Ralf Rottmann – CTO at GrandCentrix, Blogger for The Next Web, iOS and Android Developer, Social Media Addict
As stated earlier, we are currently looking for a new logo for 24100.NET. We would love to get you involved. So today we ask for a little help from your side:
Here is a variety of logos that we like. At the end of this article you’ll find a survey form. Please select the number of the logo you like the most. If you’d like to leave a comment, we also appreciate more exhaustive feedback – as always.
We are currently working on the design of 24100.NET in order to streamline it for faster browsing. If you’re not reading this with your feed reader you might see some quirks while 24100.NET is undergoing maintenance. Sorry!
I’ve chosen to try an entirely new WordPress Theme as it got more and more difficult with the previous theme to include Web 2.0/Social Media features. Having conducted quite some extensive research, I found the Theses theme (created by DIYTHEMES) a wonderful alternative to every other WordPress theme I’ve ever used.
The site will also get a new logo, my designer is still working on it!
While you’re here you might want to try out the new Google Friend Connect integration. Find the “Join this site” link in the Community section to the left. You can log in via your GMail account and start submitting comments and participate in future community services.
I’m planning to have the redesigned finished this next Sunday. Your comments are more than appreciated!
(You might want to follow me on twitter for my Microblogging updates!)
The recent weeks have been like a roller coaster ride!
While the global economic situation is not exactly ideal to jump into a new venture, bootstrapping GrandCentrix has been so much fun so far. I’ve been talking a bit about how easy it has become to deal with most of the low level standard tasks you’ve got to do.
In the past two to three weeks the GrandCentrix team and I have started entering into discussions with a couple of industry players, that we have come to appreciate over the years. The interesting aspect of this is, that while these folks did or still do run billion dollar companies, they’ve remained pretty accessible. And their precise advice and market perspectives have helped us a lot to further narrow down our go-to-market ideas. (It’s also one of the reasons why we’re still holding back our marketing folks and stay below the radar for a few more weeks.)
This week has been very intensive for me. I’ve met Steve Chambers who runs Nuance Mobile Division and is probably the most precise analyst when it comes to how mobile input patterns evolve. Nuance owns T9, T9Nav and acquired SNAPin which does application launching by keystroke interception (in a nutshell). Steve is an exceptionally person to talk to and will definitely have an influence on parts of our strategy.
We also sat together with Paul Wahl, former CEO of SAP Americas and Ex-Siebel COO. The amount of stuff you can learn from somebody who discontinued a product line like SAP R/2 and growths the next major version (R/3) to a world market leadership position is enormous. During the two hours Paul provided us with his crystal clear and straight forward advice as to how to move forward in some key areas of our undertaking. I hope we can win Paul as one of our constant advisors. We are working on that! :-)
I love being self-employed for various reasons. It’s not so much the often overrated “freedom”, because ultimately you’re not that free anyway. You’re driven by your will to succeed. You cannot rely on others paying your paycheck at the end of the month. You’ve got to be passionate – every single day.
What I definitely do like most about starting a new venture is this kind of very rewarding networking. It helps you doing the best thing for your business. It also is extremely valuable on a very personal level, and helps growing yourself.
Next week will be almost as busy as the one laying behind. I keep you posted!
In the 6th “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” theme show (the German version of Pop Idol) Annemarie Eilfeld performed Purple Rain.
While the official jury did not like it – most likely because Annemarie’s raising popularity increasingly endangers main juror Dieter Bohlen’s favorite participant – the German audience voted pro Annemarie.
You might want to listen to her life performance yourself and leave a comment. Click the play icon of the embedded mp3 player below. This is a 320 bit high quality mp3 version of the audio as provided by the TV show.
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And here, due to popular demand, is her version of Pink’s Nobody knows which she performed in the 5th DSDS show.
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Looking forward to the next show.
Just a quick note: I love bootstrapping a start-up in 2009.
All the routine tasks have just gotten so easy. SIP based telephony, Skype and Skype group chat for business partners that are distributed across the globe, Dropbox based file servers with integrated backup, local sync and automagic versioning, hosted Microsoft Exchange with iPhone push mail and calendaring, Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine for staging and testing incremental software releases and many other SaaS offerings just make life of an entrepreneur so much easier.
The single most important aspect of it for me is: It let’s you focus on the core of your new company.
In the past you needed office managers, an IT department and a whole lot of other stuff which did not directly contribute to the value of your undertaking – but very often to increasing cost.
At GrandCentrix (announcement impending) we leverage technology wherever possible; but focused on letting us concentrate on our core values.
The last two companies where I’ve been involved in the primary growth phase followed a more traditional path and it worked out fine, too.
