1. Developer Evangelist
- You’ll be in charge of marketing and evangelism about the platform, as well as building the community around the product. Needs excellent writing and communication skills, and knowledge about programming.

Okay, that’s a big challenge! But, you know, not unreasonable for an early-stage startup.

2. Site Reliability Engineer
- You’ll be responsible for designing the systems to make us scalable and reliable. You should know all the system stuff this entails – Ruby, AWS, Mongo, mySQL, and so on. You should be a generalist who can pick up anything.

Again – big tasks… but I’m sure there’s someone out there who fits this job like a beautiful golf glove. Heck, I work with this guy. He’s out there.

3. Software Engineer
- You’re going to be wearing a lot of hats: architecting and building features, writing code (in Ruby). If you know Objective-C or Java, that’s awesome! You should have a degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.

Capable, talented developers? Those guys totally exist. I work with two of this guy. If I were a betting man, I’d bet this position gets filled first.

4. Designer and Front-end Engineer
- Hey, you’re going to be designing and implementing new features, pages and interfaces on the website. You better be an expert at HTML5, CSS, Javascript, cross-browser debugging, Ruby, Photoshop, A/B testing, conversion rate testing, and have the know-how to design mobile apps. You should have years of experience and a degree in Computer Science.

WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN

Hey, startup, ‘design’ isn’t a category that you just throw everything else into once you’ve defined the other positions!

Here’s the thing: you’re driving away the kind of people you really need right now – amazing generalist designers who could cover MAYBE 60-70% of what you’re asking for. What you’ve done here is buzz-worded up a position that’s going to be nearly impossible to fill. For the cost of your mythical design unicorn, you could hire two solid creatives to cover the bases.

What do you care more about – buzzwords or getting shit done?

Let’s talk sunk time – I think I spent maybe two weeks, on and off, building the thing – mostly evenings and weekends. It’s pretty damn easy to cork out a handful of icons per night, even if you’re doing the full complement. That’s ninety icons if you want to use pretty much all the keyboard keys – and it took less time than you can say “Dang, that’s a lot of icons, chief”. So realistically, building a nice little digital product like this is not a huge time investment.

I launched the Tipogram site on a Tuesday afternoon basically because that’s when it was done. I tweeted from the Tipogram Twitter account (current followers as of this writing: 41) and retweeted it with my personal account (current followers: 523). This got some early attention and I got some retweets and/or shout-outs from some lovely people with 5000+ followers… and by some, I mean two. I’m sure it helped and I am super grateful, but it seems to have spread pretty organically since then.

So then what happened? Sales data? Oh heck yes – check out this sweet graph action.

Keep in mind that this is all profit – I’m already discounting Paypal fees and my monthly digital distribution app costs (which are laughably small).

You’ll notice that around the middle of September 2011, sales stopped dead. Upcoming holiday ennui? Market saturation? In need of mo’ betta marketing? Perhaps all of those things. I let it stew for a while and then dropped the price from $24 to $18. Middling November, sales took a nice uptick and continued apace to now. I made no other changes and announced the price drop exactly the same way I announced Tipogram for the first time – one tweet from Tipogram, one retweet from me personally.

It’s definitely not making enough money for me to retire to a swank beachfront bungalow, but what it’s proven to me is the value of a digital goods business – it’s basically a fire-and-forget moneymaker (if you’ve done your homework on your target market, of course). If I could set up a few more mini-businesses that perform at the same level, I’d be happier than the proverbial pig in the proverbial shit.

Here’s the point: even if you suck hard at marketing and have a comparatively small ‘network’, it’s still possible to build something that generates ongoing and maintenance-free income month after month after month. Worth it? I think so.

Well, sure. But how? Something I’ve noticed with a certain class of startup or company – the ones that helped to define an emerging market segment or have become the de-facto standard to beat – is that they’ve sliced out the core concept that was, previously, the defining feature of that segment.

Let’s talk turkey:

Posterous: just skipped the entire “sign up for our service” part. Start using the service and you ARE signed up. They took out the idea of jumping through that signup hoop to get to the meat of the service.

Skype: took out the weird VoIP hardware and complicated setup parts of internet telephony and left just the part that people wanted – the ‘talking to other people’ part.

