llnimetz

now fixed. Thanks for pointing out the error.

fixed. Thanks for pointing out the error.

(yes, tried to be lighthearted and definitely missed the mark!)

I apologize for annoying you so much and do appreciate your comments! I have a couple comments: 1) We have to make sure our current five customers are happy before expanding to new customers. It's for that reason we're pulling back our sales.. not BSing and no sweaters (the product is built, and I do all the requirements and wire-frames). 2) I don't think we're being cheap on our compensation package but, as an enterprise software platform pre-series A, we're just not getting the buzz needed to attract talent more easily. Traditionally employee development and training is not the most exciting space for developers but that's exactly why it's a huge opportunity now as we introduce game and social mechanics. Again... appreciate the constructive comments and any additional thoughts.

You guys sure are tough, but I kind of expected it by putting 'MBA' in the title of my post. I can't blame many of you for disliking MBAs. MBA graduate programs are a vestigial product of the industrial era where an aristocratic group of elite were given the reins to control (a.k.a. manage) the workers and get them to do the work. That pisses me off as much as the next guy. Nonetheless, for those of us trying to build post-industrial open enterprises (check out www.Worldblu.org for a glimpse of what I'm talking about) it's also hard to argue against the fact that good management is an important part of any successful enterprise. Just as the stereotype of engineers as nerdy, socially awkward introverts is not true neither is that of the MBA stereotype. For example, I play squash not golf, and I wear penny loafers never argyle sweaters (read: this is a tongue and cheek comment, meaning it's not true but written solely for comic effect and perhaps -- if I'm going to be completely honest-- as a slight dig back at those of you who felt entitled to stereotype me unfairly). I read over my post and can totally understand some of your comments, particularly from readers who didn't catch the sarcasm. I don't actually think Google is evil for paying its engineer a lot. I have a ton of respect for Google: in fact I have a lot of friends working there and Eric Schmidt taught us at Stanford.) The important point in my blog was that we've done a good job to date boot-strapping rippleQ to identify a market need, to build a cool product (iterating a lot along the way) and, most recently, to sell to a number of enterprise customers. We're poised to raise a series A round now too. In other words, we're doing all the right things but struggle to find top web developers because the demand is already so high in the valley. It's obviously difficult for everybody (e.g. companies are advertising on road-side billboards now to attract engineers!). I've continued to receive great advice on how to reach out to recruit great engineers (and we're talking with a number of engineers now -- thank you to those who referred people!), but I thought I'd just rant a bit out loud, and I guess I thought (perhaps mistakenly) that out of my rants an awesome developer would fall out of the sky, contacting me interested in learning more about rippleQ. Some entrepreneurs wear monkey suits, I write disgruntled emails that poke fun at myself and MBAs!

San Francisco (Founding Engineer, H1B, Full-Time)

rippleQ: we're applying social and game mechanics within the enterprise so companies get more impact out of their training and development programs. With rippleQ, companies can crowdsource on-going training support to their employees.

We've built our site using a php MVC framework (codeigniter), jquery and mysql.

http://bit.ly/rippleQengineer

We want great engineers who want: * founder’s equity * to shape product and product development. * some real experience building a company. * meaningful work: (a) help real people rediscover the love of going to work, (b) be part of the democracy in the workplace movement

Contact us to hear more about rippleQ. http://bit.ly/rippleQengineer