Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I read a post on TechCrunch today where the author claims that you can’t start a new company unless you can write code. I disagree.

I started my tech career as a computer operator at a bank and later worked at AOL during the mid 90’s where I built my first website in 1996 as the first Technical Account Manager in Europe - my team helped to launch technologies and clients such as AIM, 56K modem speed, Internet Radio, Games, integrate browsers and more. I also built some very complex applications using one of the first ecollaborative technologies in a RAD environment when ecollaboration was a new term in 1999.  Yet, I write this post as a non-coding founder as I don’t have the ability to write a single line of code that’s meaningful to our company. I designed this blog by editing the CSS but that’s the extent of my code writing (exactly, that’s not writing code). Since then, my career has led me down a fantastic path, made up of both technical and non-technical roles across the Internet and mobile industries and later, the mobile web. I’m one of the seven original founders of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative and helped to write some of the compliance specification, yet I don’t posses the ability to write the code for a site that would work on both desktop and mobile browsers.

TechCrunch and many bloggers and indeed investors, believe that you must have a cofounder who can write code. This isn’t true. However, as a founder, you must posses the following:

1. Ability to hire the best coder possible
2. Ability to motivate the coder so they can work to the best of their ability
3. Ability to ensure that the coder is motivated and working in a comfortable environment
4. Ability to measure the performance of the coder, helping them to understand and take advantage of their strengths and feel ok telling you their weaknesses so you can support them
5. Have a backup plan to ensure that another coder can take over should the original coder leave the project at a moments notice to ensure continuity of product development
6. Ability to hire the best coder possible to take over when point 5 comes into play

My most recent experience with MetaCert is relevant too as we are closing a series A round and our investors see the strength of the team, yet the founder doesn’t have the ability to write code. At MetaCert our main coder Kamrul, sadly left us after 5 years of R&D. Everything was backed up and well documented. As a result, there was minimal disruption to the development of our crawling and labeling platform when we hired Paraschos, another awesome coder. What happens if Paraschos leaves? Hopefully he won’t. But if he does, everything is well documented so we would hire another coder to take over. After writing this post I will revisit point 3 to ‘help’ ensure Parschos stays with us until we’ve managed to launch our kids browser for the iPad and beyond.

Giving a title of cofounder to a coder just because you think it’s necessary is all about ego. A non-founding coder run over by a bus as TechCrunch puts it, is equally damaging to a company than if the coder was a founder - it makes absolutely no difference.

Note: if you don’t notice at least one typo you’ll know I’ve hired a ghost writer

For those of you who don’t know, Wubud is my latest startup - which has attracted attention recently from some early adopters and bloggers. I was going to provide an update anyway, so this post isn’t in response to TechCrunch or any other blog. It’s a result of people asking for an update on Twitter.

It’s late. No. It’s very late. But all with good reason - I’m happy with our decision to hold off on ‘going ugly early’ for the sake of getting something out there.

Why we haven’t launched yet

We decided to outsource the entire development of our mobile application (not the design) to a company based in Hong Kong. For numerous reasons, it didn’t work out. In mid 2009 we had an application that worked well on a Nokia N95, but when we had the code reviewed by independent experts we realized it wasn’t easily portable to all other devices. It’s important to have our application work on more than 80% of all devices to help with mass adoption, so this reason alone was good enough to scrap everything and start from scratch. Some of our competitors have compelling iPhone applications, but that’s a small segment of the overall potential market.

We now have a team working hard on building a scalable product that is easily ported to all devices and it’s easily internationalized/localized to help with mass adoption globally. Localising a product is more than changing the language – it’s about providing local benefits and content.

As more location based social networks came to the market over the past 12 months, we continued to learn from what they do well, what they don’t do well and what they don’t do at all. Thanks to new companies coming to market, our knowledge about the benefits people look for has improved and as a result, we recently modified some of the product design and integrated more benefits.

Am I happy that we’re late to the game? Absolutely YES! We’re better placed than ever before as it’s still very early to market with location based services and the market continues to be educated by our competitors and other providers in this space. We’d rather be good second-movers than a failed pioneer.

When can you get your hands on Wubud?

I say this with bated breath, but we hope to have an alpha version by the end of January 2010. We’ll invite a small number of users to help us identify improvements so we can improve it further for our beta release (hopefully in February 2010).

