A lot has changed for Rob since he began programming in QBasic, to starting his first business at age 15 calling local businesses with a offer to build them a simple brochure site.

All of which were successful, but he wasn’t until his time at Cambridge University where he graduated with a BA Hons in Computer Science that he started developing technology, some of which they currently use at his company FusePump today.

FusePump, like any successful business was born over beers one evening, Rob and his co-founder Lee brainstormed the idea for the business on a sheet of wallpaper. FusePump helps create a better online shopping experience for consumers by delivering a consistent user journey.

In my interview, we discuss some of the keys that has helped him build his business into a succesful company, his background, FusePump and his advices for less-experienced entrepreneurs.

Hi Rob, How are you doing, great to have you on YHP?

I’m good – thanks for inviting me to contribute to YHP. Hope you’ll be interested in my story so far!

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself? Tell me about yourself growing up?

I am Yorkshire born and bred and grew up in Bradford, where I went to the Grammar School. Thanks to one or two inspiring teachers, I became very interested in computers from a young age – but whilst all my friends were gaming, I was programming in QBasic!! It meant I was the butt of the jokes for a few years, but it served me well later in life as I eventually went on to study Computer Science at Cambridge and that is where I started developing the technology we use today.

How did you get into business? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

I have been an entrepreneur since a very young age. I started my first business when I was 15, calling local businesses from a directory that had no website listed and offering to build them a simple brochure site. After a while, I started to come across more and more businesses who not only wanted to have a presence online but wanted to sell online too and that was when I started building ecommerce websites.

After my first few experiences, I quickly learned there was no point in building an ecommerce site unless you could find a way to drive users to that site, so I became very interested in Digital Marketing and in particular the ability to leverage other websites as sales channels. At the age of 16 I decided to start my own ecommerce site to put to work some of the techniques I had used for other people’s sites, and by creating an innovative web site that used dynamic price comparison to create offers in real-time as users browsed the site, I was able to make really healthy margins selling DVDs online.

Who was your inspiration growing up and why?

I took a lot of inspiration from my family – my dad had his own small business as an Independent Financial Advisor which really highlighted to me the benefits of working for yourself. My uncle was an entrepreneur too and did some really exciting things in Information Technology. I still don’t fully understand what those things were, but he must have done them very well and it was his success that really got me interested in high growth businesses and the lifestyle that goes with them!

So tell me how the idea for FusePump came about?

Over beers one evening – my co-founder Lee and I were brainstorming on a sheet of wallpaper because he was having his kitchen decorated.

What were you doing before you founded FusePump?

I had been working on ecommerce websites, including the DVD web site of my own. During my time at Cambridge I used my dissertation project as an excuse to build a platform for web data extraction and I was lucky enough to meet Chris whilst I was there. Chris has remained one of my best mates and is now the other co-founder of FusePump and our CTO – he is a technical genius and has been instrumental to our success.

What is FusePump? What are you guys trying to solve?

Our aim is to make multi-channel ecommerce simple for online retailers who sell many different products. We improve the online shopping experience for consumers by delivering a consistent user journey, and make our clients more money in the process!

What was your biggest challenge during the starting up phase?

Our biggest challenge was balancing supply (or production capacity, for us) with demand. We always seemed to have more clients who wanted to buy our services than we were able to service at the time. It might sound silly to turn business away, but it’s not easy to find and train staff on-demand and we were not prepared to compromise on the quality of our service by taking on more than we knew we could handle. Perhaps we were victims of our own success.

How were you able to fund the business?

We didn’t raise any funding from VCs or investors at the start and kicked off with only a relatively small amount of cash that we borrowed from the bank. We must have had a great business plan as it was slap bang in the middle of the recession and their purse strings were terrifyingly tight, according to the press. This meant we had to grow completely organically, generating enough cash from sales to cover our overheads at all times. It’s really hard work to achieve the level of growth we have in this way, but it’s satisfying to know we did it on our own and managed to retain our valuable equity.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Businesses are all about people – you cannot grow a business on your own, so it is crucial to find the right people who you can inspire to share your motivation and drive in the early stages. It took an awful lot of work to grow out each area of the business in the early stages, but I am now fortunate enough to be surrounded by a fantastic management team who I can trust to manage and grow their own business areas. That’s why I would say hiring sensibly and strategically is one of the most crucial things we have done to grow the business.

Would you say the business has changed from the first initial idea?

Absolutely – any successful technology business needs to be prepared to evolve constantly as market conditions and client demands change. We did a great job of listening to our clients and keeping agile during the early stages, and this was a key factor in our success. Now that we are bigger, it’s about creating an environment where innovation is encouraged and new ideas can be realised with minimal resistance. It takes some getting used to, but innovation doesn’t last forever and it can’t continue to come from the founders alone – it’s really empowering now to see newer and better ideas being developed all the time within the business.

