Webkitchen | Peter Nixey |

Clickpass is hiring a dev lead / "co-founder"

2009-02-04T19:00:00.002+01:00

Do you have the ability to architect and build a new web service from scratch? Would you like to be the lead architect in a small, tight team building an identity hub for the next generation of pluggable web applications?

Clickpass is hiring a lead developer and architect to help design and implement our next phase of authentication services. The role will offer you the chance to work under the Clickpass brand but within the very pleasant offices of the company who recently acquired us, SynthaSite.

What you will be doing

You will be working in a small team and responsible for all of the software development for the service. Your role will be to help architect how the service should work and then to implement the code across the full stack of technology from server through to browser.

Sys-admin support is already in place and you will have access to any additional support you require including design and UX. You will be liaising directly with the clients this service plugs into.

Who we are

Clickpass is creating a new, second-generation identity-hub service to allow websites such as SynthaSite to seamlessly plug in embeddable widgets and services that (currently) require a separate user account. This is of particular relevance to our acquirers, SynthaSite but has has also been requested by several other well known web brands.

The role represents a very unusual opportunity to have the impact and autonomy of a startup founder but with the security and salary associated with a very well funded, venture-backed company.

Who you are

A seasoned developer with the ability to plan and work systematically through software challenges

Someone who is as driven to pin down the small details as the larger architecture

Motivated by autonomy and responsibility

Effective and productive

Systematic and professional in your approach to project management

Capable of driving a project and defending your logic but willing to flex in response to feedback from clients and your team

Stimulated by the principles of core web services such as GNIP or Mashery

Required skills

Extensive Ruby on Rails / MySQL experience

Agile development methodology

Strong Javascript

Strong HTML/CSS/web-standards

Friendly, sociable personality

Willingness to develop and maintain an existing code base

Eligibility to work in the USA

Bonus skills

Experience scaling Rails applications

Familiarity with multiple server technologies (PHP/JSP/ColdFusion)

Experience developing or maintaining authentication systems for multiple large websites

Experience with integrating payment gateways (e.g. Authorize.net or Paypal)

Responsibilities

Working directly with partners and clients to customise service to their needs

Development of reporting interfaces and management tools for website owners

Maintenance and extension of the existing Clickpass code base

Developing plugins to integrate into varied authentication services

Location and compensation

SOMA, San Francisco

Competitive salary, healthcare, bonus, 401k and equity

How to apply

If you're interested then please email peter.nixey@clickpass.com with your resume and why you feel you would be a good fit for the position:

The Russell Brand Debacle

2008-10-30T05:38:00.003+01:00

I am very disappointed by the way that this remarkable episode with Russell Brand has played out and by the dismal performance of his BBC editors.

There is no doubt that the show that kicked everything off was an appalling failure of taste and decency and that the calls involved should never have been made much less broadcast.

However, Brand is one of the most talented comedians to come out of the UK in the last ten years. He has a unique combination of wit, intelligence, education and unusually for a comedian, kindness with his interviewees. His radio show was top of the ratings for a reason and by far the medium he was strongest in.

He is also a loose cannon though, a fact which is alien to no one who knows the slightest bit about him. He's never malicious but he is unpredictable and over excitable. This is a man who was fired from MTV for dressing as Osama Bin Laden on September the 12th '01. This is why the radio show is pre-recorded and why the BBC producers made sure they had editorial control.

Brand is a once in a generation talent who needs to be managed but also protected. He brings huge amount of entertainment to millions of people but has a highly unstable and addictive personality that pushes the boundaries in ways that are both brilliant and dangerous. These characteristics should in no way be alien to broadcasters; bipolar disorders, alcoholism and addiction have been crosses borne by many of the best comedians throughout history. This is why editors and producers exist and these are the people that failed Brand dismally through this episode.

The call was terrible no doubt but Brand has ended up the fall guy for a situation which should have been far better managed by the BBC and were he not such a significant figure, would have seen Ross, the real culprit, resign instead.

It is unavoidable that Brand resign but he was not the one responsible. Yes, ideally he should have known better but, he doesn't, everyone knows he doesn't and that's the deal with prodigy, it doesn't come polished. Brand was an instinctual creature caught at the middle of a tragedy of errors and let down badly by Jonathan Ross and by a management who should have known better.

Clickpass launches

2008-03-11T18:09:00.004+01:00

After 9 months / 4 years of work Clickpass has just launched and Techcrunch has given us a fantastic review.

