Archive for the ‘techfounder’ Category

Finding co-founders – Technical founder POV

Saturday, April 16th, 2011

First, a prelude - though I've mostly written technical articles on this blog, it's called techfounder for a reason - it was my original intention to also talk about startups from the view-point of the technical founder. I have been involved in several ventures so far in this role (currently at Binpress), each giving me more perspective on the overall picture.

I've just stumbled upon a nice article titled "Why you can('t) recruit a technical co-founder". The author makes some solid points about why it's hard to recruit / find a technical co-founder for a startup, but it seemed more common sense than deep introspection.

Idea is nothing, execution is everything

If you've started up your own venture, you know this saying is not just a cliche. Ideas, however great, will get nowhere without execution. On the other hand, solid and above execution can get very far with even below mediocre ideas.
(more...)

What makes a good programmer?

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Some casual surfing led me to this article from a couple of years ago, titled "How to recognize a good programmer". It was a nice read, but as many in the comments pointed out, the criteria the author set forth most likely describe himself and are not really useful as rules-of-thumb on how to recognize a good programmer.

It got me thinking though, on what are the attributes I consider useful in fellow programmers. So what makes a good programmer?
(more...)

Conveying value to clients

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Preface: This article was written mostly half a year ago, as I was wrapping up an intense period of freelancing and sub-contracting. It is less relevant for me now, as I'm now an equal partner in a small web firm and my freelancing days are beyond me - however, I thought it might be a good read.

(more...)

Zend Framework certification

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

Today I took and passed the Zend Framework certification exam. A possible project involving Zend might be materializing in the near future, and this was a requirement from one of my contractors (OpenIT). Being that they offered to sponsor the cost, I had no reason not take it.

As I found no concrete online information on the test (and the guide link from Zend doesn't work), I might as well elaborate a little for the benefit of future test takers reading this blog -
(more...)

Octabox launched and I’m back to blogging

Friday, October 10th, 2008

I've been super-busy the last couple of months - I've came across a stupendous amount of work that I couldn't refuse in addition to the effort towards the release of my own startup, business platform Octabox. Things are finally calming down, and I'll be getting back to blogging, writing about plenty of things I've learned / implemented / experimented with the last two months.

(more...)