What would you say has been the highlight of your entrepreneurial journey so far?

I am a bit of sales person at heart, so signing our biggest deal to date was probably one of the highlights for me. Before that, my highlight was probably signing what was previously the biggest deal to date and if you ask me in a few months, it will hopefully be signing the next biggest deal to date! Seriously though, the buzz of growing a business is that the highlights keep coming. There are over 40 of us in the office now, but I still get a massive kick every time I am able to go into the office and introduce myself to a new employee – people are the physical evidence that we are getting bigger.

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

We are releasing some exciting new products, which are going to really shake things up for our new and existing clients. We are also entering some new markets – including France, Spain, Germany and possibly the US. On top of that, we will be doing plenty more of the same stuff we have always done to help us achieve our target of another 100% growth year on year.

What three pieces of advice would you offer entrepreneurs starting out today?

1.Make sure your idea rocks – don’t be secretive, talk to everyone you can and tell them what you are planning. It’s human nature to look for problems so don’t be disheartened when they inevitably pick your idea apart, just make sure you learn from their awkward questions. Once you have convinced yourself you are onto a winner, just go for it and don’t look back!

2.Surround yourself with the right people – you can’t do it on your own, even if you own the whole business you will need to hire if you want to get bigger! In the early stages, there is no substitute for enthusiasm so pick people who share your passion for the business above all else.

3.Always have a plan – your plan will probably need to change every 15 minutes so there is no point in writing it down, but always try to make sure you have one in your head. Entrepreneurs are takers of risks – but if you’re doing enough thinking, you should rarely encounter a situation that catches you off guard.

From winning TechCrunch Disrupt to raising a total of $18.3M in funding. I invited Tomer Dvir, the CEO and Co-Founder of Soluto as he talks me through his entrepreneurial journey so far, especially how the idea for Soluto came about.

Tomer Dvir is the CEO and Co-Founder of Soluto, a web service that helps people to make their own PC and other people’s PCs better.

The full interview is below.

Photo by Louiz Green

Hi Tomer, Thanks for doing this interview with me. Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

When I was 7 years old, I got two rabbits as a gift. Quickly I found out that rabbits multiply every few weeks. That was my first business. I started programming at the age of 9. As a teenager I worked for various companies as a programmer and helped people with their computers, while also working on my own projects – such as a computerized home and various other projects involving hardware and software working together.

At the age of 18 I joined the army for 3 years, serving the air force in an R&D unit. The day I left the army I started a small software company with a friend from high-school. We loved programming but we were pretty bad at marketing ourselves – so we failed miserably. Then I joined a small start-up that developed a very cool medication dispensing system, where I grew to lead development as the company’s CTO.

After 5 years I decided it was time to move on and start something huge that would affect hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Tell me how the idea for Soluto came about?

The real Soluto story started back when I was a teenager, when I began helping people in my hometown with their computers.  At first it was just to help people and make them happier, but quickly I realized that I could make people all over the world happier by helping them enjoy their technology more.  A seed was planted and the idea for Soluto grew, to help anyone anywhere get more from their computers. In the beginning of 2008, together with Ishay Green, Soluto was born.

What were you doing before you started the company?

Before co-founding Soluto, I was CTO at MDG Medical, where I led the software and hardware development of medication dispensing products for hospitals. Before that I co-founded InetB, a web applications software provider.

What is Soluto?

Soluto helps you get more out of your PC. It’s a web-based service that lets you manage your PCs and help your friends, family and colleagues make their PCs better too, so that everyone will be a little happier with the technologies they use every day.

What are you trying to solve with Soluto?

We all use technology in our lives every day, in our offices, at home and even in our pockets as we move more and more towards a world of smartphones. Unfortunately many people are not naturally good with technology and this is where Soluto comes in. Our aim is to make everyone happier with the technology they use every day by allowing people to do more with their computer and also providing a simple way for friends, family and colleagues to help each other get more from technology.

Soluto currently works for PCs and we’re planning to support tablets, Macs and smartphones in the near future.

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

When people think of fun-to-use, easy technology – PCs aren’t the first things that come to mind. We knew that people use PCs every day and that they are an amazing technology that can make people’s lives better and easier. We also knew that most people don’t know what to do with them or how they can get more out of their PC. We knew this, but the challenge was to convince investors and the market that there was a need for Soluto and that we could change the way people think about, feel towards, and use their PCs.

The hardest part of starting the business was taking an idea (that sounded great) and turning it into a real product (that proved itself) so others could actually see that we were really onto something. It was a lot of hard work, conviction, and not a lot of sleep or money. But our dedication and belief in what we were doing got us to where we are now.

How were you able to fund the business?

