New Venture

A few weeks ago I started at a new venture InStorecard as CTO. It is a pretty recent startup in a very interesting space (retail). One of the big things that attracted me (apart from a great team and a founder who I have known for 10 years) was that they were building a valuable business offering as a service to deliver to customers.

There is nothing like building something for real customers to help decide what is really necessary for customers and what is good only from a computer science POV. The good news is that the retail industry is making big strides towards XML, but less towards web services, even though they are aware and interested. In general they are very pragmatic, I should know as my family has been in retail for a long time - my grandfather started our first store just after WW I!

The pragmatists in the retail industry are quickly seeing the advantages of software as a service and XML as they need to get things done quickly and efficiently as margins are critical. This is a great place to be and I am looking forward to the next several years.