Wink is the Best Private Photo Chat and we've now made it easier, faster and more fun for you to send photos to friends.
Get your hands on the newest version of Wink here.
3 Major Feature Updates you should be aware of
1. Draw
You can now personalize your messages by Scribbling on your photos. Simply select the Draw tool and use your finger to write or draw on your photo in any color. It really brings your photos to life and is a whole lotta fun!
2. Improved Camera
We made the Camera way faster, and a lot more intuitive. Take a photo and show your friends where you are and what you are doing, or load a picture directly from your Camera Roll.
We also added this awesome Tap to Focus feature. It's a really smooth experience, go try it out.
3. Text Note
Easily add a short, colorful Text Note to your photo.
It's as easy as 1-2-3...
And the good news doesn't end there! Our biggest ever feature update is right around the corner. Watch this space.
Download the latest version of Wink here.
We'd love to know what you think of the new features, join the conversation on Twitter.
How to get started on your First Windows Phone App and the Metro Design Model
By Sam
I invited two of our team, Kim and Tomasz, outside onto the stairwell for a coffee in the sunshine and a chat about Windows Phone. We discuss their work processes when it comes to tackling the world of Windows. Kim is a front end developer by trade, and Art Director Tomasz had never designed for Windows Phone until now. Amazingly, they’re both smart and fun. We like them.
You’re both new to Windows Phone, how did you kick the process off?
Kim: We wanted to use the Android app as a benchmark, but soon realised that we faced a completely new set of challenges. We actually started off on completely the wrong foot! We did an almost 100% port of the Android app to Windows just to start somewhere. But now I can see that by starting from a technical viewpoint, instead of a design one, you’re actually just implementing features without really knowing what you’re doing, or having an overview of the bigger picture. So, we started over, top-down beginning with the design. It’s kind of obvious, but having an end goal puts everything into perspective and you really do realise how different Windows Phone is.
Tomasz: Once I’d taken a look at some of the apps already out there, like Twitter and Facebook I started with sketches that stripped down the app to its very core functionalities. Then we added elements on the next layer, without cluttering. We won’t release the Windows app until we’re completely satisfied. We both watched this video with Bryan Magnetta (Senior User Experience Lead PM) as a starting point, it’s pretty helpful in giving you some background.
When it comes to UI, what’s so exciting about Windows Phone?
Tomasz: It’s all about the visual paradigm. The Windows Phone not only features a completely new interaction model, but also a brand new visual design model that Microsoft call Metro. Our app is about displaying and sharing photos, so it’s almost purely visual. The cool thing about Metro is that it’s a new kind of canvas for displaying content. It’s about playing with color, shapes and typography which makes it a very different design language - it’s way less decorative than iOS and Android with fewer textures, no rounded corners etc. It’s a fresh platform, and Microsoft encourage you to do it their way by taking inspiration from their native apps like the calendar, email client and photo gallery. So that’s what we’re going for.
You can’t cut any corners, because to be honest there aren’t really any proven solutions out there. For example, we took a look at a few photo theaters in other apps - and it’s like the Wild West out there. From a designer’s perspective, there aren’t any really impressive standards just yet.
Here are a few of Tomasz' mockups.
Kim: Yeah, but with that said, we also recognised that this is a massive opportunity. Given that there are no solid patterns or standards that have stood the test of time, you have the opportunity to be a first-mover. From the off, we set ourselves a hard ambition of being featured on the Windows Store. We want to design and build an app that sets standards for other developers.
Tomasz: Windows is becoming a cross-device platform too, and that’s pretty exciting. It’s cool, for example, that I can design for mobile using the tile transition of photos and then later translate it for the web app too. It’s really promising. I love Apple, and I wasn’t that excited about picking up my first Windows Phone. But actually I was really pleasantly surprised. I was like, damn, this is pretty cool. As opposed to my first experience on Android, which was like damn, I want to chuck you through the window.
Kim: Something else that’s exciting is the panorama, horizontal scrolling view. It’s an explorative paradigm. There’s a lot of scrolling going on, less tapping. In programming terms, Microsoft seem to be departing from the data model and moving towards a more fluid, mental model. They used to be the geeky ones, I think it’s a huge shift for them.
Tomasz: Yeah, it’s extremely user-centric, everything is about you. It’s a bit like reading a magazine about yourself.
What level of support and resources is available from Microsoft?
