Well my cute daughter Anna is running around with our generation one iPad. Since the tech is relatively new there are no hard and fast rules for managing your child’s iPad usage. We have tried to figure it out as we have gone along, but finding quality apps is always a challenge. It is a challenge because you want to find something interative and can teach you something instead of just mindless drivel. She is now 2.5 and now these are her favorites that we totally approve. As a result here are our recommendations for Apps Endless Alphabet – This is a fantastic app for increasing your child’s vocabulary and getting them to start spelling and sounding out letters. Download Endless Alphabet Toca Boca Kitchen/Doctor/Hair Salon – Toca Boca produces some fun games for kids. These three are our favorites. Download Toca Boca Kitchen / Doctor and Hair Salon Princess Fairy Tale Maker – Don’t let the name fool you. This is a fun little app for creating visual stories with your kid increasing their imagination. Duck Duck Moose is a great studio for kids games. Download Princess Fairy Tale Maker. Download Princess Fairy Tale Maker Recommendations on Youtube Peppa Pig – While this is not limited to just the web it is a great show that has been adapted for countless languages. Mother Goose Club It is a great series of unique songs, very friendly and catchy. I still can’t get the Dinosaur stop song out of my...
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So I have been horrible at keeping up my blog lately. This is my vain attempt to get back into the swing of things now that my life is getting close to a new normal. I moved back to Waterloo 2 months ago to help achieve some work/life/health balance. My workout life has been a roller coaster, one minute I can run 41k another seemingly I am wheezing to run 5k. I wanted to take things back under control, so I joined Crossfit. For those that are not familiar it is a pretty intense series of workouts designed to push you and essentially make you Stronger, Fitter and Faster. So after tonight of completing an epic workout and can’t sleep because my muscles ache I was reflecting on what Printchomp and Crossfit have in common. 1. Push your limits – Whether it is building a new business or getting in shape it is all about pushing your limits. Seeing how far you can push yourself. You don’t know how far you can go or achieve if you don’t push yourself hard. Whenever you stop pushing yourself, you deprive yourself from getting to a goal faster or sooner. So don’t take your foot off the gas pedal, you only have limited time on this earth so make the most of it. 2. Surround yourself with people that push you – You are only as good as the people you surround yourself with. If you only hang out with uninspired, lazy individuals soon you will become one. Both in Printchomp or Crossfit both are highly motivated to achieve their goals. At a critical point of my workout I was behind (it was a timed workout). I might not have completed it in the allotted time if a colleague hadn’t pushed me to work harder to complete the workout. You also need good people to help you constantly raise your game and constantly improve. 3. It is ok to be uncomfortable – The old adage of getting out of your comfort zone. It has become so clichéd. Pushing yourself to do new and tough things is the only way you improve. If you don’t fail or had a chance of failing you have no way to get better. When I first ventured out to create my own business, it was a scary experience. However if I didn’t take that first step to start something, I would have never went beyond what I knew. For me never trying is far scarier than trying something with a chance of failure. 4. Form is everything – Form is everything when working out, so to does...
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So a year has passed since Printchomp came into the world. Suffice it to say it hasn’t been an uneventful year. Calling it an emotional roller coaster ride wouldn’t even properly characterize it. In order to make this startup journey possible, I had to change all facets of my life. Over a year ago, I sold my house, I began commuting an hour back to Waterloo (as I prepared to move back), and I changed everything and turned things on their head. One would think that changing their entire life in their early 30’s was a natural progression. The backdrop was quite unusual in this case. My wife was in the process of finishing an epic journey of realizing her own dream in become an anesthesiologist. This is no small feat, and took over 13 years of post-secondary education to complete. Between that and watching my daughter grow from a baby to a little girl, this year has been nothing short of busy. In many ways I had to put aside the trappings of having steady income in order to go after a dream. It was the belief that I had something more in me than just being a cog in a wheel at one organization after another. I knew the journey wouldn’t be easy. Nothing is handed to you. A year later, I have a company with 10 colleagues. I wouldn’t call them employees; they are more like companions in this epic adventure. Rather like the Lord of the Rings it has been a trek through sometimes-treacherous terrain. Although, I often catch myself admiring the beautiful scenery I know I must keep pushing forward to my goal. We now have thousands of clients on the system. When I tell people I run my own company they always say must be nice to be your own boss. The thing that many do not realize is that when you have customers you have thousands of bosses. Each one of them must be properly taken care of and addressed. The connection with the customers has been invaluable to shaping the product. Since we launched only 3 months in, there were many things that weren’t fully built out. Features were sparse, but the vision was there and that is what people kept responding to. Little by little, we began addressing each crucial piece of functionality and made it easier and easier to do seemingly simple tasks. The way that our development team has evolved the site with the number of constraints they have faced over the year is nothing short of amazing – evolving a simple flow into something far more elegant...
