TenTenTen
We are looking for people. So here’s a small peek into what we’re up to. If you like what you see, send me a mail. If not, you can still be nice and spread the word.
Why on earth is it called TenTenTen?
Remember, in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “42” was the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. Well, 42 in binary is 101010. So.
But if you ever get stopped by a cop after a mildly liquid evening and he asks you where you work, imagine if you had to say, “One zero one zero one zero.” You get my point? Of course, you may end up saying, “shenshenshen”, but that sounds Chinese and so ought to impress the above-mentioned cop.
What exactly does TenTenTen do?
TenTenTen builds cool apps that connect cool brands to cool customers.
Hehe. What does it really do?
Really. We build apps for brands. Web apps and mobile apps. And these apps build these brands.
Whenever you think of cool brands, who are the usual suspects? Google, Apple, types yes? Now how have these brands been built? Not by advertising for sure. These brands are cool because they DO cool things. Of course these are #godlevel brands where the core product itself keeps innovating. But other brands can also use this approach and do various small cool things that are useful and fun.
To give you an example, we may create an app that allows car owners to send an SMS with the odometer reading each time they fill gas. And they can later log in to a website and figure out their mileage, etc. And this could be an app for a car brand, or an auto-insurance brand, or even a petrol brand. Great idea? Yes? (Blushes) Thanks. No? Yeah of course. I’m not going to put up my good stuff here no? Wait till you see what we’re actually doing. I can’t tell you more right now because then I’ll have to kill you.
And most of our apps are connected to Facebook, Twitter, etc. so that customers can build the brand simply by telling their friends how cool we (the brands, not us) are. In fact we plan to do lots of Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare apps. All for brands. And some for personal kicks. Mine.
We also create in-house products. Basically tools & dashboards for Marketing Managers. Go take a look now at brandtap.net to see our first product.
Whoa! That’s too long. Give me a buzz phrase that I can get turned on by.
Okay. How about – Brand Building 2.0?
Yeah whatever. Now tell me, does TenTenTen exist in the real world?
Damn. You had to ask that, did you? Well, no. Not yet. But it will very soon.
I’m looking for office space. Somewhere in North Bangalore. We’ll get ourselves a nice house with a lawn, install a fridge in the kitchen, fill it with beer, and we’re good to go.
And what happens till then?
Well, we’ll give you laptops and you work from home, Cubbon park, the last seat in a movie theatre, wherever. And we meet in coffee shops, pubs or preferably garages (which history says is the best place to start a company). Basically work goes on while the place gets ready. And btw, the laptops still belong to us. If you want to own one, you can always join IIPM. Or move to Tamil Nadu quickly.
“Work goes on” is all fine. But ahem… money?
By the time you read this, TenTenTen would have been incorporated, so we will exist at least as per the law. And our first “angel”, would have deposited enough money in our bank account to pay your salary for say, six months, even if we make no money from clients. Which is tremendously pessimistic because we already have real clients with real bank balances for whom (the clients, not their bank balances) we are doing real work. Okay, don’t quote me on this, but we are already doing stuff for Kingfisher beer and MakeMyTrip. Plus brandtap.net, which you must have diligently explored by now, is more or less ready to be rolled out into the cruel world.
We’ll also be funded by a few others. Not that we really need the money. But I like having a big bank balance which we can use to scale-up fast and all that.
Okay, I’m in. Now what kind of people are you looking for?
Firstly, you need to enjoy doing stuff. New stuff. Edgy stuff. Cool stuff. And you should be the types who doesn’t need or enjoy much supervision. Basically we’ll tell you what we need and you go ahead and do it. But what you do should be flawless. It should work well. It should look great. It should rock.
Secondly, you should enjoy chaos somewhat. I tend to be a tyrant. Which is bad to start with. But on top of that I am a fickle-minded tyrant. So specs will change, approved designs will suddenly be reconsidered, random thoughts will pour out, and innumerable paths will be explored. But don’t worry. It’s all for a noble cause – to create something great. That you will own.
Thirdly, you should love what TenTenTen is up to. Once you’re in, you’re in. Body, soul, tapeworm, all in. If you only feel a tepid preference, don’t join. There’s no point. However, if you’re just unsure, no problem. We can have long chats where I’ll try to make you love TenTenTen.
Cool. I can pretend to be all that. What are the specific roles?
Coders: Basically people who will create our apps. You’ll be given a full project and you go ahead and create it. As simple as that. You’ll need to use PHP. So you should have worked on it or at least have more than a passing acquaintance with it. If you also know JAVA and/or .NET, even better.
Mobile: Folks who can create apps for iPhone, Android, Windows, whatever. I would have said more. If I knew more.
Designers: You’ll need to make our stuff look great. And also easy to navigate. So you could be a UI person with some Dali in you. Or an art-director with some er… Columbus in you. I suppose you’ll have to be familiar with HTML and CSS <some number>.
Writers: You too will need to know a few languages. Just kidding, English will do. But you need to be really good at it. Our web apps usually need simple, pithy stuff, which still has style, humour and all that. Remember, we work only on cool brands.
Doers: We also need people who simply will get things done. Which should be easy considering that all the above people are supposed to be types who do things themselves. But you’ll also need to organize the chaos somewhat, work with our clients, extract money at the right times, negotiate deadlines, and generally be the one who ensures that an app moves from our imagination to people’s screens.
Good. One of those roles is me. All me. Now what?
Now we meet. First write to me. At rameshsrivatsATgmailDOTcom. Tell me which role. Tell me why you are the right person. And then we meet. I see your spark. You see the depth of my passion and the breadth of my ambitions (and, maybe, the thickness of my wallet). And if we both like what we see, you are in.
I don’t do any of the above things. But can I still hop in and generally do something?
Er… no. You could always drop in once we are set up and help empty the fridge. But I’m sure the roles I described above are the ones we need now. Yes. I’m completely sure… quite sure… somewhat sure… er… I think I am sure. Hmm. Maybe…. actually, why don’t you just tell me a little more on what you can do. You now know what TenTenTen does. So what can you bring in?
And anyway, right now, you can be nice to us and spread the word that we’re looking for people. That would be a great start.
