Mike Jones, of Western Cape Labs, has labelled some members of his audience at the Scale Conference, in Cape Town, “hobos, tramps and bums” as he described the life of a developer.
“Hobos are people who move around looking for work. Tramps are people who move around and don’t look for work, and bums are people who don’t move and don’t work,” said Jones quoting Seasick Steve, an American blues singer, and added: “I’ve been all three”.
Jones quoted the blues singer’s words because he believes it is relevant to developers.
“I think probably in this audience today we have hobos, tramps and bums from a developer’s standpoint.”
Jones’ charismatic presentation was about his life and his experience of failure.
“A failure to start is a greater failure than anything else,” said Jones who added: “The failure to take the bold step to do the brave thing and find out if nobody cares about what you do is actually so much more interesting and valuable.”
Regarding scaling, Jones believes a startup should not scale out of embarrassment.
A startup should not look for the most impressive office space, nor should they try and get “rock star” developers.
Jones said a startup would not want to create a perception among its clients of something it is not.
“One of the things I’m very passionate about is that you create a learning path for yourself where you can be stretched and where [you] can discover things that you don’t know, so you can have awesome failures like I did,” said Jones.
In 2004 Jones was a mobile application developer. He said it caused him and his family to be homeless. “It’s one of the key lessons for me… be willing to take risks.”
Jones said that while being a mobile application developer, he had some “wonderful and crazy” ideas.
However, he said the timing “stunk” because “in 2004 we were working on Windows Mobile version one… Never use anything Microsoft version one because it just will never [work].”
He added that Microsoft versions three and four are useful, taking note of the Microsoft sponsors sitting in the conference.
Regarding startups, Jones said it is important to be humble in the beginning and do the things one would rather pay someone else to do.
With regards to staffing, Jones said: “When you start a company with friends, you’re much more open to having a fight about things, which is great because it enables honest conversation, but it also means you’re totally willing to, sort of, go over there and agree that that’s a great thing… or go to the pub and you both get drunk and suddenly you’re starring in a conference called Scale Conf.”
Speaking about Western Cape Labs, Jones said: “We don’t make drugs, we make software and its going to be awesome.”
The lab’s first product, Ontheway.co.za, delivers “locally crafted, locally manufactured” products to sellers.
