Results of Survey

First off, We would like to thank everybody for taking our survey and providing us with insight on how you go about discovering applications to use on your iPhone/ iPod touch.

This insight has been very useful for us and has pointed us in the right direction to build our solution.

And now its time for the declaring the winner of the $25 Amazon gift certificate.


Congrats Jay Kreshel !!!!

You are the lucky receipient of the $25 Amazon GC.

Thank You

We would like to thank everybody for taking our survey. We got tremendous feedback on how you use your device/ computer to discover applications for use on your iPhone/ iPod touch.

The survey is closed as of today. Please look out for our post tomorrow where we will share the results and insight we obtained via the survey.

Thank You Again
~~Appletics team !!

How are folks discovering apps for their iPhone?

We are trying to understand how are people discovering apps for their iPhone. If you have 2 min to take a short 6 question survey, that would help us out. Just follow the link below

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=nfKMk6P9qNg4VWmIcS7NzQ_3d_3d

The survey is anonymous but do remember to add your email address at the end - we will do a lucky draw on May 1st for $25 Amazon gift certificate and announce the winner on this blog.

It is all about doing it...

A few quotes that I read recently on Facebook profile (of all the places) of Gordon Eubanks. Driving home the point: It is all about action, about doing it...

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

-- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

After all is said and done, more is said than done.

--Anonymous

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

--Anonymous

Lord Clarendon in the 1850's when asked to provide help for a private company ... the British government tends to offer "all aid short of actual help."

Duke Kahanamoku when asked about his heroic rescue of 8 fisherman in terrific sea conditions .... "I do not know. It was done. That is the main thing."

And here is one that I would add to the list of gems:

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

-- George Bernard Shaw

Lessons from the trenches

My hastily jotted notes to self on lessons learnt in the first few months of starting a venture. Hoping this would be useful for others.

• Prioritize… Prioritize... Prioritize…
• Just like 'location, location, location' is mantra for real estate business.
• Always have a rank orders list of items you need to get done.
• Revisit the list every few days.
• If you don't ask you don't get.
• Don't be shy.
  
• Hand out IOU's – you will have the opportunity to repay folks.
• Ask for favors.
• Tell people what you need even if you suspect they might not be able to help – you never know.
• Don't tell; show.
• A paper napkin model is better than a paragraph of text.
• A demo is worth a thousand words.
• A working product in beta is better than a complex architecture diagram that promises to scale big time.
• Share ideas, demos, and product details.
• Involve people. Don't worry about competition, others stealing ideas.
• Worry about what your can control.
• Get folks to sign an NDA if you can.
• There is no such thing as 'typical'.
• Nothing is standard.
• Everything is negotiable.
• It is all about positioning, perceived importance, leverage, and options.
• Set a high bar.
• Set clear goals. Delegate decisions/tasks. Empower people. Let go.
• Take pride in progress and celebrate hitting milestones.
• Seek mentoring and advice.
• Seek introductions. Meet people. Show product.
• Never say no.
• Keep an open mind, ask often why the smart people who work with you think what they do?
• Ask tough questions and listen.
• Say no. If you think that is required for clear direction / achievement of goal.
• Take quick decisions
• Jump first, ask questions later.
• Take decisions rapidly then figure out quickly how to undo them if they turn out real bad.
  

A new venture ... a new blog

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

-- Confucius

And that step is leaving the sheltered existence of a well defined job and plunging into the unknown... (in spite of warnings).

The journey begins from the ominously named conference room called "Swinging Doors" at Sharpcast which now is a sparsely furnished office of Appletics Inc.

We are working on some exciting ideas in the much hyped mobile application space. The mobile application ecosystem is growing at a break neck pace ins spite of all the doom and gloom in the rest of the economy.

We are looking for a folks who are excited about the space, would like to apply themselves to solve some hard problems in this evolving ecosystem and have fun doing so. Passion, smarts and propensity towards action are mandatory other desirable attributes/skills are:

• never-say-die attitude, bias towards action, hands on
• passionate and exuberant about evolving mobile landscape.
• smarts and deep technical chops
• experience with iphone sdk/android sdk, objective c, c++, java, python, linux, mysql.
• bonus traits: sense of humor, humility

If this piques your interest and you fit the profile or know someone who does, drop us a note at careers AT appletics.com or to me personally at ashish AT appletics.com