Kim: Microsoft seem to be taking a very explorative approach and I think they’re still finding their way with Metro. Finding ‘the truth’ is quite difficult, which is really evident in Stack Overflow, perhaps that’s because even they don’t have the answers yet. To some extent you’re on your own, and you run into a lot of dead ends. I’ve used a lot of trial and error. I think Windows Phone has a rebel feeling to it, because it’s so young. I guess the tables have turned, right, and now Apple is the big guy. I hope it might be a positive for Microsoft, they really have to make Windows Phone work, and the implementation of Metro across their product portfolio is a massive ambition. I hope they’re going to go all in. They’re a huge player, even if they’re not the most popular brand on the mobile market right now.
Tomasz: I’ll be interested to see how the submission and review process works. Microsoft have come out and said that they’re going to communicate exactly what shortcomings or errors your app has when you submit. In our experience with Apple, we’ve sometimes felt like we were shooting blind. On the rare cases where we had to re-submit an update, we weren’t entirely sure as to whether we were fixing what they wanted us to fix. Getting clear communication from Apple hasn’t always been easy.
When the Wink iOS, Android and Windows Phone apps are finished, which phone will you be picking up?
Tomasz: In general I stick to iPhone. It’s what I’m used to and I like the depth of most iOS apps. But actually, I’d like to use Wink on Windows - so I’ll say that! Maybe it’s just because I’m excited about how fresh the platform feels, I guess we’ve got a long way to go!
Kim: I’m a fan of finished, polished apps that are rich visually. Look and feel is the most important thing for me. So for now, I’ll stick with the iPhone app, I’m going to wait and see how creative we can be in making something beautiful and extremely simple for Windows. If we can nail that, then I think I’d enjoy the fluidity of Wink on Windows.
Wink for Windows is still a work in progress, but Kim and Tomasz are super excited about showing you what they’ve come up with.
There are a few really great resources our there if you are starting out with the Metro Design model and Windows Phone. Try following the Nokia Development Team on Twitter.
And, be sure to read Arturo Toledo's blog, he's a former Design Product Manager at Microsoft.
How our startup got global press coverage, on a budget and with no real PR network
By Sam
Get articles! It's a common PR route for most Tech Startups.
But, unless you are lucky enough to be fully integrated in the Silicon Valley scene, the articles and reviews aren't going to write themselves.
So what coverage exactly did we achieve?
Wink had feature write ups in two international broadsheet newspapers: Italy's Il Corriere and Denmark's Børsen, and was one of Stuart Dredge's Apps of the Week at The Guardian. Wink was also named App of the Day on Gizmodo on the very same day that Google released their brand new Google Maps for iOS app. Finally, Wink was reported on by a long list of tech blogs, including The Next Web, Tech Crunch, The Rude Baguette, Venture Beat, Phone Arena, App Picker, Feeder and iPhone Italia, amongst many others.
It's important not to over estimate - in terms of website traffic and actual installs - the effect that an article or review will have on your app business. Still, we agreed that once our product was nearing readiness, we would aggressively pursue media reporting. And here's why.
3 good reasons for using in-house resources to try to get press coverage for your app:
1. To build a seed user base made up of genuinely interested iPhone users. This allows you to monitor metrics, understand usage patterns and talk directly with those customers or users that proactively want to try out your product and give feedback.
2. To build a database of references that you can use as social proof in future branding collateral. It's a fact, users ears prick up at the "As featured on Tech Crunch" icons that we've all seen on countless websites.
3. To get product and feature feedback from the journalists and experts that we consider to be at the very top of the game. The people who have "seen everything", whose opinions and knowledge we respect and learn from on a daily basis.
It's worth mentioning, that we began this process with no real network when it came to PR. In truth, because of our location in Denmark we considered ourselves disadvantaged - we felt like we didn't have the same chance to get face time with journalists as, for example, a startup based in the Valley or even Berlin. The only large scale media report prior to this push was of our 1st round funding on Tech Crunch over a year previous.
Started by identifying these 5 key distribution Channels:
1. Tech Blogs
2. Review Websites
3. International Newspapers
4. Local Newspapers
5. Influencers
Who do you know?
Once you have identified your distribution channels, you'll need to work out exactly who you are going to reach out to.
Almost since starting this project we had been gathering a list of names, numbers and e-mail addresses in a big excel spreadsheet. If you don't have one of these, start now!
Pro-tip: "How to Find (Almost) Anybody's Email Address"
This is an amazing hack. Read carefully!
Don't waste your time guessing email addresses. Read this awesome blog post by Rob Ousbey, and discover how you can find the correct email address for (almost) anybody. You'll need to install a plugin called Rapportive as a part of the process, I really recommend doing this, it adds a whole new dimension to your Gmail inbox.
Work your Cyber Network!
