my blog. for you.

Reden wir über Digitales.

Ich bin selbständiger IT Berater und Unternehmer in der Internet und Software Branche. Ich beschäftige mich mit Design, Enterprise Applikationen, Web Apps und SaaS Produkten. Ich entwerfe und entwickle Business Lösungen und Anwendungen. Ich helfe Unternehmen in Sachen Software Qualität und Wissenstransfer, z.B. mit Angular und Spring Boot.

Another take on the 4-Hour Workweek

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Tim Ferriss' seminal book on rethinking work and living an independent, self-determined life always is worth another look. On his blog SpartanTraveller Clayton Cornell wrote a rather lengthy but very insightful post about the Myth of the 4-Hour Workweek and the very practical implications such a groundbreaking lifestyle change has. Digital nomadism, travelling the world, working from anywhere sure sounds like fun but it's easier said than done. Not only does it require determination and hard ...

EstiMate – Accurate Crowdsourced Software Development Estimates

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Following up on last week's post I've launched a product site / MVP for EstiMate: Software development effort estimation probably is one of the more difficult tasks in software development. Even the most experienced engineers' estimates are off, too every now and then. Being a somewhat disliked task far too often effort estimation is neglected or done in a rather haphazard way. EstiMate tries to solve this problem with a measurable and reliable method for ...

11. Januar 2015 by Bjoern in Enterprise Software, Entrepreneurship, Software

ZenQuery is now open source

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Today I made ZenQuery available as open source (under the Apache License). ZenQuery is an 'Enterprise Backend as a Service' and allows you to easily access databases through a REST API without any programming knowledge required. Get SQL result sets as JSON, XML or CSV data, which can easily be processed by tools such as MS Excel or in your own applications. ZenQuery provides you with an instant REST API for your SQL queries. Anything that ...

20. Dezember 2014 by Bjoern in Enterprise Software, Entrepreneurship, Front End Entwicklung, Software, Web Applikation

Monetizing Open Source Software Is Still Hard

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Some weeks ago the guys behind LocomotiveCMS - an open source CMS that's competing with Wordpress - published a sobering article on how they failed making a profit with open source software so far. Their model basically relies on building reputation from their open source work and benefit from community contributions to their software. Their revenue is generated from both doing consulting for LocomotiveCMS and selling hosting services in a SaaS package. Not too unusual a ...

14. Dezember 2014 by Bjoern in Entrepreneurship, Software

Culture is key

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb recently wrote a post about why culture is the most key part of a company (and quite likely of any organization). He quotes Peter Thiel, one of the investors in Airbnb, on the questions of what's his most important piece of advice: "Don’t fuck up the culture." Brian goes on to elaborate that "culture is simply a shared way of doing something with passion". No matter how a product, business ...

16. November 2014 by Bjoern in Entrepreneurship

On Hiring Developers

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Laurie Voss, CTO at npm posted an interesting article on why many companies aren't able to hire good developers in spite of elaborate hiring and interviewing processes. It's a rather lengthy post but very much worth the read. The gist is this: Don't hire someone for what they know already, hire someone for potential and eagerness to grow. Hire people capable of both solving complex problems and communicating clearly. Last not least: Don't hire assholes. ...

14. September 2014 by Bjoern in Entrepreneurship, Software

Leadership

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Last week I was asked by a friend what I consider the most important aspects of leadership. Spontaneously, I came up with the following two: transparency dependability A good leader should always be open about her objectives and the team's goals. She's supposed to communicate timely and clearly - especially when it comes to bad news. A leader should also be dependable, i.e.: She should adhere to her decisions, admit when she's wrong and not act behind ...

17. August 2014 by Bjoern in Business, Entrepreneurship

Bad Processes, Budgeting and Constraints

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.In a recent blog post Ben Horowitz talks about how one bad process can poison your company culture and break the company's back. The takeaway is this: Many startup founders - interestingly especially those with an engineering background - screw up the budgeting process by not applying any constraints to growth. According to Ben Horowitz a typical budgeting process goes like this: Set goals that will enable us to grow Break the goals down so that there is clear ...

27. Juli 2014 by Bjoern in Business, Design, Entrepreneurship, Software

Greatness, luck and storytelling

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.Recently, I've done some reading on computer history again. If you're interested in that sort of stuff and haven't read it yet go and have a look at Ars Technica's in-depth series on the history of the Amiga home computer. It's quite a comprehensive piece on a significant part of computer history that's largely forgotten today. This series and other documents such Dave Haynie's Deathbed Vigil remind me of how far ahead the Amiga was ...

15. Juni 2014 by Bjoern in Entrepreneurship

ZenQuery 1.0 is available today!

Leider ist der Eintrag nur auf English verfügbar.A few weeks ago I wrote about a new product I'm currently developing: ZenQuery, an Enterprise Backend as a Service. I’m pleased to announce the first public version of ZenQuery today. Since the first public announcement regarding ZenQuery roughly 30 days ago we’ve been busy working on this release. Today, you’ll be able to try out ZenQuery 1.0 yourselves on your own server and environment. I really hope you like what we’ve got for you ...

21. Mai 2014 by Bjoern in Design, Enterprise Software, Entrepreneurship, Web Applikation

Björn Wilmsmann

my blog. for you.

Reden wir über Digitales.