https://www.mikesmales.com Mike Smales Startup CTO and Entrepreneur Mon, 31 Mar 2025 21:42:23 GMT en-GB daily 1 https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/how-to-find-a-technical-co-founder-for-your-startup Fri, 23 Apr 2021 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/how-to-find-a-technical-co-founder-for-your-startup Finding a co-founder is hard work. Finding a technical co-founder is even harder. Yet, the benefits of having a technical co-founder make it all worthwhile. A good co-founder will serve as a powerful... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/actionable-steps-on-how-to-build-an-mvp-in-2021 Tue, 16 Mar 2021 12:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/actionable-steps-on-how-to-build-an-mvp-in-2021 I have a great idea! Is one of the expressions I often hear from early-stage startup founders, yet how to implement it and become successful is still a mystery to many. Some of the most... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/the-dos-and-donts-for-early-stage-startup-engineering Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:04:12 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/the-dos-and-donts-for-early-stage-startup-engineering Startup engineering in the early stages of a new tech venture is tricky to say the least. There is no escaping the fact that product engineering is one of the most critical components of a tech startup... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/chestnut-ai-powered-baby-monitor Tue, 08 Sep 2020 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/chestnut-ai-powered-baby-monitor Startups are hard and hardware startups are even harder. That was the lesson we learned while building Chestnut, a smart baby monitor with genuinely promising technology that was gaining traction until COVID-19 hit. This story, like many others, deserves to be told - not just for closure, but... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/from-beeps-to-big-exit-the-chirpio-story Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/from-beeps-to-big-exit-the-chirpio-story When Sonos acquired Chirp.io in 2020, it marked the end of a remarkable journey for a scrappy British startup that had spent nearly a decade teaching machines to sing. As someone who served as VP of Engineering before stepping into the COO, I had a front-row seat to this remarkable adventure... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/sound-classification-using-deep-learning Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/sound-classification-using-deep-learning I recently completed Udacity’s Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree Capstone Project, titled “Classifying Urban Sounds using Deep learning”, where I demonstrate how to classify different sounds using AI. The following is an overview of the project, outlining the approach, dataset and tools used... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/best-practices-for-building-a-world-class-mobile-sdk Mon, 03 Sep 2018 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/best-practices-for-building-a-world-class-mobile-sdk Good Mobile SDK craftsmanship is a topic that often comes up with teams aiming to perfect their SDK strategy. The benefits of a well built SDK are clear. Improved developer experience, faster integration and rollout of new features, all which ultimately leads to a higher adoption of your product... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/always-on-best-practices-for-audio-ux-on-microphone-enabled-devices Thu, 12 Apr 2018 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/always-on-best-practices-for-audio-ux-on-microphone-enabled-devices With the growing popularity of voice and audio-enabled products, such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, it seems reasonable for consumers to be concerned about exactly what audio data is being collected, stored and shared. Furthermore, in light of the recent news stories regarding Silverpush an... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/4-techniques-for-keeping-your-mobile-app-users-engaged Mon, 01 Aug 2016 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/4-techniques-for-keeping-your-mobile-app-users-engaged Keeping users engaged with your app is key to its success. One of the greatest problems for app developers is the rate of mobile app abandonment. Many apps are downloaded and then ignored or even uninstalled. If you want to keep your audience engaged with your app then you have to give them the u... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/optimising-your-mobile-app--4-techniques-you-should-be-using Wed, 25 May 2016 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/optimising-your-mobile-app--4-techniques-you-should-be-using Mobile app optimisation is the process of using controlled experimentation to improve an app’s ability to drive business goals. Here I will outline various techniques I’ve used to build successful apps. These techniques allow developers to define, measure and test features in an iterative and lo... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/chirp-comes-to-chrome Tue, 26 May 2015 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/chirp-comes-to-chrome Recently I had the opportunity to build another Chrome Extension. This time it was for Chirp, the ambitious London based startup that I recently did some Android App development for. I’m really pleased with this Extension, as it opens up the use case possibilities of Chirp immensely and solves a ... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/why-having-a-mobile-friendly-site-may-be-more-important-than-ever Sun, 10 May 2015 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/why-having-a-mobile-friendly-site-may-be-more-important-than-ever Since the 21st of April this year, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it’s going to take a significant hit on Google rankings. For anyone dependent on search traffic, that is reason alone to check and update your site, but it’s also a worthwhile exercise in itself. The Google change is both... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/how-to-do-android-automated-testing Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/how-to-do-android-automated-testing Verifying the behaviour of our applications is an essential part of our day-to-day development. This blog will discuss two distinct stages of automated testing. Unit tests and acceptance tests. If you are using Unit Testing as part of Test Driven Development (TDD) process, then it is important... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/is-google-glass-destined-to-be-the-next-big-thing Tue, 29 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/is-google-glass-destined-to-be-the-next-big-thing Wearable technology has been in the background for some time yet, but has still to really make it into the limelight. This year may be set to change that with the emergence of Google Glass, Apples rumoured iWatch and Samsung’s already released Galaxy Gear smartwatch. This is alongside other already https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/apple-app-store--are-paid-apps-dead Mon, 28 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/apple-app-store--are-paid-apps-dead As an iPhone developer, if your app is hitting the top-selling charts of the Apple app store, you’d be forgiven for thinking that everything is going smoothly. However, many of the largest iOS app developers have noted significant decreases in downloads and sales, d https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/how-failing-to-optimise-for-ios-7-can-cost-iphone-developers-big-bucks Sun, 20 Oct 2013 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/how-failing-to-optimise-for-ios-7-can-cost-iphone-developers-big-bucks Many of us will have heard news of the latest iOS 7 release, whether we own an iPhone or not. Users of the smartphone have hit the headlines due to the quick rate at which they have been upgrading to the latest version of the mobile operating system, faster than any previous release. This is part... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/tips-and-techniques-for-monetising-android-apps Tue, 08 Oct 2013 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/tips-and-techniques-for-monetising-android-apps There are multiple strategies in which to monetise your Android app... https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/ensuring-quality-as-an-android-developer Tue, 01 Oct 2013 23:00:00 GMT https://www.mikesmales.com/blog/ensuring-quality-as-an-android-developer Android devices come in all shapes and sizes. It is estimated that there are almost 4000 distinct Android devices. Within this wide range of devices there are different screen sizes, vastly different hardware performance levels and OEMs creating custom ROMs. In addition there are several different