Consider this, journalists hate being spammed. If it feels spammy, they'll probably ignore you. You'll need to put some real thought into this process - PR agencies exist for a reason.
To get started, I made these Twitter lists of over 500 of the best tech journalists. I found that Twitter was one of the best ways to get in touch with journalists. These relationships take time - there's no way to fake it, be genuine.
The fact that you are "launching" is not a story
Yes, you'll need a Press Release...
But, not yet. At this point, you need to give the journalist a reason to write about you. Give them a story, and make it personal. The best piece of advice I got during this process came from Jennifer at Forbes:
Some journalists will just want a standard Press Release with the usual details:
Company Name, Contact Details, Product Name, Founders, Investors, Investment Amount, Summary, Technical Details, Link to App, Link to Homepage, Quotes from Founders.
However, I recommend trying to be as personal as possible with every journalist you come into contact with - though especially the bigger fish.
For example, we prepared this background story for Jennifer.
What ELSE makes you interesting?
Your product aside, you should consider what else makes your story interesting. For example, some of our team come from Italy and Denmark, so we contacted the major national newspapers in those countries. This resulted in feature articles in both the print and digital versions of a national newspaper in both of those countries, and a marked spike in installs in both italy and Denmark in the days after.
Remember, your story is open to interpretation!
No matter how engaging and personal the story you prepare, a journalist is being paid (good) money to put your product and story into a context that will stimulate readership amongst their audience.Don't panic if you receive coverage that isn't entirely positive. It happens.
For example, Sarah from Tech Crunch broke our story and chose to compare us to Color - not entirely flattering perhaps. Smile and move on.
Reach out to Review Websites
When contacting websites that make a living out of reviewing apps, competition is stiff. The larger sites receive hundreds, if not thousands of applications for review every day. In this case, it's more important than ever to get in touch with an actual human being - I recommend using your Twitter profile to get their attention, and then switch to email. If your app is a game, you'll often be expected to provide a deal or coupon. We're a free app, and we don't have any in-app purchases, so this was pretty irrelevant for us.
Some sites will also ask you to pay for the review, a series of Tweets or a Facebook post. We refused to pay for a review - we wanted to be judged on merit alone. In my opinion the spike you get from a paid review isn't worth it, most users see through this in the long run.
As a result of our efforts contacting review sites, we were nominated as App of the Day on Gizomodo. This was a big deal for us.
Play a Wildcard!
If you're a relative unknown, you might want to try something "out of the box". If you have big bucks to spend, then there's the opportunity to get super creative with your launch campaign. However, if like us, you are operating on a relatively small budget, then you'll want to keep your focus on "how can I get the attention of journalists X, Y and Z?"
I've heard plenty of stories of marketeers and founders sending gifts to journalists desks - if you've got a smart idea and it isn't going to cost you an arm and a leg, then why not, give it a go. Just remember though, this is an extremely crowded market, there's a good chance the journalist has seen it before.
"Viral" campaigns don't just happen
Get creative, but manage your expectations carefully.
In the past few years alone, consumers have become extremely smart to seeing through try-hard or wannabee viral campaigns. In actual fact, most brands that succeed in making something 'go viral' have invested massive resources in it - it's big business.
Yes, you could get lucky, but I would recommend focusing your limited resources on product at this point.
We used limited resources on making this short promo clip - it's meant to look home-made. I don't think we ever really believed it would go viral, our main aim was to grab the attention of journalists. I sent them this clip on Twitter and then followed up with an email saying "Hey, I'm the guy who made the clip of the booty-shaking guinea pigs..."
Hard to ignore, right?
Does this post help?
I'd love to hear about the techniques you use to reach out to journalists. Join the conversation over on Twitter.
An Idiot's Guide to the Selfie (Disclaimer: Pinch some Salt)
By Sam
If you use Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter or Wink, chances are you've taken a Selfie or two in your time. Read this guide and avoid posting Bad Selfies (that’s about 99% of them).
Here's a guide to 6 of the best Selfies to get you started:
Key Pose Elements: Go topless and tense like hell. Be sure to show some post-workout pain in your face - those muscles didn't grow themselves. If there’s a spotlight in your room, use it. It will make you look super ripped. If you're a girl, you too can pull off a “Bieber”, just be sure to wear a branded sports bra. If you've got a tattoo, make sure it’s visible. Tats make you look intimidating and philosophical. In general, if you don’t have a tattoo, you should seriously consider getting one.
Pro tip: Oil yourself up for max def.
Location: Strike a pose in front of the bathroom mirror, or lie on your bed and look badass and tired as.