To date, Soluto has raised a total of $18.3M in three rounds. These were led by Index Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Giza Venture Capital, and Proxima Ventures and also Chris Dixon, Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund, Eric Schmidt. For a complete list, see our Investors page.

How has your market changed in the past few years? How has your business changed to keep pace?

Over the last year it’s become clear that many of our users are supporting other people, either at work or as ‘family CTOs,’ helping parents, neighbors, even grandma with their computers. We realized that finding a way to efficiently help multiple people with their PCs was the real challenge for our power users. We decided that we could make it easier if power users could remotely help PCs from a web dashboard. That’s how the Soluto web-based service came to be.

Soluto, which was once a software application that helped people with their own PCs, has always been focused on helping people get more from technology. Now, our business has taken the next step in making technology better for everyone, by creating the web-based service that can help people not only get more out of their own PC but also help others make their PCs better too.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since starting the company?

Soluto has always been focused on helping people get more from technology so the initial idea has remained the same throughout, how we can best do this is adapting as we learn from our users.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial that you’ve done to build the company to this level now?

We believe that technology should be easy, clear but also Fun. One of the most crucial things we’ve done is focus on our user experience and design. Soluto has reached the level it’s at now due to our team’s focused dedication to creating an easy-to-use, beautiful, and enjoyable product.

For us it’s crucial that we always find a way to make our service as intuitive and user-friendly as possible. We strive to give people only the information they need, and not overload users with tons of unnecessary technical data.

But in addition to that – we try to make any experience with Soluto as fun as possible. Our ultimate goal with every design and feature is to get the person who’s using the feature to smile.

Is the business profitable? What is your business model?

Soluto is not profitable yet. Soluto is free for use with up to 5 PCs. Users pay a monthly fee to use Soluto to manage more than 5 PCs.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

Our most memorable moment was releasing our first public version and winning TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010. It was amazing to have our hard work and vision recognized.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Be ready to work hard, and really believe in what you are doing. Be prepared for some disappointments, challenges and unexpected hiccups along the way, but don’t lose sight of your vision and goals.
The start-up and entrepreneurial road is fast-paced and full of unexpected highs and lows, so be ready for anything.

Most importantly – Trust yourself wholly, and believe in your idea. Many people will be non-believers and will tell you that you have no chance. Always listen, but don’t assume someone else knows better than you.

What can we be expecting from you and Soluto in 2012?

You can expect Soluto to continue improving and embarking on new ways to help make technology better for everyone. Moving forward we are working on our PC Genome project. Soluto’s PC Genome project aims to make data about technology freely and publicly available.

Also, Soluto will become available on additional platforms and provide more and more value to everyone’s digital life.

How does an entrepreneur go from developing mobile games to building the world largest independent app store? I speak to the founder and CEO of GetJar- llja Laurs.

GetJar is the world’s largest free app store with over 2.5 billion app downloads to date. The company distributes over 150,000 mobile applications across a variety of operating systems.

Below is the full interview

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I grew up during the collapse of the Soviet Union when buying even the basics, like toilet paper, was a great challenge. So as a kid, lacking any pocket money, I learned pretty-early to take care of myself. The first business, at the age of 6-7, collecting empty glass beer bottles on the beaches and trading them for money in the recycle points, was both profitable and ‘eco’J. The best ‘harvest’ was Sundays mornings between 5am-6am as there was a lot of ‘work’ (and money to be made!) after the previous day’s parties.

What were you doing before you founded the company?

I started the company straight out of the university; however by the time I formally started the company I’d done a lot of things, from selling copies of Bruce Lee posters in the school, to copper recycling, to tutoring kids English (after I returned from the US where I studied as an exchange student).

Tell me how the idea for GetJar came about?

Initially it wasn’t meant to be a business. We were developing mobile games and came across a testing problem. There were hundreds of devices on the market that we needed to test our apps with, but we couldn’t afford to buy them all. So the idea was to publish our beta apps so that anyone could download them for free – we only asked them to tell us whether our app worked on a specific device. We opened this crowd-sourced testing service to both testers (who were able to get apps for free in exchange for testing) and developers (who were able to test their apps with the community at no charge). Soon, the community exploded and we realized a business opportunity.

What is GetJar?

We are world’s largest independent app store, with over 2.5 billion app downloads to date.

What are you trying to solve with GetJar?

Back when app distribution was entirely controlled by carriers, we created an open, independent, off-deck app distribution destination for developers and consumers. Today, we continue building an independent cross platform app distribution channel.

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

In my specific case, ‘launching’ the company was a very gradual process that took a year or so (while combining this with studying) – unlike businesses that are established now. After formally registering the company, I was doing part-time consultancy (web pages, e-commerce, etc.), rented the first office in about six months, hired the first employees in about 8 months, etc. As with anything, the most difficult part is to start, after a while you build experience, clientele, get to know your domain, etc.

