The online/startup/business space is much like school – you get encouraged to conform. Sure they tell you that conforming isn’t the answer and that individuality is accepted. But, just like school, when push comes to shove, it’s popular opinion that counts. The online scene in particular has a way of infiltrating your thinking, altering your beliefs and taking over your means of self-expression without letting you know that that’s what’s happening.

What really makes me roll my eyeballs is popular consensus on the do’s and don’ts of starting and running a tech business. Here’s how you should be doing it – articles are in no short supply.

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As a digital creative your days are probably too short to be slowed down by legal fluff and fine-print. Yet, Copyright is probably your main source of income. Don’t you think it’s imperative that you know how it works? Make sure yours is safe and understand why you should care. Today’s post is written by Max Guedy, one of the founders of MyOws, an online copyright management startup.  Click to continue reading »

When we started Wixel in July 2010 (part-time), we thought we had done a lot of the ground-work – boy, were we wrong! 2011 really had us pinned down, bottom to chair, fingers to keyboard – hustling. Click to continue reading »

If your company uses and benefits from Open Source (which it probably does) then you should foster, promote and participate in the open source community. Giving back to the community you depend on should be an important aspect of your business identity.

Don’t you think that if you are using Open Source, you’re indebted to the community to give back? We think so.
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It’s said that if two people in business always agree about everything, one of them is unnecessary. As a safety measure I make sure that I disagree with Sean at least once a week. Sean’s a proactive partner – in preparation for these days, he started wearing his kickboxing cap and gloves to the office. It gets fierce! Click to continue reading »

Whether it be investors, business partners, potential hires or any other business stakeholder – working with people is one of the most difficult and critical tasks for building a successful business. The people behind companies are what drive innovation, move organisations forward and ultimately help societies progress.

This is why it’s imperative to work with the right people.
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Boxrockit mockup - an early version.

We recently wrote a post, Perfect Code is a Myth. Just Launch It! One of the readers suggested we write a post on “What went wrong with the BoxRockit launch so others could learn from it”. We’re going to do just that – we follow a policy of what the reader asks for, the reader gets.

Firstly, I’d like to address the ‘what went wrong’ statement. I’m not sure if we’re lucky or good at our work but our year consisted of smooth deployments. Nothing went horribly wrong on the day of the Boxrockit launch. In fact the day was rather uninteresting in itself – the real fun began the next day, when folks started signing up for the product.

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We love seeing what other people use in their daily lives to get their jobs done. We also believe in karma – which is why we are sharing our list of tools and equipment with you. Here’s a list of the things we use daily that help make our lives easier.

We hope you pick up tips, tricks and perhaps an app introduction or two – just like we do when we read about how others work.

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Our previous post – How CEO’s can help programmers get into the coding zone – included several strategies on how to create an environment programmers love working in.

We received a question on that post whether tactics such as developer estimations, zero meetings, verbose documents and reduced working hours could be applied to a web design and development business. After thinking about the comment I felt it was more deserving of a full blog post. So here is our answer to how CEO’s and managers can improve the lives of programmers in a service environment.
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Developer Station at Wixel

If you are at the helm of a tech company, you should know that programmers need to be ‘in the coding zone’ to be productive. Most programmers agree that a coding zone is marked by isolation, uninterrupted blocks of time, music and good coffee/tea. For most developers these conditions only happen late at night or in the wee hours of the morning.

Working with a technical co-founder has taught me a lot about how developers work, what challenges they face, what makes them tick and what drives them mad. As the non-technical co-founder, much of my time is spent thinking about optimal business processes – working smartly and productively on things that matter. Wixel is my first tech company and I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about, and creating an environment that programmers not only love working in, but thrive in.

I strongly believe that the CEO of a company can create an environment for programmers to flourish in and is obligated to do so. So what can you, as CEO do to help your team get into a coding zone? Here’s Wixel’s answer to that very question:

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