The whole team has done an incredible job getting us to here - Immad, David, Martin and all the people who've been advising us and supporting us along the way, Peter Couldridge, Paul Graham and Jessica Livingstone, the Dan and Jason from Disqus , Joseph Smarr, Chris Messina, Simon Willison, Scott Kveton, Keith Teare and most of all our friends and family. It's an incredible feeling.

9 months of sitting in a room building and documenting software... now the rubber hits the road.

YC startup, Clickpass requires HTML/CSS designer/illustrator in San Francisco

2007-09-26T23:36:00.000+01:00

Clickpass is an angel-funded startup working on OpenID. Our remit is to make OpenID useable by the masses and consumer friendly and our product does exactly that. We are Oxford and Cambridge graduates from the UK and were also part of this summer’s Y-Combinator programme in Boston as well as having funding from angels in the Valley and the UK.

There are currently three of us in the company and we are looking to bring a designer initially on an contract basis for 4-7 weeks but with a view to a full time position including equity.

The theme and design of our site is currently in place and more is being produced each day. We would however like someone to join us who can loop back over what has already been done and bring the quality of the layout and finish up by a notch.

You should be keen to take on the weight of the design and HTML/CSS work within the team and have a passion for creating great UI. You will be working with a product manager who will be producing wireframes and user-flow and doing so in an iterative environment.

If you're excited by being part of one of the product that will push OpenID to its tipping point that's something we strongly value.

*Requirements*
- Solid grounding in semantic HTML/CSS
- Solid demonstrable grounding in design
- Ability to work fast, iterate and to work within an existing HTML and designs
- Solid portfolio of work including examples of UI (not just static web-pages)
- Simple illustrative skills
- Ability to work onsite in San Francisco (North Beach)
- Willingness to work across the whole spectrum of design/slicing/wire-framing as well as sometimes being restricted to working in only one field as required
- Understanding of AJAX principles and how they impact HTML/CSS (actual Javascript skills not required)

*Desirables*
- Interest in a permanent position
- Rails experience
- AJAX experience
- SVN experience
- Flash/Flex
- Copywriting skills

*Perks*
- Free drinks, fruit and snacks in the office
- Breakfast out every Wednesday
- Occasional (optional) activity weekends (last one was white water rafting)
- Great office environment
- Be surrounded by English accents
- OpenID - it’s one of the hottest spaces to be in!

** HOW TO APPLY **
Please make all applications via the form at: http://clickpass.wufoo.com/forms/clickpass-htmlcss-designer-openid-yc-startup/.

Orange becomes an OpenID provider and consumer

2007-09-25T00:55:00.000+01:00

Wow. I'm at DigitalID World in San Francisco and Orange (France Telecom) just announced that they're going to not only become an OpenID producer but also a consumer. Anyone with an OpenID will be able to log into Orange services and anyone with an Orange account can create an OpenID from it - another 70M users.

The really impressive thing is the consumption side of things. Being an OpenID provider is a bit of a no-brainer for anyone who sits down and really thinks about it but being a consumer is a big step for a company to take but one that really makes the ecosystem work. More very good news for OpenID.

Approaching YC demo day

2007-07-21T19:57:00.000+01:00

It's been seven weeks now since the start of Y-Combinator and our East and West Coast demo days are closing in fast.

We finally broke our way through the last strands of red tape lying between us and a bank account, we have an Employers ID number, we issued our founders shares and have filed the infamous 83B which saves us from paying horrendous amounts of tax on paper wealth we may never liquidate.

We decided on a name, developed a brand and designed an awesome logo. Three weeks before launch we discovered our logo was already taken and then that the expensive domain we'd bought was blocked by most corporate and private content filters due to a former life as a porn portal. Roll up, roll up and experience the fun of a startup!

Finally though we approach the last few weeks before product release. I'm incredibly pleased with what we have produced but all of us can't wait to get out - pre-launch is a nerve racking time.

Stripping down

Every day arriving in the office you are alertly aware that you only have so many features that you can develop, document and market successfully. Every additional feature takes time and resources away from the tiny fraction of features features your customers will actually use and dilutes your sales pitch and focus.

Developing product with limited time and resources is like crewing a leaking boat that's run out of coal. The only way to get to shore is to tear the boat apart and feed it to its own boiler. Burn too little and you'll sink before you reach the shore, burn too much and you'll get taken down by a wave before you arrive

In a startup features are your decking and it's time and money that leak. You start with grand ideas of the QE2 you'll launch with but as time goes on, more and more features get fed to the boiler and you strip down to what hopefully is little more than a racing dingy.

