Read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares. Work on trying different marketing channels and sales processes until you have something consistent and repeatable that you can scale to another sales person. Then consider if adding money to that process will accelerate you in a way that is worth giving up equity and some control for. Also, too many cooks is a real concern. Think hard about the speed with which YOU want to grow the business.
This is exactly the issue with these arbitrary gates in the hiring process. You were taught to do it. Someone with a different background (maybe they grew up in a different country or had parents that worked in a different industry) wouldn't necessarily even think to send a thank you and would be unfairly disqualified from the position.
Like Eastern European immigrant that could only afford to live among white trash blue collar folks? I should be too stupid to know how the great big American economy works then since my high school was surrounded by cattle farm. I’m pretty white trash still to this day. But even in our retarded educational system, we knew handshakes, pleases and thank yous were still important in a cooperative, functioning society.
You know what, that's funny. The poorer folks I know that escaped their poverty, we all know our pleases and thank yous. It's actually the people that grew up with money that are social idiots and ungrateful bastards that like to complain about every little thing under the sun.
You say "thank you" at the end of the interview. Sending it again later in an e-mail definitely wouldn't come to my mind at all, and if I got such mail it would feel very strange.
I use a 2012 Dell XPS 15 daily. I got it as a warranty replacement when my XPS 14 broke. I've given it an SSD and swapped a new battery once. Otherwise it does everything I ask of it except having more than 2 hours of battery life. I've wanted to buy something lighter (the XPS is 5+ pounds) for years but I can't justify it when the 7 year old laptop still works fine.
