Headworx

Seed Labs has now become official. After more than 5 years since the inception and almost 3 years after the original HomerSoft company was started, we start emerging from the hide. My LinkedIn followers may be a bit confused, since recently, embracing the failures, we've gone through several branding pivots. There was Sway, then there was ETC then Seed and now the Seed Labs. But hey, after all pivots are the privilege of startups. And BTW this is why startups are so effective: they can afford themselves to pivot as frequently as needed, validating the concepts quickly. Our business models pivoted too (this was mainly thanks to extremely valuable negotiations with investors: both private / seed and VCs) and - I am so happy to tell - after testing several alternatives, we have now firmly settled with what was my initial idea back in 2011: we are a software company. Our core product is software for the Internet of Things type applications. Starting with low level firmware imple...

Power delivery over a USB interface has been a frequently discussed subject on this blog, since I first called USB the Universal Supply Bus back in 2006 . And the story keeps evolving! USB 3.0 gives us not only the 5Gbps data speeds, but up to 100 Watt (20V, 5A) of power too. At this year's CES (back in January 2014) DisplayLink and ROHM Semiconductor demonstrated a universal USB dock capable of charging a laptop via the USB Power Delivery standard interface rated at 100W (10x what is possible today with USB 2.0). While this will make a 1-cable universal docking come true, the 100@ USB Power Delivery potentially has much further reaching potential. Such as being a standard in Home Lighting. Yes, your home may soon be running a USB bus to the lights. While 100W for lighting may not seem a lot, it actually is. We've been used to judge 100W by what a single incandescent or halogen light bulb can consume. But they are things of the past. LEDs are typically 10x more efficient. S...

A while ago I posted a story about the team and the leader taking over some of the tasks from the team members. This is what I do quite often. And some friends of mine, who are professional team managers advise me not to do it. This conventional / professional wisdom may be true for slow corporate behemoths. But when you are a startup aiming high to conquer the world, you have to violate the rules. You have to race like the Formula 1 team to win. The Formula 1 analogy is not that fa stretched. I recommend the 2013 movie Rush to every startup leader. Especially the scene when Niki Lauda enters the BRM garage and overnight revolutionizes their car, gaining the unbelievable 2.3 seconds advantage in race conditions: [the mechanics shows Niki his car, a red and white Marlboro sponsored car] Niki Lauda: How much does she weigh? BRM Mechanic: Six hundred kilos. Niki Lauda: But that's crazy. Why so heavy? BRM Mechanic: It's a V12 engine. That lump normally weighs a hundred and n...

IoT and Smart Home are two trends that do not need to be explained today. The proof I've found in the recent Time Magazine (May 5th, 2014): Tony Fadell made it to the 100 most influential people. And now almost everybody wants to back these trends, making the ordinary things in our life smart and connected. Suppose you are an appliance manufacturer and you want to launch a "Smart / Connected" line of products. What communication protocol would you select? There is plethora of them but there are two most likely candidates: WiFi and Bluetooth. The reason is they are the only two on board every smart phone, meaning a phone can connect directly to a WiFi or Bluetooth appliance an control it. All other protocols require an extra gateway in the middle. A gateway translates protocols (for example Philips Hue bulbs use ZigBee and they come with a bundled ZigBee gateway). But gateways add complexity and if you are a water kettle or a coffee machine or a door lock manufacturer,...

Setting goals, milestones and deadlines helps keeping the pace. I am very happy how our team works, but there is one aspect I really don't like: heroic pushing just before the finish line. Of course I appreciate the effort. But what I don't like is moving Heaven and Earth in the final days or even hours, especially as weeks or months prior to the checkpoint we were cool and relaxed. This is bad planning in part and bad management in part. And probably even bad leadership. Because the load should be even from the start and we should have kept pushing from the very beginning. One aspect only very few project managers I met executed well was a precise estimate of the critical path. This is especially difficult in projects that are geographically spread and when moving of physical parts is involved. Last year we had a very serious and hard to find bug in the A-series prototypes of circuit boards. We found the bug but could not fix it on our own, as it required special tools...

Browsing through the recent Apple iWatch speculation mockups, I feel like I have already seen one in real life: the Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit, which was described by my friend, a loyal long term Apple fan, as "more Apple than Samsung". I bought the Fit last week in Hongkong and have been enjoying it since then. It is almost perfect with two drawbacks. One silly and difficult to fix and the other one significant, but - I hope - one that will be fixed soon. The first thing that makes the Fit less then perfect is the charging concept. With a smart watch - It is obvious - you have not one, but two personal devices to charge during the night. Well, actually the Fit does not need to be charged every night. It lasts easily three days. But it still means it has to be recharged on the go from time to time. And you need a second charger to do this. How silly! The Fit requires a small cradle to connect a charger - which I can live with. But if it was me designing the watch, I'd ma...

Suspended in space and time on the 747-800 wings, I'm writing this blog on a way to Hongkong, where I'm meeting our hardware manufacturing partners. Boingo WiFi roaming works perfectly on the Lufthansa Flynet while flying over Himalayas. As we are airborne eastbound, Rafal, our new CEO has just landed in San Francisco with the mission to install the US presence. Ofer in Israel is reporting progress with sensor design. Wilson in Shenzhen prepares our new hardware for TUV tests while Andreas in Bray / Ireland works on AMR region specific hardware ID. At the same time Ken in New Jersey is finalizing three new patent applications and Maciek is training in Gdansk a new group of market warriors. This all is happening as Andrzej with the 40-strong core R&D team starts the day in Krakow, our HQ. I cannot name everybody here, but it is simply a-m-a-z-i-n-g. Girls and guys, this is just one but big THANK YOU to the entire team. I'm sure you realize: the product you co-create ...