All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work. – Calvin Coolidge, 1872-1933, 30th President of the United States

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience. – Hyman Rickover, 1900-1986

David is an entrepreneurial programmer based in the UK. He is currently working on software startup, Boxed Ice.

In 2005 David founded his first software company, Olate, producing tools for developers. It was acquired at the end of 2007 by which time there were 4 staff serving customers such as BAE Systems and City University London.

He then worked for one of the acquiring companies, eConversions, where he was Lead Developer on social business reviews directory welovelocal.com (like Yelp but in UK). This was acquired in 2008 by GCap Media (now Global Radio), the UK’s largest commercial radio group.

His latest venture is Boxed Ice, a software development startup he started working on in Jan 2009. The first product is a server monitoring application called Server Density. He recently pitched the company as a finalist at Mini Seedcampfull Seedcamp Week in September 2009. London. I attended and won the

In the past he has served on the php.net documentation and QA teams and as well as writing for SitePoint and International PHP Magazine. David also has a published book.

Hello, David, how about we start off with you giving us some background info of yourself?

I started my first software company in 2005 when I was 17. This was acquired in 2007 at which time there were 4 staff and customers such as BAE Systems and City University London.

I subsequently worked as lead developer on welovelocal.com, a social business reviews website for the UK similar to yelp.com, acquired in 2008 by GCap Media, the UK’s largest commercial radio group.

I have almost 8 years programming experience and have been on the php.net documentation team, written for a number of websites/magazines as well as publishing a book.

What is the name of your most current venture, and please explain to YHP what exactly it does?

The company name is Boxed Ice. Our first product is Server Density, a hosted server monitoring tool that allows you to quickly monitor the internal performance of your servers, get real time alerts when things
go wrong and track historical problems.

Most of the existing products are targeted at enterprise customers but startups and small businesses don’t have the time and resources to be managing a massive monitoring system. Yet it is important to have the
monitoring in place to ensure your website and services respond quickly for users.

Server Density has been designed to be as easy to use as possible so you can get going in just a few minutes.

What special qualities do you possess that you think allowed such to happen?

I get bored easily so am always trying new things.

Tell us about Boxed Ice Ltd your latest start-up, what inspired you to start it and what role do you perform in it?

I needed an easy server monitoring tool so decided to build it and see if there was any interest from users. Everything I do is because it is something I need myself, or think I could do better. Being a user of your own products allows you to get an idea of the best way things should be implemented.

Where do you imagine Boxed Ice Ltd to be in three years time?

I think predictions are a waste of time because they’re not based on anything. The mission of the company is “The best people working on interesting projects solving complex problems within the best working environment.” so that’s what I’m aiming for.

How did it feel to win the Seedcamp Week in September 2009? You must feel very proud?

It was a great week and aside from the €50,000 seed investment, the real benefits were in the contacts and publicity. Going through the process provides great credibility which has helped complete deals that would have otherwise taken a long time, or been impossible.

What else outside of your businesses do you delve into?

I am currently learning Japanese ready for a trip I’m taking over there in April. I play bass in a band and in the past I have done scuba diving, fencing (with swords) and jitsu. I’m also just finishing off a Law degree at University of Birmingham.

How do you manage your time between you business and your other commitments?

I know what I need to do and when it needs to be done, and just slot things in as they come up. I use Google Calendar to remind me of upcoming events and Remember The Milk for recurring tasks. Otherwise I just keep everything in my head.

If there is anything you could change about your entrepreneurial life, what would it be?

Nope, everything is working out quite nicely right now.

Thank you so much, and before we finish we must ask you what pearls of wisdom would you give to other young technology based entrepreneurs of today?

Build your product and get users as quickly as possible. You’ll get great ideas and feedback from real users and being able to show people the product in production makes a huge difference.

What should we expecting from you next?

Whatever I might find fun and interesting

Thanks David and good luck.

Check out their website.
www.boxedice.com

Jake Nickell is a young entrepreneur.
Jake is the founder and CSO of skinnyCorp and Threadless.com, he is also involved in other projects online.

His company threadless sells more than 100,000 T-shirts a month.

Threadless uses the power of crowdsourcing to sell over 100,00 t-shirts a month, Talk about dropping out of college to run a multi-million dollar company.

To think that nine years ago, Jake was living in a small apratment and submitting his t-shirt design to an online contest, something that he did not think would blow up this much, he did not even know the business model.

How are you doing Jake?

Doing well, working from home today, writing a chapter for the Threadless book coming out next year.

What are your plans for the weekend?

It’s Friday – about to start! It’s going to be a crazy weekend. Tomorrow I’m flying from Colorado to Chicago to take part in our holiday party. My flight lands at 8:20pm, party starts at 9:00, I’ll be partying all night then my flight home leaves at 6:00am the next morning. Gonna be CRAZY!

What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this interview?

I would probably be writing for the book

Can you briefly give the YHP Readers some background information about you and what you do?

I started a t-shirt company called Threadless.com back in November of 2000 with $500. Today it is a huge, strong online art community with over 1 million users!

How do you define success?

In units of fun. It’s all about being happy.

How do you build a successful customer base?

For us its about building friendships and community. This happens very slowly but very naturally. And you end up with an incredibly strong community of people who share a common interest and trust the business.