Caption: You just got back from the gym. Express your exhaustion. Express your desire to pump some more. Use a direct quote from a buddhist monk, or Eminem.
Selfie you should post next: "The Man vs Food". There is no better time to exhibit yourself holding a protein shake or vegetable smoothie. Your friends will LOVE you for it.
Key pose elements: The trick here is to be patient, timing is clutch. You’ll need to look tanned, so don’t go posting a Sunsoaker on your first day away. If you’re a girl, choose your swimsuit wisely and consider including a hint of bottom boob. In fact, any boob angle is ‘in’ right now. If you’re a guy, be sure to empty your belly-button pool before you snap a Sunsoaker. It is awesome, but girls don’t dig tummy sweat.
Pro tip: Place a book next to you on your towel. Kierkegaard is good for starters.
Location: A pool or beach lounger, any place where the sun shines more than where your friends are.
Caption: You’re on holiday and having the time of your life.Take some time to reflect on how white you still are, this is sure to provoke a reaction. If you followed my Pro-tip, then subtly mention which page of the book you’re already up to, (choose a high number). Quote directly from said book, but only if it’s Philosophy or Self-Improvement.
Selfie you should post next: “The Money Shot” or “The NSFW”: Tan lines are an accurate measure of holiday awesomeness; why would you ever keep them to yourself? Chances are there’s someone back home that misses all your best bits, so wipe the post-shower sweat from your brow and apply lashings of Aloe Vera. Lock the bathroom door and dim the lights so your burnt bits don’t show.
The Sunsoaker is a Winner because: Everyone loves seeing holiday photos, what could possibly be better than a live feed of all that goodness?
Disclaimer: Pinch some more salt. This is for guys only.
Key pose elements: If you use “friend” finder app Grindr, you’ll already be well familiar with this kind of Selfie. And straight men; don’t believe what girls say, your galpals and online admirers totally dig shots of your Precious. Let’s face it though, most of the time, no matter the lighting or angle, your Johnson don’t look all that good. Get creative: draw a smiley face, dress him up as a Mexican, make him look Urban. Basically do whatever you can to make him more photogenic.
Pro Tip: Depending on your audience, size might well matter. Perspective is your friend, so a bit like when you’ve been fishing, be sure to hold the camera close.
Location: Always and only snap NSFWs behind closed doors. You WILL get arrested if you take a public NSFW. Also, probably not a good idea to send your NSFW pics to strangers, exes or family members. In fact, as a rule of thumb, only send an NSFW to someone you really trust – or someone who already sent you one.
Caption: “Ahoy there!” Works every time.
Selfie you should post next: Another “NSFW”. A bit like biscuits, one of these is never enough. Go crazy, shoot all the pen-angles.
The NSFW selfie is a winner because: You’re showing a side of yourself only few people will ever get to see. Use an NSFW Selfie to show how sensitive and intimate you can be, it’s the perfect way to express love and stuff.
Key pose elements: Make people think you look better than you actually do. Stretch your arm as far above your head as it will go and open your eyes wide. If you’re self conscious about your skin, your weight, your feet, your chest size or your face in general then this is the Selfie for you (and me). Everyone and everything looks better from the Up Above angle.
Pro Tip: Look away from the camera, that way your friends won't know that you took the photo yourself.
Location: This one’s ALL about you, not where you are or what’s around you. It’s a blatant Selfie, so you don’t want to get caught snapping an Up Above in public.
Caption: Get the conversation started by saying something humble like “God. How fat am I?” Or, “Jeez, crazy bad hair day!” Your friends will dig your insecurity. Alternatively, play it safe and go pure emoji.
Selfie you should post next: The “Baby caught me sleeping”. Now that your friends have seen you looking so hot, you’ll want to make sure they don’t think you’re hanging out on your own. Lie down on your bed, pretend to be napping and take a classic “My baby caught be sleeping” shot. You will feel loved, but just be sure there are no mirrors behind you. Rookie mistake.
The Up Above is a winner because: No matter what, you will look awesome from this angle.
Genius. Ricky Gervais is arguably the world's greatest living Selfist.
Key pose elements: Submerge yourself in the bath, go cross-eyed and make as many chins as you can. Post to your millions of Twitter followers.
The Gervais is a winner because: Ricky is a winner.
Key pose elements: Get someone else to take a photo of you and make it look like a Selfie.There’s only so much you can do with Instagram filters and blurs so you’ll want to make sure your raw pic is top notch. Make sure your shirt collar is buttoned all the way up, and be leaning on a cool prop such as a bicycle or cello. Large eyeglasses are, of course, a must.