Basecamp: the ‘huge co.’ model of project management – Gantt charts ahoy – got turfed, leaving only the lightweight, fast and usable parts that thousands of small teams actually needed. 37signals was really one of the first companies to reach out to less-than-huge enterprises in this space, and gained traction specifically because people don’t need or want the same tools that a Fortune500 does.

Amazon: removed the entire idea of ‘hardware’ from the hosting/computing market. Big iron became imaginary iron. By removing the need to care about physical assets, Amazon captured a huge market that was obviously ripe for the picking.

Apple: dumped the prevailing ‘smartphone’ features of the time – hardware keyboard, terrible browsers (remember WAP?) and a corporate mindset. They left behind the smart, simple features everybody actually wanted day-to-day.

These are just a handful of samples, but they stand out as opportunities explored: what could have been a me-too idea turned into something more interesting by cutting out the guts and seeing what was left. Rethinking that core concept provided a tangible, bankable benefit.

“What’s this store about?” Mutely, the crowd points to the beautiful sign – well executed, sure, but it tells me nothing. The store owner ambles out. “Look,” he says. “We can let you in so you can see what this is all about – but only if you also bring five of your friends. By yourself, you can’t come in.”

That store is obviously a store that doesn’t want your business. It’s also, unfortunately, the landing page strategy for a lot of startups.

Here’s the thing: I’m genuinely interested in your startup. I wouldn’t have clicked through to your landing page otherwise – I want to know what cool thing you’re going to do for me. I’m even reaching for my wallet. You’re obviously running enough of a service to have existing users – enough that you must have features, functionality, or something you could tell me about.

Instead, I’m presented with a megaphone.

“Hey!” you say. “Thanks for stopping by! We’re genuinely excited to have you. Why not yell at your friends about our service?”
“Well… okay. What’s it about?”
“Can’t tell you unless you yell loud enough, sorry.”

Even if I can’t get in immediately, I will sign up for your list or follow you on Twitter for a few tidbits of salient information. I’ll remember to check back if you’ve hooked me.

Your landing page should not be a gimmicky social-media-laden afterthought while you’re launching – it’s the first and most important interaction I have with your service. Make me want to come inside.

Because I’m not a developer, I exclusively attended the Professional track panels, focusing more on the business end of the Android ecosystem.

Most notably of all of the (great!) panels presented, there was a roundtable in which a number of local industry muck-a-mucks explained how most of them had built and launched iOS apps and were thinking about rolling out an Android app, or were starting to look for Android developers. On a panel of five, only one participant had in fact made an Android application.

Another panel’s slide deck illustrated the insane profit per user differences between iOS purchases and Android purchases (in the last year or so, anyway), despite the very similar number of apps available.

What’s the Deal?

Perhaps unfortunately, the reason for this disparity and focus on iOS at an Android event seems to stem from two significant differences: iOS users’ willingness to slap cash on the barrel-head and Android’s increasingly fragmented handsets and app markets. This leads to a considerable lead for iOS in paid downloads, and a scramble (apparently!) for in-app payments or advertising on Android.

Android’s fragmentation was clearly illustrated on a panel by a local games developer, speaking on how launching their game on Android involved basically ignoring one fifth of all Android users, simply because their phones were too old, too new, too weird or too insignificant to bother with. They were leaving money on the table because it was simply too difficult to reach the entire market.

Priorities

Apple and Google, as shepherds of their respective mobile operating systems and their growth and development, have very obviously different ideas on where to focus their efforts.

Apple, typically, has focused on presenting an extremely polished and frictionless user experience such that you don’t notice they’ve got you by the balls – if you don’t like the Apple way, tough nuts. Google, on the other hand, has focused on choice. Don’t like your current Android experience? No sweat – there are myriad other good options.

In a perfect world, the ‘open’ option would be great for developers – few restrictions, publish where you want, reap the benefits of working within a framework you control. What I learned at AndroidTO was that in the real world, the closed, controlled choice offers a better chance for success.

You may also want to read my co-worker Ash’s post on the same event.

Why do press releases and marketing fluff-pieces not ring true? It’s because they’re not voiced to reach you, as part of a larger audience. Marketing is the dark art devoted to this concept – but in the design/development/startup world, sometimes it gets overlooked. There should be more consideration given to the wording and voice we use most often in our day-to-day work lives – writing in interface, writing to communicate.

