Start problem

In early 2013, I decided to start a company.

In the previous 4 years, I developed and launched several software products tied around a popular service. I started in 2008 from an image hosting site that quickly grew to 2 million unique users per month. He continued in 2011 with the android application, which was downloaded and installed more than 200 thousand times. But the user agreement of the popular service put an end to this.
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For a long time I had to work alone. I was a system administrator, PHP, Perl and Android developer at the same time, I designed and managed databases. I was engaged in marketing, user support and solved legal issues. He did everything from manually removing photos of erotic content to setting up Bind servers.

When you work alone, you have to solve too many problems and you rarely find the time to do it qualitatively. This constant state of tension forces many to realize even small improvements with terrifying inefficiency. Overly dependent on other companies, they are in the lower links of the food chain. For my next project, having a team was a prerequisite, but when I tried to put it together, it was not an easy task.

I began to search among friends. Having worked alone for so many years and generally being an introvert, I didn’t have so many options to attract to the team. Three potential participants, a friend who studied information technology, another student of physics and a friend who once made a website. Study ended, so without delay, I talked with the first one and offered him a partnership. He found my ideas convincing, but he already participated in the program of a strong company and could not accept the risks. The second was in the same position. With the third, I did not even get involved.

Perhaps the presence of such a small circle of acquaintances is my mistake. In general, I avoided anyone who asked me about my activities. I rarely professed my love for AWS in public (excluding drunk parties). Communication for the sake of finding connections, always knocked me out of my comfort zone.

The next attempt was a profile on MeetUp.com . I found the web development groups and after sharing photos and courtesies, I signed up for a couple of meetings. In each room there was a group of unnuttered people, a recruiter and passersby worried only about pizza. When the conversations ended, I walked around the room and talked to people. It became pretty quickly clear that most newbies never programmed. Except for the organizers, there were very few professional programmers. And some of them were quite older people who had lost their passion and ambition.

The main disadvantage was that I was in Dallas (Texas). The concentration of technical talent here is extremely small and it can take several months to find and convince the only person to cooperate. For a second, I thought about moving to San Francisco — taking part in conferences, acquiring acquaintances, and then working on what I wanted. But it quickly became clear to me how absurd this idea was.

In an era when people start a revolution through Twitter, I was going to go from one door to another, only to start a startup. The Internet is already the best communication system ever created. It is cheap, fast and allows anyone to get involved. Nevertheless, the projects that build it are formed from closed, inefficient networks. Many projects survive only on the willingness of investors to absorb huge amounts of risk.

The problem of communication was real. I ran into her and started working on her decision. I imagined a place where people could spontaneously get together and create prototypes of ideas, perhaps without venture capital. A place where everyone in their free time can participate in the formation of companies. A place where you can find as many like-minded people and employees.

For about 6 months I worked alone on the alpha version. In the end, I stopped to return to the search for partners. Being new to Python and Django, I often asked questions on StackOverflow. I marked bookmarks on profiles of people whose answers I found useful. In an effort to improve the Internet, I began to contact them by sending emails describing the idea and proposing to chat on Skype. Out of about 100 people, 15 were answered and I managed to communicate with ten. Some understood the idea instantly. Some asked many questions before they understood. During the conversations, I saw the interlocutor's changing facial expression, when he understood the problem and the solution I was going to offer.

This process took a month and a half. Most did not respond to emails. Many of those whom I interviewed on Skype, noted that they want to contribute, but in reality no one did. It was incredibly demoralizing. Perhaps you need to chat with thousands of people to find a like-minded person. I fell into the usual trap. I got too carried away with my idea. Too little was done and I was choking her.

There was only one way out: to tell the whole world about the project. It was necessary to open the door. Post idea and source code. Needed feedback and public access to the development of the project.

This is how joltem.com appeared, short for “jolt them” (shake them). I call it the “open incubator”. Based on the idea that at least in the early stages, projects can be open and benefit from it. It is built on the idea of ​​attracting and organizing a dynamic workforce.

The project uses the usual pull & fork development scheme, popularized by Git and allowing many participants to work with one code repository. Normally running git fetch already gives you changes from everyone involved. There is no need to connect each participant and you only need to follow the main branches of the project in order to focus on development.

To achieve the goal, a management model based on tasks and solutions linked to a git server has been developed that manages permissions at the branch level. Trusted participants have the ability to manage all branches of the project, while the rest is allowed only to update the branches associated with their decisions.

To encourage participants using the standard option system. In some companies, during each round of financing, a certain number of shares is distributed among employees if they have worked for a sufficient amount of time. In joltem.com , in the process of creating a project, the main part of the “shares” is distributed among the participants.

During the development cycle of the project, each participant earns “ influence ”. At that moment, when the participant contributes to the development, he indicates the amount of "influence" which in his opinion is adequately done work. Other participants evaluate the compliance of the work done with the requested amount of influence. In case of disagreement with the assessment, the trading process begins, the purpose of which is to obtain a result that satisfies all parties. Based on the development experience of Joltem, it can be argued that controversy occurs very rarely. Participants quickly begin to navigate the complexity of a particular functionality. Periodically earned influence will be exchanged for shares (share) in the company under construction (project). Now Joltem is open to all.

Using Joltem you can create your project . Make it private by sending invites to developers or open to the world. You can participate in the development of the Joltem itself. Sign up for updates on our Twitter , Google+ or Facebook . If you have questions or comments, you can email me at emil@joltem.com (approx. Lane: the author does not speak Russian) .