When Mike IMed me a few months ago to ask if I would join him and Kunmi for StartupXLR8R, I resisted at first. I am already focusing so much time on STRUCTO, and already distracting myself with side projects like WhoMails.Me and ProudlyMadeinDC (the latter of which Mike is a co-founder), that another project would be too much to handle. But we approached it with a different spin. While we all had...
In February of this year I presented at the DCPHP meetup. Based on my experience deploying large client applications built in PHP using AWS and Rightscale, I gave a detailed walkthrough of how to set it up. Fuzzy video below:
As mentioned previously, I’m co-founder of ProudlyMadeinDC, a central site showcasing DC’s startups, showing to the world, and to ourselves, that DC is an up-and-coming startup hub. We started it as a small side project, but it’s grown to become real movement, helping to power the rise of DC startups. I presented at Ignite DC 6 (slides below, full video coming soon), so what I...
2010 has been an awesome year. Of course, after the previous year, I could have done nothing but sleep all year and it would have been better for me. A few highlights: skeevisArts has been thriving. We launched a ridiculous number of websites (and those are the projects we can talk about), as well as diversifying into mobile development (both iPhone and Android, as well as some generic mobile web...
I’ve always loved DJing. I’m the kid who made mixtapes for his friends in high school. I got a small taste of it senior year, when I had my full setup in my basement, and hosted many sweaty fraternity parties (while destroying half a dozen speaker systems). But I never really understood what to do, and could never find a way of learning how (while most DJs I spoke to were self taught...
As a hacker-founder (an entrepreneur who develops their own products), how familiar does this sound to you: Have an awesome idea. Don’t tell anyone about it. Decide to build it, convinced that everyone will love it. Still don’t tell publicize it. Keep working on the product. Not as wild about the idea anymore. Come to some milestone in the product. Show it to one or two people. Start...
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. I’m behind in writing this post, but I’m happy to finally get around to talking about this now. I’ve been working on a new startup. Say hello to Structo. Structo was born out of a pain I saw as a web developer, and, in speaking with many other web developers, I found I wasn’t alone. There are...
[insert usual excuse about blogging absence] While I am firmly established as an entrepreneur, having started one company of my own (skeevisArts) and been CTO of a now-acquired startup, I know that the business that I’m in is a means to an end. As much as I love to work with awesome clients and grow my roster weekly, this is not what I want to do long term. My dream is to build products...
2009 was a year to remember, without a doubt. The Highs 2009 professionally was an amazing year, as it marks my first full year of running my own company, fulfilling a dream I’ve had since I was a kid. The people I’ve met, lessons I’ve learned, and amazing products we’ve collaborated on have been a daily inspiration for me. 2010 will be spent working on my own products...
December 4th, today, marks a pretty big day in my life. Since I was in middle school, skeevisArts was the moniker I used for any “professional” work I did (back then, I used the professional label pretty loosely). Skeevis was my nickname back then, and considering that I was doing mainly creative work at that time, skeevisArts was appended to everything I created. But on December...