How were you able to fund the business?

In my part of the world (Lithuania), VC funding was totally unknown when I was starting the business. So it was all very simple – you either are profitable from day one, or you’re out of business. I only started to take salary when there was enough money to pay for accounting and other overheads and only rented an office when there were a constant flow of consultancy projects, etc.

How has your market changed in the past few years? How has your business changed to keep pace?

One of the biggest changes in our industry was the launch of the native app stores – first Apple’s, then Google’s and so on. On the one hand, with the rise of the smartphone, the market became much bigger; on the other hand, the competition became harder. But unlike all other players who have retail-based business model for apps, we’re innovating with a paid discovery model. Instead of selling apps to consumers, we sell sponsored listings in the app store, which allows us to split ad dollars with developers and make available paid-apps to consumers, for free. It’s just like radio compared to a CD store – you have to pay for music in the CD store but can listen to the same songs on the radio for free because advertisers pick up the bill.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since starting the company?

Indeed the model has changed a lot – from originally developing mobile games through a beta testing community, we evolved the business into an app store.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial that you’ve done to build the company to this level now?

Expanding beyond Lithuania where we originally started has been the most difficult, but together the most important event in the company’s history. Unlike other companies who outsource development to Eastern Europe for cost efficiency, I’ve made a decision to build development in Silicon Valley, because of the quality of the people here.

Is the business profitable? What is your business model?

Unfortunately we’re not disclosing any financial aspects of the company; this is a common policy for non-public companies. However the business model, based on selling sponsored listings in an open auction (just like in Google’s Adsense) proves to be very powerful.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

Probably the first call from Accel (VC). At that time I had no clue what VC stood for or how they could be useful to the business, so it was a rather funny introductory phone conversation.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

As I talk to students who want to be entrepreneurs, I am often asked what personality features are the most important for a successful entrepreneur. Intuitively you’d think it’s leadership-skills and talent, etc. Based on my experience, only two things really matter. First, it’s about a high tolerance to risk. More than anything, starting a business is accepting the risk of the failure (which statistically is 90% for any new initiative). Those who cannot tolerate risk and prefer a comfortable, predictable life will not be happy as entrepreneurs. Second, it’s about being able to bear a high-degree of responsibility. Unlike with most nine to five jobs, running your business is about bearing responsibility for every aspect of it – without the luxury of support from an established organization. Responsibility to your partners, clients, investors, but mostly to the people who work with you.

What can we be expecting from you and GetJar in 2012?

A big thing we’re launching this year is ‘GetJar Gold’ virtual currency – a first of its kind. The currency will be backed by the marketing spend as opposed to the consumer spend. Delinking the virtual currency from real money will allow us to offer both consumers and developers a billing platform, with the user experience and simplicity never seen before. What’s more important is the linking of the currency to ad dollars will allow us to further improve our platform as a free app store.

When does Skype’s first employee decide it’s time to move on and start his own start-up? I invite Taavet Hinrikus to YHP to share the story behind leaving Skype and the early days of TransferWise.

Taavet Hinrikus is the Co-Founder at TransferWise

Below is the full interview

Hi Taavet, thanks for doing this with me, I know you are very busy at the moment

Its my pleasure 

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I’m Estonian, but I was born in the Soviet Union as Estonia at the time was part of the USSR. During those times you had to be very much hands on when you needed anything – the shops were empty and the only thing people had plenty of was time. One really had to take charge and solve problems in a creative way to get anything done.

In general Estonia now is very entrepreneurial – to get proof of that look at all the start-ups coming from Estonia at the moment – Erply, GrabCAD, Pipedrive and many more. This small country is producing a number of start-ups that is completely disproportional to the size of its population.

How did you end up being the first employee in Skype? How did you find out about the vacancy and how did you get the job?

I started working with Niklas and Janus on a different project before Skype existed. Later we started working on the idea that became Skype and so I ended up being the first employee in the team.

What was it like working with the founders when the company started, what were some of your early Skype memories?

In the beginning it was a very small and tightly knit team that was working together very hard to build this little application. That little application then became a global communication company. We valued speed above all and I remember one of the records being that we got a new feature launched and to the first 10k users in about 4 hours.

Leaving a big company can be very hard especially when you are the first employee, How did you know it was time for you to leave and why did you leave?

There’s always a world outside, so for me it was quite obvious that at one point you need to move on. In 2008 I had spent more than six years on Skype already and I was pondering what to do next in. I figured that the next challenges in Skype would take me 2-3-4 to accomplish, committing to that would have meant that I had spent 10 years in one place by the time I’m 30, so I figured its time for something new.

What would you say were some of the key things you learnt from that experience?

