Startups, business & tech
With the huge demand for live streaming event platforms, some startups have been very busy! The international crisis is making people from all around the world to ask for companies to stream live events.
We found some platforms to either host or attend online events! They are easy to use and very practical. Here’s some information about each of the platforms and how to subscribe to them.
Continue reading “Live Streaming Event Platforms for Organisers and Audience”We found great tech, entrepreneurship, and marketing communities in Barcelona! If you’re looking for after-work activities, you should consider joining communities that share your interests. Being part of a community is part of Barcelona’s culture. You get to learn about different topics, meet new entrepreneurs and projects, and also discover places that you never knew about.
First of all, this is a non-technical approach to API’s, so if you want in-depth tech insights, I recommend you get in touch with Hitch — the API experts.
However, if you’re looking to get insight in why you should use API’s to strengthen and grow your business, and what metrics you should be aware of when taking advantage of an application programming interface (API), you’ve come to the right place.
To really understand how your company can utilize API’s we need to understand the concept of the core product and what many call the whole product.
Famous marketer Regis Mckenna that helped launch the first microprocessor for Intel and the first computer for Apple said it like this:
(…) A whole product is a generic product augmented by everything that is needed for the customer to have a compelling reason to buy.
So for example a computer is a core product, and the mouse, the software, the screen and any other necessity being part of the whole product.
It’s very important to understand these definitions, because having insight here will help you know how to approach your customers, potential partners and competitors.
As your startup grow, you’ll probably be looking to form partnership agreements with other complementary products and companies.
This can be super valuable, but often takes a lot of time and effort, in other words, it’s often very expensive.
So to hack this time-demanding and expensive process of partnering up with other companies, and API can provide this kind of partnership without all the hassle, often at a fraction of the cost.
The thing with building or using an API is that it doesn’t matter if you consider yourself as a part of a whole or a core product. If you’re able to see through your customers (or potential customers) eyes, you’ll probably discover how your product can transmit value both as an integration into a bigger product, or as an integration to enrich smaller products.
Integrating your product with other businesses through an API offers many possibilities, but also new costs related to integration.
Development costs: very high at first, but becomes zero when the API is launched.
Maintenance costs: high after the launch because of bugs, and for every iteration you do you’ll have peaks with your maintenance costs, as well as routinely maintaining the API itself.
Support costs: This will depend on how well your API is performing, but the more users you have, the bigger the support cost will be, so this is the really expensive one.
And remember, these costs need comes with each separate integration.
In other words, we need to understand the life time value (LTV) of our integration.
First you need to measure where your customers come from, then you need to identify the new customers that are using one of your integrations within a specific timeframe and estimate the lifetime value (LTV) of those customers.
Then, when you know the LTV of each particular integration, you can easily know which is giving you growth, and which that are only causing costs to rise.
The last thing you need to figure out to see if your integration is worth doing is the payback period (PBP), i.e if your integration or your API is earning you more money than what you’re spending on it.
To find this number you have to take all of your costs (as mentioned above) and divide it by your monthly recurring revenue (MRR), and again, you have to do this for each integration.
To be clear, with growth we don’t mean a profitable company, but a business that is multiplying their growth month over month, or year over year. It can even be unprofitable.
So what is growth for an integration?
So remember, if you think about how your company is used in a broader context, and not only how its used as intended, there may be many possibilities with using API’s.
This post was written by media manager itnig, Sindre Hopland based on the presentation of Hitch CTO Bruno Pedro.
The global apps debate got another dimension as Google proposed progressive web apps as the next big thing in 2015.
However, most people building apps today still prefer native apps, for several reasons, mostly because it’s what people actually use.
We gathered three experienced developers and CTO’s to discuss the three types of apps most developers are building today. jordimirobruix, former CTO of Wuaki.tv, senior developer at Ulabox, Rubén Sospedra and founder of Javascript coder bootcamp Codeworks Alessandro Zanardi.
A big question in the app-building discussion, is about the app install friction. In other words how many clicks there are from finding the app in the app store – to becoming an active user.
Briux believes the friction is the same in both PWA’s and native apps:
What’s the difference of the friction generated by the app store, compared with downloading a web app to your home screen?
Zanardi believes progressive web apps is much more frictionless because the device itself promotes the use of PWA’s:
There is much less friction in installing a progressive web app because the device your using is actually wanting you to install it. Compared to going to the app store, installing an app that takes up tons of space, and needs an update every two weeks.
Sospedra turns to the metrics:
The numbers tell us a story when 86 percent of the media being consumed on mobile phones are through native apps and only 10 percent of the total time spent on smartphones are used in browsers. PWA’s are still the new kid on the block, so maybe in five years we can talk again?
