Thursday, July 2, 2009

Jason Cohen of SmartBear Talks about His Company

Jason Cohen of SmartBear Talks about His Company

Where are you from originally?

Austin, TX! One of the few natives.


What university did you go to?


UT here in town, a BA in CS.


What brought you to Austin?

Mom. :-) See? You assumed...


What is the idea behind your startup?

Smart Bear makes Code Collaborator-- the first and most popular tool for peer code review.


What need does it fulfill?

Just as authors have editors, software developers review each other's work
too. Developers have special needs -- integration with tools like version
control and IDEs, working with people who might be 12 time zones away, and
bosses who want metrics and reports.

Our software removes the drudgery from code review process and paperwork.


What exactly does your product do?

Code Collaborator removes pain from code review in several specific ways.

First, it integrates with version control systems, so you can say "review code I haven't checked in" or "review changelist 1234" with a click of a
button.

Second, it organizes threaded discussions in-line with the code in an web-based interface. Because the chatter and code is displayed together, you don't get massive emails or meeting notes with phrases like "on line 1534 of //depot/foo/bar....".

Third, it tracks the defects you find in code review. You can either fix them on the spot or transfer them to your issue tracker for later.

Fourth, it collects metrics automatically, so it takes no time to get all the data and reports managers want. Some organizations are under contracts that require code review (e.g. medial devices and DoD contracts), and Code Collaborator produces the reports you need.

Who is it for?

Anyone who writes code! Any language, any platform, any IDE.


What was the most challenging aspect of starting up a business?

Psychology. When you're bootstrapping alone there's no one to share the
work, share the burden, share the worries or share the decisions. There's no one who can buck up your spirits or give you a pep talk when you need it. No one to agree that the big decisions are good and well thought-out.


What is the next step for you and your startup?

We just had a big new v5.0 release where we added document, image, and URL
reviews to our existing text-file code reviews. That opens up new markets and new customers so that will keep us busy for a while.

I'm a fan of "do one thing and do it well," so although we're branching out
to new people we'll always stick to our core competency, which is people
reviewing each others' work.


What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?

Be honest with yourself and with your
http://blog.asmartbear.com/blog/joy-of-honesty-in-business-a-5-part-series.html customers.

Admit to yourself when something's not working and change it. Don't be a
slave to any one idea if there's evidence that it's wrong. Proceed as if
you're right about everything, but be ready to change your mind about
anything, including your entire business
model.
Have strong opinions, weakly held.
There will be rough times, but that's normal. so don't get discouraged.

What Austin-based resource have you found to be the most helpful and why?


Networking events where you actually meet new people. There's all sorts of
amazing people in Austin, many of whom are happy to give advice over a cup
of coffee; the trick is meeting them.


Best regards,
Hall T.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Michael Yuan of Ringful Talks about His Startup

Michael Yuan of Ringful Talks about His Startup

Where are you from originally?

I am originally from China.

What brought you to Austin?

Graduate school. UT is a world class research university, especially in engineering and science, with many programs ranking top 10 in the country.

What university did you go to?

UT Austin. I got a PhD in Astrophysics there.

What is the idea behind your startup?

The idea is to help companies and web sites go mobile. Today, when a company wants to reach its customers and employees via mobile, it typically thinks in terms of mobile web + SMS campaign. But people use way more than just web+SMS in their real life. Why should we limit service delivery to those two channels and miss out the rest? We have a platform that reaches people via multiple channels, and integrates with enterprise backends to make mobile part of the existing workflow. We make money by hosting applications developed for our platform, license our technology to enterprises, and develop end-user facing applications on our own.

Tell me more about your startup concept?

The reason people think mobile web + SMS first when it comes to mobility, is because those two can be easily fit into a "web application" paradigm. They can be easy "add-ons" to your existing web applications. On the other hand, key mobility features such as voice calls, rich client mobile apps, rich PUSH messages, multimedia content, location services, and social network notifications / messages, are much harder to integrate.

Our product is to 'mashup" all those different delivery channels with existing workflows in enterprise middleware and web sites. We have a public RESTful web service that allows any developer to add telephony voice / SMS services to their web sites. The RESTful API is designed in such way that a web developer can be productive after an hour of learning.

We host the service, and handle complicated tasks to integrate into the telco network (we can make phone calls and send SMS to over 30 countries).
We also have a portfolio of smart phone libraries and applications for popular platforms such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile.

We also customize / license our technology for enterprises. We offer consulting and maintenance services to companies who want to use technology to reach mobile users, or to increase productivity / reduce cost of their own employees. The service includes both the customization of the platform itself, as well as application development on top of the platform. In this case, we can either host the customized platform on our own infrastructure or license it to be hosted inside the corporate firewall.

What exactly does your product do?

Our product is a communication and workflow platform. On one end, it reaches end users via multiple channels:

* Regular voice calls
* Mobile messaging such as SMS and MMS
* Rich client apps such as iPhone / Android / BlackBerry / Windows Mobile apps
* Special PUSH messages to rich mobile clients such as Java Push and Blackberry Push
* Mobile web
* Social network notifications and messages
* Email and IM
* etc. etc.

On the other end, our platform plugs directly into the existing web site or enterprise middleware. Through enterprise web services (SOA) and middleware APIs, we can connect into most popular CRM / ERP / Portal / App Server / Workflow engine / Rules engine inside the enterprise.

There are a few publicly available demos we have developed to demonstrate the concept of things you could do with our platform. Check them out at our web site: http://www.ringful.com/

Who is it for?

Consumers and enterprises. We are seeing particular interest in healthcare mobility enablement, but there are other growth verticals for us as well such as media and telecom.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting up a business?

Resisting the temptation of going after investment capital too early. Bootstrapping has been hard, but it allows us to be nimble and move fast as we seek the best opportunity for optimal growth.
What is the next step for you and your startup?

Manage growth. As business is starting to build up, we need to remain focused on strengthening our core values for Mobility Mashups and watch from spreading too thin into areas that appear like low hanging fruit, that pays well in the short term, but in reality is a serious distraction. We want to be a product company.
What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?

Enjoy the battle.


Best regards,
Hall T.