Stay humble and hungry. The experience of building a global company that touches everyone’s lives is invaluable.

Tell me about the early days, how the idea for TransferWise came about?

I move from Estonia to London around 2006. That’s when I started feeling the pain of international money transfer. I realised that when I send money between Estonia and the UK the banks take a cut of 5% at least. What’s even more upsetting is how they do it – most of the charge is hidden in the exchange rate. The banks try hard to make it extremely difficult to understand what you’re paying for. There is no transparency in the market!

What we started doing with TransferWise’s co-founder Kristo was a peer to peer model – I would transfer money locally to Kristo’s account in Estonia and he would do the same in London. Both of us making local payments which are free or very inexpensive. And we looked up the interbank rate on Reuters for exchanging GBP and EUR. Very soon we had saved each other thousands of pounds.

We utilised that model for a couple of years and then in 2010 started thinking about how to provide a similar service to everyone else who needs it. Quick check at how many people either live, work or study abroad revealed that there are in excess of 200M expats in the world – the need for these people to transfer money is huge!

What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

I think there is no such one thing, getting a new company off the ground is very difficult in general. The hardest could be the most important part – that is creating the best team. Finding the smart people that want to work together and create something meaningful.

How were you able to fund the business?

There are two sides to this – first lets talk about funding. Both me Kristo have put some money aside over the years. For me it also helped that I had stock options in Skype and I made a bit of money when Skype was sold to Ebay in 2005.

The other side of this is how much you spend. One of the big changes that has happened over the past 5-10 years is that starting a new business does not cost that much any more – you can be very lean at first and build the first prototype with not that much at all. As the company grows and you hire other people to work with you then of course your financial needs become higher, but by that time you many more options for funding.

What is TransferWise? Tell me how it works?

Essentially what we do is international money transfer. We save people time and money when they transfer money overseas.

Your local bank will take a 5% cut of any money you send overseas and often times you need to walk to the bank branch to make a foreign payment – we do it for a very low cost and in a very convenient way online.

What is your business model?

We charge a fee for every transaction. The fee is 1 EUR for transfers up to 300 EUR and slightly more for larger transfers.

Are you profitable?

Not yet, we are still in the growth and investment phase.

How has your market changed in the past few years? How has your business changed to keep pace?

We launched our business about one year ago. What we’ve learned over this time has very much re-enforced the point – the service provided by banks is exceptionally poor and expensive. We continuously have customers emailing us stories about how their banks are over charging them for anything.

During the first year we have helped our customers save half a million euros. Otherwise that money would have been paid to banks in various charges and hidden fees. This simply means that some banker’s bonuses are smaller thanks to this.

There is a wave of disruption happening in consumer finance where new specialist companies are taking over parts of banking and we’re a great example of this. Additionally you can see that Zopa and Lending Club are revolutionizing lending using the power of peer-to-peer, Bilbus and MarketInvoice are changing invoice factoring and working capital management and many more examples. Technology again is revolutionizing how consumers get their service and win. The times of banks charging ludicrous fees and providing really poor services to their customers are hopefully soon over!

What is an average workday like for you?

I usually start working around 9 in the morning and from there on its solid work for 10-12 hours also very often on weekends. Most of the work I do is with the great people that we have – we’re a team of 10 people now covering areas from marketing, development and operations to customer support.

Being an entrepreneur means that your job is not limited to 9-5 and then you go home and forget about it. Your business comes with you everywhere and you keep on spending cycles thinking about this all the time.

How is your company different from other competing and similar platforms out there?

People have called us the Skype of currency exchange, but rather we like to think of us as the EasyJet of money transfer. We’re low cost, fast and get the job done with no frills. Or even going farther, we could be like IKEA. What both IKEA and EasyJet have done is democratizing the world by disrupting some industry and making those services much more affordable and available to a large audience – that’s what we do as well!

What we value above all is transparency and keeping our customers happy. By saying transparency I mean that we always exchange money at the mid-market rate and clearly show what we charge for our service. There are no hidden fees or charges that get added at the end of transaction.

Above all we want our customers to be smart about their money and help them spend it cleverly.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

You need the best team that will work in good times and also the bad times. Your business idea can change (and very likely will change in the early days of your company) making the team the biggest asset.

What has been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

Getting an email or phone call from a customer where they applaud us for great service is the highlight. That makes us understand that we’re doing something valuable for them. Lucky for us, we get quite a few of these.

What trends, startups, technology are you personally looking forward to in 2012?

Aside from the world of finance I think its exciting to look at everything that happens around mobile – we’re being continuously plugged in to high speed connection and having a powerful computer with us in our pocket. I think that we’re just seeing the beginning of what this means. Also there will be lots of interesting things happening in the intersection of medical/health technology and the power of internet and mobile.

