Last week I participated in a conversation with Matt Biddulph (Dopplr’s CTO) here in London. Since it was set-up as an interview to allow Feba to gather material for her thesis, I joined in with a few questions and here you’ll find my personal highlights about it (for detailed notes, see Feba’s posts).
Together with us there were also Alexandra and Massimo of Tinker.it, who contributed some good inspiration, but I’ll keep this for a future post, with a that it would be nice to attend one of the forthcoming Arduino for Beginners workshops…
But without further ado, let’s go back to the notes:
Bits of dopplr history
Dopplr was built by people who had a day job. Most of the thinking, early design and even a working prototype was built over a weekend.
The renting of the place was the only “cost” dopplr had sustain that far.
Dopplr releases are named after the next conference. That keeps the team on the edge, makes a good milestone date and automatically gives you a good time when to announce new features. Everybody loves announcement and “early access” at conferences
Dopplr and open source
The value of software companies is shifting from the code itself to the data. Google could proably let his search algorithm out in the open for free and yet not fear any real competition, because G has ten years of “history” behind it. Besides, everyone who worked in a fairly sized enterprise knows that software is always far too patchy, undocumented and/or business specific to be easily reusable “as it is”.
Releasing bits of software not only lets you benefit somehow from the crowd as well as providing useful tools (and ideas even more often), but it acts as a statement, and lets you also somehow model the industry and market in the way you believe in. Think OpenID.
Advices for young European Enterpreneurs
. Do something you know
. Do something you’re gonna use/need yourself.
. Do not spend months dreaming, just do it. You can start with a mashup that increase the value of what exist yet. And so, if you have to fail, fail early.
. Stay in touch with SF: go there, participate in events, dinners, show your face around. Or, if you’re not in London, stay in touch with SF through London.
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