Build too much and you run out of cash, build too little and you'll have only a limp proposition when you reach your customers. The process keeps you lean and nimble but it's damn scary.

Keeping on course

Being a part of YC has been invaluable. The credibility that making the programme gives us is unreal and a totally different experience from having been out on my own. The feedback from Paul, Jessica and all of the other startup founders mean that all of us are constantly nudged back towards the path of what other people want rather than simply what we want.

You'll often people say that the best apps come from someone scratching an itch. It's undoubtedly true but for every flickr.yahoo.com there are ten thousand more apps that never make it past 127.0.0.1. Scratching your own itch is satisfying but it's scratching everyone elses that makes you successful.

OSCON and San Francisco

So it's off to Portland for the OpenID sessions of OSCON next week and then Immad and I go to San Francisco for the Techcrunch party and a host of meetings - both of us fully bolstered for serious internet celeb-overload.

One last thing - Sitepass (name and logo still tbc). We're taking the incredibly successful OpenID protocol and making it consumer useable. No more logging in, no more passwords, and no more OpenID URL's just one easy way to get to everything you do online. We hope you'll like it. We do and I'm extremely proud of our little team for having built it.

Boston - minor update

2007-06-12T03:02:00.000+01:00

I'm going to post more soon but we are now finally in Boston and onto the YC programme. It's fantastic to be here with Paul, Jessica, Trevor and all of the other teams but simply insanely busy.

It's complicated enough starting a company when it's your country. Let me assure you that getting things right when it's not your country is a downright nightmare. More to come when we get a moment to catch breath.

London Open Coffee is moving venue

2007-05-08T09:02:00.000+01:00

For those of you coming to the Open Coffee mornings in London, and if you didn't already know:

"Starting from this Thursday, every 10-12, we'll be having London OpenCoffee at the very cool 5th View Bar at the top of Waterstone's at 203-206 Piccadily. See the Trustedplaces review here.
"
more info from localglo.be

Directions from London to San Francisco

2007-05-02T21:53:00.000+01:00

From my good friend Tom Whipple over at The Times:

Google directions to San Francisco. Very clear, detailed and diligent and as you would always expect with Google.

Except step 37.

1. Head south on A3212 toward Great College St 0.4mi 1 min
2. At Horseferry Rd, take the 1st exit onto A3203 0.2mi
...
...
33. Turn right at Quai Colbert 358 ft
34. Turn right to merge onto Rue Marceau 0.2 mi
35. Take the ramp onto Quai Frissard 0.6 mi 2 mins
36. At the roundabout, take the 4th exit onto E05 0.6 mi 2 mins
37. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi 29 days 0 hours
38. Turn left at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
39. Continue on State St 427 ft
40. Turn left at John F Fitzgerald Surface Rd 0.5 mi

I'm flattered by the pace they think I'd hit.

We want a developer to come to YC with us

2007-05-02T10:14:00.000+01:00

Love writing great code?

Want to work on a game changing OpenID app in a Y-Combinator team this summer?

Ready to up sticks and head to Boston in four weeks?

If the call appeals and you can code like a demon then we'd love to hear from you. We'd like to recruit one and possibly two more people onto our team for Boston this summer.

What you'll be joining

We're currently a two man team with two more employed on a contract basis. I am a long-time developer and founder of Webkitchen and Sitefire, a successful web development company.

My co-founder and partner is Pete Couldridge, an old school friend and the founder and owner of two profitable bricks and mortar property companies.

We are not releasing huge amounts of information about what we're building at this stage but we can say that it's in the field of OpenID and that everyone who we've spoken to so far smiles very, very broadly when we finish the demo.

We're still in the process of building the team but aside from myself and Pete, we can confirm that the very talented Denis Radenkovic is going to be working on our branding, our law firm and one of our investors is Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati whilst Simon Willison will be counsel on matters of OpenID. We've raised investment from Paul Graham, as well as several UK individuals and companies.

Who we need

The most important thing is that you're a great developer, that you're keen and that you've got a track record of delivery. If you have experience in and passion for the technologies we're going to be using that would be better still:

At the moment the technology stack is the insanely fast development platform Zimki on the backend with Flex up front. I cannot recommend this combo enough for developing very rich applications, very quickly.

Various issues further down the line mean this may not be exactly what we launch with and we will probably move to a Python/MySQL, Java/MySQL backend for core elements of the service. Flex is still the framework of choice for the front but it'll degrade to static HTML for non-equipped clients.