What are your other plans for TransferWise in 2012?

Very simply put, our goal is to grow further and add new currencies. We will grow our transfer volumes by an order of magnitude this year. And we will be introducing new currencies very soon.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

Success rarely comes overnight, if you are convinced of your idea then commit to it and make it happen. Don’t get scared after the first problem you encounter. Be prepared for a rollercoaster ride that is fun and risky with many ups and down.

With all the hype going around following the sale of Wufoo earlier in the year I knew it was only right for me to invite one of the co-founders, Kevin Hale on YHP to talk about his experience starting and running Wufoo.

Kevin Hale is the Co-Founder of Wufoo, Wufoo is an Internet application that helps anybody build amazing online forms.

In 2011, Wufoo was acquired by SurveyMonkey, the leader in web-based survey solutions. Although terms of the deal were not confirmed, but sources say it was a worth up to $35 million in cash and stock.

Hi Kevin, how are you doing today? It’s great to have you on YHP.

Thanks! I am stoked Let’s get this interview party started.

Can you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

My background is fine arts-based, so my perspective on the Web is a bit different from most designers in the industry. I studied Digital Arts and Modern American English Literature at a very small private liberal arts college on the east coast of Florida. The digital arts program was an interdisciplinary fine arts amalgam of computer science, art and music. Out of college I was into creative writing and electronic art. Graphic design, software interfaces, digital photography, video installations, sensor research, online storytelling, conceptual weirdness — all of it excited me.

What’s funny is that I found the web to be the medium that I was the least interested in when I left school. It wasn’t until I built Wufoo that I realized just how rich and complex software could be as a medium for exploring relationships. To me, Wufoo was an opportunity to extend my experiments in that space-eliciting real emotions and the feeling of friendship through software.

Tell us how the idea of Wufoo came about?

The inspiration for the product started back in 2003 when I was doing some writing and design for a small division at a research university, which is where I met Chris, who was doing some web application development there. Chris introduced me to his brother, Ryan, who at the time was still a student and writing all the database programming examples for his professor’s computer science textbook.

For about a year, we talked constantly about how frustrating it was to build these really boring forms and databases for our employers, who failed to appreciate how much tedious work was involved just to create something simple as a contact form or an online survey.

Wufoo was therefore built on the belief that since forms were the starting point for building anything useful on the web, there should be a do-it-yourself solution for creating online forms that removed the inefficiency and tediousness out of the form building process and reduce what used to take days (if not weeks) by trained professionals into something that could be done by anyone in minutes.

How did you guy raise funds to initially start the company?

We pitched our idea for Wufoo to Y Combinator, a venture firm that specializes in funding very early stage startups, and received the initial seed funding from them ($18,000) to work on our idea full time and get a prototype off the ground. Through them, we secured additional funding from Angels ($100,00) and that got us to launch.

What would you guys say were some of the reasons that Wufoo have been this successful?

We knew that we were not the only form builders in this space, so it was really important to us that the difference come out in the personality of the product in addition to its ease of use. In the beginning, we tried to look at other interfaces for inspiration, but we realized quickly that we weren’t going to learn much about how to make something easy from Microsoft Access or Infopath. I actually still don’t know how to use either software to create a form.

It was really depressing to see so much software out there designed to remind people they’re making databases in a windowless office and so we immediately knew we wanted to go in the opposite direction.

Like most software teams, we loved making new features and releasing them to our users. Our goal, however, was not to create code that just checked off items on a feature list. Everyone on our team participates in the direction of our application, the testing of those new features, and maintaining them from a support point of view.

Because we’re a small team that desires to stay a small team, everyone had to wear multiple hats in our company and that included manning the inbox and doing customer support every single week. One of the interesting side effects of having a company where everyone has to answer support emails, is that everyone had a stake in making sure application is as easy to use as possible. We called this approach to designing software Support Driven Development and it’s been really great for us. The priorities and desire for simplicity and clarity are actually the result of our people wanting to make their weekly support interactions as few and positive as possible. Getting a feature into Wufoo that added unnecessary complexity became a big no-no in our company. In fact, we made adding any element to the interface the hardest thing possible in our design process. Every button, every word, every link, every switch is scrutinized to make sure it’s absolutely necessary and won’t generate a future support request.

Why did you decide to sell Wufoo to SurveyMonkey? How did the deal come about?

We accepted the deal because they truly understood the mission we were on with Wufoo. We also really loved the management team and the vision they had for the data collection market.

Has anything changed since your acquisition?

Well, I’m not longer the boss and I have to commute to work everyday (everyone worked from home before the acquisition). But those are small superficial things, we still get to work on making Wufoo better for our users every single day, which is wonderful. SurveyMonkey is actually doing a lot to help us scale our infrastructure behind the scenes to expand into international markets and we’re working intimately with them to bring some of the best practices we’ve learned in interface design to their application. We’ve heard a lot of horror stories from other companies that have gone through this process, but I have to say that this has been surprisingly delightful for us. Everyone is winning.

