3-person, Revenue Generating, Early Stage Startup, Looking for Master of the UIverse
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Hi, my name is Ethan Bloch and I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Flowtown. Our mission in life is to help small businesses HUSTLE, old school style but with new school web tech and tools, which really means we provide small businesses an insanely efficient hustle multiplier. People are already calling us the ‘Constant Contact of Social Marketing’.
First a little about me: it’s only natural that I came into this world hustling, StarTAC in one hand (remember those?) and a amazingly fast 286 (the hot shit when I was 6) in the other. I got suspended from the school store in 5th grade for making weapons out of mechanical pencils and selling them during recess -- that’s how I roll. I hated school my entire life. I’ve started 5 companies, the first at age 13, Flowtown being the 5th and I’ve never taken prisoners.
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Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand the kind of people (3 of us, so far) that work at Flowtown. We’re all hustlers in our own way and we’re looking for a 4th, our Master of the UIverse.
Our future at Flowtown stands at the crossroads of social data, social tools, analytics, usability, and real customer ROI. In order to win, we need to craft the most intuitive, emotional and inspirational user experience in the Universe, and that’s why I’m looking for a Master to help bring our product up to this level of brilliance.
I’d give you the clothes off my back to guarantee a fun, amazing opportunity and a chance to be a part of the early days of what's to become a big meaningful company. But only if the following sounds and or looks ;-) like you:
You’re the Nicky Santoro of getting shit done
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I’ll be straight up, not everything you work on is going to be a blast! And there’s a lot of this non-blast work to do. This is a startup and everyone’s world is on fire all the time and there’s no one to pat you on the back at the end of a hard day and give you milk and cookies; at least not until we’re killing it! You’ll need to man or woman up and prototype low and high fidelity interfaces quickly, initiate, suggest, and spearhead UI refactorings, review information architecture, write markup (html/css), sit and watch real customers use product, talk to customers every day and break the occasional knee cap when necessary.
Mind blowing, but humble
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We only want to work with the absolute best. Everyday I want to wake up and tap dance to my computer because I know the people I work with are amazing, and more importantly, they deliver and that’s probably what you want too. I don’t mean someone who’s got an ego the size of the grand canyon, even if you’re that good, and I hope you are, you should be humble like a Jedi and only use your powers when appropriate, surgical and good.
You’re socially aware
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You’re on Twitter, have a blog and like all things social. You don’t need to be one of those 50k follower auto-dming Twitter freaks, but we live and work in this space and it’s important you’re steeped in the religion.
You're not an artist but a designer who solves problems
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You’re able to take extremely complex functionality and flows and boil them down into dead simple interfaces that are fun to use. You can design a single experience that’s usable for the smallest of businesses or the largest of corporations. You understand that simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication, and that good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual.
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If you’ve made it this far and have that little voice in your head saying ’that’s me! that’s me!’ then it’s time I ask you for a favor, godfather daughter wedding day style. I ask that you make it really easy for me to see how great you are, so I don’t overlook you in the haystack of applicants.
The best way to do this is to answer the following 5 questions and send them to me via email → ethan (at) flowtown (dot) com:
- If you don’t already have one, sign up for a Flowtown account... import some contacts, view some profiles, connect your twitter account, check out the contact insights, create your first campaign. How was your Flowtown experience? What do you think of the Flowtown product? What does it do well? What would you change?
- What’s the URL of your website and/or of any side projects you’ve worked on in the last few years (i.e. labors of love, not your full-time gig)?
- Why do you do it? Why web and experience design instead of all other possible careers?
- How lucky are you, on a scale of 1-10? And why that number?
- Other than the obvious ones (Google, Fbook, etc…) what Web or Desktop apps do you find ‘get it’ and that you admire: aesthetics, usability, quick learning curve from beginner to intermediate?
Please send your answers to ethan (at) flowtown (dot) com. If you make a solid stab at answering the questions above, I’ll be responding personally within 24 hours of receiving your email or your money back… oh wait…
I know you're out there looking for us, we're also looking for you! What are you waiting for?
Ethan Bloch
Co-Founder and CEO of Flowtown
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ebloch
Personal blog: http://ethanbloch.com
Company blog: http://www.flowtown.com/blog
Big thank you to David at Expensify.com for the inspiration on this post.