I would ideally like the next person on board to be a Python guru with a load of browser & Flex experience who hacks the Linux kernel in their spare time but I'm prepared to compromise.

What you'll receive

Well we can offer you an immediate position on YC for a start. In addition to that you'll also receive:

$50,000 salary (equates to ~ £40k lifestyle in the UK)
Company stock
A shiny MacBook (if you need one)

If you're the type of person we're looking for then you've already got a lot of options but they probably won't all offer you the chance to:

Experience living in Cambridge Boston, next to Harvard Square for 3 months
Live in the heart of San Francisco, the hub of the software world thereafter
Be surrounded by 19 other teams of incredibly smart ambitious, passionate and energetic hacker-entrepreneurs
Get constant feedback on code and strategy from people who've done it before including Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston and Robert Morris (as well as drop-in advice from people such as Paul Buchheit, the architect of GMail)
Work with a very talented team of developers and designers
Go sailing and skiing at weekends
Build beautiful software
See your software actually used
Influence how the software's built, the hardware we'll be using and our business strategy
Be a part of the Silicon Valley experience and meet some of the biggest names in the business
Help to make the web a more powerful, flexible and secure place
Generate a life-changing sum of wealth*
Be rich, famous and swamped by hot Californian chicks or chaps*

*Benefits subject to success and world-domination. The value of your appeal to the chick and chap community may go down as well as up. Your MacBook will be repossessed if you do not keep up monthly commits.

If you're good and the above appeals then get in touch with me. Please send us your CV, your core technological skills, links to any online profiles you have - blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter etc. and a paragraph or two explaining why you'd like to join us.

If you know someone else who fits the bill then please forward it to them. We're leaving on the 28th May and we're planning to be a bigger family by the time we do.

Peter Nixey - peter at webkitchen dot co dot uk

Webkitchen and Y-Combinator

2007-04-22T09:58:00.000+01:00

It's been a long time since I last posted and there's been a lot of things I've written about but not yet published. In the last two months the most incredible number of things have happened to Webkitchen and to me and to what's now happening and I have barely had the time to do the things I've had to do never mind blog about them.

One thing I would like to blog about though is the huge news for us which is that earlier this evening, Paul Graham offered us a place on this summer's Y-Combinator programme. I guess it probably goes without saying that I and my now co-founder Pete feel incredibly privileged to have received this and can't wait to start the programme.

It's been a hell of a long day though and after starting at five with demo-completion this morning it's finished at two with drinks in Palo Alto. Now is definitely time for bed.

Open Coffee Club Palo Alto and Edgeio

2007-03-14T20:23:00.000+01:00

NB These posts are sadly only making it out several days after they actually happen - it's hectic here.

After a 6:30 start and a lot more walking than was strictly necessary, this morning's meeting was Keith Teare's Open Coffee Club in Palo Alto. There were four or five people there including Mark Birbeck from Forms Player (actually another London company) Keith, Sam Kho and Paul Josefak from Neuhaus Partners venture capital.

Saul and Robin are both investors in Edgeio (as is Mike Arrington) and although I've always found its model interesting I had no idea that the original "listings in blog posts" model was actually not at all what they were about. Edgeio is really the business model that Google Base should be but doesn't bother executing on.

The company is is of course about listings (and other interesting things to come) but more about de-coupling the creation and management of a listing (jobs, cars, houses etc) from its display. If they can beat the other players to the punch they're going to become enormous as a result of it. Keith Teare the CEO clearly knows his stuff - not only does he seem to have put together a great team and a substantial amount of finance behind the business but he really knows the technology too.

After the meetup, a couple of us then headed over with Keith to the Edgeio offices where I was introduced to John Dowd who's doing a lot of work figuring out how to network their display points. We also talked about how we could use the things they've done on the (soon to be launched) Open Coffee Network. For my money, they totally get the space they're in and are going to be pumping out some very interesting tools. John's an extremely smart guy and going to work with us setting up a job board on the (soon to be released) Open Coffee Club Network.

Even in less than 24 hours here it's blindingly incredibly obvious even to Pete, a friend who's come out travelling with me, that there is no point in hanging around in London to do a startup.

The people the technical expertise, the price of living and the weather combine to create an atmosphere of potential here you can almost taste in the air. Visiting San Francisco firmly changes the question from being whether one should come here to how to make it happen.

Arrival

2007-03-14T20:15:00.000+01:00

We've only been out here half a day so far but even in that time it's obvious that San Francisco is a pretty special place and not least because of the gorgeous sunny weather.