Going back a bit, what would you say was probably the hardest part of starting and launching the business?

In the beginning, before launch, I think we were always struggling with motivation. It’s so hard to carry on in that early stage when there’s lots of doubt and speculation about whether you’re creating the right thing. But now, we’ve got that in spades thanks to our users. They’re just really good to us. We get so many great messages thanking us for our services and that makes trying to do something right by them everyday very easy.

Two other problems we had surrounded focus and increasing awareness about the service. We worked really hard on creating a message that was consistent and simple. Wufoo is a very versatile product, which is great once you get to know it, but presents a challenge when you’re trying to market it. Your story can’t be more than a mouthful if you want it to travel by word of mouth.

What has been your most memorable moment so far?

Well, right before we went out there Ryan got Cat Scratch Fever. I won’t go too much into it, but it has something to do with swelling of the lymph nodes and apparently feels like someone is kicking you in your precious place all over your body. This is a disease most common to the demographic consisting of 12 year-old girls. What it comes down to is only Ryan could get a disease like this. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really affect anything because he was over it by the time we got out there, but I like telling the story because Ryan is ridiculous and that’s is the flavor that always follows us around.

What would you say has been some of the key lessons that you’ve both learned so far as an entrepreneur?

When dealing with people, always be fair. When given the choice between being honest and doing anything else, be honest. Honesty will surprise you. Oh, and so will people. People are so much more understanding than companies give them credit for. The problem is companies usually make things that can’t be empathized with. Also, things that work on a first date, totally work in software.

What advices could you give to other entrepreneurs working in the same industry as you?

Don’t give up.

What are your plans for the future of the site?

Currently, we’re focused on expanding our presence and reach into international markets. That means we’re working heavily on translations, localizations, scaling and creating a billing and payment infrastructure to support

Thanks for your time Kevin.

Eeve is the creation of two internet entrepreneur – Jan Senderek and Nicolas Bös. The Duo came up with the idea for Eeve at the start of 2011 and soft launched with a basic version at the Inspire Conference in London in June.

Eeve lets users take photos from their mobile and collaboratively tell a story with others in close proximity – these collaborations are what are known as ‘Eeves’.

The London based startup aims to change the people interact with eachother and share what they do once we are out and about – with the help of their mobile phones.

It doesnt matter whether you’re at the park hanging out with friend, in a tech conference, at a concert with your favourite band, you can simply just join an existing Eeve or start a new one.

Eeves are open to anyone – you, your friends and complete strangers in the area, allowing different perspectives to be captured and recorded for future purposes.

You can also discover who else is nearby, and invite them to join the Eeve. You can also follow your friends and even friends of friends, and discover what everyone is doing together.

Eeve alllows you to view mini biographies of other users, see their Eeves and you could even connect with them on Facebook and Twitter.

Eeve is currently in Beta since June 2011. it is also invite only.

Ian Hogarth is the CEO & Co-founder of Songkick. I recently caught up him to talk about the company he founded four years ago after quitting his job at Bain & Company, Singapore. Ian holds a Master’s in machine learning at Cambridge.

Songkick helps you keep track of live music. By integrating your iTunes, Last.fm or Pandora profile, you are able to receive alerts by email whenever a band you listen to announces a date in your city. It also shows users where to buy the cheapest tickets and see who else is going.

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this with me Ian, How are you doing today?

Great thanks! Thanks for taking an interest in our product.

Can you give the readers some background information about yourself, especially about what you were doing before you started Songkick?

Sure. Pete and I are best friends from Cambridge where he studied law and I studied Engineering. Michelle and I met studying Mandarin in Beijing. We quit our jobs in publishing (Michelle), enterprise software (Pete) and strategy consulting (Ian) to start Songkick.

How did the idea for Songkick come about and what made you decide that this was the right idea for you to pursue?

We all share a huge love for live music, and believe that seeing your favourite bands live is something everyone should experience more. We knew a lot of friends who wanted to see more concerts but didn’t have time to keep track of when their favrouite bands came to town. We realised we could use our software development skills to simplify that process and autumatically tell you when bands you listen to announce dates in your city.

Can you tell explain to the readers what Songkick is about?

Songkick helps you keep track of live music. You sign up, give us access to your iTunes, Last.fm or Pandora profile, and we’ll then alert you by email whenever a band you listen to announces a date in your city. We’ll show you where to buy the cheapest tickets and see who else is going.

What would you say was the hardest part of setting up the business?

