Hands-on, product-focused fractional/freelance CTO working with startups across Europe (and East coast USA).
I specialise in working with pre-seed to series A SaaS startups that don't have a technical co-founder. Every startup is different, so I work with the founders to understand their goals and the challenges in their current setup.
My goal is to ensure the founders never have a sleepless night due to worries about the tech-side of the business.
I have 20+ years of professional software engineering experience, from IC to CTO. I have started and exited multiple businesses during that time. I have worked across industries and with clients as small as 1 FTE, to giant multi-national corporations.
Location: South Africa
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Yes, US, EU or Canada
Technologies: almost 20 years of professional experience in Microsoft technologies - C#, SQL, MVC but as a CTO my focus is more on the management of technology (and information security) and development of digital strategies.
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamjameshurst/
Email: [email protected]
Hi HN! I am an experienced and entrepreneurial senior technical leader with varied industry exposure and knowledge. I have a proven track record in leading high-performing technical teams, developing and executing strategic initiatives and empowering teams to deliver on stretch objectives. I am looking for international opportunities to expand and develop my skills, while making a meaningful impact in the financial technology
industry.
I am working on giving solo entrepreneurs and micro business owners back more of their valuable time by eliminating menial admin tasks. Time is typically your most valuable resource but when you are working alone or on a small team, someone still needs to take care of the admin, eating away at your valuable time.
I’m starting with the sharing of common information with clients and partners. Organizations are often required to supply information on a regular basis to a wide range of clients and partners (bank account details, company, company registration details, tax clearance documents, certifications, charity registration number, etc.). A lot of these documents need to be renewed on an annual basis so there is a constant stream of requests for updated versions.
For bank accounts, the ability to verify a bank account automatically can prevent invoice fraud.
I’m looking at a model where a piece of business information is uploaded to a central platform and then provide permission for others to access it and to receive notifications when a new version is available.
In the first startup school batch for 2020 and working on validating the problem with actual users.
As with most hackers here, a job, a family and an attempt not to burn out has left me with plenty of ideas but with very little to show.
The most audacious one rolling around in my head right now is Notifyway.com. The basic concept is allowing the end user to control how and when they receive communication from a sender (could be an app, your washing machine or Facebook).
The process would be as follows:
1. The customer (lets call him Bob) signs up with Notifyway.com and downloads any apps they want to use (iOs, Android, Windows, Growl plugin, whatever).
2. Bob registers each app as a "receiver" with Notifyway.com using OAuth. This allows push notifications to be sent to each "receiver"
3. Bob signs up with AwesomeService.com which lets him know when there are friends nearby.
4. AwesomeService.com connects to Notifyway.com and Bob authenticates the connection using OAuth.
5. AwesomeService.com finds a friend nearby and connects to the Notifyway.com API with a short and long message for Bob.
6. Bob has decided that AwesomeService.com should send him a text message for each notification if it comes through on weekend. However, during the week, Bob would like all notifications to be sent to Growl on his Mac (if it is during work hours) as he is at his desk all day long. After hours, a Tweet can be sent or a notification on his iPhone. If it is a long message, it should be sent to Bob's personal email as it is likely a marketing message or some other time insensitive update.
7. Bob is able to make decisions on how to receive his notifications using plugins that provide outgoing services (like ifttt)
7. AwesomeService.com have integrated into a single service with a single API for all their communications with Bob, safe in the knowledge that he will get the notification as he wants to get them.
8. Bob is able to disconnect AwesomeService.com if he ever feels they are not providing any value and he is guaranteed no more communication (Bob never even gave his email to AwesomeService.com because it wasn't necessary).
The concept lives and dies on very high volume and would need to have fairly low margins to entice services to pay to communicate with their customers. This would probably need to be driven by customers who would demand integration.
There are services that do something similar things (e.g. Boxcar, Pushover & Notifo) but I don't think they are aligned in the same way. I am hoping to make this an "open service" so the protocol is open, 3rd party apps would be welcome and community contribution acknowledged.
If anyone is interested, I'm starting a design document to discuss the possibilities and opportunities that this service might create.
I would say solution one should be "be more positive and don't write off options as retarded unnecessarily". Your answer is probably a well thought out combination of all of the above and lots and lots of hard work and effort.
Hands-on, product-focused fractional/freelance CTO working with startups across Europe (and East coast USA).
I specialise in working with pre-seed to series A SaaS startups that don't have a technical co-founder. Every startup is different, so I work with the founders to understand their goals and the challenges in their current setup.
My goal is to ensure the founders never have a sleepless night due to worries about the tech-side of the business.
I have 20+ years of professional software engineering experience, from IC to CTO. I have started and exited multiple businesses during that time. I have worked across industries and with clients as small as 1 FTE, to giant multi-national corporations.