I remember Ben Metcalf blogging about this when he first came out here but even as you come in from the airport you see advertising hoardings for websites like Blinx and the offices of buzz-names like Slingbox by the side of the road. This is internet-land.

Software, coding and building businesses are in the blood and in sharp contrast to London, people really understand what's involved in creating them. We met up with Harjeet and Kulveer for a Mexican last night and I was amazed at how fast things are moving for them with Auctomatic. They may well be about to get involved with some very significant names and aside from having accepted even more Angel funding are in a very hot spot with their product.

I'm not going to say too much about Y-Combinator yet because there's a lot more to learn and we're fortunate enough to go to one of the founder's dinners tonight. Harj and Kulv both wax lyrical about Paul every time I see them though and I'm looking forward to finally meeting him.

San Francisco

2007-03-11T20:05:00.000+01:00

I'm going to be making my first trip out to San Francisco next week and I'm very excited indeed.

The plan is currently to visit friends at Google, O'Reilly, Slide, Yelp, Berkely, Stanford and of course Harj and Kulveer at Y-Combinator. If the jet-lag doesn't kill me I'm also going to be getting up at 6:30am the day after we arrive to get down to Keith Teare's Open Coffee Morning in Palo Alto too and then off to Alcatraz for a prison visit.

I've been dying to go to San Francisco ever since I got into this field and I can't wait to take off tomorrow. If you happen to be there at the same then please get in touch with me: peter at webkitchen dot co dot uk. I'll be there from Monday - Monday.

Flex 2 trial

2007-03-05T00:04:00.000+01:00

Why does Adobe limit their Flex 2 IDE trial to 30 contiguous days? I'm a huge fan of Flex but getting to grips with any new technology is a huge investment.

The biggest part of that investment by far is the time required to learn the technology. It takes days and weeks before you become truly useful in a new architecture. With good web developers charging out at ~£400/day that's a lot of investment. Add the cost of books and, in this case the IDE on top of that and you're looking at a hard cash investment of £470 over and above the time.

I think Adobe's done an awesome thing with Flex and I think that it's ultimately going to have a bigger effect than AJAX on our notions of how we interact with the web. That process is going to happen a whole lot faster when Adobe change their trial period from 30 contiguous days to 30 cumulative hours or similar and let people appreciate the benefits before they're locked out.

I chatted with Simon Willison about this and he mentioned that he'd played with it but the thing shut down before he had a chance to get to grips with it. Bit of a false economy for Adobe there. Simon speaks at a lot of conferences and is read by a lot of people but he's not going to be saying anything about Flex in the near future because it didn't happen to hook him in the two days he had spare to play with it.

Not so with me though - JavaScript is way too much work and Flex was love at first sight. Time to cough up some cash!

Open Coffee Meetup a success

2007-03-01T19:54:00.000+01:00

Well well done Saul. For my money, this morning's coffee meetup was a real success.

There seems to be a real buzz around these type of events now. A lot of us now know each other and everyone's moving forward and getting real traction. It's noticeable how much more the founders are smiling and laughing then they were a year ago.

This is good. Perhaps it's just me but even though we've all been bumping into each other for the last year or so, this and FOWA were the first times that I started to feel a real community developing.

It's also interesting to see the mainstream media turning up at smaller and smaller events. I spoke to both both Victor Keegan and Jemima Kiss from the Guardian as well of course as the ever-smiling Sam and Mike. It'll be very interesting to see how much more coverage will develop when Last.fm finally gets snapped up.

OpenCoffee Startup meetup

2007-02-28T23:28:00.000+01:00

I've been a bit remiss in posting this but I'm going to be over at the Open Coffee Meetup Saul Klein has organised for tomorrow morning.

It'll be interesting to see who turns up and what the atmosphere is. There are a few VC names I've seen before planning to be there and it'll be good that there are but it really is the angels that need to appear.

VC's aren't angels and to be fair to them it's really not their job to act that way but whilst Saul's started shaken things up since his arrival at Index, I can't help but be astounded by the inaction of some of the other firms.

These are *huge* markets and we haven't seen the biggest players even begin to emerge. YouTube will be a drop in the ocean compared with the company that will rise to challenge Google (and one will). Despite the possibilities, the British investment community seems to be largely watching what's going on at home on their TV sets. Almost no-one's clambering down into the pit.

The fact that there are almost no angels in the space has created an eerie pre-battle calm with VC's on one side of a £3m chasm and entrepreneurs on the other. Each is lining up in ranks waiting for the other to make a move but the entrepreneurs don't have the equipment to cross the chasm and the VC's don't seem to think it's worth it.