What is go ugly early?

Go ugly early is a term used to describe an early product launch, even though it’s not designed exactly how you would like. The idea is to get ‘something’ out to the market in order to solicit early feedback, following up with small iterations to further improve the product based on customer feedback.

We’ve decided to go fashionably late - so fingers crossed…

I sent a tweet this morning to say I was going to do a ‘#followfriday’ for the very first time. A number of people asked me what that meant, so I’ve decided to write a short post to explain.

#followfriday is a way of recommending people you follow, to other users on Twitter. The idea is that those being recommended will gain new followers.

I feel so strongly about my recommendations that I’ve decided to write why I’m recommending them as potential people for you to follow.

People I recommend and why

@Sheetalmmehta (London)

Helping companies to go global, Innovation, Social entrepreneurship, Technology, Investment…

Sheetal is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Sheetal is the UK Dealmaker for the UK Trade & Investment. She sits on several advisory panels including Shelter, UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women), Digital Diaspora Network for Africa, and the LSE Alumni Mentoring Committee. Her volunteer work is extensive and she is currently writing a book on Social Venture Capital. One of her most notable accomplishments is her new foundation that enables developing communities to access cutting-edge technology based on a social enterprise model.

@Mikeyfletch (London)

Technology journalist, Events, Networking

Mike is an established business & lifestyle journalist. He’s launched three magazines on behalf of UK publishing house Haymarket Media Group & specialises in marketing, media & live events. He is Contributing Editor for Visit London and also owns a part-share in digital networking company Net.works. Mike is also one of the best connected, if not the best connected person in the entire UK events industry.

@PatPhelan (Cork)

Technology with a bias towards mobile, Connector, Innovation

Pat is the founder and President of Cubic Telecom, a well known disruptor in telephony circles and one of the leading voices of Voice 2.0. Pat has developed a number of unique products for the USA, UK and Irish markets including MAXroam, and is a board member of Global Roaming, a NASDAQ listed company (OTCBB:GRDB). Pat has a genuine passion for connecting people and has been responsible for connecting me with some truely amazing people.

@JackieDanicki (San Francisco)

Marketing (true expert in the use of new tools, techniques and trends such as social and Web 2.0), Connector, Writer

Jackie is an extremely direct person who always speaks her mind. She’s an incredibly insightful marketer which is difficult to come by. Almost every marketer and PR expert think they know how to make best use of Web 2.0 tools and techniques. Jackie does - which is why she’s the Director of Marketing at Qik; one of the most innovative mobile products companies in the world. Like Pat, Jackie has a genuine passion for connecting people and has been responsible for connecting me with some truely amazing people.

@Jobsworth (London)

Technology, Social Enterprise, Innovation, Writer, OpenSource,

JP has  spent most of his life working in the space where finance meets technology, for a number of very large firms. Since 2006 he has worked for BT, as part of BT Design, where he is Head of Innovation and Strategy. He has a passion for how work is changing: the paradigms created by globalisation, disintermediation and the web; the implications of virtualisation, service orientation and commoditisation.  JP is an inspiring speaker and writer, who I admire most for his passion for how technology can be put to good use for the benefit of society.

If you decide to follow any of these great people, or you do already, please feel free to retweet my message - they all deserve to be heard by as many people as possible.

You can also leave a comment with the people you recommend on Twitter.

Vodafone Mobile Clicks is an international, high profile contest for the best mobile internet startup. The best mobile internet startup is selected by a professional jury in three different jury rounds.

Who can participate:

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 is open to any individual residing in the Netherlands or the UK from the age of 18 years and to Dutch and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.

More at http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.eu/about/

The competition is open to UK and Netherlands based StartUps only. Great idea. Well, kind of. I know the StartUps must be UK-based, but can someone please tell me why you need to have been personally resident in the UK from the age of 18? What has that to do with anything?

Seems a little dumb, unless I’m missing somthing.

I’m not sure I agree with the IAB setting up an award for the mobile industry. It’s not as if it’s one of many online advertising categories - it’s aimed specifically at the mobile industry and from what I can see, will end up covering just about every type of mobile application.

This type of award in my opinion, is best left to the mobile related associations such as the MMA (who I don’t think do much, but hey…) or better still, Mobile Monday - who I respect and admire.

Am I a little harsh?