A Winner is You

Somebody had to write every single word on every button and link and palette you click to get your job done. Do you think about these small interactions with writing? Probably not – because they’ve done their job and got out of the way. 37signals, for example, speaks extensively about this – designing is writing. And when you’re writing, you’re making decisions. If you’re not making the right decisions you’re probably not reaching everyone you could be, or actively alienating potential customers.

Consider language use. If I was writing a cover letter for a consulting position at IBM, would I drop some LOLcat or an f-bomb into the middle of it? I can haz no fucking way. Not because it’s irrelevant or a quote-unquote bad word, but because I’m using the wrong words to get the job done. In the context of that cover letter, I need to be using the voice to which that audience is receptive. Because I’m speaking their language, I can haz.

The same goes for interface design – where writing is the most important element. If you strip away all the pixels and CSS declarations, you’re left with words – and really that’s all you ever have to communicate with your users. If the voice you’re using feels wrong, or uncomfortable, they’ll bail. Not because the value isn’t there, but because you weren’t able to speak to them in a way that made sense. Drop shadow and rounded corners won’t fix that. Kill your stylesheet. Does the site still make sense? Is it still coherently speaking to you?

The Imaginary McCoy

Am I sitting in my wingback chair, dictating this in stentorian tones to my personal secretary? Sadly, I have no wingback, no secretary, and am only mildly stentorian. Is this post reaching you, though? I’d like to think so – because I write for the audience that I belong to. I’m writing this for you, hypothetical reader, because I think you’re like me and will respond to something to which I would respond.

Is the version of me writing this a veneer over the ‘true’ voice? Of course not. There is no ‘real’ authenticity, no authoritative version. The way I talk to my mother on the phone isn’t the way I talk to my coworkers, nor are they the words I use when building interfaces. All of them, however, are my words.

If you’re in the creative industries, your work is about communicating concepts, about selling your point of view. Communication is about voice. It’s worthwhile to develop a voice that resonates.

defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac QuoteTweetSyntax -string "{TEXT} (via @{USERNAME})"

Re-start Twitter.app and you’re RTing Tweetie-style.

If for some inexplicable reason you’d like the old quote tweets back, use this string instead:

defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac QuoteTweetSyntax -string "\"@{USERNAME}: {TEXT}\""

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you have a surefire idea for “the next great thing”, that your idea is actually surefire and not, for instance, Facebook for newts. The only problem is, you’re a developer and you know you’re going to need a designer. Or vice versa. What to do?

Well, you have a lot of options in front of you. Let’s say you’re a designer – you’re creative, you like to learn. The obvious idea is to learn how to program. There are a ton of resources out there designed to turn the code-clueless into bitcrushing powerhouses. I’m not convinced this is the best route. There’s this concept, you may have heard of it, where one can exchange money for services. Yes, pay somebody else to do the parts you’re not good at.

The Economic Argument

Let’s say it takes me a solid year and a half of spare time to go from knowing nothing at all about development to writing Rails gems to convert UTC to the Berber calendar for kicks. That’s time I could have spent doing work of direct economic benefit to me. One-point-five years later, I’ve got something approaching a first version of surefireapp.com.

In the meanwhile, the more rational version of me has taken on a couple freelance jobs and handily earned those development costs in about a month, hooked up with a programming buddy, and has surefireapp.com selling to the masses a few months later. More than that, I was focusing and honing my own particular skillset during that time. This version of the app has a crazy-awesome user experience because I wasn’t trying to figure out why my installation of mySQL was broken. Again.

Am I saying you shouldn’t try to learn new skills? Absolutely not – your worth to potential employers – not to mention yourself – increases with each new piece of knowledge you assimilate. You’ll have to figure out where your sweet spot is for trying something new, and trying to get something to market. Should you try to be a jack of all trades? Maybe – but you may just end up, unfortunately, as a master of none.

If you’ve been with the same employer for a while, you might be dreading this process – dusting off the old curriculum vitae, updating it with lots of juicy-sounding accomplishments (Excelled in human-based environments!) and making the rounds.

Nope. Don’t even start. I can’t even remember the last time I sent out a resume. The secret, of course, is no secret at all – use the services that are out there to your advantage. There is literally no reason to maintain a ‘dead tree’ resume when there are so many more compelling options.