In one of the last question rounds, the app defenders had to reveal their answer about app stores — good or evil?
Miro says that if you get rejected it’s an evil thing and continues:
Android is pretty easy, just push and you’re in. With iOS however, to wait for someone from the other side of the world to test your app, that’s a black box for developers and nobody likes black boxes.
Codeworks CEO Zanardi points to that the app store or Apple, is the biggest preventer for making PWA’s really big:
The biggest problem PWA’s have at the moment is that Apple’s Safari doesn’t support service workers and that kills a lot of the purpose of the app. Firefox and Chrome are embracing PWA’s. As long as Apple is making tons of money from the app store we’ll have a real challenge.
Former Wuaki CTO Miro says choice of app to build all boils down to what kind of business you’re building:
If you asked me four months ago, hybrid apps were not the way because we couldn’t build what the business needed in Wuaki. But today for what I’m building, we’re looking for speed, something that’s tested and reliable and we wanted access to Canvas or WebGL, so hybrid is the way for us today.
Sospedra agrees with Miro, saying that your business goals need to be clear before deciding what kind of app you’re building. He’s also adding that what kind of technology your team is comfortable with is important as well:
If you have a team that are really good at Javascript, then go for React native, but that’s my opinion.
As progressive web apps might be the bet for the future, Zanardi wanted to end the discussion with a statement:
I completely agree with these guys that if you’re building an app today to work on iOS and Android I would go native. The main problem you would have with PWA’s is with the iOS. If you’re targeting mostly Android devices you might go for a PWA. As long as Apple is blocking the spreading of PWA’s we’ll have an issue we need to solve.
There was a lot of other interesting points in the full debate, so check out the video at the top!
The post and video was produced by the itnig media team Masumi Mutsuda and Sindre Hopland.
According to the internet it’s thousands of startup accelerators programs & incubators out there, looking for the most talented startups to accelerate.
What started with Y-combinator back in 2005, was followed by Techstars, 500 startups and a couple of thousand other organizations which now all are competing for the same talent, according to Angel Garcia, director of Startupbootcamp IoT, Data & Cybersecurity in Barcelona.
It’s turning into a very crowded space, it’s much harder to find good startups for every round we do.
He continues:
Online I’ve seen lists of thousands of so-called accelerators. Many of them provide mentors, a table to work at and other perks, but they don’t run sustainable businesses.
Just like venture capital investors, both accelerators and incubators are betting on a large volume of projects, and hope one out ten get’s a big exit.
That’s why it’s hard to say exactly what accelerators that are successful and which that are failing, says itnig president Bernat Farrero and points to the business model:
In practice, we’ve had virtually no time to see any of this models succeed just yet, even the few biggest ones have kept growing their expectations and none has yet consolidated and shown a real business success case.
Unlike most accelerators that are funded by VC’s, Startupbootcamp is funded by corporations that all get access to the products the different startups are creating, according to Garcia.
We’re different from most of the accelerators out there. It’s not only our business model, but 82 percent of our startups that have gone through our program is still going, and that’s a high number.
Both Farrero and Hunt used to run accelerator programs, but later chose to leave the space to dedicate a deeper focus on fewer projects.
President Farrero explains that itnig didn’t find it sustainable to have a large number of startups go through a fixed program:
If we look at all of the accelerators today, both the ones we call successful, and all the others, I’ve never heard of anyone being profitable.
Startup studios or venture builders has been gaining more and more tractions lately, with studios like eFounders, Betaworks, Idealab & itnig pumping out new companies annually the last years.
Also Patricio Hunt, managing partner at Intelectium has been transitioning over to an approach of building talented teams, instead of accelerating already existing startups.
We have, as Farrero, evolved into more of a venture builder the last years. We study the markets, talk with corporations and possible future customers, and create products we know are needed.
Farrero says their approach has changed drastically the last years, they now focus on finding makers:
Instead of using valuable time on accelerating tons of projects, we are using that time to study the markets and current trends, as well as attracting the best talent to come work for us.
Even though Startupbootcamp is working with a different business model, also Garcia stresses the importance of knowing your markets.
As we work in industries where everything is changing very fast, we need to understand the markets better than most people do.
The amount of accelerators getting started is not decreasing, but as the amount of programs increases, the less credibility the accelerator gets.
All the three directors agree that the few accelerators with an established brand will survive, and so will the ones that have implemented sustainable business models, but the rest will have to pivot or innovate into something new, something startups actually need.
To get the full interview, go to the video in top of the article.
The post was written by Sindre Hopland, media manager at itnig.