Finding our first few hires. We were very lucky to meet an amazing developer very early on, Phil Cowans who was working at Microsoft Research then. Looking back, persuading him to quit his job and join us was one of the most significant events.

You rolled out a new integration with Warner!, Can you tell us about it?

Yes absolutely. In order to able to tell our users about every concert by their favourite artists we have built up the most comprehensive database of concert information in the world. We’re very excited to be working with Warner to power the tour data on their artist sites, thus ensuring that bands can present the most accurate and timely data on their tour dates to their fans. This saves bands and managers significant time, and means they can spend more time on their music.

Should we be expecting any other new features on the platform anytime soon?

Yes we have two big launches coming…stay tuned!

How is Songkick funded and what is your revenue model?

We are funded by angels and VCs from the technology and music industries including Y Combinator, Index Ventures, Alex Zubillaga, Jeff Clavier, Stefan Glaenzer, Peter Read, Dan Porter, Betaworks and other great angels.

We generate revenue by generating sales of commerce related to live music – tickets and soon merchandise and live recordings. We are a lead generation engine for the live music industry helping to solve the problem that 50% of concert tickets go unsold.

How has the your market changed since the company’s launch in 2007 and how has your business changed to keep pace?

The ticketing market has continued to fragment with some fantastic new ticketing services emerging like Crowdsurge, Eventbrite, Ticketfly and Topspin, so we’ve continued to focus on aggregating the largest database of concert listings to provide the best service to our users.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Improving the quality of our user experience. That leads to happier users who spread the word more passionately to their friends.

As a UK-Based company that is successful and has been successful with funding, Do you think start-ups in the US have it easier than the UK? What is your take on this?

I think wherever you do it a start-up is hard. In London you have a few advantages as well as the well publicised disadvantages – it’s slightly easier to hire a great team, and for us London has more concerts than any other city in the world, so we’re close to a major live music market which helps refine new ideas.

If you you were to start another enterprise, what might it be?

I would like to do something to help reduce child trafficking.

Since the launch of the company in 2007, what moment would you describe as the most memorable so far?

The night we logged 1 million gigs in our database, and stayed up watching the database before launching a major new version of our site.

What three pieces of advice would you offer entrepreneurs starting out today?

Stay as focused as possible and keep simplifying down your ideas till you have something small you can launch quickly and iterate on. Be ruthless in hiring only the best people. Keep fit and try to exercise even in the longest times.

Finally before we go, Songkick has been a company that has been very successful with raising money, Could you share some tips on raising money?

Be authentic. Find other entrepreneurs to mentor you through the process. Try to avoid letting raising money distract you from what really matters – building a great product and delighting your users.

Thanks for your time Ian

By George Metzger

Articles Source: Become an Internet Entrepreneur

As the Internet has revolutionised the world in recent times it has offered people, willing to take advantage of its global popularity, opportunities like never before. One such budding Internet entrepreneur from British Colombia, Canada has grasped this opening with both hands and has become a master of “website flipping”.

To all those who aren’t familiar with this term, this money making cyber technique has been likened to an antique dealer who visits car boot sales, discovers gems, repackages them and then resells them.

However, instead of dealing with old lamps or watches, 16 year old Donny Oygang has become astute at buying websites he thinks are marketable and reselling them for profit. His two most recent ventures include the gaming online community BattleForums.com which boasts some 60,000 members and LiveTV.ws, an internet TV resource website with 22,000 members, which allows the user to watch TV channels from all over the world at a click of a button.

The latest site that he sold, StarCraft, was purchased for $2,000 and sold in a matter of two weeks for $4,250. Donny’s interest in computers began at a young age when he started reading his Dad’s computer science university books.

Having studied his father’s books with such avid enthusiasm he is now perfectly placed to take advantage of this Internet age, “The Internet is growing at such a huge rate, it is impossible to ignore the potential. Never before have we been able to use such mediums to communicate with our visitors, customers, clients and prospects”.

In terms of the future Donny has radical plans to design a social networking website that he believes will one day change the educational system forever. Watch this space.

Read Donny Ouyang’s Interview with YHP here!

Written by Henry Colburn

Remember a while ago, I spoke about a startup called lootar which was started by Oo Nwoye, the former co-founder of onepage and his co-founder Roland ukor.

The founders officially launched the startup today after some delays, although it is still in a version 0.1 , they are already getting the ball rolling and working on improvements to the website.

I always like people to get things out and get the ball rolling, even if it is not in the best possible state, let me not remind you how many changes facebook has made since they launched.

I can truly see this going far, especially for someone like me that watch a lot of programs online so i guess i’m kind of excited about the whole project.

And for those of you that dont remember what Lootar is about – It is a TV/Radio guide for the web that notifies people when their favourite program is about to start.

Check out the website, if you experience any problems or see any bugs, send an email to hi@lotaar.com