Pro Tip: The Hipster involves curation. Do your prep, choose your outfit carefully and spend a good few hours editing your shot in Snapseed, Camera+ and Instagram before posting. The aim is to make it look like you weren’t trying.
Location: Anywhere derelict. Brick walls and multi-storey parking lots work really well.
Caption: Keep it short and abstract. One word captions work best for Hipster Selfies.
Selfie you should post next: The Man vs. Food. Go grab a well-deserved latté or some vegan food and snap a few pics of it. Originality FTW.
The Hipster is a winner because: There is no cooler form of Selfie.
Straight from the Horse's Mouth: 5 great ways to reach out to your users
By Sam
This ain't photoshopped. Click here to see more equi-babes.
In this post, I'll explain 5 great tricks you can use to reach out and speak directly to people about your product. In our case it's a private photo chat app. I won't go into detail about best practises for carrying out an interview or a focus group. This post is about how to get in touch with the right people if you don't yet have a broad user base. We had 2 main reasons for doing this:
1. Understand how users are actually using our app.
2. Understand specifics of what users love about other photo-sharing apps; like Snapchat and Instagram.
1. Collaborate Directly with Institutions
We got in touch with several High Schools to see if we could set up an ongoing focus group with students.
Find the right person to speak to. I skimmed through contact lists for senior media and IT teachers, basically the person at the institution who is most likely to be interested in what you are doing. I gave them a call.
Be transparent. Tell them exactly how the students can help you, and explain that you are contacting them so that parents, staff and students can feel at ease with the idea. Be clear that you don't want to tread on anyone's toes.
Provide more detail. I followed up my phone call by sending a document like this: Click here to open Google Doc. It seems obvious, but be sure provide links to websites and media reports, basically anything that shows how credible you are.
Make it clear that this is not a PR or marketing exercise. It's about gathering essential feedback from the people that really matter. Prepare yourself for rejection, one High School Principal wrote this to me:
"We'll need to decline your generous offer. While your app looks very cool, we're reluctant to host a marketing focus group here on campus"
Totally fair enough. He's got a lot of stakeholders to keep happy. If you contact 10 High Schools, you'll get a positive response from at least one. If you have any friends who are teachers, approach them.
2. Incentivize Participation
People LOVE free stuff. Don't just take my word for it, check out this awesome blog by the Detroit Deal Diva. Wowzers. Offer people a reward for taking part in your survey or questionnaire. I spent a few days on college campuses handing out flyers. Each participant in our 30 min interview received a a $40 iTunes store gift voucher. Giving people a tactile motivation for taking part also means they'll be more likely to take the process seriously.
We found that by adding an incentive to the process we increased the number of respondent sign-ups by over 100%. It works.
ProTip: I don't recommend hanging around the school gates with flyers. No matter how kind and credible you think you look, you may get in trouble with the law.
3. Use Mechanical Turk
At a Meetup at the Founders Institute in San Francisco, Justin Wilcox from the Customer Development Labs introduced me to this great hack for using Mechanical Turk to gather information directly from people.
MTurk is an Amazon platform and is basically a community of micro-workers ready to carry out a lot of small tasks in return a very small reward. The kind of people who hang out on there are not necessarily making a living off of it; Justin reckons, "it's a replacement for solitaire, not for a solid job".
The advantage of using MTurk is that once you've set your HIT up, you can work through the interviews very quickly. As in hundreds in a few hours. If you are a B2C company, chances are that your customers can be found on the MTurk. I found the biggest disadvantage was that you didn't know who was going to be on the other end of the line.
In his post, Justin goes into the deets of what exactly you need to do to setup a HIT on MTurk. I suggest you read it. Alternatively, watch the video walkthrough here:
4. Use Apptentive (if your product is an App)
Apptentive is a genius piece of kit that that enables you to get in-app feedback, carry out surveys and intercept negative feedback before it reaches the App Store. It's a great way for you to get in touch with your users directly, through your product, and to reassure them that their voice is being heard.
Protip: Apptentive isn't a free service, but it's money well invested if you are serious about listening to your users. Wink's iPhone developer Luca also reassures me that's it's super easy to implement.
5. Ask your users if you can call them
Seem to good to be true?
We sent a message to different cohorts of our app asking them if they'd be up for a quick phone survey in return for some iTunes Store vouchers. And guess what? They were. Having a one-to-one discussion with someone who is actually using your product (or other similar products), is invaluable. Here are a few steps to follow:
Setup a Screener. You can pick and choose who you speak to by setting up a simple screener. We ensured that we only arranged interviews with our target demographic by linking potential participants to a Google Form - it worked really smoothly:
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Setup a call time. Select your your candidates from the list of respondents and send them an e-mail with a suggested call time. If your respondents are under the age of 21, I strongly recommened you askthem to ask their parents first, or even better, suggest that their parents sit in with them on the interview.