Turing the tables

Imagine as an entrepreneur you turned up to your weekly investor meeting and explained why you weren't making any money:

Investor: "So tell me how's the market looking?"

Entrepreneur: "Great - big and hungry"

Investor: "Excellent. And sales?"

Entrepreneur: "Not so many"

Investor: "As in?"

Entrepreneur: "None."

Investor: "No sales to a big hungry market? Is there something I'm missing?"

Entrepreneur: "Well you see the thing is we've got two products. The first is a cheapy and to be honest it's a bit of a hassle but everybody wants it. It's a loss leader though - we're hanging back for the enterprise sales. That's where the gravy is"

Investor: "Could you convert the early customers into enterprise customers? "

Entrepreneur: "Sure, about one in ten"

Investor: "And does that make it worth the hit on the other 9?"

Entrepreneur: "Easily - in fact one in 30 will generate enough cash to find the whole company for the next 10 years"

Investor: "So why aren't you working the conversion funnel?"

Entrepreneur: "Totally a load of work. It's nothing like dealing with an enterprise client - and the costs... do you know how much we spend on legal for a £3m sale?"

Investor: "Would you need to spend that much on one of the lower tier sales."

Entrepreneur: "Doubtful."

Investor: "So you could use these smaller sales as loss-leaders to generate the profits from the bigger sales. The problem then is that you need to change your strategy right?"

Entrepreneur: "Yes."

Investor: "So how do you plan to change?"

Entrepreneur: "Change?"

Investor: "So let me get this straight. The strategy is not to make any sales apart from the very occasional one that appears by chance."

Entrepreneur: "Well, it's a bit of a blunt way to put it but that's pretty much it yes."

Investor: "How on earth are you planning to survive?"

Entrepreneur: "(laughs) No need to worry on that front my friend . We might not be selling anything but we're certainly not roughing it. You invested so much money in us that we can actually live off the interest. Odds are that we'll land an enterprise customer at some point and not even void the termsheet. Is it time for lunch already! Why don't you join me, I know a lovely little place in Green Park?"

Put me right

I know I'm being flippant and I know that's going to get people's backs up but I wrote it for a reason. If I was an investor in some (though not all) of the funds that claim to inhabit this space I'd be pretty annoyed with them.

Is what I've written wrong and if so why? I'm presuming it must be because I know there's a lot of smart people working in these funds.

The model for building software companies has changed. It's tens of times cheaper but it's still not free by a long way. The returns are just as high if not higher and yet the investment model is refusing to budge. Why?

Trusted Places gets £0.5m funding

2007-02-28T16:27:00.000+01:00

I am very proud to pass on the news that Walid, Sokratis, Dima and Moty have, after many months of hard work, taken Trusted Places to the next level.

The team originally backed the site with their own money and took it through the first year using a small amount of seed funding and a lot of elbow grease. Today though they announced that they've received £500k backing from HOWZAT media. who are also behind WAYN and Zoomf.

The importance of Passion

I was fortunate enough to be able to work with the team during their very earliest days in a kitchen in Kilburn and have witnessed the site go from a set of whiteboard sketches through one incarnation and onto the site that it is today.

Trusted Places has grown because it provides a service in a single vertical (entertainment venue reviews) and does so with total passion.

Both Walid and Sokratis have put everything into the building of the site and the company and have sacrificed their jobs, their savings and every minute of time they have to make it happen. They are totally committed to creating a wonderful user experience and to both their visitors and advertisers.

The value of the vertical

The site has grown not just because it's a good site to use (and in the early days it certainly wasn't as good as it is now) but also because Walid and Sokratis followed up their online work with real offline parties and events.

The internet might create potential to scale to a hundred million users but when 95% of your input is generated by 5% of your users and the first 10k are the hardest to get, you'd better make damn sure that the 500 who drive you are looked after. Walid and Sokratis understood this well (and liked throwing parties) and have come out smiling as a result.

I know that they've run the gauntlet to get to where they are today and just how much the luxury of an office and developers who are in the country will mean to them all. They've a huge task ahead of them in growing the site to the point where it really pays but they've crossed the toughest first hurdle.

It seems they've found a great partner and I must say that it really couldn't have happened to a more deserving team. Well done guys.

Index getting ready to dip their toes?

2007-02-16T13:58:00.000+01:00

A very interesting post by Saul Klein:

Y Europe can seed growth of its new stars

Chatting with some of the guys over there, this isn't the first I've heard about Index considering a yCombinator model so with this much chatter, something might just bite.

