To elaborate: I think we've struck a really good balance at GitHub when it comes to our roles.
mojombo has a background working with distributed systems (at Powerset) as well as in design (he freelanced for a few years). Which means he's our main UI / design person as well as the guy overseeing the "big picture" backend stuff. For instance, right now we're in the process of sharding all of our git repository data to get away from our network file system bottleneck. mojombo's leading that project and it's going great - we should see the plans come to fruition in the near future. He's also the guy that makes changes to the git-daemons and other sysadminy stuff.
pjhyett, one of the other founders, is a seasoned web developer with experience in (among other things) Java and Rails. Which made him the ideal head of our Firewall Install product (since it uses JRuby). He's currently on a trip to NYC to meet with potential FI clients, and is in charge of adding features to it, fixing bugs, basically lording over the product.
schacon isn't technically a founder, but we're a very flat (and small) organization. He's a Git expert so we deploy him on any and all things Git: weird server errors, crazy new projects (like the Fork Queue and Gist), and our issues scaling Git itself. He's currently experimenting with a Cassandra-backed git-daemon to help speed up clones (specifically the "Counting objects" / building packfile phase) and give us the ability to easily put mirrors in other continents.
Tekkub is our customer support expert: he hangs out in irc, on the mailing list, and oversees the help site. He has programming background (we found him because of all his Lua stuff on GitHub) which means he can write his own tools and knows Git very well.
You guys provide an excellent service! We use you guys to host our git repo for http://ridewithgps.com/ -- excited to see what else comes out of your team.
Heh, it looks far more impressive when I just list URLs. Most of those "startups" were pretty lame side projects, and the one that wasn't was the one that never launched.
I started Simian Systems (simian.ca) when I was 20. Still going, so I guess it's not a startup any more...
Also co-founded Dojo Learning (dojolearning.com) which is still a work in progress.
I'm considering a switch to a "technomad" lifestyle and becoming a full-time touring musician, which I guess will be my next business venture. I don't think that quite qualifies as a "startup" though :)
No, you don't have to, but we take security very very seriously. However, we are not a covered entity in the eyes of HIPAA, but we do go above and beyond their guidelines for storing and transmitting patient data.
A previous day job of mine was at a company that does DICOM viewing and transmission. They did/do it pre- and post- HIPAA. HIPAA isn't too bad for software vendors. Just keep your records in order, and follow basic software engineering & security practices. They like to see documentation, especially design docs and test plans.
The FDA comes out every year or two, and of course they keep digging until they find something to ding you on, just so the inspector looks like they're doing their job.
EDIT: I now realize I was conflating FDA certification and HIPAA, though you'll probably have to deal with both while doing DICOM.
I'm a co-founder -- along with my wife and a friend -- of http://www.genlighten.com, an Etsy-like marketplace for genealogy research services. My role includes pre-code IA/UX design, usability testing, customer development, sales/marketing, and general management.
I am the founder of http://mugasha.com So far my role has been focused on development. As we get closer to our launch my role has been shifting and is more of other things. Honestly, I pretty much have to have my hand in everything.
Maybe, I won't consider myself a founder until it actually launches. Its not really a startup if you aren't funded and you haven't launched anything, its kind of just an idea that you are working on at that point. So that is where I feel I am at, I am trying to get something off the ground while keeping my dayjob.
I guess technically I am, but I tend to be more of the hired-help role. ;)
Things I've founded alone:
http://fragtweet.com
A simple Twitter & OAuth app in rails. Proof of concept and left dormant for now. It appears a competitor has been born that does everything I planned on doing, and does it well. Who am I to argue with progress? ;)
Things I helped build, but did not found:
http://ordercounter.com
I helped these guys bootstrap when I was in college. Both founders are friends of mine, and I was asked to join in as a 30% stock holder but turned it down. I built the web based back-office interface and the online ordering system which allowed restaurants to specify a polygonal delivery area. Most of this was in PHP with some PERL for the Geocoder::US interface.
http://theamericancritic.com
I took this project as a contract in college. Everything was built from scratch sans libraries in PHP. Another dev stepped in to help but that didn't work out for my client. I still have a backlog of O&M updates to do for this one.
http://mybloglog.com
Little known fact, I did actually sort of work on MyBlogLog before its acquisition by Yahoo. I helped test the app internally at Cloudspace and designed the VC diagrams for the negotiations. I left the company before the sale, but it felt pretty good to be a part of that in any capacity.
Thanks for the response. I only asked because I had thought of that idea as well and stumbled on how you'd be able to get enough traction to make it work. Chicken and egg problem.
I'm founder of penetration testing laboratories. Site isn't launched yet, so I fall into the pre-launch founder status.
The idea is based on providing a tool box for auditors and n00bs to do security testing from. So far the environment is setup and development is slow coming but I expect it to launch in some form by the end of the year.
Founder at http://reasonr.com It's an improvement on forums/Yahoo Answers for troubleshooting technical problems. Similar technology to hunch.com but applied to a practical use.
Warning: Still young, obviously needs a lot more polish before prime time.
I founded Spark::red http://sparkred.com "The Best ATG Hosting Provider", with a couple of partners. ATG is a niche expensive (but amazing) eCommerce software package. All the partners are technical architect type folks.
I'm co-founder of http://www.stormweight.com/ -- realtime brainstorming and voting for small teams. I alternate between title of "technical co-founder" and "ceo," depending on audience.
Founder of http://www.crowdvine.com. I built the first version myself, which was enough to get us to profitability. These days I mostly talk on the phone.
Co-founder of a route mapping and performance analysis site, http://ridewithgps.com/ aimed at cyclists. Currently at 1100 users, 4000 user submitted routes and 1300 uploaded trips. Looking to upset the market leaders in a very lucrative industry that is void of innovation.
There are three of us, Zack and I are code/business/advertising and Cameron is graphic design. Works really well so far! We have a complete redesign launching this weekend, with an aggressive feature map after our re-launch.
I am in touch with Twitter API folks to fix problems. Sometimes it goes down for a few seconds. We are looking into caching results so that the Search API is not queried on every page load.
http://hnstartups.com/ was started to list the startups of HN users. However, it does not check that a submitter really is a HN user, so it's mostly spam now.
Second co-founder. There are three of us, Zack and I handle most of the business, code and community relations, while Cameron handles all the graphics. Cameron's work has evolved into a complete redesign of our site, which will finally get us away from the comical blocky layout we currently have.
Co-founder Founder of www.radaptive.com an Asset Management and Ticketing solution(running in Ebay/paypal/danger-now Microsoft! and ask.com. Role: I handle all things technical.
