A Perspective on Location Services, Mobile Entrepreneurship & Startup Life

The good news first, I finished my studies of Business Information Technology at the University of Mannheim in June 2009 after an interesting stay abroad at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute in Galway, Ireland. The bad news, at least for this blog, I completely focused on working on Tagcrumbs, a Internet and mobile startup I co-founded during my studies. From time to time there will be some articles here but better follow our startup blog or our Facebook fan page.

The best news, we just released our exciting location-aware iPhone application. Tagcrumbs is now mobile, the way it has to be:

With Tagcrumbs you can remember and share your discoveries with your friends and the world. It’s about those locations that you enjoy visiting, where you spend some time, experience something special and that you would readily recommend to others. This can be a beach or diving spot you discovered during a holiday, a museum or park that you visited or the café on the corner with the best espresso.

Join the Tagcrumbs community and let me know what you think of it and how we can improve it. Feedback appreciated! Thanks!

And here is Ben explaining what’s behind Tagcrumbs, on top of the house where I live in Berlin.

Not embeddable, but check out the ‘Small Team, Big Impact: The People Behind Photos’ video. More Facebook promo videos on their Facebook Fan Page.

Why do I blog this? Interesting to see the dimension of the problems they have to face, storing billions of photos is not easy and cheap… It’s all about scalability.

9. You can be serious without a suit.

Google’s founders have often stated that the company is not serious about anything but search. They built a company around the idea that work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun. To that end, Google’s culture is unlike any in corporate America, and it’s not because of the ubiquitous lava lamps and large rubber balls, or the fact that the company’s chef used to cook for the Grateful Dead. In the same way Google puts users first when it comes to our online service, Google Inc. puts employees first when it comes to daily life in our Googleplex headquarters. There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to the company’s overall success. Ideas are traded, tested and put into practice with an alacrity that can be dizzying. Meetings that would take hours elsewhere are frequently little more than a conversation in line for lunch and few walls separate those who write the code from those who write the checks. This highly communicative environment fosters a productivity and camaraderie fueled by the realization that millions of people rely on Google results. Give the proper tools to a group of people who like to make a difference, and they will.

[Source: Google - Our Philosophy]