It's not going to be a walk in the park; Simon Murdoch and Rikki Tahta did play with the idea on a previous occasion but the UK is a different place than it was then and Index have a huge amount of visibility as well as incredible portfolio and would almost certainly be the right vessel to launch this.

My 2p

It'll be very interesting to see what comes of this. If they do it right I think Index could make a huge difference to what's happening here. I answered Saul's call to comment pretty extensively on the article but in brief, the things which I think could make a huge difference are:

A Decent place to work with other smart people
Enough money to be able to develop the idea full time
*Smart* and complementary support services -software might be cheaper but it's not cheap and developers need designers, designers need developers and everyone needs marketing and PR
Status
Alignment with the goals of the incubator
Trust in the incubator

My approach (which I'll post something on soon) has been to give up on the idea of investment and build a business to build a business. It's what Ryan did and I've got to say it feels great to be building something that people are willing to pay good hard cash for.

Jack Welch once said that anyone can squeeze more and anyone can dream but the real skill is in doing both at the same time. A startup without revenue is a dreaming startup and on very dangerous ground. If you can get to market and get traction you might get a hand up but the very best thing you can do is start squeezing the lemon and sell real product to real people for cold hard cash.

What did I miss?

What do you think, James C, Harjeet, Kulveer, James Holmes, Walid/Sokratis...? You guys are all doing your own thing and I know that we've all faced different challenges. Have I missed anything from the list?

PHP / API / Python Developer wanted ASAP

2007-02-06T11:33:00.000+01:00

Two weeks ago, we launched a business, one we're going to use to build the team and a live testbed for Deeptag. Things have kicked off fast with enquiries though and we need your help.

The business is called Sitefire and produces high quality, bespoke, content-managed websites for businesses at fixed, reasonable prices.

I meant to write a little more about our reasons for building Sitefire and more about the technology under it but events are beginning to overtake me and the volume of enquiries means that we need another developer pronto.

N.B. if you know anyone else who might be interested in this position then please pass it on!

Contractor required to work onsite in London

If you've been reading this blog for a little while then you know me and you know the type of code I stand for. We're interested in people who love great code and great architecture and who aren't language fascists.

The core work involved at this stage is going to be:

Developing connectivity into the Flickr API's for generating galleries
Developing connectivity into the Google Spreadsheet API's
A little bit of Wordpress hacking
A little bit of Javascript dev.

We're moving into an office in either Clapham or SOHO next week and am currently interviewing designers to come on board as soon as we're in. We currently need someone for about two weeks although as you'll see below, we'd also like to groom for full time.

If you're either able to come and do a bit of moonlighting outside your normal job or you've got some availability and can work onsite or you know someone else that could do either of these things then we'd love to hear from you. We'd rather get someone who can be present in person so as to cut down on comms-time.

Please get in touch with me either by email - peter at sitefire dot co dot uk or fill in the online application form on the website.

We've used PHP/Wordpress (heavily modified) to get the business up and running as quickly as was possible but we'll be swapping this out for a much cleaner, smarter and simpler architecture as soon as possible.

Full time making good money / writing great code?

If you think you might be interested in a permanent position developing really interesting apps and being paid well for it in a month or two's time then it would be great to start chatting now.

We've no intention of staying with PHP and am planning on moving to Python/Flex2 and possibly Berkely XML DB for the proper development. Those of you with experience with Django/TurboGears/Twisted would be particularly welcome.

Please do get in touch. - peter at sitefire.co.uk

Vecosys - The new face of Techcrunch UK

2007-02-01T11:16:00.000+01:00

For a variety of different reasons, it's been a long time since I've posted here. That should be changing soon as there's lots of stuff to start writing about (Flex 2 - mmmm) but one of the stories I've been extremely remiss in ignoring is the brand change at Techcrunch UK.

Anyone who keeps an eye on the UK start-up scene is bound to have watched the blogoscoop that was the closure of Techcrunch UK but not everyone might have heard that the core of the operation - the writers and the stories have rebanded and are relaunched at Vecosys.

Techcrunch UK really was always more Sam and Mike than Techcrunch itself so although this is a completely new company it's really only effectively a change of brand.

As always, the best of luck to them.

Techcrunch launch party video

2006-11-13T18:45:00.000+01:00

Over the past few months, Sam Sethi has been doing a wonderful job getting Techcrunch UK up, running and full of content. The hub that Sam's worked so hard to create has befitted all of us in the community and I for one am extremely grateful for what he's achieved.