Pick Your Employer

Arguably, you want to work for places that are exciting, fresh, innovative. If they are even one of those three, they won’t care:

• where you went to school
• what letters you have after your name (I have a B.A., which, in university terms, stands for Barely Awake)
• if you were the leader of your Scout troop in 1993 (but a touch of personal flavour is good)

What they care about is skill. There’s no point in having an old-fashioned resume but you need something to fill that resume-shaped hole.

You still need to list previous jobs, schools, etc. – but quickly, in a consumable format. Not because that’s important information per se, but because it shows you were, in fact, demonstrably studying and/or working in your industry. Got a LinkedIn profile? Make one. All the cool kids have one… and all the cool kids are the ones running businesses who will pay you money.

The Skills to Pay the Bills

Next, you’ll need some sort of proof that you can do what you say you can do. If you’re a designer, having a portfolio on Dribbble, Forrst, or Behance is where it’s at. I used to maintain a separate portfolio of carefully dried and pressed design work. Now, I just have a Dribbble page – way cooler and considerably more relevant since I only put up work that’s recent and that I think is awesome.

If you’re a developer, the obvious equivalent is Github. Get an account (it’s super cheap, possibly even free) and put up some code – show the caliber of your work. Still pretty green? If nothing else, show that you’re putting in the time to master your craft. If you’ve shipped a product, a real actual app? You win at jobs. You’re a known quantity – somebody who gets shit done.

Using either of those sites is the Great Leveller of Playing Fields – for a smart employer, somebody who’s been in the industry for a decade but churns out boring, cookie-cutter design or programming is worth beans compared to somebody who’s only got a couple gigs under his or her belt but is filled with piss and vinegar.

Bonus points: maintain a social media presence. Twitter, a blog, whatever. If I google you and you’re the first result for your name – and even better, you’re already talking about the things I want to hire you to do, engaged in the community? Gold star.

You Walk the Walk, but can you Talk the Talk?

This is the big one. Sure, you’ve got your fancy LinkedIn profile and your compelling portfolio of design or code or, if you’re a rare breed, both. You need to tell people about your awesomeness, and that means e-mail!

You might be a rear admiral of design, but if your communication skills are lacking, you’re sunk. You don’t have to be the next Thoreau – heck, even the next Dan Brown would be good – just make sure you’re ACS, which is an acronym I just made up. Oh yeah, ACS!

• Austere – Be terse. Cut words. Save time.
• Clear – Don’t ever answer a multiple choice question with ‘yes’.
• Sincere – Mean what you say and do what you say you’ll do.

That’s all anybody really wants. Don’t write LOL in business e-mails, either.

Wrapping It Up

The internet can take the place of all of the functions of a great resume – show history, display skills, and convey voice. A resume is just a piece of paper, but using the internet as your resume shows the person. I’d rather hire a person.

Note for designers: all of this can be ignored. All you need to know is this: git is a magic box.

Unlike other magic boxes (famously known for containing all the evils of the world) git is friendly and largely idiot-proof. There are only a very limited number of transactions most any designer will ever need to have with it. Those are:

1. Get stuff from box.
2. Get stuff ready to go back into box.
3. Tell box “Here’s some stuff.”
4. Put stuff in box.

If you’re on top of these box-related endeavors, you’re good to go with git.

Parlez-vous box?

The thing about this magic box is that is speaks a particular dialect you’ll need to master if you and the box are ever going to see eye-to-eye. Happily, this is also easily accomplished via the below commands. Yes, designers, you will need to use some kind of … gulp … command line interface. The computer you’re using definitely has some kind of terminal application on it, and if you’re using a Mac, it’s even helpfully called Terminal.app.

1. When you’re in the directory where all the stuff is (get help with this if needed), do the following:

   git pull

   This makes sure your box is up to date. Do this a lot.

2. After you’ve made some changes to stuff:

   git add --all

   This queues up all the stuff you just changed to go into the box, including any new graphics or whatnot you might have added.

3. Give a shoutout to the box:

   git commit -m "Added more rainbow gradients to layout"

   Where the stuff inside the quote marks is the message attached to the bundle of stuff you’re putting back into the box. Try to keep this from being entirely composed of swear words. Pro-tip: tell people what you’re putting in, and why.

4. And finally, put it all back in the box:

   git push

   Wherein you push your new stuff and edited stuff back into the box, and close the lid firmly. Now everybody else will get all the stuff you just put in.

And that’s it. Congratulations, you now know git.