I had an entrepreneurial start in life. Growing up in a small town in England (population: 2000), I developed an obsession with computers that led to my first business venture aged 13. I built computers for the people in my village, helped people with their software difficulties, and built out a network for a company that originally hired me to clean swimming pools.As the world progressed to broadband in the late 90s, our small town was left behind as the economics of laying new infrastructure didn't add up. I started a small group of like-minded people determined to break free of 56k modems, securing a dedicated T1 connection that we would distribute via high-gain wireless antennas - a nascent technology at the time. After piecing the business case together we presented it to British Telecom, who, surprised by the demand, agreed to roll out DSL after all while I went off to college.There I met a great friend with whom I set up a new business, initially partnering with a local mobile phone retailer to build their e-commerce site while we honed our PHP skills. Later we progressed to Ruby on Rails and then Ext JS, all the while aquiring new clients with bigger projects and bigger paychecks. Eventually we moved to San Francisco, where a 3 month vacation turned into a 5+ year stay. We're still here.As the years flew by my passion for technology remained, and was joined by a delight in great design and user experience. I get immense enjoyment from designing and building products that improve people's lives in some way, and still get a thrill whenever someone tells me I've helped achieve that. The next chapter is unwritten - perhaps you'll help write it with me.