When people think of the skills needed to be excellent software engineers, they often sight things like intelligence, education, and experience.  While these are all important things, they are secondary attributes.  The most important attributes however are integrity, moral strength, and grit.  A small team of people with these attributes are virtually unstoppable.

Writing software requires developers to push through difficult obstacles in order to complete work.  Instead of  jungles, software engineers face problems such as complex integration issues,  policy, and system opaqueness.  Having integrity, moral strength and grit are required to push through these issues.

Bytelion developers and teams are chosen based on their ability to start tasks and not stop until the task is complete.  We pride ourselves on our ability to deliver our message to Garcia.

The next time you have something to do, put it in terms of “Message to Garcia” and see what you can accomplish.

1. This is by far the simplest way to get your IP address on a mac.  Simply type this from the command line:

ifconfig |grep inet | grep -v inet6 | grep -v 127.0.0.1| cut -d ‘ ‘ -f2

2.  Rather than type this in every time, just save this in a simple bash file named “ipAddress.command”.  The .command option is a reserved file name that executes the file from a simple double click.

#!/bin/sh

ifconfig |grep inet | grep -v inet6 | grep -v 127.0.0.1| cut -d ‘ ‘ -f2

Save it to your desktop, and change permissions using this command.  

“chmod +x ipAddress.command”

Output:

Last login: Sun Mar 24 09:47:49 on ttys001
/Users/tmac/Desktop/ip.command ; exit;
MacBook-Pro:~ tmac$ /Users/tmac/Desktop/ip.command ; exit;
192.168.0.101
logout

[Process completed]

This still isn’t very optimal because you still have to run things from the command line. If you want something quick and clickable with more of a gui feel, then you could download and run Platypus.

1. Run Platypus

It is a quick download - http://sveinbjorn.org/platypus

2. Setup Your Application

3. Find it on your desktop or wherever you decided to put it.

4. Run it! 

Speed

With small iterations, we can move very quickly.  The code base is small and flexible and highly expendable.  If  you don’t like on of the prototypes, you can throw it away.  If customer aren’t using one version of your prototype, you can simply toss the feature. If you test one of the prototypes that solves a problem and users really like it, you are off to a great start.  Building a successful prototype is like taking  the next trench in your battle for success.  If you have already built your platform to maturity, it takes enormous resources to change the model.  Your ability to break your application goes up, etc.

Cost

Once you start having to maintain a large application, the costs of making changes go up dramatically.

Learning

The most valuable thing that you can do is learn what customers want and what they don’t want.  With multiple rapid iterations, you can test your assumptions rapidly.

“Micro-roasted coffee is roasted in small batches to exact specifications, the batches are less than 150 lbs”…”Each batch is lovingly supervised by our roast-master so that we get it right every time.”

What I liked most about the site is their ability to experiment and learn with their business model.  When they find the roast becomes extremely popular,  they will be in an excellent position to produce a higher quality product on a larger scale.

Yup, it is true.  Bytelion is going to take part in this activity on April 5th – April 7th.  Our previous attempt to change the world with cowtrip.com will hopefully be modified.  Will keep you updated with our results.

Crowdfunding platforms that take an “all or nothing” approach require a payment gateway with various “special” features in order to provide a pleasant experience for all parties in the transaction (the crowdfunding service, the project owners, and the donors).

The “all or nothing” model simply means that your donation or pledge won’t go through unless the project reaches it’s predetermined goal amount. So, if you were to pledge $50.00 to a project with a goal of $10,000 in 60 days, you would ONLY pay the $50.00 IF the project reached the goal amount within the time set.

The “all or nothing” model is by far the most popular. Donors seem to like it the most because they won’t actually commit any funds until the campaign has enough backers to make a difference. With that said, this model proves difficult when identifying a payment gateway provider to partner with.

This goal orientated model requires backer’s credit cards to be authorized immediately upon pledging and kept “open” until the project either reaches it goal or expires. Once the project does so, the authorization becomes a charge and the actual payment is processed.

Solution

After looking around and doing some research, we’ve identified WePay as a great solution for crowdfunding site using an “all or nothing” model.

Typical payment gateways like Authorize.net or PayPal don’t allow for the required time limit needed between authorization and processing. Most campaigns run from 30 – 90 days proving to be quite problematic with the standard gateway providers.

Amazon payments is another highly discussed option in regards to crowdfunding. Kickstarter utilizes AMZ, however their “Reserve API” is flawed. It’s designed to “hold” funds for 7 days. As mentioned earlier, typical campaigns run much longer than 7 days and not many backers or donors would be happy to have a hold on their credit card for a period greater than a week.

From my understanding, AMZ and PayPal are quite picky in their approval process for crowdfunding sites – a barrier I see few startups overcoming easily.

Eventually, we were introduced to WePay from one of our current clients. After diving in more and learning about the nuts and bolts behind the provider, we were pleasantly surprised that their API seemed specially designed for crowdfunding websites.

WePay is fully customizable and allows your to control how the money is handled without having to take possession of all the payments. It’s used by crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe and Fundable and has a superb team of customer service reps and technicians easily available.

You can customize your WePay settings so that you can accept both style of payments – all or nothing or keep what you get. The “keep what you get” approach is much more straightforward to handle in regards to a payment gateway as the payment is processed immediately upon authorizing. When it’s used in conjunction with an “all or nothing” model, WePay pre authorizes the card in order to verify the card is valid and has sufficient funds. Once authorized, the card is not processed – if at all – until the goal is reached or the duration expires. WePay enables you to set the goal and duration parameters within the API and they can be customized on a per project basis.

