IamA Front-End Developer who quit my job to begin a gaming and advertising tech startup and 5 months later we have 9 employees, our own office space, and are continuing to grow AMA!

Your website works, but kinda stinks under the hood. Your header image is a 741k jpg. Here's an ~125k version at the same dimensions. You have no <h1> or <h2> but have a ton of <h3-4>. Do you not care about SEO?

You have what appears to be a 1-page website (customer facing anyways), that's 4.5mb, makes 92 requests, and includes a ton of scripts. If you're a new company and assuming this is a simple site, why jQuery and jQuery migrate? Couldn't you just figure out whatever conflicts and simply include jQuery? Why jQueryUI core/widgets/accordians/tabs?

I don't know what all else your website does, but it always amazes me when a company has a single-page portfolio/marketing website and chooses to put it on Wordpress with a shit ton of plugins. I like to implement the 80/20 rule there - if you need 80% of a tool (wordpress, jQuery, etc), use it. If not, just excract the parts you need, or write them by hand, and keep it lean and performant.

I mention this since you list html5/websites on your portfolio. Are you not interested in creating fast, well-coded sites that optimize speed, performance, SEO?

These are all valid points. It's a placeholder site that we are currently updating and will be fully HTML5.

How much money did you have saved up to be able to quit and do this? Did you have a backup plan in the event you couldn't find clients? How's your stress level compared to when you were someone else's employee?

I never really had any general investment because I asked for a lot of favours from industry people, such as places I used to work in order to get office space, however getting people to offer me work involved a lot of meetings and sometimes cutting down my general prices to persuade clients to use me, as well as taking risks on projects out my comfort zone – something essential in my opinion.

In terms of a backup plan, I knew that if all else failed I could go back to contracting work with other companies.

And as for stress levels, I'm not going to lie, it's a lot higher now than back then but I'm doing what I really want now and so it's a compromise.

Hi There,

When you started to do ads, where did you first look at a source to monetize them? Any plans for EU partners?

That's not really what we do. We create content for other companies, so for example we are commissioned by a company to make a series of banner ads that then then use.

What skills or qualifications do you look for in hiring developers? Do you put stock in the emerging online education services like Code Academy, Udacity, etc., or do you look for more traditional degrees?

Any sort of evidence of coding competence is sufficient, it doesn't necessarily have to be a degree or certification – both are good though, but a portfolio is also just as good or possibly better.

What's your favorite front-end library?

Probably jQuery.

You play CS:GO... what's ur favourite pro team? Who's your favourite pro player? What's your main gun? What's your rank? Which is your favourite map?

Fave pro team would be Navi - Fave player would be Zeus, Main Gun is AWP/AK Rank: LEM Fave Map: Cache

What's your opinion on the esports scene and do you think this is a market you want to get into?

We love it! We play LoL, CS:GO, etc. Definitely something we are paying attention to.

Hey I am a UNC-wilmington Junior studying Operations management/ Management information systems, fluent in java, c#, sql, python, R, are you looking for any interns?

Not currently, sorry but send your CV to [email protected]

Hey! Congratulations on your sucess and heres to more! ?my question for you today is; What's your best advice to someone who wants "go out there and start their own thing"?

Get substantial experience in your field, make contacts – and keep those valuable ones close to you, be proactive in being aware of how technology is evolving and what the technology trends are, and how you can cater to it. When you do finally decide to try and do your own thing, attend networking events and ask for help, you would be surprised how helpful people can be, considering a lot of them were once in your position and know what it’s like to be a start-up. Lastly, have a circle of skilled people who you can trust and work with, as there will be a lot of unknown territory which when approaching requires analysis and brain storming, e.g. Knowing how to price estimates properly etc.

Do you employ any women?

Yes.

Have you got any vacancies?

Not right now, unfortunately. What kind of skills do you have?