How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?

I started dating my wife around the same time I started Threadless. I didn’t create Threadless as a business though, it was more of a hobby. It wasn’t really treated as a business until about 2004. So in a way I’m a bit of an accidental entrepreneur. Being able to transform a hobby into a business has been great for family life. There’s a different tone to the work I do that’s more about having a good time… makes it easier to be constantly thinking about ‘work’ like a typical entrepreneur does.

What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?

I made some pretty big failures on the accounting side of things. I’m horrible at that. It definitely taught me how valuable it is to have someone who is interested in the things you aren’t to do those things.

How do you find people to bring into your organization that truly care about the organization the way you do?

At first we hired a lot of friends. Then we hired a lot from within the Threadless community. When we hire outside of the community, we make sure that we share the same values that are core to our business and the culture and the people.

How important have good employees been to your success?

Hugely important. We like independent workers that share the values of the business and have a get things done attitude.

What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

Patience, drive and very little fear.

If you could talk to one person from history, who would it be and why?

Hmmm. History was always my weakness in High School, I’ve never been much of a history buff. But I think I would want to speak with an inventor of some sort – maybe Edison… I would love to get some insight into the thought processes that went into coming up with a completely fresh idea that went on to change everything.

What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?
Probably when I flicked a booger when I was 12 and it landed on my grandma’s hand.

What three pieces of advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs?

Constantly try to surprise yourself (push your capabilities), don’t make decisions based on fear and bootstrap your business – grow slow.

If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?

Absolutely nothing.

What’s your favourite holiday location?

Copper Mountain, Colorado – snowboarding !

What’s the worst place you’ve ever visited?

I lived in Houston Texas for a year and it was absolutely horrible.

Thanks for your time Jake, we wish you the very best.

Threadless Founder & CSO
Threadless: threadless.com | twitter.com/threadless
Jake Nickell: jakenickell.com | twitter.com/skaw

It is always interesting to find a young entrepreneur who is trying to take their claim or make their mark on the world.

Today it is Jellyellie, who decided to stop going to school at age 14, because she became frustrated at the school system which led her to becoming home-schooled.

She ended up joining a local home education group where she said she met some crazy people(in a good way) and had tons of fun, eventually took one GCSE in business studies.

Her entrepreneurial journey started when she was 12, she created a website called bluejackQ.com, she calls it “the world’s first and most cited website about bluejacking – the art of sending anonymous messages via Bluetooth mobile phones”.

The website became an instant success with over 5.5 million page views which led her being interviewed for national and international print newspaper, Magazines, websites and also on TV.

At 15, she got her first publishing deal which resulted in her writing a book called How Teenagers Think, an insider’s guide for parents about bringing up teenagers, the book is then been translated into Italian and Polish, don’t ask me why i don’t know.

She also sits on the board for Young Chamber UK, an enterprise initiative between schools and local businesses. She also has a role on the Youth Advisory Board of the Youth Citizenship Commission.

She said

My book opened lots of doors for me, including the opportunity to be represented by speaking agent Sylvia Tidy-Harris. Like any great opportunity that presents itself to me, I absolutely leaped at this one, and have since flown all round the UK – and the world – speaking to both adults and young people..

I’ve now started my own youth insight agency, called jellyTeens. I utilise my network of 13-24 year olds from around the world to provide companies and organisations with primary research into what young people today are really like – straight from the horse’s mouth. I secured my first client, a huge multi-national media agency, and delivered an insight project that helped them secure a massive telecoms client.

I was inspired to tackle this issue after noticing a lack of parenting books actually written by teenagers, so I set out to give parents a real insider’s guide into what it’s like being a teenager today. Not only do I use my views to broach 21 of the most common subject’s parents and their teens face today – from sex and drugs to money, school and being spoilt – I’ve also interviewed a wide range of my friends from the length and breadth of the country to gather their opinions.

The future

She said she hopes to write books, be a freelance writer/journalist, set her own business, and become a multi-billionaire magnanimous entrepreneur.

Check out her Websites: www.HowTeenagersThink.com
: http://www.jellyellie.com/

So i have been taking a look at younoodle lately, I find it very interesting, one of the things i like about it is that i am able to see a lot of start-up/entrepreneurs all at one place which i think is pretty cool, for those of you that have never heard of the company or what they do, put it this way.

Younoodle is a platform that provides a network for small businesses, mostly start-ups i would say, it uses mathematical models to predict the success of a new business based on information about its concept, finances, founders and advisers. The results include an estimate of the company’s expected value after three years.

The company got some serious and solid investors on board such as Max Levchin from slide.com and PayPal co-founder peter Thiel.

In August 2008, YouNoodle predicted that its own value in 2010 would be $96 million

Although the site has got mixed response from the press, Michael Arrington had a bit to say about it.
Is it really possible for a website to be able to predict a start-up’s future? Don’t we already have LinkedIn for entrepreneurs or should i professionals/business owners?

I guess they will have to prove to everyone that they can predict the success of a start-up.

They got some pretty cool people involved in younoodle such as Bob Goodson, Kirill Makharinsky and Rebeca Hwang.

I am very optimistic about the success of the company, although i am still very curious on how the predictions will work accurately or at least 90% or how they will be able to convince the right people that it is possible.