WePay is also flexible in regards to letting the business decide who the processing fee will be absorbed by. Most likely it will be the business/merchant, however having this customization and ability is nice when working with atypical situations. BTW, the processing fee is very reasonable, only 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. In addition to that feature, WePay also allows merchants to add their own additional fee on top of their processing fee. This works perfectly for crowdfunding sites as processing fees are the main revenue streams for such ventures.

WePay will automatically deposit just the merchant’s additional fees in a separate bank account. This prevents merchants from having to bear the responsibility of keeping track and managing the funds of each project. A burdensome task (loaded with liability), that startup founders don’t need.

By no means is WePay the only viable gateway for crowdfunding sites. Right now however, we find it to be the best solution for our projects. They continue to innovate and until we find something better of they falter, we’ll most likely stick with them.

• people don’t want to share their commuting information on Facebook (yet).
• ride matching is a very difficult task and that is hasn’t gone viral yet.
• we needed to install wordpress on our Rails Apps to make SEO easier/ better, etc.
• Many companies have their own programs to help rideshare,
• Many other companies are trying to solve the same problem we are.

We have made some excellent connections at the recent TRB and will continue to push our experiments and pivot.

Current Users (Locations are approximate / randomized)

Plan

This is the first part of the process. During this phase our project manager will meet with the client and spec out the first version on the project requirements. After doing so, the project manager sends the specs over the the the project’s lead developer and designers to work through. After the team has a better understanding the the project, we set up a kick off meeting to introduce the client to the team and officially “break ground” on the project.

Tools we use

Like any mechanic, we’re only as good as the tools we have. While we’ve tried many different tools, we’ve settled on some of the more popular ones and found those to work the best. The tools we use are listed below.

Basecamp
This is the perfect tool to interact with the client and helps keep the project discussion and assets neatly organized. From a client perspective it’s very easy which keeps the project moving.

While basecamp organizes the project automatically, we recommend setting up discussions around certain topics in the beginning of the project and keeping all correspondence posted as comments there. This comes in handy for the larger projects, and helps plan ahead and layout items the PM feels are noteworthy for discussion.

Basecamp also has a “to-do’s” list feature. We typically set one up for the client and one up for Bytelion Team. This allows us to keep track of items need to be addressed by either party.

Typical “to-do” items for a client include providing the team with any branding material (i.e. logos) or access credentials. Keeping track of these assets is also convenient through basecamp and another reason why we enjoy using it when interacting with a client.

Campfire
Campfire is an excellent discussion tool and is a sister product of Basecamp. We mainly use this to catalog discussions between the PM and development team and it works perfectly when sharing files between the team quickly.

Github
We keep it simple and use GitHub to store the code repository and allow remote access for all members of our team. Nothing fancy here, just a reliable and collaborative code repo.

Pivotal Tracker
Now this is an awesome tool. Tracker allows us to effectively plan and track development progress throughout the project. When a project begins, stories are created in the backlog. The lead developer than rates each story on the difficulty and time expectations of that particular issue. Once ranked, the stories are prioritized and added to the workload as velocity allows. Velocity is an agile development concept that is similar to a speedometer on a car – it measures how fast you are able to complete stories or iterations. Tracker is cool because it automatically keeps track of your team’s velocity and adjusts your current workload to match your current capabilities.

myBalsamiq
While myBalsamiq isn’t directly used with the project management part of the project, we wanted to throw it into the mix as it’s a perfect rapid wireframing tool that we end up using at all stages of development. myBalsamiq works great with a remote team and is so easy to pick up and quickly master.

When a concept or layout needs to be explain quickly and written explanation isn’t thorough enough, we’ll turn to mockups from myBalsamiq to ensure the project stays moving and all concepts are clearly explained to everyone in the project (see how campfire and basecamp are coming into play in regards to conversation and organizing assets…).

Meetings

Just as important as the tools we use, is the standard communication plan and meeting cadence that we implement with every project.

Once we get through the initial design and development consultations. We enter into a meeting cadence that is planned the following way…

Daily Scrums.
At the start of the project the team chooses a time that they meet at everyday. Typically, the time is in the morning. While the meeting is usually just between the internal project team, clients and other stakeholders are welcomed to sit in on the meeting, however their influence is limited to keep the efficiency and flow of communication on track. The PM and project team usually discusses what they accomplished the day before, the plans for the day ahead and any roadblocks or topics of interests that need attention. Sometime these meetings last an hour or more while other times, they only last 15 minutes or so – it really just depends on where in the project lifecycle you currently are.

Weekly Client Meeting.
This once a week client meeting happens at the same time as the daily scrums meetings. This meeting is usually much longer in nature and gives the client an opportunity to participate and interact with the team. The PM will update the client on that week’s accomplishments and goals and allow the client to ask any questions or raise any thoughts they have regarding the project. We do our best to schedule these meetings on days other than Friday. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about Friday meetings that never seem to work well…

Summary

In summary, we pay particular attention to our project management processes and the tools we are using. Basecamp, Campfire, Pivotal Tracker, and GitHub are all fairly priced and are very easy to get comfortable with. With that said, we are focused on continuously improving our process and are always looking for a new up tool or application that can help.

1. Maryland and Baltimore were taking key steps to open data.  This is going to be key to understanding problems and highlight them.

2. gb.tc has done a great job of networking the community to bring in the right players.

If you want to read more, you can see the notes here:
Ref: http://gb.tc/unwired/
Ref: http://gb.tc/groundwork/open-data-sets/

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay the follow day.  However, 4 projects were proposed.  Those projects are located :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YOlUsQAPDE&feature=g-upl

The follow on to this event will be this:  http://gb.tc/groundwork/