Cobi’s about 18 months old now, and after gaining a few new employees, things were getting a bit cramped in our snug little flat. We thought it was about time we got a real place to grow with us. Here are a couple of pics.
We’re surrounded by some more professional sounding companies.
Frosting on our door to avoid strange stares when our neighbours walk by..
We couldn’t leave home without our Wii…
Our office space..
My work area..
MWEB’s Nokia app is now available on the Ovi Store! The app was developed as a WRT widget and is compatible with S60v5 and the majority of S60v3 Nokia devices.
Cobi Interactive, in partnership with Beyond438, have developed a business utility application for the iPhone. The app enables you to quickly and easily calculate your hourly, daily, weekly and monthly rates and profit. The app offers an intuitive and simple interface with the ability to view, edit, save and email your rate sheets. Switch currencies with ease or updating any charge out rate or cost rate cell in the sheet to assist in determining the optimal rate structure for your next project.
Paid version available here and free version here.
Key Features:
>> Hourly, daily, weekly and monthly values all editable and visible in a single sheet.
>> Multiple currencies with selectable base and comparable currencies (Limited currencies available in lite version).
>> Exchange rates updated in realtime.
>> Save rate sheets for later viewing/editing (Full version only).
>> E-mail rate sheets in CSV format (Full version only).
>> Configurable hours per day, week and month.
Usage Examples:
1. A consulting manager can save his/her team’s rates for quick lookup. Quickly lookup a consultant’s rate structure when getting a call at the airport for a specific position.
2. The manager of a multinational consulting firm can enter the charge out rate in GBP and the cost rate in USD to review the profit of a US-based consultant working in the UK.
MWEB’s BlackBerry mobile app, developed by Cobi Interactive, is available now on the App World. Check out some screens from the app:
Rough demo of our AR library during development.
Cobi Interactive is looking for mobile software developers to join our team!
Working at Cobi involves developing applications for various mobile platforms; as well as interacting with clients and giving input into the strategy and direction of the business. Experience is always handy; but we’re more interested in the way you think and whether you have the potential learn and grow in what is a fast-paced and ever-changing industry. We are willing to consider candidates with no mobile experience.
So last week we were fortunate enough to attend the Mini Seedcamp programme held up in Jo’burg, for African tech startups.
Seedcamp is a programme created to jumpstart the entrepreneurial community in Europe, and now Africa, by connecting next generation developers and entrepreneurs with over 400 mentors from a top-tier network of company builders; including seed investors, serial entrepreneurs, product experts, HR and PR specialists, marketers, lawyers, recruiters, journalists and venture capitalists.
I think it’s fair to say we were quite a long way off from competing for the winning spot – largely due to the current structure of our business. In short and as our website suggests, we positioned largely as a contract business, or agency as it was primarily referred to on the day. Nevertheless the real focus of the day was on a series of mentoring sessions with top entrepreneurs and potential investors from both locally and abroad. We got to sit down with the likes of Alex Hunter, Justin Spratt, Brett St Clair, Andrea Böhmert, Andy Higgins (bidorbuy founder) and Ben Nathanson with the discussions devoted entirely to advising us on our business.
One of the most valuable and interesting aspects of the discussion was that each mentor seemed to identify the same set of problems within our business, but each had a differing approach to solving them. This coupled with a genuine interest from pretty much everyone we met to offer advice and assistance after the day ended, gave me a small insight as to why they were successful entrepreneurs or investors.
The end result for of the day was a friendly wake up call for us – we realised that we have some unrealistic expectations regarding our business model; and also are stuck in a bit of a rut and need to shake things up a bit. An exciting concept that spawned from the experience is that we’ll be launching our own mobile product division, which we’ll keep completely separate from the agency side of things. We’ve also made some excellent contacts that we’ll be maintaining and building on in the future.
We have a new colleague that joins us today at Cobi. He’s still on his Mario Kart training wheels, but looking promising. It’s also April Fools today. I havn’t noticed too many absurd things in the news yet, which is kind of disappointing. Then I just heard Easter is already here. Wow, this year is flying by really quick. With all that packed into one day, I’m really looking forward to the long weekend. I hope it’s not a April Fools joke. Happy Easter everyone..
