At StartupGiraffe we love helping entrepreneurs build new products. Unfortunately there are many people out there doing great work who can’t afford top talent. We’re looking for an opportunity to give back to the community in a positive way. We’d like to to help a young non-profit establish their web strategy and presence. This includes up to 40 hours of our time for free to do any or all of the following: Develop a digital strategy Implement a website (preferably using wordpress or another similar CMS) Create an adwords campaign (leveraging Google Grants) Define and implement analytics Additional miscellaneous tasks …

As hardware become cheaper and more powerful, everyday objects are starting to get smarter. Air conditioners, lights, scales, even your dog is now connected to the cloud. In a Star Trek future the objects in your life will know who you are and react to your intentions. At StartupGiraffe we’re really interested in the rise of smart devices. We wanted to dig deeper into building software for custom hardware by building a prototype. We went through a discovery/brainstorming process on what are all the objects in your house, and what could we make smarter with software (specifically embedded android). While …

We’re looking for software engineers to join us in building the highest performing motorcycle ever: mission-motorcycles.com. Our ultimate goal is to replace gas engines with electric across the entire planet, starting with the most difficult transportation vertical – high performance motorcycles.  We’re building a ton of really cool software including an OS for the bike itself, fleet management software, mobile apps, sales/diagnostic tools and rider visualization/data analysis tools.  The executive team is amazing; comprised of folks from Apple, Tesla and Ducati. We’re looking for mid to senior level Rails engineers who can take ownership over implementing large pieces of software. …

I’m sure some people would say that the digital revolution is already over. Almost all telephony is digital now. I haven’t seen a VHS or cassette tape in years. Film cameras occupy a relatively small corner of the specialist/hobbyist/hipsterist market, and out of the moviemakers who still opt to shoot on film, there are vanishingly few who don’t digitize it for editing. There are probably young adults now who have never watched a VHS tape or gone to the pharmacy to get photos developed. Progress! But so much more is possible, even though much of the low hanging fruit has …

Cross posted from: http://fullstart.com/knowledge/benefits-risks-consulting-equity/ Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a comprehensive post just some things to consider. Always consult a lawyer and accountant before making decisions related to equity. Don’t take our advice, we’re developers not lawyers. A friend of a friend comes up to you and wants your help. “We’ve got this new startup, we’re early but showing positive traction, we need your help to get us to the next level. We’re broke, but we can slice you off a chunk of equity in exchange for advisory/consulting services, interested?” The company sounds intriguing and you’re willing to …

You’ve got a great idea for a new startup.  After doing some homework and getting customer validation you’ve decided it’s time to start building product.  You reach out to friends and development shops: “Here’s my great idea and a list of features/specs. How much is this going to cost to build?” You get some quotes and pick the option that’s within your budget.  Fast forward a few months later, your project still hasn’t launched, you’re significantly over budget and the product experience isn’t quite right.  What went wrong? At StartupGiraffe we believe that timeboxing projects (a flat rate for a set period …

StartupGiraffe.com helps entrepreneurs design and build new software ventures. We’ve launched 20 startups in the last 2 years. We’re looking for a front end engineer to join us in our SoHo, NYC office. About You: – You want to lead front-end development on new products – You’re comfortable translating AI files into responsive front-ends – You have experience with jQuery, SaSS and at least one front-end MVC framework (backbone, ember, angular, etc…) – Familiarity (but not necessarily expertise) with one server side programming language – You understand tradeoffs between design and performance – You’ve got a handle on cross-browser complexity …

We often meet with folks who are at the earliest stages of their entrepreneurial ventures and are unsure how to go from idea to product.  After an initial meeting we send them the following recommendations on how to give us (or any other team members) enough context to get started. 1. Provide Background Info What’s the one sentence explanation of your product? Who are your target users?  We believe in tightly defining your initial target audience and expanding out once you have something that works for them. What are your business objectives for the first iteration of the product?  Are …

  Attention is expensive. Since most people think email is free, message proliferation has seen inboxes become progressively more noisy and difficult to manage. Most people err on the side of over-communicating and over-distributing despite that this incurs a cost to each recipient. Whether it’s extra time sorting through irrelevant message or even just taking the time to delete or archive unwanted messages, people increasingly spend more time in their inbox that isn’t actually centered around communication. Many attempts have been made to address this problem. First and foremost, the spam filter, which attempts to separate out the most egregious …

Inspired by this post Good software projects have clear business goals and objectives. Everyone on the team has an understanding of what metrics will be used to define success. i.e. Implementing these changes to the sign up flow will increase paid conversion rates. Bad software projects are driven by the loudest voice in the room and based on personal preferences. Success cannot be measured because it was never defined. Good software projects are built initially for a specific target audience based on customer development and hypotheses. i.e. We interviewed 100 used car salesmen and found out their most time consuming …