Use Google Voice. The 2 really great things about using Google Voice for Customer Development are a) you can keep your caller ID anonymous AND b) you can record your conversation directly to your computer. This is awesome, because it means you can concentrate on what the person is actually saying to you, and forget about taking notes. Just be sure to let the interviewee know that you'll be recording them.
Express your gratitude. Once your (well-planned and thoughtful) interview is complete, say thank you and make the respondent feel damned good about themselves for helping you out. You'll find that people loved taking part in the process; that they feel their voice is being heard (it's not every day your on the line with the creators of a product you've just consumed); and that they'll tell all their friends about how great you are.
That my friends, is what you call an Ambassador.
I hope this was useful, I'd love to hear if you have any other great hacks for getting in touch with users. Join in the discussion on Twitter, or post your Comment below.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve already received funding or you’re bootstrapping it, we’ve found a way to relocate to a new environment for a while without having to burn a hole in your company's pocket. In my recent guest post for Airbnb I wrote about how you can use Airbnb to cover your startup's travel costs.
In this post I'll explain why.
Whether you’re looking to find a new network, a new culture or just somewhere the sun shines more often, upping your roots and moving your team to another country for a few weeks is something you must try. Last Summer we took our whole team to spend a month on the Italian island of Sardinia, and right now we're in the middle of an extended 2 month stay in San Francisco.
Here are 5 reasons that your startup company should travel as a team:
1. You can speak with your customers
Take the opportunity to get in touch with people you actually consider target users. It makes perfect sense to test your product and talk to your potential customers on their home turf, you'll be sure to get genuine insight and a new perspective. Whilst here in San Francisco, we visit USF and George Washington High to speak to our users every single day.
2. Your team will love you for it
Travel is a seriously motivating factor for both current and prospective employees. Most startuppers will jump at the chance of taking a trip abroad - especially if their spouse can come along for the ride too. When advertising for open positions, we make it clear that there are exciting travel opportunities with our team. I talk about this in a post here. On the current trip, three team member's partners are joining us for at least part of the journey.
3. You will meet inspiring people
Work travel is one of the great ways to expand your professional network. Wherever you choose to visit, pack an open mind and be sure to expose yourself to the local entrepreneurial microcosm. We use apps like Eventbrite and Meetup to attend conferences and events. We've been especially impressed by the events you can find on Meetup. They won't cost you an arm and a leg, and you get access to some awesome speakers. It goes without saying that events like this are the perfect way to share knowledge, and more importantly, to learn from other entrepreneurs who can introduce you to a new context and way of thinking.
We loved this #leancontent meetup at Scoop.it HQ with Evan Hamilton from UserVoice
4. Your company will be more productive, seriously!
Our friends often ask us; "but do you actually do any work?"
YES! We're way more productive than we normally would be.
A working retreat can be as intense as you make it. When you spend a period of time waking, working and socializing together, you'll find you end up living and breathing product. The (wonderful) distractions of normal life at home don’t exist and you get all the face time with your teammates that you need.
5. You can afford it
Whether you’re looking into taking a 2 month trip to a new continent, or a week somewhere closer to home - your startup can afford it. If you you've yet to receive investment, or your backers aren’t supportive of the idea then you might want to limit your ambitions and take a trip nearer to home. But, by renting out your apartments on Airbnb and finding someone else to fill your office space, you can soon raise funds to cover most of the costs.
Wink’s CEO Francesco is a big advocate for whole team trips, he briefly explains why he brought our team to San Francisco:
“For me, the driving force behind organising a trip like this, is that I can have my whole team in one place, for an extended period of time. I believe strongly in the distributed workforce model, but when in you’re in a busy period, for example pre-launch, where you need to be seriously effective, a work retreat is the best way to make sure everyone is pulling in the same direction."
Wink's charming co-founders grab forty of the best kind en route to SF
But do I really want to get THIS close to my colleagues?
Travelling, living and working in such proximity to your colleagues can present a bunch of issues. You suddenly get to see another side of your boss and the people you share an office with. This must not hold you back!
We keep it clean by living by 3 simple rules:
1. Communicate honestly and openly, at ALL times.
2. Don't try and include everyone in everything. Group activities are awesome, but people need their down time.
3. Have a drink together, at least once a week.
As Francesco sums up, "Our retreats are intense and rewarding periods of productivity - and so much fun. There's really no good reason that this model shouldn't work for anyone else.”
