We’re launching our public beta!

Oh wow. What a year it’s been! When we started a year ago, we began with nothing more than an idea. We knew that e-commerce needed to be simplified and we thought we had a pretty good idea on how it could be done.

And again, wow. What a year it’s been! We’ve done things that we never could have imagined a year ago. We’ve grown from 3 to 4 and now 8! (we’re hiring ;)). We’ve met the most amazing people and we learned more than we thought was possible - basically we’re having the time of our life.

But lets talk about what brought us together - and what have been keeping us awake for the last three weeks, our product.

We think we have created the easiest way to start an online store. But we did not stop there, it’s drop dead gorgeous, you can customize the look of your store anyway you want and the best part is it’s free. Yepp. Free.

Our thought is really simple, we want to build the best product at the best price. We want everybody that have a great product for sale to get the help they need to be able to do it in way that makes it fun and inspiring.

Today we’re releasing our public beta. It’s a big day for us, probably the most important day thus far. Still, I have to say: We’re just getting started.

Tictail Visits Vasuma

Steffen and Jan gives advice to eyewear-virgins and talks about if it’s OK to wear shaded glasses inside or not. 

The company is founded by Jan Vana, Lars Malmsten and Steffen Sundelius . Three men creating a variety of glasses inspired by popular culture, such as music and movies.

So what movies do they watch? Lars watches a lot of Pippi Longstocking right now (or at least his children does) while Steffen get’s a laugh from Bridesmaids. They wouldn’t state that those movies ended up being inspiration for the brand, although “It would be cool to see Prussiluskan in a cat eye frame”.

S: When you don’t even think about the fact that you are wearing glasses. It just goes along with your style and apparel. And of course, when you see well. 

L: If someone is getting their first pair of glasses, whats your advice?

S: Probably to not be afraid to go for a bigger, bolder frame. When you’re an “eyewear-virgin” you don’t know anything else. If you buy a small pair, it’s a much bigger step to buy a bigger pair. So, start off with something big. Show your glasses off! 

L: How do you think glasses will look in the year of 2050? 

S: I hope the same as now. But one probably won’t need glasses by then, everyone will be born with perfect vision. 

L: What do you think about the growing interest in eyewear?

S: Something happened when some PR-genius started calling it an accessory instead of optical eyewear. It’s so much broader in terms of how and when you can use it. It started growing by the time we started, so for us it’s been good. 

L: What is your reaction when you see a Vasuma wearer walking down the street? 

S: A couple of years ago I always thought I knew the person. When you start something from scratch it’s difficult to grasp that someone paid their own money for something you created. Nowadays I mostly get proud. If I see someone wearing one of our more fashionable pairs I might think “Wow, that’s cool!” If I see someone looking great in their Vasumas I usually ask them if I can take their picture. That’s pretty much the best reward we can get. 

L: What do you think about wearing sunglasses inside? 

S: Well.., we’re divided. Some people like it. It’s become more and more common to put a tone in prescription classes. Personally I don’t like it. But Lars like it.

Lars:  It’s a trend that has been going on for a couple of years. “Bågar och Glas” talked me in to it (laughs). But it’s not really sunglasses. It’s a shade you could wear at night, and people could still see your eyes. 

L: Which model is the coolest one to wear this spring? 

S: Our model “Huggorm”. Preferably with the transparent frame.  Vasuma is the revenge of the bullied ones with glasses, and each pair is named after a snake. 

L: If you had to pick a frame that would represent Tictail, which one would it be?

S: Actually a new model. I know Carl has a similar one to this one. I remember when he was here, he was so enthusiastic about his glasses. 

L: What do think about selling online?

S: We like it. Obviously because we earn more but also because it gives us a closer contact with our customers. The biggest win is the opportunity to reach markets where we don’t have stores. Selling online is the future. It’s only a question of time until even the conservative sellers get going with it. It’s going to be exciting to follow Tictails journey.  And I’m waiting for my invite to the moving in party for their new office!

The Vasuma Online Store by Tictail

By: Lill Waldekranz

Presenting William Tisäter

People are often chocked when hearing about our recruitment methodology. It does not comply with conventional rules. Instead of holding programming challenges we take our candidates out for dinner. We date instead of interview. A couple of months ago we had arranged a dinner with William and by the end of desert we all knew: We where in love.

William has the kindest soul arround and is basically an engineering swiss-army knife. He has written the daemon behind the popular iStat Menus application in C/C++, considers Python to be his native tongue and was offered a position at a high profile startup in Silicon Valley before realizing he had fallen in love with us too. Now, stay with us, because there is more: He was also a system administrator at Pricerunner before acquiring the same title at Blocket where he later became their DBA.

Even though we immediately liked William and he carried an impressive résumé our second date is mandatory and always the same; Hackathon. However, one hour in Siavash and I gave the signal to Carl that he could start drafting the necessary papers. A few hours after initiating the hackathon we had completed the task at hand and William had decided to come onboard.

The agreement was that William would start on the 13th of February, but he came into the office on the 6th - too excited to wait. Three weeks has passed and he has already commited a lot of beautiful code, improved our Amazon Machine Images and contributed significantly to our alpha release last week.

He is amazing and we cannot be happier to continue the journey together with him.

Announcement: Siavash Ghorbani is our new CTO

The tale of how Siavash found Tictail is one of our most beloved stories - I get excited when opportunities to tell it arises. However, it is time to focus on the second part of the story: How crucial Siavash has been to the success of Tictail and how his new role will aid us in our future endeavours.

All startups begin in a kitchen. Tictail is no different. During our kitchen-phase and up until Siavash came into the picture I was the only developer in the mix. There where a couple of other engineers contributing to the cause, but none of them gave their vows. I held the title of CTO at the time, however with an engineering department consisting of, well, me, such a role is not worn with pride. Last November I therefore decided to remove it completely.

When Siavash decided to become a part of Tictail it meant a great deal of things; our pace would increase, our vision would improve and our architecture could be shaped via dicussions between two developers rather than one schizophrenic dialogue. Since his first day at the office I cannot overstate the impact Siavash has had on the company as well as the code.

Quickly we became great friends and decided on an engineering vision which enabled us to write great code in parallel. The highlight of most days for me are when we discuss complicated issues and collaboratively find elegant solutions to them. We have established an engineering culture which we are both proud of and look forward to improve further with others.

On that note; Tictail is growing, especially on the engineering side of the company. Although we strive to have a minimal hierarchy in our organization we decided it is necessary to appoint a more formal CTO. I am proud to announce that Siavash is our unanimous choice. I look forward to spend more time behind Vim while watching Siavash grow into his new suit. I am confident that he will excel and continue to push the boundaries  of what we all thought would be possible when we where sitting around our kitchen table.

Join me next Friday (March 9th) at our office to celebrate Siavash appropriately with beer and cheers.

/ Birk