After 9 months / 4 years of work Clickpass has just launched and Techcrunch has given us a fantastic review. 

Labels: clickpass

Clickpass is an angel-funded startup working on OpenID. Our remit is to make OpenID useable by the masses and consumer friendly and our product does exactly that. We are Oxford and Cambridge graduates from the UK and were also part of this summer’s Y-Combinator programme in Boston as well as having funding from angels in the Valley and the UK.

There are currently three of us in the company and we are looking to bring a designer initially on an contract basis for 4-7 weeks but with a view to a full time position including equity.

The theme and design of our site is currently in place and more is being produced each day. We would however like someone to join us who can loop back over what has already been done and bring the quality of the layout and finish up by a notch.

You should be keen to take on the weight of the design and HTML/CSS work within the team and have a passion for creating great UI. You will be working with a product manager who will be producing wireframes and user-flow and doing so in an iterative environment.

If you're excited by being part of one of the product that will push OpenID to its tipping point that's something we strongly value.

*Requirements*
- Solid grounding in semantic HTML/CSS
- Solid demonstrable grounding in design
- Ability to work fast, iterate and to work within an existing HTML and designs
- Solid portfolio of work including examples of UI (not just static web-pages)
- Simple illustrative skills
- Ability to work onsite in San Francisco (North Beach)
- Willingness to work across the whole spectrum of design/slicing/wire-framing as well as sometimes being restricted to working in only one field as required
- Understanding of AJAX principles and how they impact HTML/CSS (actual Javascript skills not required)

*Desirables*
- Interest in a permanent position
- Rails experience
- AJAX experience
- SVN experience
- Flash/Flex
- Copywriting skills

*Perks*
- Free drinks, fruit and snacks in the office
- Breakfast out every Wednesday
- Occasional (optional) activity weekends (last one was white water rafting)
- Great office environment
- Be surrounded by English accents
- OpenID - it’s one of the hottest spaces to be in!

** HOW TO APPLY **
Please make all applications via the form at: http://clickpass.wufoo.com/forms/clickpass-htmlcss-designer-openid-yc-startup/.

Wow. I'm at DigitalID World in San Francisco and Orange (France Telecom) just announced that they're going to not only become an OpenID producer but also a consumer. Anyone with an OpenID will be able to log into Orange services and anyone with an Orange account can create an OpenID from it - another 70M users.

The really impressive thing is the consumption side of things. Being an OpenID provider is a bit of a no-brainer for anyone who sits down and really thinks about it but being a consumer is a big step for a company to take but one that really makes the ecosystem work. More very good news for OpenID.

It's been seven weeks now since the start of Y-Combinator and our East and West Coast demo days are closing in fast.

We finally broke our way through the last strands of red tape lying between us and a bank account, we have an Employers ID number, we issued our founders shares and have filed the infamous 83B which saves us from paying horrendous amounts of tax on paper wealth we may never liquidate.

We decided on a name, developed a brand and designed an awesome logo. Three weeks before launch we discovered our logo was already taken and then that the expensive domain we'd bought was blocked by most corporate and private content filters due to a former life as a porn portal. Roll up, roll up and experience the fun of a startup!

Finally though we approach the last few weeks before product release. I'm incredibly pleased with what we have produced but all of us can't wait to get out - pre-launch is a nerve racking time.

Stripping down

Every day arriving in the office you are alertly aware that you only have so many features that you can develop, document and market successfully. Every additional feature takes time and resources away from the tiny fraction of features features your customers will actually use and dilutes your sales pitch and focus.

Developing product with limited time and resources is like crewing a leaking boat that's run out of coal. The only way to get to shore is to tear the boat apart and feed it to its own boiler. Burn too little and you'll sink before you reach the shore, burn too much and you'll get taken down by a wave before you arrive

In a startup features are your decking and it's time and money that leak. You start with grand ideas of the QE2 you'll launch with but as time goes on, more and more features get fed to the boiler and you strip down to what hopefully is little more than a racing dingy.

Build too much and you run out of cash, build too little and you'll have only a limp proposition when you reach your customers. The process keeps you lean and nimble but it's damn scary.

Keeping on course

Being a part of YC has been invaluable. The credibility that making the programme gives us is unreal and a totally different experience from having been out on my own. The feedback from Paul, Jessica and all of the other startup founders mean that all of us are constantly nudged back towards the path of what other people want rather than simply what we want.

You'll often people say that the best apps come from someone scratching an itch. It's undoubtedly true but for every flickr.yahoo.com there are ten thousand more apps that never make it past 127.0.0.1. Scratching your own itch is satisfying but it's scratching everyone elses that makes you successful.

OSCON and San Francisco

So it's off to Portland for the OpenID sessions of OSCON next week and then Immad and I go to San Francisco for the Techcrunch party and a host of meetings - both of us fully bolstered for serious internet celeb-overload.

One last thing - Sitepass (name and logo still tbc). We're taking the incredibly successful OpenID protocol and making it consumer useable. No more logging in, no more passwords, and no more OpenID URL's just one easy way to get to everything you do online. We hope you'll like it. We do and I'm extremely proud of our little team for having built it.

I'm going to post more soon but we are now finally in Boston and onto the YC programme. It's fantastic to be here with Paul, Jessica, Trevor and all of the other teams but simply insanely busy.

It's complicated enough starting a company when it's your country. Let me assure you that getting things right when it's not your country is a downright nightmare. More to come when we get a moment to catch breath.

For those of you coming to the Open Coffee mornings in London, and if you didn't already know:

"Starting from this Thursday, every 10-12, we'll be having London OpenCoffee at the very cool 5th View Bar at the top of Waterstone's at 203-206 Piccadily. See the Trustedplaces review here.
"
more info from localglo.be

From my good friend Tom Whipple over at The Times:

Google directions to San Francisco. Very clear, detailed and diligent and as you would always expect with Google.

Except step 37.

1. Head south on A3212 toward Great College St 0.4mi 1 min
2. At Horseferry Rd, take the 1st exit onto A3203 0.2mi
...
...
33. Turn right at Quai Colbert 358 ft
34. Turn right to merge onto Rue Marceau 0.2 mi
35. Take the ramp onto Quai Frissard 0.6 mi 2 mins
36. At the roundabout, take the 4th exit onto E05 0.6 mi 2 mins
37. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi 29 days 0 hours
38. Turn left at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
39. Continue on State St 427 ft
40. Turn left at John F Fitzgerald Surface Rd 0.5 mi

I'm flattered by the pace they think I'd hit.