Nothing is like starting the new year with blank sheets of paper and color crayons! OK, Norwegian proverbs might not translate that well, but here we are: A new year, a new office, and a new employee (me)!
I can totally get used to lunches like this!
My name is Henrik Hartz, and I joined Espen and Marius January 2nd this year after working 7 years at Trolltech and Nokia. For the first week and a half I have been getting busy with existing projects while Espen and Marius are pushing new frontiers – for the time being focusing on an Android project.
Aside from 50% growth, we also moved to a new office – literally across the road from the old one. The new place is a lot larger – the three of us share an office – while we have a lunch-room (with a red couch and gaming system) and extra offices to spare. We want to grow even more this year.
After moving in – the place was in a bit of a shoddy state..
discombobulated...
After a quick stop at IKEA, we got some new office furniture to get us ready for a busy New Year!
After organizing and cleaning up, we’re ready to take on the new year
Time flies when you’re having fun, and we’ve had lots! It’s been year since we started Cutehacks. Here is a short summary of what we’ve achieved, and what we’ve learned – the good stuff and the bad stuff.
For the executive brief, check out the video below.
Achievements
Formed a legal company
Got an office and bought hardware
Got an accountant, lawyer, designer etc.
Published 4 Symbian apps
Yr.no for NRK
Telenor Faktura for Telenor
WiMP for Aspiro
Fly for ourselves
Made our Symbian apps run on Maemo, MeeGo and Android as well
Contributed a bit to Qt for Android
Created a UI prototype on Win/Mac/Symbian for a client
Went to Qt Developer Days, Qt Contributor Summit, MeeGo Summit, Akademy, SEE, etc.
Consulted for ad-agencies and printing companies
Stayed at five star hotels – for FREEEEE
Got 3 minutes on national TV
Got mentioned on lots of mobile sites
Started a tech-startup-network-club-thingy
Got tattooed
Got paid
Three things we’ve learned
“If you set yourself goals, you will actually reach them”: When we started Cutehacks we said that an ideal project for us would be to develop the WiMP client. One year later, we actually achieved that. We’ve also worked towards getting our apps running across multiple platforms – this is also starting to happen.
“Ask and you may receive”: We’ve gotten free hardware, new projects and invitations to talks – simply by asking for it.
“The only constant is change”: Wow, this one has definitely been true for us. We didn’t see 2/11 coming – but once it did, we’ve simply had to adjust and move on.
We started Cutehacks to have a fun and interesting place to work, and so far it’s been a huge success. In fact it’s so much fun, we need more people to play with That is why we’re looking for experienced developers to join us in developing mobile apps for Symbian, MeeGo and Android.
Here is a small sample of the apps we’re working on at the moment or have in our pipeline:
We are looking for a passionate programmer who cares deeply about code, design and user interfaces.
Qualifications:
expert knowledge of Qt and C++
cross platform development experience (Windows, Linux, Mac)
plus: Symbian, MeeGo, Android, iOS or RIM knowledge
plus: talent for graphical and UI design
plus: knowledge in HTML and web services
Your job will be:
code and test
design and implement user experiences
communicate with customers
help build the company
have fun
We can offer:
exciting projects and interesting technical challenges
Marius and I’ve had some busy days lately, but we’re now finally up and running. We’ve now got an office, some fat internet lines (we’re talking close to 100/100MBit here), spanking new machines and a happy grin on our faces. We’re sitting over at Forskningsparken in Oslo (map), and I used Endomondo to track how long it would take me to walk from home (check out my “workout” here).
One of the things we want to be with Cutehacks is to be open. We want our projects, commits, presentations etc. to be as open as possible for other to share, collaborate and comment. So, we thought it might be cool to have a look at how our first day at the office was. Check out the video below.
Tomorrow will, hopefully, be a normal day – and we’ll get to work. And by that I mean actual work, not carrying boxes around and eating ice-cream all day
Cutehacks is a software company that focuses on developing mobile applications, next generation touch UIs and Qt consultancy. We base most of our development on top of Qt and QML. We’re open for business from 1st of August 2010.
If you want to help or have questions, don’t hesitate to mail us at info@cutehacks.com
We’re currently looking for:
a good graphical designer to create UI sketches, themes, icons etc
development contracts on the topics mentioned above
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