We'd love to hear about your experiences travelling with work. Join the discussion in Comments or on Twitter.
The Color Run is less about your 10-minute-mile and more about having the time of your life, it's most definitely the taking part that counts.
Meet Emily and Maggie
We hit it off with our amazing new friends Emily and Maggie when we met them at the University of San Francisco last week. We've been besties* ever since. On Saturday they took part in the Color Run. It's an un-timed, 5 kilometer fun run, where runners get doused in paint powder at every kilometer milestone. Sound like fun? We think so. The Color people tell us that the event is a celebration of healthiness, happiness and individuality. Over 1 million runners at 100 events across the US seem to agree.
This is the very first time we've featured users here on the blog, and I'm super excited to be making this post. Thanks so much for sharing your pictures with us Emily and Maggie, we love them!
If, like us, you missed out on the Color Run in San Francisco, do not fret. There are over 100 runs planned across the US in 2013, or you could get your glowsticks out and wait for the nightime Electric Run, coming to Sacramento in April.
*Post updated on 4th March 2013
Emily just Winked me this screenshot, looks I'd over-estimated our friendship. Thanks for nothing Emily.
Remote Working: 3 words that MUST feature in your job posting if you want to bring the best people to your startup
By Sam
Work.From.Anywhere.
By delocalizing our employment strategy we were able to attract absolutely the best people. We now have a more skilled, productive and happy team. Here's how your startup can do it too.
I grabbed our CEO Francesco to ask him about why he doesn’t stipulate location in his search for new team members:
“Whenever we post a job opening we make it clear that we’re open to the possibility of the candidate working remotely," he says. "For example, in our search for an Android developer, we used our network across Europe to find the right man for the job. Yes, this presents certain practical issues, such as dealing with a new tax system, language and yeah, the whole long distance relationship thang, it's worth it because at the end of the day you'll reach out to better candidates."
Long distance relationships are good for your company
As Francesco explains; "So long as you have clear agreements about working hours and how much face time you expect with your employee, we believe that delocalizing your employment strategy will, in most cases, have a positive effect on your business."
By removing geographical limits in your search for a new employee, you can be sure you are attracting absolutely the best talent. A delocalized employment strategy also gives your employee a feeling of continuity by removing upheaval from family and friends, it builds mutual trust, and at the end of the day, it will probably bring your team closer together because you'll find you don't take each other for granted. Face time is no longer the everyday norm, it becomes a valuable asset.
Focus on talent, deal with practicalities later
The guys at 37 Signals are right when they say: “As an employer, restricting your hiring to a small geographic region means you’re not getting the best people you can. As an employee, restricting your job search to companies within a reasonable commute means you’re not working for the best company you can.”
Francesco highlights the fact that by offering remote working as a possibility in job postings, he is able to compete with the larger, better paying corporations. “By being flexible on employee location, we can offer the right candidate something that more established businesses can’t. For me this is the key, and is the reason behind us being able to appoint some of Europe’s best developers and designers.”
Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress reckons that companies that only hire people locally are "not just morally odious" but "statistically dumb!" Olivia Solon did a fun interview with him about his distributed workforce for Wired, you can read it here. I like Mullenweg, he's got balls.
Of course, searching for talent farther afield won’t work in all cases. If you’re team is based in London and you employ a full-time developer in Delhi, you’re going to very quickly find out that time, culture and language differences might be fatal roadblocks. So far however, we’ve employed an iPhone developer from Italy, an Art Director from Poland and Sam the Android developer from Berlin. Their working agreements are slightly different, depending on family commitments and personal preferences, but they are all full time employees and as much a part of the team as those that turn up at our office everyday. They basically operate on a 3-weeks-at-home, 1-week-with-us-cycle.
Let your employee work from home, and you might just keep him
As an employer, it's also important to understand that by giving your employee the opportunity to work remotely you will probably also reduce your chances of losing him at a later date due to a family situation such as a spouse needing to re-locate for a new job. David over at StackOverflow also goes into this in more detail in a really great blog post here, I agree that it’s a completely valid concern.
Yes, we've been lucky in that we found some extremely professional, trustworthy guys, but there’s no reason that this can’t work for your startup too. It's no coincidence that many of the most creative and talented people in this world aren't keen on subscribing to the corporate 9-5 way of working, and chances are that they're willing to take a pay cut in exchange for a better lifestyle. A small startup, that might not be able to match larger businesses on the salary front, can compete in other ways. As Francesco says, "Our 3 newest employees all joined us from larger startups, or well-established agencies and I'm in no doubt that our flexibility, more than the salary package we could offer, was a motivating factor for them to join us."