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I am constantly amazed by the number of startups that build applications and take a huge business risk by building their company on an API call. Countless apps, particularly social apps, have popped up through the last 24 months that have taken data from other systems and re-displayed it in their systems. While there is widespread usage of APIs (and not for a moment am I suggesting that people not use them at all), I just think that start-up founders consistently underplay the business risk. The risk is clear, if the data dries up so does your business. For all that have created apps based largely on API calls, consider what would happen if that information fire hose wasn’t there anymore. The companies who provide these APIs may not disappear, but it will definitely be a game-changer. The changes to Twitter’s API should serve as a warning sign and an important reminder. Countless third-party Twitter apps have found all their hard work rendered useless by the latest release of their 1.1 API, as the vital flow of data has come to a halt or slowed greatly. Some might blame Twitter and say how dare they shut down the fire hose to the community. I think a lot of responsibility needs to be placed on the developers who consciously build on an ecosystem they knowingly can’t control. Two examples cited directly by Michael Sippey on the Twitter blog are Tweetbot and Echofon. In the words of Sippey, “Nearly eighteen months ago, we gave developers guidance that they should not build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience. And to reiterate what I wrote in my last post, that guidance continues to apply today.” I am not here to parse the he said she said, just to offer a warning to startups building their business on an API. If your startup could have its throat cut by a TOS (Terms of Service) change or API change, you shouldn’t just brush inherent risks to your company under the carpet. Moving beyond the risks to your company you should also consider what the true value you are providing to your users. In many cases (especially in the case of social), apps merely have a new UI on top of the information of Twitter or Facebook. On the contrary, there is something amazing to be said for companies who build into the ecosystem and allow their functionality to be seamless across a broader group of applications. The best example that comes to mind is 37 Signals universe and the way they have built and integrated into countless other useful applications. They allow vital business information to...
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As our team gets closer to launching our latest start-up, I wish to pass on a piece of advice that has been a tough lesson for me to learn. Working on the business side of the shop, I have fought against automated tests for a while. That all changed recently. My epiphany came after dealing with a few problems, doing some research and receiving sage advice from multiple people while working on Printchomp. The conclusion I reached was that automated tests save developers time and let you deliver more. This was a painful admission, but a correct one. Let me explain further as to how I came to this realization: 1. Time it takes to do QA (Quality Assurance) without automated tests – I have been in multiple start-ups where automated tests didn’t exist, and let me just say the QA overhead was astronomical. Every time a new feature was rolled out we would have to check the code in multiple browsers in painstaking detail to see if a user could still make it through the checkout process. Due to the fact that basic testing flows weren’t in place, we would waste countless hours every time a new change or feature was introduced. 2. It keeps the locus of control of the QA process closer to developers – I have advocated for a long time that there needs to be closer ownership of code by developers themselves. I have seen many instances where code was checked carelessly, and then tossed over the fence for the QA and business folks to find and fix the errors. With automated testing, developers can run more localized testing and make quick fixes that don’t involve monopolizing QA. Running unit tests ahead of code check-ins are an invaluable step to save headaches later and reduce stress between stakeholders. 3. You build faster – While it seems counter-intuitive, building tests saves you time in the long run. The knee jerk reaction is to spend your time building new features. I have had this reaction many times, but I realized I needed to change it. The best way, I think, is to think of your product as the Starship Enterprise. Scotty, an engineer, can only check so many things at once. An automated test multiplies the ability of Scotty to diagnose and test multiple things. As Captain Kirk, your goal is to keep the Enterprise going forward. Something as simple as automated testing can keep you going at light-speed. One of the biggest time sinks in development is finding the problem. With proper tests in place you can isolate and figure out where the issue is. 4. Ramps up training of new developers – With automated tests in place, it is easier for new developers coming into the system to understand code that they didn’t write. There is no one, probably not even your CTO, that...
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So as everyone has probably heard already, I recently lead the charge to launch a new startup called Printchomp. I started this back in April and needless to say it has been a whirlwind. I have had my share of highs and lows building something from nothing and it was nothing like I have ever done before. It drew a perfect parallel to another adventure I decided to undertake this week (this one purely by accident). I was out for a simple 5km run 2 days after launch and I decided, what would happen if I just went a little bit further. That little bit further turned out to be 41km, just shy of a marathon distance run. I had never run this distance around the Bay before, but I had a voice in my head saying to me push a little further. My longest run for the year was 14km and mostly downhill so, was I skeptical if I was going to make it back. I guess that is the thing when you start a business or push outside of your comfort zone, you have to believe you are going to make it. The run to me became quickly a metaphor to starting a business. You have to be willing to put yourself in harms way, receive the slings an arrows of potentially failing to achieve your goals. I became aware of on the run, no one was there to save me but myself. The success of your business rests on a the edge of a sword, and depending on what you are willing to put into it. You may just fail or you could succeed beyond your wildest dreams. After getting to the finish line after a long run or a new launch, A new race begins. The voyage of turning an MVP into a service that the masses want to use. The brief glory, of getting to the finish line is quickly eclipsed by the reality that your race has only just begun. In many ways the run was very cathartic for me. It gave me an opportunity to put things into perspective but also focus on the task at hand. It gave me an opportunity to look back on my failings and look for ways to improve and get better. Self reflection is a tricky thing, you have to pull away all of the noise and focus on the what is most important. Mind you on a 41km run you have a lot of time to think about a lot of things (Very Forrest Gump of me I know). I thought about previous jobs, people I...
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