However, I really do feel excited about setting things up differently and personally feel way more productive than ever.
By the way, there’s one thing we did VERY traditional, though: Our office :-)
Yesterday was our first office day in our new offices. Maybe purely coincidence but yesterday was also the day, the sun finally came back to the town where GrandCentrix is headquatered.
So far, bootstrapping in 2009 has been a great experience – against all odds!
I keep you posted. Thanks for all your feedback (predominantly via twitter these days).
Those of you who know me, knew.
I cannot yet talk about all the juicy details, but GrandCentrix is coming. We’ve worked hard for so long and we had to keep it secret for various reasons. But now it’s almost time to raise the curtain.
We’re going to launch a few weeks from now. For the latest updates, follow the GrandCentrix corporate twitter feed.
Stay tuned!
Last night, the world’s best web hosting company has moved the servers that run 24100.net to a new data center. Readers might have experienced a roughly 60 minute downtime. I’ve got to admit that domainFACTORY did tell me about it 14 days in advance and I simply forgot to proactively tell you. I’m sorry.
Well, we’re up and running again and 24100.net even became a bit faster.
Even though I’m usually not advertising much here, I’ve got to say thanks to the fine folks at domainFACTORY. I’m a Web 0.1 guy and have come to try many, really many hosting providers – including the cheap and awful ones, like 1&1. I’d blindly recommend domainFACTORY for all of your hosting needs.
They’ve got an excellent administration panel that – for me – is unparalleled in the industry. You can run mixed email accounts (free ones, included with your domain package and ones that run on managed Microsoft Exchange) on a per account base.
So it’s perfectly fine to use the unlimited free included email accounts for your family while you, as a proud owner of an iPhone, set up your account as a ManagedExchange mailbox, leveraging push email and calendar integration. All on a single domain.
Their phone and web based service is free. 24h/356d free service.
Should you consider moving your domains or starting something new, give them a try:
(And yes, the above link is an affiliate link!)
Should you experience any difficulties with 24100.net after the relocation, please do let me know.
I’ve just returned from Berlin, where I’ve been attending Call Center World 2009.
This was my tenth-or-so show and very likely my last one. A privilege of not being directly involved business-wise anymore this year allowed me to take a closer look of what the others do and have to offer. During all the past years I’d represented my own company and almost no time to look around.
I’ve got to admit: I’m pretty disappointed.
Technology is changing rapidly. Customers are changing at fast pace. A variety of strong, capable and new channels are evolving. Devices become more and more capable. But Call Center World shows almost no innovation. Avaya keeps on selling ACDs. Others promote USSD based customer service, which is like a reincarnation of Bildschirmtext in the century of ubiquitous connectivity and cell phones that run Google Earth. (If you’d like to get an idea of how USSD based services look on an iPhone, click here. But don’t blame me, please!) (Yes, I do acknowledge that there is a large market for USSD in countries which are considered to be in in the transitional phase between developing and developed status. But I’m talking real innovation here.) Others promote a technology which primarily addresses remote device configuration will revolutionize how customers perceive customer care. I doubt it. That has already been around for years.
Everybody else seems to deliver more of the same. A user interface that’s a bit more glossy is not enough. When are we going to see real Customer Care 2.0 innovation?
Besides the overall disappointment there’s one thing for good: I got in touch with Jonathan Taylor, the CEO of Voxeo Inc. Voxeo recently acquired a company founded in Germany that I’ve been closely watching: VoiceObjects. The way Jonathan moves Voxeo forward is pretty convincing and I’m looking forward to following up on some stuff which they are planning.
My personal résumé:
Carpe diem.
Well, the title says it all. I love Alltop.com as it gives immediate access to the most relevant content by categories.
The mobile version does, however, need a search bar. Scrolling through 1000s of categories is not even fun on a touchy iPhone! :-)
I feel honored to announce that starting as of today I’m going to co-author posts on iPhone-notes.de. The site is 100% dedicated to the German speaking market so I thought it would be a perfect idea to further separate my various activities in this field and contribute to one of the most popular German speaking independent iPhone sites.
Those running jailbroken iPhones (I myself don’t as for the professional iPhone apps development business it’s important to have a model which is compliant with the ones shipped by Apple) definitely know iPhone-notes.de and it’s linked Installer/Cydia repository – sendowski.de – as it still is one of the most favorite sources for iPhone tooling and software.
I’m looking very much forward to working with Andre on expanding iPhone-notes.de reach and keeping you up-to-date with the latest and greatest in Apple Smartphone Land.
More announcements to come. Stay tuned!