Here are 5 steps you can take to make sure your startup is competing for the best man for the job:
1. Be clear in your job posting that you're open to remote working. Heck, put it in the post title.
2. If you can offer the employee a space to sleep whilst they're with you, say so. Who wants to pay double rent?
3. If you're using Talentfinder on Linkedin, expand the geographical search boundaries. If you're not using it, you should be!
4. Be clear about your expectations of the employee when it comes to availability. Define working hours, online IM time and face time. You'll both be grateful for this in the long run.
At interview, take the time to understand if the candidate is a self-starter and shows extremely high levels of motivation. These are essential character traits if this kind of relationship is going to work.
We understand that remote working isn't for everyone, and that it doesn't always work out for the best. We'd love to hear about your experiences, good or bad. Do share your experiences by commenting on this post, or join the discussion on Twitter.
There's a new version of Wink in the App Store, and you can get it here
Do one thing, and do it well
If you’ve followed Wink’s progress over the past months, you’ll have noticed some pretty major changes in product direction. We got a lot of feedback from users, and we’re so grateful for that. Your input makes all the difference. Here are some of the major updates you can expect to see in Wink 2.0:
Algorithms schmalgorithms
We had dedicated a significant chunk of 2012 to developing algorithms that automatically share your photos with the friends that are physically around you as you take them. You might remember the “Friends Radar” on the app, which allowed you to see a live feed of which friends are in your vicinity. It’s a cool feature that we still really like, but many of you expressed concerns about battery drain due to constant location monitoring. As such, we’ve decided to put the feature of automatic sharing based on location on the backburner.
You’re now connected with everyone
Share photos with your contacts, they don't even need the Wink app.
It's not often you want to post photos to Facebook, the audience is too broad right? But many of you told us you wanted to be able to share photos easily with friends on any platform. We listened and simplified.
We’ve implemented a smart sharing mechanism that allows you to select photos from your camera roll and share them with any of your contacts - whether they have the app or not. It's completely free, which means you can send photos to Mom and Dad or friends and family anywhere in the world.
Share completely privately
Only the recipients you choose will be able to see the photos you share.
We haven't been so good at explaining how sharing works, and we know that some of you have been confused about who can actually see your photos. So, we started to focus on giving you absolutely the easiest and fastest way to share photos privately with specific people. You have complete control over which of your contacts you share with. Simples.
You can try out the new features by downloading Wink for iPhone here
You could be forgiven for thinking that you’ve got photo sharing sorted...
By Sam
But why? You might be thinking. Why do I need this?
Let’s face it, you can already share photos with all your friends on Facebook, you can beautify and post the pretty ones to Instagram and you can flash your flirty, exhibitionist shots on Snapchat. You might use Flickr and Picasa to store and exhibit albums or galleries, and Dropbox is most likely your backup service of choice . There are plenty of options.
However, we wouldn’t mind betting that you still find yourself reaching for a USB stick on occasions, or e-mailing individual photos to friends. Right?
Here at Wink we understand that there is no easy way to share specific photos directly from your smartphone with specific friends. Here are 3 ways Wink will make your life easier:
1. You can share more than one photo with more than one friend, instantly, directly from your camera roll. There are no limits to sharing.
2. It’s completely cross-platform, so you can share with any of your contacts - heck your friend doesn’t even need the app to receive photos. Expect Windows Phone and Android releases within a matter of weeks.
3. It’s completely private. You select the exact audience from your address book, only the recipients you choose will be able to see your photos. No more broadcasting your experiences to your whole Facebook or Instagram following.
But don’t just take our word for it. Brenton, who has been experimenting with Wink put it better than we ever could:
“Pocket could be a competitor, but instead of moving towards sharing, their new subscriptions strategy focuses on content. Dropbox has the infrastructure but let's face it, its sucks for sharing. Email sucks because who wants to fumble with email addresses? SMS is so limited. iMessage is Apple only and using Facebook means Zuck is gonna go Instagram on your data.”
We love Brenton. His feedback has been invaluable. We love hearing your thoughts so please get in touch on Twitter or send a mail to [email protected]
Wink is the easiest way to privately share photos with your friends and family. You can download Wink for iPhone here
It's early days for Wink, and we’re so glad you joined us!
We started our journey based on the belief that the best memories are the ones we share. Wink is an app for iPhone that lets you share photos with any of your contacts. It’s free, you don’t need a network on the app, and you can share as many photos as you wish. There is no easier way to privately share photos with friends and family.
Download Wink for iPhone here and do reach out if you want to know more, we love hearing from you.
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