to write full of poetry and tenderness, if I can only choose to recede, fair can still have an indifferent heart, let my heart cruising in the mountains, emptiness and pure and fresh, listen to the inner simple reply. I would like to cool for a harp, carefree as a string, played certain magical and beautiful music free from vulgarity. In the space of only yourself silently spread!
I like meditation, because that kind of quiet taste can guide me back to childhood, childhood simple can be called happiness. Because there I have freedom like butterflies, do not need to consider the world of glitz. Let the wind blow away the earth, let the rain wash the vanity of human, Dream beauty pro hard sell let the heart precipitation in the fantasy and ponder. Want to put aside everything more multifarious disturbance, stroll along the beach shore, in every ebb and flow of the waves, stop-go, feel the natural majestic vastness, waves slap the stirring of the rock. Could you wake up the heart lonely silence! Many want to put aside all the multifarious disturbance, to jiangnan walk alone in the rain lane, hear his footsteps echoed cool, ask yourself, ascertain what belongs to own wishes!
Quiet taste drop rain umbrella, clear drip splash a lingering charm, in the misty rain, exclusive to belong to an own heart. Let the wind blow away the earth bother, let the rain wash the human haze and flashy, let heart pondering precipitation in the rain, let's go and live with a grateful heart, grateful the beautiful scenery in the four seasons samsara, gratitude goes by filtering in the poetic life. Let the wind in September the life out of you, let the heart LiuMing flowers smile in September. Though nobody knows my beauty, I am still in the time stream line light boat, for his own tomorrow a QuYunShui spectrum of zen, dance a clouds month by month. When all is silent, only I was immersed in the recall of childhood, count in the freedom of the ignorant as long! Travel, like golden yellow leaves of autumn, fill the corner. But also hung up the branches. To lost constantly close to me, like a drifter, covered with scars. But with luxuriant words to express my mood of optimism that our great journey through life, happiness, time is a little bitter bank of China. The house is big, the less people! Much joy, happiness but silence...
Once upon a time, a lot of beautiful scenery is always come when you least expect them to flash from the corner, many lasting appeal joyous song always inadvertently slip from the fingers. This life, I just want to insipid confident grace of life, I think, even if born in valley, also not because no one without fang, leaf Que voiceless, accumulate a sides, hard work a piece of pure land of the mind, creating a piece of blue sky of the mind, pregnant with a light fragrance in the heart, warm smile, do a free walking flower, on the canvas of life and poetic scenery. Let me gently shake off a dust, back gently shallow memories along the way. The rain slowly stopped, bleak autumn wind blowing, blow the ground rose, little into tears, go the distance, into a cloud. Heart is lost, with the bare, autumn wind chasing, but nowhere to be found, the ground into dust. Who ever thought that prayer can let the sky the stars, the sincerity can get eternal love; And who, once held the roses I wish the happiness of the dawn, homelessness in the setting sun Yang hand let the petals in the wind! Let the wind blow away the earth, let the rain wash the vanity of human, let oneself in the watch and experience of life, Dream beauty pro hard sell with a dream, write down the immortal life.
Passed a ride a ride again, now I finally know, push on the top, can see the mountains small, but the mountain valley gullies have unlimited scenery. If I could keep my heart in the landscape, the clouds, no matter when and where can hold a ray of light QingHuan, I think, my world will spring flowers, beautiful in bloom. Perhaps, more QingJi and insipid life, but, let heart cruising Yu Ying in pond water, listen to any reply from the depths of the season, let yourself alone in the dust, elegant, find a carefree and poetic, placed in the life, enjoy a life of extraordinary and refined. Let the wind take away the world's resentment, let the rain wash the vanity of human, the heart sorrow discarded outside the cloud nine, banish worry in the long river, ancient I want to be in its own west window to hang purple wind chimes, let life ripple ripples out the most beautiful arc, I want to let your life more beyond, a bit more open-minded, so, believe that will have another wonderful life!