The arrival of the inimitable Mike Butcher has only served to strengthen Techcrunch and I've little doubt it'll be hitting its exponential later this year.

A few weeks back, the site held its launch party and I was lucky enough not only to go along but also to be interviewed about Deeptag. The video of that interview is probably going to emerge sometime over the next few weeks but in the meantime there's a little intro to the party, to Techcrunch and even a little bit of me in the video below.

If you are doing a startup in the UK then do get in touch with the guys at Techcrunch. It's great to know who's doing what and both Mike and Sam are smart guys and good writers (though make sure you're good, Mike's not afraid to pack his punches ;)

Oxford startup BOSO joins Y Combinator

2006-11-07T19:53:00.000+01:00

I was extremely proud and excited today to find out that two of my good friends from Oxford, Kulveer and Harjeet Taggar have been accepted onto this winter's Y Combinator program with their startup BOSO.

BOSO is a listings site specifically for students and the guys have gotten a load of traction in several UK universities so far. I can't say just how pleased I am for them to get onto Y Combinator. Paul Graham's name is money and not only will this boost BOSO but it'll put them right in the heart of everything that's happening in San Francisco.

At the same time as being happy for them though I'm sad for the UK. Of the very few startups we have, one has now left and the UK will be the poorer for it. BOSO is going to go on to be a great success but even in the unlikely event that it wasn't, we're now two smart, big-thinking entrepreneurs down. For those people watching this space here they'll know that that's not an insignificant hit.

I can see exactly Harj and Kulv have gone and it's so tempting to join them. One of the first things they said to me was "we're going to be working in Evan Williams' office, come and join us" - I have to admit I'm tempted.

The density of smart people who understand this space is so much higher in San Francisco than it is in London and the opportunities are so much greater. People look slightly ashamed for anyone aiming as big as Google here - there's a feeling that you shouldn't embarrass yourself by trying.

You know what though? We do want to build a big company, a really big company. In the consumer-facing data-space it's kind of essential. Many of the greatest companies on the internet (Google, EBay, Craigslist, MySpace, Facebook) are essentially information traders and information is a commodity with low marginal costs.

Low marginal costs but large, skill-hungry, fixed costs. If you're going to invest in those fixed development costs you'd better be planning to trade an awful lot of information. None of that is easy but it doesn't mean it's not 100% what we're aiming at.

Finance for early stage technology is never going to be easy to find but if if I was offered a mile long swim through honey as an alternative I'd reach straight for my goggles.

We've been lucky enough to meet some great Angels and now to have received some offers but since seeking funding for Deeptag, one of the more ambitious ones we had was £100k for 80% of the company. Two years of work and tens of thousands of pounds of investment valued at a total of £25k.

We kindly declined the gentleman's offer.

It's very flattering to have someone offer to back you but such terms are not exactly sowing the seeds of a thousand flowers.

The UK is in a classic Catch 22. We're never going to get the likes of Amazon, Google or Yahoo in this country until someone has built one and people believe it's possible. Unfortunately, it seems we're loosing the few chances we do have. Ryan, you'd better keep your ass firmly stapled to our shores.

There may not be the same density of people who get it in London but I suspect there are comparable numbers in the UK and we're not leaving just yet. We're confident that as hard as it's going to be to get off the mark and get visible, there are extraordinary people here once you do.

In the meantime, Harj and Kulv, have no doubt that I'm going to be milking you for a dinner invitation with Paul ;)

Great work guys and good luck.

Trusted places picks up steam

2006-10-08T21:09:00.000+01:00

I've now been fortunate enough to work with and consult to a number of the internet startups in London. Out of all the different people I've worked with though, two that have stood out a mile in their passion and energy have been Walid and Sokratis from Trusted Places.

I'm super-pleased now to see just how many members and reviews are pouring into the site and the volume of reviews the more dedicated ones are firing up. It seems to be a universal truth that most of the content on any particular community site (Digg) or project (Firefox) comes from a small fraction of the members but it's fascinating to see this played out in something close to home.

The site still needs a couple of corners rounded off but I've no doubt that will come in time and have been bowled over with how much they've achieved in the short time they've had so far. I wish them all the best and look forward to seeing what's next in the TP pipeline.

The CEO of MySQL on why they moved to Silicon Valley

2006-09-20T13:54:00.000+01:00

A great slide on the differences between developing a business in Europe and in Silicon Valley from Mårten Mickos, the CEO of MySQL. I'm particularly interested to see him highlight the last three points. (click to see the original image at Flickr).