Hi, thank you! I'm a dreamer and explorer, at least that's what I tell myself. You might say; explorer? How come? You have lived all of your 33 years in Oslo, in a single city. Yes, but exploration entails much more than simple traveling. Exploration is a mindset, being curious and alert. Probing. Looking for angles to problems or situations usually not traversed. Being an explorer is never boring because everything can be explored. Like any developer, I do spend a sometimes unhealthy amount of time in front of the computer hacking away at something, but at the end of the day, for me nothing beats a good book and a cup of tea in silence.
I have an exceptional eye for details and have a deep desire for simplifying complex tasks and making intuitive user interfaces. To tie it up, I'm a passion merchant and want systems to be exciting and positive to use - just being a great tool is not enough. I will contribute my knowledge from several other successful startups (and one or two less successful) to the exceptionally talented team already present at the company to bring us further up the path.
In short, I don't know much and I absolutely love it. I feel enthusiastic like a little child ready to explore the open seas for the first time. It's not my first time, however, that I delve head first into a new industry without any prior knowledge. If I want to look at it positively and opportunistically (of course I would do that), entering a new industry with fresh eyes and no preconceived notions might help us open up some previously locked mental doors.
If it was not obvious from my previous answer, I don't know much of the maritime world. What I do know a thing or two about is spotting talent, and Maritime Optima seems to be packed with it. It's a top tier team playing around with some really innovative and exciting ideas backed with a solid business model. I can't see this being matched anywhere else in the industry at the moment.
I have been working with web technologies my entire professional life and have been creating projects in php, ruby, node, js and touched on most of the big libraries, frameworks and trends the last 15 years. I believe that a good programmer can pick up and feel at home in any programming language given some time, and in Maritime Optima I will be able to test out that theory once more working closely with technologies I currently don't have too much experience with, like go and react-native.
You need to solve at least one problem, and you need to have defined real people (your potential customers) that have these issues. I think too many try to hit too wide too early, you know. Think big, go global, "solve" the industry! Of course you want to think globally, but there is nothing wrong with getting a strong foothold in a small segment, and then rapidly expanding by solving more industry wide problems. This also has the potential to create more loyal and positively vocal users.
I could talk about this for hours, but to make it short and precise; You need good people and you need to have a vision that the team can get behind. If people don't believe in the vision and the products they make, the company will struggle to define the future and you will start looking for challenges elsewhere.
Thanks for signing up Fredric, good to have you on board. You have an interesting background, and we will get to know each other during the next 3 months. Hopefully, we will learn from each other and enter a mutually beneficial long term relationship.
